Undercover 1.5 ousts iPhone thieves with push notifications

It's 2 AM. Do you know where your iPhone is? What if you want an app devoted to recovering a stolen iPhone or iPod Touch-one that has a few more tricks up its sleeve? Well, maybe you do, thanks to MobileMe's "Find my iPhone," but what if you're not a MobileMe subscriber? That's exactly what Orbicule's Undercover for iPhone is.

Our iPhones are now smarter, faster, stronger, better, and able to let third-party apps do more than ever. We've already covered this app and its Mac OS X cousin, back when push notifications were little more than a bullet point on a wish list, but times have changed. Back in the 1.0 days, when Undercover was just a wee lad, you had to fool your iPhone's captor into launching the app before it was able to transmit its location. You can make the messages as enticing as you want-say, by having them pretend to be a notification from your bank account. Not an easy task: Thanks to App Store policy, apps cannot change their names or icons, and I'm guessing that all but the thickest criminals knew better than to launch an application called "Undercover." Now you have the ability to send push notifications with any message of your choosing directly to the iPhone-yes, just like MobileMe. But the comparisons end there.

If the crook chooses to view the push notification, Undercover will launch, disguised either as a game that's taking its sweet time to load or loading any Website of your choosing, such as the aforementioned bank's. While the thief is distracted, Undercover will be happy to save the device's GPS coordinates and IP address to Orbicule's Website. They'll also be sent directly to any police officer you've contacted to work on the case and registered in Orbicule's Undercover Center. Each time that Undercover launches, it will save a new set of coordinates that you can view in Google Maps. Orbicule has made a video to demonstrate this killer feature. You could use Find My iPhone to collect live GPS information from MobileMe and log a record of GPS coordinates via Orbicule, submitting it all to the police.

It looks as though this app could be used not only as an alternative to Find My iPhone, but a nice companion app as well. It's still far from perfect, at least until (or unless) Apple can be made to change their iPhone app policies to let third-party apps like Undercover do a little more. It requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. Undercover for the iPhone costs $5 and works on all iPhones and iPod touches.

E-readers could push growth in e-textbook market, analysts say

With more e-readers hitting the U.S. market, analysts predict a big uptick in device sales in late 2010 with a strong surge in the popularity of electronic textbooks used in high schools and colleges in time for school in the fall of 2011. The market for e-textbooks is considered a rich one, but is also governed by many factors, including the cost of e-readers. How fast and large the e-textbook market grows depend on a diverse array of more than 20 textbook publishers in the U.S., many of whom are weighing the use of proprietary or standard e-publishing technology and evaluating whether students will rely on e-readers to purchase expensive textbooks and other books, analysts said. "It's a two-year window for e-textbooks before there's significant market traction," said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner in an interview. "But it's a fertile market." Weiner predicted that a number of major vendors, including Google Inc. and Apple Inc., could enter the market with devices and marketing plans that involve textbook publishers and, possibly, college bookstores. They can run about $400 - the price of the new Irex DR800SG announced yesterday - putting them out of the reach of many students.

Apple has long been rumored to be working on a tablet computer , perhaps with a 9-inch screen, for debut in February. It will use the Verizon Wireless network for downloading books and newspapers. That hardware could be targeted at college students accustomed to dropping $100 or more for traditional hardback texts, Weiner said. "An Apple tablet could be the sweetest college textbook reader you've ever seen," Weiner said. "Apple is letting the e-reader market simmer and will come into it when the market's ready to boil." The market in the U.S. now includes the Irex device, which has an 8.1-inch screen and goes on sale at Best Buy stores in October. Sony Reader devices are being sold at Best Buy to work with AT&T's wireless network. Plastic Logic is planning to introduce an e-reader in the U.S., while Asian manufacturers are expected to launch products - though not necessarily in the U.S., she said. "There's also a lot of speculation about whether Barnes & Noble will launch their own e-reader or use existing ones," she said.

And Amazon.com has produced several Kindle e-readers with wireless connections via Sprint Nextel Inc. "While we've just seen three vendors in the U.S., there will be a lot of activity in the next year," said Vinita Jakhanwal, an analyst at iSuppli. While the cost of components inside e-readers is dropping, lowering the overall cost of an e-reader, Jakhanwal predicted it could be three years before e-readers hit the magic $99 price point coveted by many consumer electronics manufacturers to attract a large audience. A publisher might not want to sell books only to a one platform, he noted. Globally, iSuppli estimates about 5 million e-readers will be sold in 2009, a number expected to climb to between 13 million and 14 million in 2010. Weiner said that textbook publishers differ over the use of the open ePub standard or a proprietary approach like that used by the Kindle. Publishers are also weighing whether e-textbooks should be rented, and if they are sold, whether buyers can re-sell them afterwards. "There's a lot to be worked out," Weiner said. For example, a user might click on a button in text to see a video of a lecture by the author of the text, or to click for an updated interactive quiz on the material, delivered via a fast wireless network. "It's important for textbook publishers to give more value and charge more, with an ability to update material so a user would want it for being current," Weiner said.

A potentially lucrative area for publishers is "value-added" technology that can be included with e-books, Weiner said. Some colleges are also testing e-readers to be used as mobile clients that connect to a college's server for access to course work, professors' notes and other materials. "The possibilities are endless," Weiner said, noting that some textbook publishers are experimenting with hybrid models that combine e-book technology with print-on-demand books, so that a publisher only prints the portions of text or the number of textbooks that it needs. While there is clearly a market opportunity with e-readers and e-books, including e-textbooks, there seems to be a general consensus that e-readers will encourage reading and promote education , analysts, some educators and even librarians have said. Weiner said it is too early to determine how much an e-textbook might save over the cost of tradition textbooks, adding that college-owned bookstores will have a say in the price of e-books. "You have to figure you can't [leave out] the bookstore, since that's a large revenue stream for a school," he added. "It's basically a question of whether you empower them to to become online bookstores, as is happening in some cases." Some publishers might use the ability to attract life-long e-book readers by first luring them with lower-priced e-textbooks. "One motivation for publishers, as they've told me, is if you get students in the habit of using e-books and get e-readers devices in their hands, then it might be easier to get them to buy other e-books," Weiner said. Having e-textbooks and e-readers "could stimulate reading, and that improves education," Weiner said. "Anything to get people to read more, particularly young people, is big."

A fresh start at a company that gets security

This economic recession has cost all of us. I was laid off first in 2007 after six years as the top security manager at a company where I had built the security program from scratch. In my case, it cost me my job - twice.

I was laid off again just recently, after two years during which I first tried to build a new security program, but then had to cut my already very small staff. Needless to say, I think that was a poor decision, and I don't say that because I lost my job. Finally the security program was shut down entirely. Just before the ax fell, I had been working on cost-cutting initiatives. I figured that there had to be a better way to save money than ejecting large pieces of our corporate knowledge base. I had hated cutting my staff, and I was determined to ensure that no more layoffs would be required.

After digging around, I found two very expensive services that the company was paying for while getting very little value in return. But just as I was feeling good about the prospects of this proposal, I was called in to the CIO's office, where I found myself facing our HR director and a bunch of layoff forms. It looked to me as if we could eliminate those expensive and underperforming services, and then use our in-house staff and infrastructure to perform the same work at a lower cost and higher level of quality. Clearly, the company had chosen to go down the well-worn path of cutting staff rather than reducing costs in other areas. But now I have a new position that I'm feeling pretty good about.

It was a devastating blow. My job-loss trauma was thankfully brief, and I can look back and realize that I'm probably better off not working for a company that made such terrible decisions. This time, I don't have to start from scratch exactly; this company has many good security practices ingrained into its processes, mainly because the technical staff is young, smart and savvy - they get security, and its importance. I'm a security manager again, but in a different industry, and in a company with a different culture and work environment. It looks like I won't have a very large staff once again, maybe two or three people, but the rest of the IT staff here is very aware of what constitutes good security practices, and that could make a huge difference.

