IETF Engineers Propose Disconnecting Vulnerable IPv6 Feature
Earlier this month, two consulting engineers affiliated with the Internet Engineering Task Force formally proposed the simplest, though easily the most drastic, measure to deal with a diagnostic feature of new IPv6 routing that Cisco learned the hard way two years ago could enable a denial-of-service attack on the Internet's core routers: They recommend turning it off.
As SecurityFocus correspondent Robert Lemos first reported yesterday, two consultants have issued formal drafts to the IETF that officially place on the table for discussion and debate the prospects of disusing the so-called "Type 0 Routing Header." At a security conference in Vancouver last month, a demonstration entitled "Fun with IPv6 Routing Headers" effectively convinced engineers that the problem Cisco first encountered - and warned its customers about in July 2005 - continues to exist.
Wave of New Notebooks Follows Intel Centrino, NVidia 8M
So much has already been said or leaked about Intel's Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro mobile computing platforms - formerly code-named "Santa Rosa" - that this morning's announcement from the company in San Francisco produced few surprises. But the announcement served as a starting gun for notebook computer manufacturers who are anxious to put an end to the seasonally duller spring purchasing season, and move forward the back-to-school buying season.
The Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro platforms designate a typical range of buildouts for notebook system builders who want to use Core 2 Duo mobile processors, and earn the prestigious Intel logo and reap the benefits of cross-marketing. With at least one notebook manufacturer having jumped the gun (quite literally, a marketing manager may have mistaken "May 9" for "May 4" on a schedule), exactly what the new Centrinos will entail is not new.
Microsoft to Divulge SQL Server 'Katmai' Details Tomorrow
This afternoon, Microsoft issued a heads-up to reporters that its chief of the data and storage platform division, Ted Kummert, will be providing new details on the next version of SQL Server, currently code-named "Katmai," tomorrow during a company business conference.
Besides finally pinning a year (2008) onto the product name, perhaps the most important detail we may learn tomorrow is the role the new SQL Server will play in the next generation server environment, which still has its old code-name, "Longhorn."
Gates Calls AJAX 'Very Complex,' Touts Silverlight as an Alternative
During a Strategic Account Summit meeting in Seattle for investors and analysts yesterday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates downplayed the role of Asynchronous JavaScript (AJAX) technologies in future Web development. Gates said this immediately following a demonstration of Silverlight created for Major League Baseball, one of whose principal virtues is that its back end is written entirely in C#, to run within the .NET Compact Framework.
"Over the last three or four years, people have been really finding the limitations of HTML to be very problematic," Gates told the audience, according to Microsoft's official transcript, "and they've been trying some browser capabilities that we had really going back over five years with Internet Explorer 4.0. But even though so-called AJAX-type technologies have forced very complex development, and they don't integrate into the traditional HTML very well. They've been experimenting with things that you download that let you do more interactivity and media."
Sun Tests the Waters With OpenID Over Tim Bray's Objections
The promise of the OpenID system is to enable an individual to essentially have his or her user account recognized by multiple Web sites - a single sign-on for a community of content providers. This while at the same time providing central repositories for that identity, that can serve as a certification center. Yesterday, Sun Microsystems announced its intention to begin experimenting with OpenID by establishing one of its own trust providers for its 34,000 employees.
This, while at the same time, Sun's own high-profile director of Web technologies, Tim Bray, continues to poke holes in the system's execution, enumerating what he perceives as fundamental flaws on his personal blog. One such problem with an OpenID, Bray puts it, "is that, well, having one doesn't mean very much; just that you can verify that some server somewhere says it believes that the person operating the browser owns that ID."
Sun's JavaFX Takes On Flash, Silverlight
At this morning's session of the JavaOne conference in San Francisco, executives of Sun Microsystems are expected to announce the near-term availability of a version of Java exclusively geared to rich Internet application (RIA) developers. Commandeering Microsoft's leftover, unused brand name (".NET FX"), Sun is said to have dubbed this new system "JavaFX."
