Apple to Launch Digital Movie Rental Offer
By Robert | January 9, 2008
Now we will get to see if Apple can do a better job than Wal-Mart. All people that want to rent a movie know that it can become a pain and late fees can easily become a reality. This is where Apple is trying to fix a problem by providing movie rental downloads, something that Wal-Mart also tried and eventually gave up on the program due to a failure in meeting expectations. As we can expect, we are talking about an infrastructure that will be linked with iTunes and Associated Press stated that Apple is to announce this new movie rental service the following month. In order to avoid possible confusion, we need to state that this is something different than the movie and TV download service that already exists on iTunes. This new service can actually increase content because of adding movies from various different studios.
Apple does come with a huge user base and this allowed the company to contract the first major studio for the rental deal in Twentieth Century Fox. There is no news of any other studios being interested but what we need to analyze is how users are going to take this offer (or if they will at all). The truth is that all will stand in a decent download speed and price asked. There were rumors in the past that Apple was considering such a rental service in June 2007. The price that was rumored at the time was $2.99 for a 30-day digital movie rental. Such a price would definitely be a hit and the system will have many users renting digital DVDs. On the other hand, if Fox and Apple decide to ask too much, most of the possible customers will decide to drive to the movie store instead.
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Two Nuclear Labs Falling for Phishing Tricks
By Robert | January 9, 2008
We are already used with the press making everything bigger than it actually is. For instance, we saw a report by ABC News that stated 2 nuclear labs were hacked. The truth is that there is no real danger but the facts are a lot funnier. It seems that some scientists and workers at these 2 nuclear labs actually fell for the hacker’s oldest trick in the book. We are talking about the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. These two institutions were collecting the names, birth dates and social security numbers of all the scientists that visited the plans. Everything is put in a database.
Starting on the date of October 29, workers of the plants started receiving phishing emails, the classical ones, followed by another classical one with attachments that contained Trojans. After this we found reports that said these emails gained access to both the systems of these companies. This basically translates in the fact that at least one worker in each plant made the mistake of opening an attachment and the fun began. The immediate result was a database that was compromised. Basically, the phiser or phishers got access to all the data of the visitors between 1999 and 2004.
Although media coverings were interesting and we basically thought that everything was a lot more serious, it is not only the fault of the agencies for not looking further. Officials from both test labs gave complex details that were probably aimed towards confusing instead of providing proper information. The truth is that it was the fault of at least two people. To make it even worse, they should have known better than to fall victim to a phishing attack or to click on attachments like that.
Topics: On The Web | No Comments »
Marin County Transportation Authority – Malware and Pornography
By Robert | January 9, 2008
Yet again we are hit with a confusing situation involving an official website, pornography and malware. During November 29 and November 30, the Marin Country Transportation Authority web site was hit with the two problems mentioned above. It seems that the problem was due to Marin County’s web host, StartLogic. The real problem stands in the fact that county stopped business relationships with StartLogic in the middle of September. The result was taking their business to a different provider, ValueWeb. On the other hand, even if StartLogic was out of the mix, it seems that a blank placeholder page still remained under StartLogic’s control. The Transportation Authority only learned about this page on November 30. Interesting enough, this meant a stream of malware and pornography from the official .gov web site.
According to Dianne Steinhauser, executive director of Marin County Transportation Authority, no files of theirs was on that page. Even if this was the case, malware started to appear. As soon as they learned about the problem, talks were started with StartLogic to eliminate the web service and it seems that Steinhauser believes that StartLogic is directly responsible for malware. Now the good news is that Marin County tries to change everything and they did admit that they were currently rewriting everything because they were limited, mainly because of how the web site was originally created. It seems that they are actually in the process of changing everything so this is good news. On the other hand, this is the second similar attack to hit the servers of Marin County in the past year. Unfortunately, it seems that this was not a good lesson and something similar happened now. The only good news is that Marin County was not forced to knock everything offline in order to solve the problem, as happened on the first attack.
Topics: On The Web | No Comments »
JetBlue and American Airlines to Test On Flight Internet Connectivity
By Robert | January 9, 2008
We already know that American Airlines and JetBlue are trying to implement Internet access to passengers using their services. What most of us do not know yet is that there are some differences in the approach of these companies. JetBlue plans to only offer IM connectivity and e-mail while American Airlines wants to bring full Internet access to customers. Also, do not expect to have such facilities on every single flight as only some will be equipped with the needed technology, mostly for tests and we also think that there is a need to see whether or not it will be beneficial for the company as well.
JetBlue scheduled the first test flight next week on a flight going from New York to San Francisco, flight number 641, an Airbus 320. This aircraft is actually the company’s standard test airplane for all entertainment or multimedia services that are needed to be evaluated. Also, JetBlue only obtained clearance for the Airbus 320 by the FAA when talking about Internet connectivity. This is not crucial as 104 of the 134 planes JetBlue has are Airbus 320s.
American Airlines is not as fast as JetBlue but we are also talking about full connectivity. An exact date was not set but we do know that it will be next year when the service will be included in the services of the Boeing 767 fleet they currently own. On the other hand, this airplane only makes out 18% of the American Airlines fleet, although it is expected that the system will be implemented in other plane models if there is enough success. Also, American Airlines said that they are only considering putting the system to use on transcontinental flights. This is logical as only 26% of customers are to pay for Internet access on a four hour flight or less according to surveys. This is comparable with the 45% expected on flights that are longer. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the future with on-flight Internet access as it is slowly becoming a reality.
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Dell’s Tablet PC Finally Ships
By Robert | January 9, 2008
Almost 7 months have passed since Dell’s Latitude XT was first announced and now the company is finally ready to sell their first Tablet PC. Dell stated that this baby, weighing in at 3.53 pounds is one of the thinnest and lightest in its class and it was labeled as a ground breaking device by some specialists. The Latitude XT comes at 12.1 inches and supports capacitive and pen touch technology. This means that you can move items around and make actions happen without applying pressure on the display. According to Dell Product Director Margaret Franco, customers had to make tradeoffs in tablet functionality in order to gain usable systems. This is due to the fact that Latitude XT comes with Capacitive touch technology, allowing users to take advantage of tablet technology and enabling them to get everything done better and faster.
Dell claims that the new Tablet PC is better in response times to the competition and also comes with advanced digital palm rejection, something that will aid users a lot in writing on the screen while using a digitizer that is ten times more durable when compared with other tablet PCs. Latitude XT is built around Intel’s Core 2 Solo ULV processor and the Core 2 DUO, while also coming with a Radeon X1250 graphics core. When it comes to keyboard it is full sized with dual pointers while the Tablet PC can accommodate a 120 GB hard drive or a 64GB solid state drive.
The only problem is that the Latitude XT’s Tablet PC needs to come with a price and this is the truth as the base price is of $2,499. Shipments and orders will be met after the end of the year. It will be interesting to take a look at what people will think and to see whether or not Dell will be successful in the Tablet PC world. They should be with such a device.
Topics: Computers | No Comments »