I'll be facing some new challenges here that I hadn't encountered in the previous eight years, but I've also learned some things from my experiences, so when familiar challenges present themselves, I'll react more effectively. With everybody pulling in the same direction, I might not need a lot of full-time employees dedicated to security. For instance, I had to kick off my last security manager position with a focus on patching, as I tried to turn the steering wheel of a big company toward an effective program of consistently applying security updates to operating systems in a timely fashion. Instead, a collaborative approach with the IT administrators and a focus on getting management to provide the right resources and priorities can be more effective. I had mixed results, but I learned in the process that it doesn't pay to push too hard in the wrong places. That is a lesson that should be applicable in many situations, even though in my new company, patching is recognized as being important.

I will need to raise the visibility and priority of the efforts so we can make improvements, but I don't have to try to get everyone to understand why it's needed. It's being done, though not consistently and not comprehensively. What a relief. Account management is being done fairly diligently, although it could use some improvements, especially in the area of terminations and deprovisioning. It's also good that our IT administrators have a pretty good hardening standard for their Windows and Unix systems, and they seem to be applying it uniformly. Administrative access could use some fine-tuning as well; currently, everyone's an administrator, and there are many shared passwords in use.

Overall, I would rate this environment 7 out of 10 in terms of general security practices. I'll definitely want to address that. My first priority will be to start making small, incremental improvements in the current practices to make things better and introduce more maturity and consistency into the environment. This week's journal is written by a real security manager, "J.F. Rice," whose name and employer have been disguised for obvious reasons. This is a new challenge for me, one that I hope will be fun and exciting as well as successful. Contact him at jf.rice@engineer.com.

IBM offers Symphony on Keepod USB devices

IBM announced Tuesday that its free Lotus Symphony office productivity suite is now available on Keepods - thin USB devices made by the Italian company NSEC. Big Blue's Symphony suite is based on OpenOffice.org and includes word processing, spreadsheets and presentation creation. Keepods are roughly the size of a credit card and hold up to 16GB of data. The new Keepod version, available through the Keepod store, employs VMware's ThinApp virtualization software, which wraps applications into an executable file that is isolated from a computer's operating system, mitigating compatibility and security concerns.

Prices start at €19.90 (US$29.78) for a 2GB "Base" version. Eighty percent of respondents polled for a Forrester Research report earlier this year said their companies were using some form of Office, and 78.4 percent had no plans to deploy any alternatives. A 2GB Secure edition, which includes 256-bit AES hardware encryption, is priced at €69. Although a USB deployment option could make Symphony attractive to more users, Microsoft retains an iron grip on the office productivity market. IBM does not formally track Symphony installs but estimates about 10 million people are using the software, said product manager Jeanette Barlow. The Keepod announcement comes in response to "a huge push from enterprise customers for supporting mobile workers," she said. Many companies are still in the tire-kicking stage, running pilot programs or deploying the software on a departmental level, she said.

IBM expects interest in Symphony to jump significantly next year, when a new version based on the OpenOffice 3 codebase is released, according to Barlow.

Extreme Networks replaces CEO, lays off 70

Ethernet switch vendor Extreme Networks is replacing its CEO and laying off 70 employees in an effort to quickly improve the company's bottom line and set it up to run profitably with lower revenues. Canepa receives $639,354 severance. CEO Mark Canepa, who took the position in 2006, has resigned, but will remain for a short period to help recently hired CFO Bob Corey transition to Acting CEO. The company is seeking a permanent replacement.

As part of the restructuring, the company also eliminated the job of chief counsel, getting rid of Robert Schlossman, and replacing him with Vice Presideint Diane Honda, according to a filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company didn't say where the 70 layoffs would come, but it represents about 9% of Extreme's workforce. Judging from the company Web site, the head of human resources and head software developer are also gone. Most Notable IT Layoffs of 2009  The moves will lower the company's expenses by $2.5 million per quarter, with the larger goal being to have the company break even if it makes $70 million per quarter. The company hasn't reported its financial statement for the quarter ended Sept. 27, but it said earlier this month that it expected to come up $14.4 million shy of what Wall Street analysts forecasted. The measures will cost the company a one-time $4.2 million hit.

The analysts projected Extreme would take in $66 million but the actual revenues will be more like $80.4 million, the company said. The company's stock prices hit a low of close to a dollar in March, struggled back to just over $3 last month then dipped to about $2.25 over the past weeks. "They're in a tough spot," says Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee group. "This is a company that's truly having a hard time finding its way." He says the company is smaller than its main competitors, HP, IBM, Cisco, Juniper and Brocade (which has reportedly put itself up for sale).  Extreme makes a range of switches from edge, to aggregation to core, as well as wireless switches and security gear. A the time Canepa blamed the company's North American business as being particularly soft because some deals it had hoped for fell through and others were delayed beyond the end of the quarter. The company burst onto the networking scene in the mid-1990s as one in a pack of Gigabit Ethernet and Layer 3 switching pioneers and differentiated itself, among other ways, by uniquely packaging its technology in purple boxes.  "When you look at all the network vendors out there, what problem is it that Extreme is trying to solve that isn't being solved by somebody else?" Kerravala says. "If you look at data centers, all the emphasis is on converged fabric, and they just don't have a roadmap to get there. They'll get smaller and smaller and continue to exist off their installed base until their assets get acquired by somebody else." Insiders and channel partners said the firm seemed to be too focused on long range strategic planning instead of trying to figure out how to survive the dire economy.

I think they'll go the route of Enterasys. Extreme's Chairman of the Board Gordon Stitt said in a written statement: "Management and the Board decided to take this action to streamline our operations, reduce our breakeven and create an operating model that will position Extreme Networks for sustained profitability as quickly as possible. We remain committed to the products, markets, channels and customers and to continuing to introduce new and innovative products." These reductions have been taken across the entire organization.

Ellison: Fusion Applications in 2010

Oracle plans to launch its long-awaited Fusion Applications in 2010, and they will be deployable both on-premises and as SaaS (software as a service), CEO Larry Ellison said Wednesday during a keynote address at the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Oracle has placed special emphasis on improving the user experience with Fusion, as well as embedded BI (business intelligence) throughout the applications, Ellison said. Fusion Applications, which Oracle first announced several years ago, will combine the best elements of Oracle's various business software product lines into a next-generation suite.

Ellison's keynote contained the most specific information the company has provided about Fusion Applications since first announcing the project several years ago. We're absolutely committed to do that," he said to applause. "We can afford to not only maintain the software you're running today, but also build the software you may want to move to tomorrow." Ellison did not provide details regarding licensing and pricing models, including whether Oracle will sell the new applications via subscription, as is the norm with SaaS. But Oracle is nonetheless ensuring the products are ready for SaaS, including by developing monitoring tools that will track their performance, Ellison said. The CEO took pains to tell the packed room of Siebel, JD Edwards and E-Business Suite users that Oracle has no plans to abandon the product lines anytime soon. "Oracle will continue to enhance those applications for the next decade and beyond. While SaaS vendors provide users with service-level agreement guarantees, "there aren't very good tools for figuring out whether you're actually getting the service levels you're paying for," he said. This gives Oracle "a huge advantage" because the SOA model will allow users easily to tie together "the Fusion generation and all the stuff you have deployed today," Ellison said. "We don't think all customers are going to replace what they have today with Fusion," he added. "We think they will augment what they have with some Fusion. Oracle's tools will enable it to "not only contractually commit but prove we're delivering the service levels." Fusion Applications are based on a SOA (service oriented architecture) provided by Oracle's Fusion Middleware stack, Ellison said.

Fusion is designed to be delivered that way. ... We have replacement applications and then we have net-new applications." The initial suite will include modules for financial management, human capital management, sales and marketing, supply chain management, project management, procurement management and GRC (governance, risk and compliance), but other key areas, such as manufacturing, will come later. Oracle has worked "very, very closely" with customers to design and test Fusion Applications, work that has resulted in a superior user interface, Ellison said. Ellison stressed the benefits of the modular approach. "You assemble the components in the order you want to use them, in the order that makes sense for your industry," he said. Embedded BI is another major focus of the suite. "You can't use the system without using business intelligence," Ellison said. The application allowed the user to bring up a dashboard showing which order manager was responsible for the particular transaction, and then begin an instant-messaging conversation with him directly from the tool.

In a demonstration, a pair of Oracle executives showed how the system alerted one user that a particular shipment had been delayed. In turn, the order manager was able to search for less critical orders and reroute them to fulfill the first one. "We tell you what you need to know, what you need to do, and we tell you how to do it," Ellison said. While Oracle "definitely has the capability to deliver this as SaaS, it's really up to them to figure out if they want to enter [that market] large-scale," Wang added. Ellison's presentation proved that "Fusion apps are real," said Ray Wang, a partner with the analyst firm Altimeter Group. In some product areas, such as talent management, "they can't compete without the SaaS option," he said. In a presentation Tuesday, on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) vendor and Oracle rival Salesforce.com compared multitenancy to an office building, where individual tenants share the overall infrastructure but customize their office spaces.

SaaS applications are different from straight application hosting, because they use a "multitenant" architecture wherein customers share a single instance of an application but their data is kept private from other customers. Oracle "will definitely" offer a hosted version of Fusion Applications, although it remains to be seen exactly how their SaaS strategy for the software plays out, Wang said. They're playing catch-up." Meanwhile, the work ahead of companies looking to adopt Fusion Applications sooner rather than later is "not trivial," said Floyd Teter, head of the Oracle Applications Users Group's Fusion Council, which has been educating group members about the upcoming applications release. When Fusion Applications arrive, they will also raise the competitive stakes between Oracle and its main rival, SAP. But SAP spokesman Saswato Das dismissed Oracle's announcement. "Basically, our Business Suite 7 is the most comprehensive and flexible suite of applications on the market," Das said. "Oracle has been talking about Fusion for a long time, and our suite is available now. One key step customers should take is to catalogue their application customizations and determine which ones could be retired, Teter said. "A lot of us have done a lot of custom things. The skill set now is more Java and specifically [Java Enterprise Edition]. You also better have some knowledge of JavaScript." In addition, Fusion Applications rely on Oracle's JDeveloper IDE (integrated development environment), rather than other Java development tools like Eclipse.

If you're a long-term Oracle customer, it's easy to lose track." Fusion Applications will also require some companies to acquire new development skills, Teter said. "A lot of us run a lot of customizations through MOD PL_SQL. That's going to be gone. For many companies, there will be plenty of time to plan, since the first version of Fusion Applications won't include certain functional areas. In the meantime, we'll continue to stay current on EBS." But Teter said the vendor's work on Fusion has produced impressive results, particularly in regards to user experience. The lack of manufacturing has prompted the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, which uses E-Business Suite, to wait for a future version, said Teter, who is a project manager at the lab. "When I get a full-functionality replacement, we'll look at it. Earlier in his keynote, Ellison turned to Oracle's recently announced Exadata 2 appliance for data warehousing and transaction processing.

Exadata 2 uses Sun hardware, while the original machine, announced at last year's OpenWorld show, used Hewlett-Packard iron. He claimed the machine widely outperforms and is much less expensive than competing technologies, such as from IBM, calling it "the fastest computer that has ever been built to run data warehousing applications." "This system will outperform any of the competition," he said. Oracle is in the process of buying Sun Microsystems but the deal is on hold while European officials conduct an antitrust review. Ellison temporarily ceded the stage to California Gov. Ellison didn't discuss the acquisition during his keynote, but Sun and its officials have played an active role in this year's OpenWorld conference. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who delivered a joke-peppered talk espousing the value of technology, from biotech to the Hollywood special effects that powered his long career as an action star. "Think of Conan the Barbarian fighting the giant snake," he said, referring to his role in the 1982 film based on Robert E. Howard's tales of a legendary warrior king. "I never could have done that and look so studly without technology," he said to an eruption of laughter from the crowd.

Schwarzenegger also congratulated Ellison and Sun chairman Scott McNealy on the pending acquisition, stressing the companies' importance to California's economy. "Working together, I know the sky is the limit for you and your employees," he said.

Virtualization and iPhone jailbreaks

In all the hubbub surrounding the release of new Macs you may have missed the Windows 7 release. Well, if you're one of those people who needs Windows for work but prefers to use a Mac, maybe you do. Yeah, yeah, we're Mac users and so who cares?

In order to use Windows on your Mac you require either Apple's Boot Camp or some variety of virtualization application. The major players in this market-VMWare and Parallels-have released new versions of their applications and Rob's spent time with both. And it's just those applications that are the focus of my interview with senior editor Rob Griffiths. Tune it to hear his opinions. Apple has closed a security hole in a recent iPhone update and that's forced jailbreakers to seek other means of entry. After a word from Macworld Superguides, senior contributor, Ben Long, and I discuss the state of iPhone jailbreaking.

Ben and I talk about whether jailbreaking is safe and still worth the bother. Or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader at: http://rss.macworld.com/macworld/weblogs/mwpodcast/ You can find previous episodes of our audio podcasts at Macworld's podcasting page. Download Episode #174 AAC version (21.3 MB, 43 minutes) MP3 version (20.4 MB, 43 minutes) To subscribe to the Macworld Podcast via iTunes 4.9 or later, simply click here. Got any feedback on this podcast? You can also leave us a message at 415/520-9761 if you'd like to have your comments included in a future podcast.

Send me an e-mail or an audio comments in the form of an AAC or MP3 file. Show Notes I begin the episode with a reading of my Eight Steps to Internet Unpopularity. Rob's taken a look at both Parallels Desktop 5 and VMWare Fusion 3. He also reviewed Sun's VirtualBox 2.1.4 last spring. If you're a troll, nitpicker, endless promoter, grudge holder, or simply clueless, you'll want to give it a listen. We touched on Boot Camp, but failed to mention that, according to Apple, Snow Leopard isn't yet ready to tackle Windows 7. During my talk with Ben I mentioned that the App Store has 100,000 apps. I also plugged Ben's book, Complete Digital Photography for good reason.

I wasn't making that up. It's outstanding. This episode is sponsored by Macworld Superguides. You'll absolutely be a better shooter after reading it. Follow this link for a discount on the just-released Total Snow Leopard Superguide.

Is Facebook Prepping a New Homepage?

New tweaks to the Facebook homepage have been spotted in the wild that may make it easier to see what's going on within your network. Screenshots of the new homepage first appeared on The Next Web, and Inside Facebook. New features include improved filters for the newsfeed, a revised right-hand column and a new Publisher box reminiscent of Facebook Lite.

A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the social network is currently testing a new homepage designs. Facebook Publisher The most obvious change of the proposed redesign is the disappearance of the "Publisher" box where you post status updates, Web links, photos, videos and events. Still, without explicit confirmation the new features should be considered rumor. Instead, you would simply have an "Update Status" button on the far right side of the news feed. News Feed Filter Where the Publisher typically sits, Facebook has placed a filter for your News Feed called 'View Top News.' The new filter looks like it functions similarly to the 'Comments' link now sitting in the left-hand column of your Facebook homepage. There are no screen shots showing how this button works or if it contains the same functionality as the Publisher, but I would assume it would do the same job.

Next to the top news filters is a title that looks like it alternates between headlines like 'Evening News' and 'Recent Stories' depending on the time of day you're viewing it. Although the new filter is just a minor tweak, this may be the first visible sign of FriendFeed-like features on Facebook. The central placement of the top news filter may make it a more popular feature by helping users keep tabs on any Facebook activity they may have missed. As Mashable points out, the new filter is similar to FriendFeed's Best of Day feature. This brings the 'Events' feature closer to the top of the page making it easier to see upcoming birthdays, parties and other events within your network.

Right-Hand Column Another interesting tweak is the removal of the 'Highlights' section in the right hand column. This is a welcome change since it moves more useful information to a place where you might actually see it. Facebook's Dark Past with Redesigns Until Facebook makes an announcement about new features, it's hard to know what new redesigns users will see. It's interesting to note that this tweak would make the Facebook home page closer to the failed redesign that Facebook users revolted against back in March. It should also be noted that the rumored tweaks look similar to features found in Facebook Lite, which makes me wonder if this just isn't a revision of that format. When Facebook caved to its user base earlier this year over a significant homepage redesign, I thought the social network made a huge mistake.

Of course, even if Facebook rolls out some new homepage features, there's no guarantee they'll stick around. I, for one, actually like the failed redesign, and the hodgepodge revision we ended up with had some serious flaws, like the poor placement of the 'Events' section. If users revolt once more, which I'm sure they will, Facebook should grow a pair and stick to its redesign plans.

Judge says TD Ameritrade's proposed security fixes not enough

A federal judge's rejection of a proposed settlement by TD Ameritrade Inc. in a data breach lawsuit marks the second time in recent months that a court has weighed in on what it considers to be basic security standards for protecting data. In September 2007, Ameritrade announced that the names, addresses, phone numbers and trading information of potentially all of its more than 6 million retail and institutional customers at that time had been compromised by an intrusion into one of its databases. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco yesterday denied final approval of a settlement that had been proposed by TD Ameritrade in May to settle claims stemming from a 2007 breach that exposed more than 6 million customer records . In arriving at his decision, Walker said the court didn't find the proposed settlement to be "fair, reasonable or adequate." Rather than benefit those directly affected by the breach, Ameritrade's proposed settlement is designed largely to benefit the company, Walker wrote in his 13-page ruling. The stolen information was later used to spam its customers.

The company also offered to retain the services of an analytics form to find out whether any of the data that had been compromised in the breach had been used for identity theft purposes. As part of an effort to settle claims arising from that incident, Ameritrade this May said it would retain an independent security expert to conduct penetration tests of its networks to look for vulnerabilities. The company also said it would give affected customers a one-year subscription for antivirus and antispam software. He described the additional security measures that Ameritrade proposed in the settlement as "routine practices" that any reputable company should be taking anyway. It was these offers that the judge dismissed as too meager.

Penetration tests provide a reliable way for companies to detect the sort of security weaknesses that led to the Ameritrade breach, Walker said. The two "very temporary fixes do not convince the court that the company has corrected or will address the security of client data in any serious way, let alone provide discernable benefits," he noted. But "as a large company that deals in sensitive personal information, penetration and data breach tests should be routine practices of TD Ameritrade's department that handles information security," he wrote. A TD Ameritrade spokeswoman said the company would provide its response to the judge's ruling soon. In August, the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois, denied a request by Citizens Financial Bank to dismiss a negligence claim brought against it by a couple. The case is the latest to illustrate a growing willingness by courts around the country to consider claims of negligence and breach of contract brought by individuals against companies for failing to protect sensitive data.

The two had claimed that Citizens' failure to implement two-factor user-authentication measures had resulted in the theft of more than $26,000 from their home equity line of credit. Such rulings are relatively rare in consumer lawsuits against companies that suffer data breaches involving the potential compromise of credit card data and personal information. The judge hearing the case allowed the claim to move forward, saying there was a reasonable basis to show that the bank had not moved quickly enough to implement stronger user authentication measures as it should have. Until recently, courts have tended to reject such lawsuits mainly on the grounds that consumers suffer little financial harm from such breaches. A case before the Maine Supreme Court is testing whether consumers can seek restitution from merchants for the time and effort involved in changing payment cards and bank accounts after a data breach. They have also held that consumers can't seek damages for any potential injury that could stem from any future ID theft that might result from such breaches.

Budget cuts could increase server failures, warns Gartner

ORLANDO - Despite an improving economy , companies aren't moving quickly replace servers, PCs and printers, which will likely cause an increase in failure rates over the next two years, according to Gartner Inc. He added that the number of delayed replacements should reach 10% of all servers by 2010. As a result, Sondergaard said, IT operations "are going to have to start to plan for the impact of increased equipment failure rates." Gartner's hardware forecast was the starkest indication of the cumulative impact of IT budget cutbacks. In round numbers, the scheduled replacement of some three million servers worldwide, or about 3% of all servers, has been delayed, Peter Sondergaard, Gartner's global head of research, said today at the research firm's Symposium/ITxpo 2009 conference here. For example, recent outages at some service providers provide at least the appearance of growing equipment problems. in some recent service provider outages.

Sondergaard said that enterprise IT spending worldwide is expected to decline by about 6.8% this year, and won't return to 2008 levels until 2012. "The IT market is exiting its worst year ever," he added. Budget cuts are expected to continue. Gartner estimates that 2009 worldwide enterprise IT spending will total some $2.3 trillion compared to $2.5 trillion in 2008. Randy George, information services manager, at the Osceola County Schools in Florida, said the time for replacing the department's main computer system is fast approaching. The IBM server is four years old, and five years is an ideal replacement point, said George. George has been meeting a vendor about upgrading the IBM System I, "but whether we will have the funds for it is questionable," he said. It's not hardware reliability that's a concern, but its ability to keep up with growing demands.

The school system has 53,000 students and some 7,000 employees, he added. "There have been a couple of times where we have peaked its capacity," said George. The school district has been adding more applications to the System I while the demands on the hardware also grow. If system capacity isn't increased, then "the users may just have to live with a little less service than what they are use to." Gene Hall, Gartner CEO, said that while IT managers are planning for growth, "they don't expect to see everything back to normal in 2010," he said.

Privacy researcher pans Netflix’s contest sequel

Winners of the Netflix Prize for boosting Netflix's movie recommendation engine barely had a chance to start spending their $1 million prize before controversy erupted over a second contest. Ohm writes that Netflix would be taking too big a risk with customer privacy given the sort of demographic and behavioral data it would need to share with contest participants: "Netflix should cancel this new, irresponsible contest, which it has dubbed Netflix Prize 2. Researchers have known for more than a decade that gender plus ZIP code plus birthdate uniquely identifies a significant percentage of Americans (87% according to Latanya Sweeney's famous study.) True, Netflix plans to release age not birthdate, but simple arithmetic shows that for many people in the country, gender plus ZIP code plus age will narrow their private movie preferences down to at most a few hundred people. Privacy researcher Paul Ohm, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, posted a recommendation of his own regarding the Netflix Prize 2 on the blog Freedom to Tinker: He called on Netflix to nix the project.

Netflix needs to understand the concept of 'information entropy': even if it is not revealing information tied to a single person, it is revealing information tied to so few that we should consider this a privacy breach." Slideshow: Networkiest movies of all-time  Meanwhile, AT&T Labs-Research, Yahoo Research and other members of the Bellkor's Pragmatic Chaos team are celebrating their win in the initial 3-year-long Netflix Prize contest. Netflix shared data with researchers for that contest too, and despite its efforts to do so without compromising customer privacy, researchers did find that piecing together identities from something as seemingly innocuous as movie preferences wasn't as difficult as first thought. They earned $1 million in beating out 40,000 other teams from 186 countries to improve upon Netflix's Cinematch system for predicting which movies customers will like or dislike. Ohm argues that disclosing data such as gender, ZIP codes and ages makes people much too easy to identify. Follow Bob Brown on Twitter Netflix says in its blog that Netflix Prize 2 "will focus more on helping customers early in their experience with Netflix, drawing on many more sources of data to try to find just the right movies." For more on network research, follow our AlphaDoggs blog.

Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter, World Ends

In what's certain to become the most devastating news your 8-year-old daughter has heard in her short life, Miley Cyrus has ... gasp! ... quit Twitter. Or something. Details on the pop star's last-minute ditch are scarce, but celebrity blogs are scrambling to fill in the blanks, seating most of the blame with Cyrus' male love interest. Cyrus was considered prolific and "interesting" among the Twitter crowd, and heartbroken fans - in between bouts of hysterical sobbing and hair-tugging desperation - have created a very special tag: #mileycomeback.

Like many tweets, Kutcher's contributions to the hiss of Internet white noise barely provoke a quasi-interested "huh." Is that supposed to be funny? Not surprisingly, it's trending well today on Twitter, and is, quite possibly, the most exciting news of 2009. To add to the death knell, here are five other loudmouthed celebrities who should consider taking a page from Cyrus' book: Ashton Kutcher Kutcher, the world's most popular Twitter dude, has nothing to say. Is he supposed to be funny? Glenn Beck Picking Beck out of a lineup betrays my political sensibilities, I fear, but seriously, this guy is a ridiculous blowhard. Hard to tell.

Never before in my life have I craved the warm embrace of deafness, but as soon as Beck opens his mouth or puts fingers to keyboard, I most certainly do. The Fans of Twilight feed is a bunch of gushing teenybops clinging to waifs of plot and characterization as though Stephenie Meyer had rewritten the Bible replete with more emo-posturing and vampire sex. Fans of Twilight Lord, I can't wait until this movie series is over. A brief glimpse of this feed's obsessive "insight" into the Twilight series is enough to make you slap on some eyeliner and hate your tyrannical father. Cuban, one of PC World's honorary blowhards, blabs with regularity about aspects of fancy livin' you'll never touch.

Mark Cuban Rich people are awesome, especially when they pontificate about how rich they are. Money, sports, tech, all communicated in hyper-masculine bravado, all pretty much extraneous. This guy is annoying. Ryan Seacrest Is there really anything else to add? And everywhere.

I was going to add professional train wreck Courtney Love to the list, but apparently her Twitter account has been shut down. It's awful. Perhaps it has something to do with her libelous, nearly indecipherable rants. First, there are psychotics out there, hell-bent on destroying reputations with misbegotten words. Besides the love of a hot young man, there are multiple reasons why a celebrity would quit using a social networking service like Twitter.

That is why Twitter introduced Verified Accounts - so you know the brainless celeb you're reading is actually, wow, that dumb, and not some jerk pretending to wear famous pants. There are only so many 140-character blasts of nothing one can endure before the walls of one's cranium begin to bleed ennui. Then there exists the risk of overexposure and jumping the shark. Whatever Cyrus' reasoning may be, Twitter will certainly never be the same again, and by "never" I mean we'll forget about this in 20 or so minutes.

iStockphoto guarantees its collection

Starting today, iStockphoto, the micropayment royalty-free image, video, and audio provider, will legally guarantee its entire collection from copyright, moral right, trademark, intellectual property, and rights of privacy disputes for up to $10,000. The new iStock Legal Guarantee, delivered at no cost to customers, covers the company's entire 5 million-plus collection. Recently however, Vivozoom, another microstock company, took a similar action to guarantee its collection. Additional coverage for an Extended Legal Guarantee totaling $250,000 is available for the purchase of 100 iStock credits. "Our first line of defense has always been-and continues to be-our rigorous inspection process," said Kelly Thompson, chief operating officer of iStockphoto. "The Legal Guarantee is simply an added layer of protection for our customers, many of whom are using microstock more than ever before." Although common for traditional stock houses, such legal guarantees have not been standard in microstock because of the low prices.

iStock says that files purchased and used in accordance with its license will not breach any trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights or rights of privacy. And, if a customer does get a claim, iStock will cover the customer's legal costs and direct damages up to a combined total of $10,000. iStock customers can increase their coverage for legal fees and direct damages up to a combined total of $250,000 by purchasing the Extended Legal Guarantee via the iStock credits (which costs between $95 and $138). iStock expects that this program will be popular with a very small percentage of sophisticated media buyers with very specific needs, and considers it to be a value-added service to customers rather than a major source of revenue.

Mac News Briefs: Major update for Workgroups suite

A Document Organizer and browser-based proofing tool highlight the changes in Workgroups 2010. MetaCommunications announced the updated version of its productivity management software suite for marketing, creating design, packaging, and prepress workgroups on Wednesday. The browser-based document proofer includes markup tools for annotating PDF documents and image files. The Document Organizer lets users drag-and-drop digital media-including files, e-mails, scanned documents, and attachments-into Workgroups 2010. The system will automatically copy or move that media to the correct location on the file server. In conjunction with the new version of Workgroups, MetaCommunications launched a community Web site called Developer Center, aimed at letting Workgroups developers, administrators, and users interact with each other and share forms, solutions, and code snippets.

The $99 USB barcode scanner and attendant software collects information on media such as books and movies. The desktop version of Workgroups runs on Snow Leopard in addition to the Tiger and Leopard versions of Mac OS X. Complete multi-user suite bundles start at $4,995 with individual modules starting at $1,695; MetaCommunications has more detailed information about pricing on its Web site.-Philip Michaels IntelliScanner adds $99 organizational tool to lineup IntelliScanner announced on Wednesday added a sub-$100 product to its lineup of scanner-based organizational tools with the release of IntelliScanner Classic. The scanner reads the retail barcode and automatically identifies the items, importing data about them from online databases. The $99 product requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and a USB port. The included media organization software lets you organize your media, create bookmarks, keep track of lending, and generate insurance reports.

A special $79 price is available to qualified teachers and students.-Dan Moren Carbon Copy Cloner works with Snow Leopard's HFS+ Carbon Copy Cloner 3.3, the latest version of Bombich Software's disk cloning utility, was released on Wednesday, adding Snow Leopard-specific improvements as well as a variety of other enhancements and bug fixes. In addition, the software improves the performance of backing up large numbers of files with extended attributes, properly excludes filesystem indexes such as those created by Spotlight, and fixes a number of bugs, such as now excluding the Time Machine database when backing up a hard drive. The new version works with Snow Leopard's HFS+ filesystem compression and also now reports disk size using base 10 values for MB and GB, reflecting Snow Leopard's change. Carbon Copy Cloner 3.3 is a free download, but a donation is request. TeamViewer Mac 4.1.6717 includes full instant messaging capabilities with anyone in a user's partner list. The software requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, including Mac OS X Snow Leopard.-DM TeamViewer adds instant messaging for Mac users TeamViewer has updated its remote access and support application, adding instant messaging functions for Mac users.

In addition, the updated version of TeamViewer allows a Custom QuickSupport module to be created for Mac OS X users. The application is free for non-commercial, personal use, with other pricing options available for business, premium, and corporate users.-PM TeamViewer provides remote access over the Internet.

Start-up unveils storage platform for large-scale Web applications

A storage company emerged from stealth mode this week with software designed to efficiently manage the file serving needs of Internet applications such as social networks, online ad serving and software-as-a-service.  Nine data storage companies to watch MaxiScale announced the Flex Software Platform, which is installed on commodity gear, such as a bank of Apache Web servers. Retrieving a small file with the MaxiScale system requires just one I/O operation, a feature that eliminates bottlenecks caused by systems that require multiple I/O operations for each small file retrieval, says IDC storage analyst Noemi Greyzdorf. "They built a very interesting file system that handles small files – files that are one megabyte or smaller – incredibly efficiently," Greyzdorf says Configurations start with as few as four nodes but can scale up to 50,000 servers, the company says. The goal is to improve performance and reduce cost, space and power requirements for Web companies that have to deal with large numbers of small files. "We think people deploying Web applications have been paying too much money and we're out to change that," says Gary Orenstein, vice president of marketing for MaxiScale.

Instead of using expensive storage boxes with interconnects like InfiniBand or Fibre Channel, MaxiScale recommends using Flex with 2TB SATA drives and says the Flex system relies on IP and Ethernet connections. "We're using standards-based, commodity hardware for everything," Orenstein says. Maxiscale's first publicly named customer is AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace that has served more than 110 billion ad impressions in the last three years. Flex uses a patent-pending Peer Set architecture that replicates file data and metadata across SATA drives, allowing for load balancing and resiliency to multiple hardware failures. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and founded in 2007, MaxiScale has $17 million in venture financing from investors NEA, El Dorado Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. Flex software is available now and pricing starts at $6,000 for four nodes allowing up to 32TB of storage. MaxiScale was co-founded by CEO Gianluca Rattazzi, who previously founded Meridian Data, Parallan, P-Com and BlueArc; and CTO Francesco Lacapra, who previously held executive roles at Olivetti, Quantum and BlueArc.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter.

Adobe to buy Omniture for US$1.8 billion

Adobe has agreed to buy Web analytics company Omniture for US$1.8 billion in cash, the companies said Tuesday. On a conference call Thursday, executives wouldn't say if there was a bidding war with other companies to buy Omniture. The price San Jose, California-based Adobe is paying for the company, which is $21.50 per share, is at a 45 percent premium over Omniture's average closing price for the last 30 trading days, Adobe said. Adobe, known for multimedia design, Web-development and document-creation software such as Flash, Dreamweaver and Acrobat, said the purchase will help the company add Web analytics and optimization capabilities directly to those products.

He said a recent Forrester study found that 73 percent of companies doing business on the Web had some kind of analytics technology in place. "It's a ubiquitous technology that is in high demand at companies that are placing any parts of their business online," he said. This kind of ability to measure what kinds of media, Web applications or Web pages are popular with users is becoming essential as more and more business is being done on the Web, particularly in the area of online advertising, said Forrester senior analyst John Lovett. For designers, developers and online marketers using its tools, this new capability will help them streamline how they create and deliver relevant content and applications, Adobe said. On a conference call Tuesday, Adobe CEO and President Shantanu Narayen said that the idea for a merger grew out of conversations with Omniture's CEO, Josh James, and with customers who wanted more out of the digital media they were creating using Adobe's products. Advertisers, advertising agencies, publishers and online retailers can improve the experience of their end users and get more out of their digital media through the new analytical capability, the company said. For example, Narayen said people were using Flash to create online advertisements, but wanted a way to better understand click-through rates so they could see which ones were working.

Similarly, Adobe, too, found it wanted more information from the ads and digital media it was putting up on its own site. They thought there might be a way for Adobe to build that into their products, and "a number actually wanted us to integrate with solutions like Omniture," he said. Omniture had been an Adobe partner for some time, and in conversations with James, Narayen said the two realized their companies had "the same vision" for how digital media and rich Internet applications could include Web analytics and optimization technology. The deal creates a "big opportunity" to allow content creators to potentially measure the impact of everything they do, Lovett added. Forrester's Lovett said the deal will put Adobe a step ahead of other companies creating tools for developing digital content. "The combination of these two technologies makes sense - it's the creative meeting the measurement side of things," he said. Following the close of the deal, Omniture will become a new unit within Adobe, the company said.

The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter of Adobe's fiscal year, which ends Nov. 27. Omniture's CEO James will join Adobe as senior vice president in charge of that business unit, reporting to Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Narayen.

HP builds collaboration tool into workstations

Hewlett-Packard is building collaboration software with video, application-sharing and 3-D graphics support into several of its workstation models, giving the high-definition conferencing market an option well below the cost and scale of telepresence. It needs only an Internet connection of 400Kb per second, plus a VPN (virtual private network) to connect to systems outside an enterprise firewall. The HP SkyRoom software, which was set to be announced on Tuesday, works on systems with a fairly modest set of requirements, starting with a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent processor.

With the software, users can click on the name of a contact to start up a SkyRoom session with them. Multiple users can join in to these sessions and see the host presenter's desktop as if they were using their own machines. With another click, they can share rich media or what's happening on their desktops. The software supports display of any type of application on a Windows XP or Vista PC, including streaming video, according to HP. HP says SkyRoom is based on video and image compression algorithms it developed over the course of three years. SkyRoom saves work by updating only changes in screen appearance, not the whole screen, HP said.

It can deliver a high level of performance on relatively modest systems and networks by compressing and encrypting data before it's sent to participants. The company named digital content teams, animation production houses and global financial teams running live economic models as possible users of the software. It's another thing to describe it over video," Germanow said. The software should be an ideal tool for teams that design physical things, because it will let one designer show others what's wrong with the item, such as a corner that's too sharp, said IDC analyst Abner Germanow. "It's one thing to describe a design problem over e-mail. Telepresence, which typically involves dedicated rooms or purpose-built systems, would be overkill for these kinds of sessions, he said.

SkyRoom is available worldwide as a free, preinstalled feature of HP Z800, Z600, Z400 and xw4600 workstations. SkyRoom is strictly software, with lower network requirements and no special service fees, and engineers may use it for all-day sessions, he said. Some premium business PCs and laptops coming from HP in the next few months will offer the software on a 90-day trial basis. In addition to the Core 2 Duo or equivalent processor, those systems will need at least 2GB of RAM, a webcam and XP or Vista. The software is also available for purchase for an estimated U.S. street price of US$149 and can be used on workstations and PCs from Dell, Lenovo and Sun, HP said.

HP is also offering the HP SkyRoom Accessory Kit, which includes a high-resolution webcam and headphones or speakers, for $119.

iTunes gains Automatically Add to iTunes feature

One of the often requested features for iTunes has been the ability to set a folder for it to watch, automatically adding any items you drop in that folder to its library. In typical Apple fashion, it's not exactly what people were asking for, but Apple's interpretation of what they want. In iTunes 9, Apple has quietly added this feature, although I wouldn't blame you for not having noticed its existence. When you install iTunes 9, it automatically creates an Automatically Add to iTunes folder in your ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder (or under ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media if you created a new library after installing iTunes 9). When you put an iTunes-compatible media file in this folder, it will, as the name suggests, be added to iTunes automatically.

Whenever you drop any file into that folder, it's instantly added to iTunes if the application is running. In my limited testing, I've found that it pretty much works as advertised. If not, it gets added the next time iTunes is launched. And if you ever delete or rename the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, iTunes simply creates a new one for you the next time it is launched. It even looks for files in subfolders you create and adds them to the library as well.

However, it does have a lot of caveats. You can be pretty assured that if the video was downloaded from the Internet, it will not be supported by iTunes. For one thing, iTunes's list of supported formats, especially in the video department, is comically short. In such a case, iTunes will move it to a Not Added subfolder within the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. Still, there are other problems.

But that's to be expected because iTunes has never exactly supported a host of media formats. When users asked for an option to direct iTunes to a folder, they really wanted an option to direct iTunes to any folder. So if you have a huge collection of media in your Movies folder or on an external hard disk drive containing files that you'd like to automatically add to iTunes, you'll still have to move them to that particular folder. What Apple has done, on the other hand, is created a pre-designated folder for the task and not given an option to change it to any other location. What's the point, then?

Well, you say, we can just use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder as our primary movies folder, then-maybe even move it to a location of our choosing, and leave behind an alias to take its place. You can just drag and drop them onto the iTunes icon in the Dock and be done with it. Wouldn't that work? Not only does iTunes not accept anything added to that folder if you move it, but the presence of the alias prevents iTunes from creating a new version of the folder either. Not so much.

And when iTunes does add media files from the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, it moves them into its media folder and organizes them as it normally would, even if you have the option to do so disabled under iTunes's advanced preferences. The only possible use I can see if for you to set it as the default download location for media files you purchase/download off the Internet, so that they can automatically be added to iTunes without your having to do so (and even there, Apple has recommended you don't use it for incomplete files). I hope Apple rethinks this and gives users the freedom to use any folder they want and makes iTunes stop moving the media files around if the user doesn't want it to. It also deletes any subfolders you create within that folder (although that's a logical conclusion, given that they're useless if the media files you put in them never stay there). In short, I don't think the feature is very useful in the form Apple chose to implement it. It's still a (very small) step in the right direction though.

Microsoft rallies businesses to start Win 7 migrations now

In a last promotional run-up to the Windows 7 release next month, Microsoft is urging business customers to start their upgrades now with examples of customers already using the software, and another acknowledgement that the company learned lessons from how it handled Vista's release three years ago. Additionally, many customers, as has been typical with a major Windows release, opted to wait for the release of the first service pack for Vista to even consider upgrading, and then many others did not move to the OS at all. Microsoft has devoted an unprecedented level of time and attention to making sure business customers will have a smooth migration and reap financial benefits from the new OS, said Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management Gavriella Schuster, in what is likely to be the last of a series of interviews with reporters as the company prepares to release Windows 7 worldwide on Oct. 23. "The real difference that I think people are seeing with Windows 7 is a different level of quality," Schuster said. "We've never reached this level of quality before in terms of performance, reliability, ease of deployment, the tools around it." As she has in previous interviews, Schuster reiterated Microsoft's mea culpa about how the company handled preparing its business customers, ISVs (independent software vendors) and other partners for the release of Vista, which was made available to them in November 2006. At the time, drivers for key hardware and peripherals were not available, and major applications were not compatible.

Schuster assured customers that moving to Windows 7 will be a far smoother process and will set a precedent for how the company will handle desktop OS releases in the future. We have put a lot of effort in really resolving the customer friction point before we come to them [with the OS]. We are being much more proactive and we're saying to customers, 'You don't have to wait.'" Microsoft introduced case studies Monday showing that some customers have taken this advice - among them, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the city of Miami and Dutch IT services firm Getronics - and are reporting cost-saving benefits because of this decision, Schuster said. In fact, with a release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 already in the hands of many business customers, they can begin to move to the OS now. "In the past customers have had to wait for ISV support, they've needed to wait for a service pack release [to deploy Windows]," she said. "Shame on us, we've learned our lesson. Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 7 after the overall disappointment of Windows Vista and is hoping the OS will jump-start business spending on desktop software. But analysts have said that many companies still using Windows XP don't really have a choice when it comes to migrating to Windows 7 - the question is more of when they will move than if they will. Many companies put a freeze on IT spending in general in the past year during the recession, and while conditions have improved, companies remain cautious about where they put their money.

Overall, customers who have moved already are saving on the time of IT labor devoted to PC management in the range of US$89-$160 per year because of new features in Windows 7, according to the findings of case studies Microsoft released Monday. The OS allows administrators to set policies across multiple desktops for updating software and other features through back-end connections to Microsoft server software that manage these processes, Schuster said. In particular, the city of Miami said it would save $54 per PC per year on power management because of new features in Windows 7 for setting group policies. Microsoft also has changed its plans for a software package that helps customers deploy Windows across multiple desktops, she said. Originally, Microsoft had planned to release a beta of MED-V 2 sometime in the first quarter of 2010, but decided to add Windows 7 support earlier due to customer demand for it, she said.

Microsoft plans to release Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, adding Windows 7 support for all components of the suite except for Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). That support will come in the first quarter of 2010 with MED-V 1.1 Service Pack 1, Schuster said.

iTunes gains Automatically Add to iTunes feature

One of the often requested features for iTunes has been the ability to set a folder for it to watch, automatically adding any items you drop in that folder to its library. In typical Apple fashion, it's not exactly what people were asking for, but Apple's interpretation of what they want. In iTunes 9, Apple has quietly added this feature, although I wouldn't blame you for not having noticed its existence.

When you install iTunes 9, it automatically creates an Automatically Add to iTunes folder in your ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder (or under ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media if you created a new library after installing iTunes 9). When you put an iTunes-compatible media file in this folder, it will, as the name suggests, be added to iTunes automatically. Whenever you drop any file into that folder, it's instantly added to iTunes if the application is running. In my limited testing, I've found that it pretty much works as advertised. If not, it gets added the next time iTunes is launched. And if you ever delete or rename the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, iTunes simply creates a new one for you the next time it is launched. It even looks for files in subfolders you create and adds them to the library as well.

However, it does have a lot of caveats. You can be pretty assured that if the video was downloaded from the Internet, it will not be supported by iTunes. For one thing, iTunes's list of supported formats, especially in the video department, is comically short. In such a case, iTunes will move it to a Not Added subfolder within the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. Still, there are other problems. But that's to be expected because iTunes has never exactly supported a host of media formats.

When users asked for an option to direct iTunes to a folder, they really wanted an option to direct iTunes to any folder. So if you have a huge collection of media in your Movies folder or on an external hard disk drive containing files that you'd like to automatically add to iTunes, you'll still have to move them to that particular folder. What Apple has done, on the other hand, is created a pre-designated folder for the task and not given an option to change it to any other location. What's the point, then? Well, you say, we can just use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder as our primary movies folder, then-maybe even move it to a location of our choosing, and leave behind an alias to take its place.

You can just drag and drop them onto the iTunes icon in the Dock and be done with it. Wouldn't that work? Not only does iTunes not accept anything added to that folder if you move it, but the presence of the alias prevents iTunes from creating a new version of the folder either. Not so much. And when iTunes does add media files from the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, it moves them into its media folder and organizes them as it normally would, even if you have the option to do so disabled under iTunes's advanced preferences.

The only possible use I can see if for you to set it as the default download location for media files you purchase/download off the Internet, so that they can automatically be added to iTunes without your having to do so (and even there, Apple has recommended you don't use it for incomplete files). I hope Apple rethinks this and gives users the freedom to use any folder they want and makes iTunes stop moving the media files around if the user doesn't want it to. It also deletes any subfolders you create within that folder (although that's a logical conclusion, given that they're useless if the media files you put in them never stay there). In short, I don't think the feature is very useful in the form Apple chose to implement it. It's still a (very small) step in the right direction though.

Apple investigating malfunctioning iPhone reports

Apple is investigating reports that some of its popular iPhones may have malfunctioned following a query from a European Commission directorate that oversees consumer safety issues.

Apple told the Commission on Tuesday that "these are isolated incidents and that there is not a general problem," according to a statement issued by Directorate-General for Health and Consumers.

"For the cases which have been reported in the media, Apple [is] trying to get more information on the details of the incidents and will do tests as necessary to investigate the possible cause," the statement said.

An 18-year-old French teenager complained his eye was injured last week when his girlfriend's iPhone began making a hissing noise and the device's glass touchscreen shattered, according to a report in AFP. It wasn't clear which model of iPhone was affected.

In the U.K., a 47-year-old man from Liverpool told The Times earlier this month that his daughter's iPod Touch made a hissing noise and exploded after he dropped it.

In an incident in the Netherlands, an iPhone 3G was reportedly sitting in a car when the owner returned to find it was destroyed, burning a huge hole in the vehicle's seat.

Apple's U.K. office said: "We are aware of these media reports, and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."

The Commission also asked Apple about reports of malfunctioning iPods. A Seattle TV station, KIRO-TV, reported last month that after many months of trying it obtained more than 800 pages of documents from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that detailed 15 incidents of faulty iPods, causing fires or burning their owners.

Faulty lithium ion batteries are often the cause of overheating problems with consumer electronics. In June, the South Korean government asked Apple to recall its first-generation iPod Nano following four incidents since December 2008 where batteries overheated or exploded.

U.S. Paper Chase May Slow H-1B, Green Card Use

Federal regulators, particularly the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau, may be slowing the process of obtaining H-1B visas and green cards by adding to the mounds of paperwork required by applicants, according to immigration attorneys.

Several attorneys said in interviews that various regulatory agencies have increased the scope of their so-called requests for evidence from those who apply for new H-1B visas or permanent residency cards, or try to renew existing ones.

In recent months, the USCIS has compelled some applicants to provide corporate payroll records, zoning maps and even building fire-safety plans, they added.

The new requests are "on the border of harassment," said Crystal Williams, co-director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington. The USCIS is "attempting to build a barrier, to make it as difficult as it possibly can be to get a visa," she added.

The lawyers group is now gathering evidence to make a case that the USCIS and other government regulatory agencies are overstepping their authority.

Sam Shihab, an immigration attorney at law firm Shihab & Associates Co. in Washington, said requests by regulators like the USCIS for additional documents are "out of control." H-1B employers are now "guilty until proven innocent," he added.

Shihab claimed that IT firms that mainly hire Indian nationals, in particular, are being targeted by the government.

He said he recently photographed a four-inch-high stack of supporting documents required by regulators. Shihab posted details about some of the documents regulators require on his firm's blog.

Suhi Koizumi, a special counsel at Buchalter Nemer LLP in San Francisco, said she has encountered increased, burdensome government demands for what she called irrelevant documents from companies looking to hire workers who hold permanent residency cards, or green cards.

U.S. regulators "are going to request r?sum?s that the companies have received, to make sure that they have considered all minimally qualified workers," Koizumi said. "Jobs are hard to find, and the government wants to encourage companies to hire U.S. workers."

A Legal Imperative

The USCIS has acknowledged that it has increased its scrutiny of applications for H-1B visas and green cards. But the agency contends that the actions are required as part of the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which set new H-1B restrictions on firms that received bailout funds.

The agency noted that in March, it moved to cut back on the number of documents sought from companies.

In an e-mail to Computerworld, a USCIS spokesman said that the agency is "requesting end-user documentation in those situations where the beneficiary is not working on-site for the petitioner. This will help us ensure that a job offer does indeed exist, and that the worksite is covered by the 'labor condition application' in the file and that a position is a specialty occupation."

There are a number of reasons why the U.S. would step up enforcement of the H-1B and green card programs.

A study released last fall by the USCIS found various problems, including fraud, in nearly one in five H-1B applications. And in February, 11 people in six states were arrested on H-1B fraud charges alleging that companies were displacing qualified American workers.

It's hard to tell whether the increased paperwork is discouraging foreign workers from applying for H-1Bs, though the pace of new applicants has fallen as U.S. unemployment numbers have grown.

Approximately 65,000 H-1B visa applications have been received so far for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. A total of 85,000 H-1B visas are available for the year.

The Obama administration has yet to formally spell out its plan for H-1B visas and employment-based green cards, though observers expect it to support expanding their use.

Obama's choice to head the USCIS, Alejandro Mayorkas, is still awaiting Senate confirmation.

This version of this story originally appeared in Computerworld 's print edition.

Forrester expands 'software bill of rights'

Rampant vendor consolidation, the rise of SaaS (software as a service) and other factors have prompted Forrester Research to add 11 entries to its "Enterprise Software Licensee's Bill of Rights," a list of privileges the analyst firm believes customers should be entitled to throughout the software selection, implementation and production lifecycle.

One of the new rights focuses on SaaS, which has become an increasingly popular deployment option among enterprises.

For one, SaaS vendors should be providing customers with adequate escrow protections, wherein a third party retains a copy of the application's source code, user data and related information, according to Forrester.

"This whole issue of SaaS escrows is going to get more and more important, especially as SaaS companies get taken over or go bankrupt," said the report's author, Forrester analyst Ray Wang, in an interview. The warning is underscored by developments like SaaS BI (business intelligence) vendor LucidEra's recent announcement it would be closing its doors.

Vendors should also get more specific about which product features will work out of the box, according to the report. Features "should be classified as 'no modifications required,' 'minor configuration' and 'major configuration,'" Wang wrote. "Custom capabilities not included in a standard deployment should be called out."

Other added rights cover contract negotiations and the day-to-day relationship between vendors and customers.

For example, vendors should add up and report how much money they are receiving overall from customers for licenses, maintenance and other expenses. This "total account value" should "play a role in determining discount levels and preferential treatment," Wang wrote.

In addition, the report stresses that customers should be allowed the option of procuring maintenance services from third-party companies, and insists that vendors provide customers with a single, executive-level point of contact who is responsible for ensuring the implementation is successful.

Overall, Forrester's recommendations would clearly tip the scales in favor of users. But the economic recession has already prompted a series of conciliatory gestures from vendors, ranging from price cuts to flexible maintenance and upgrade options.

Indeed, now is the time for customers to make the case for and lock in such measures, given the fact that vendors are struggling to make new license sales but also continuing to enjoy highly profitable maintenance revenue streams, Wang said.

Dallas Cowboys fans score with video technology at stadium

The new $1.1 billion Dallas Cowboys stadium will have 3,000 high-definition TV displays to bring customized game footage to fans anywhere in the facility.

The content will be provided from eight high-definition cameras roving throughout the massive complex, even into the locker rooms to give fans pictures of injured players, Cowboys officials said.

That innovation is one of many technologies provided by Cisco Systems Inc., working with AT&T Inc., to make the stadium the most technologically sophisticated of any in the world, Cisco CEO John Chambers said today in a video Webcast.

"You keep the fan experience going up and up," Chambers said about the value of the technology.

Jerry Jones, owner and general manager of the Cowboys Football Club, noted that the Cowboys were the first to allow cameras in the football draft room 15 years ago, in an attempt to promote the game and the fan experience. "We'll have the eight HD cameras all over the place, even the X-ray room," he said on the Webcast.

Jones said the new technologies reminded him of his early career when he supplied popcorn to airports and promoted the smell of popcorn by trying to pump the scent through the air ducts. "It has to be subtle," he said, of new promotional techniques, including the Cisco technology.

The Cisco Connected Sports technologies will allow fans in luxury boxes to customize their experience at each game by providing Internet Protocol phones with touch screens that allow them to browse video content.

Chambers said the services, such as the video feeds and IP phones in luxury boxes, are innovative technologies that Cisco is well-suited to provide. Asked whether the HD video could be supplied to each spectator over a handheld device through a wireless network, Chambers said that won't happen yet. Eventually, he said, "you can get any device to any activity ... [but] you have to deliver what's available."

A Cowboys spokesman said the video experience will be immersive for fans inside the stadium, giving them various views not seen by home television viewers. "Make no mistake about it, we are in competition with the couch," the spokesman said.

Pete Walsh, head of technology for the Cowboys, said the video technology will provide revenue opportunities that haven't even been fully contemplated so far. "It brings the wow factor," he said.

Intel shows first working Moorestown prototypes

Anand Chandrasekher, the senior vice president of Intel's ultra mobility group, showed off a handful of sleek prototype mobile devices containing its upcoming Moorestown platform at the Computex exhibition in Taipei on Thursday.

Moorestown is a chip platform designed for handheld computers that Intel calls mobile Internet devices (MIDs). The heart of Moorestown is a more power-efficient version of the Atom processor, named Lincroft, which is paired with a chipset called Langwell. Intel claims Moorestown uses one-fiftieth the idle power of its predecessor, the Menlow platform. The new platform is available with a range of wireless options, including Wi-Fi, WiMax and 3G cellular connectivity.

"We're not yet in [volume] production. We're getting close," Chandrasekher said, declining to be pinned down on a precise date. The chips are currently available in samples, he said.

During his speech, Chandrasekher was joined on stage by executives from hardware makers Inventec Appliances, Quanta Computer and Elektrobit, who all have working handheld devices based on the chips. The devices were all running the Moblin 2.0 version of Linux and are expected to hit the market early next year, company executives said.

Engineers managed to get the three devices working and ready for Computex in less than two months, a source familiar with the situation said, adding that Intel originally hoped to show five working prototypes at the show.

While Moorestown is nearing volume production, the current MID platform - called Menlow - continues to be used in new designs, a trend that is likely to continue into next year and overlap with the availability of Moorestown, Chandrasekher said.