Its target market, based on information Sun gave exclusively to the trade press and which was leaked early, will be the developers of Web-enabled applications outside the browser. Although that was Java's target market to begin with, Sun appears to be concentrating on the portable graphics developer, in an attempt to fill in the gaps between Java and Flash. In recent years, Adobe's Flash has become the platform of choice due to its ability to scale graphics onto multiple devices, which is now beginning to include cell phones and handsets.
Amazon Settles Patent Suit with IBM, 'Methods' Debate Forestalled
Without disclosing how much money changed hands, Amazon has settled a patent lawsuit brought against it by IBM in October of last year, by apparently purchasing a license for doing what many online retailers may have thought didn't require a one: providing an interactive program online featuring a catalog, including ads, from which users can purchase goods.
These principal business methods were patented by IBM as far back as 1988. After Amazon.com devised an online business model for worldwide warehousing without thinking to check first whether IBM or another computer manufacturer had patented the idea first, IBM evidently sought to sell Amazon a license. When it declined negotiation, based on IBM's description, it declared that "IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," and filed suit against Amazon for IP infringement.
HP to Unveil PC with Hybrid High-Def Drive
A spokesperson for Hewlett-Packard confirmed to BetaNews this afternoon that it will be including a hybrid Blu-ray / HD DVD disc reader and Blu-ray disk writer/re-writer drive as one of the options of its new high-performance Pavilion series PCs, with online availability confirmed for Wednesday.
Though HP would not confirm the brand specifically, it will most likely be using an LG "Super Multi Blue" hybrid disc component, which is the only one available that meets the specifications HP gave us this afternoon.
How Many Users Does Second Life Really Have?
It is another of the Internet's most cutting-edge applications outside the Web: the online community of surrogate identities in the 3D realm of Second Life. It's a virtual world supported by real dollars from companies that lease virtual space, providing the service with real revenue. But just how many real users does it have?
In a recent partnership agreement announced with the National Basketball Association, Commissioner David Stern cited what he characterized as Second Life's six million users. A check today of the site's Web home page refer to its 6.16 million "residents," 1.62 million of whom have logged on within the past 60 days.
Premier League: Google, YouTube Are an IP 'Protection' Racket
In the latest intellectual property rights holders' legal attack on YouTube, and perhaps using the most blistering language to date, England's predominant football (soccer) league has launched a class-action lawsuit against Google and its YouTube division. In its complaint, the Premier League literally accuses the newly merged companies of forming an organized "protection" racket, whose methods are to deceive Congress while extorting low license fees from selected partners in exchange for IP protection.
"In a Twenty-First Century embodiment of an age-old scheme," the League's attorneys write for a filing in US District Court in New York last Friday, "Defendants have agreed to provide 'protection' against their own infringing conduct through a series of 'partnership' agreements with various copyright owners. Put another way, when the license fee sought by a copyright owner is low enough to be deemed satisfactory to Defendants, Defendants find themselves able to shed their blinders and employ technology to safeguard the rights of their new 'partners."'
AMD: CPU/GPU 'Fusion' May Be More Gradual, Past 2009
During a Webcast Friday afternoon, AMD executive vice president Henri Richard told BetaNews that, although one of the goals of his company's joint CPU/GPU combination project with its ATI division, code-named "Fusion," remains to merge pipelining with multicore architecture for everyday applications, its first few iterations may be limited to getting the two chips to share the same die and conserve power, for now.
"My sense is that Fusion will be an evolution," Richard told BetaNews. "Fusion is a vision more than a product. It's a vision that you can put on the same piece of silicon really multi-purpose computing cores, and really whether one core is going to compute x86 instructions and the next one's going to do shading, you get my message."
Dell Joins Microsoft + Novell Linux Pact
Calling Linux and Windows the "two platforms of the future," Novell this morning hailed the entry of Dell as the first systems vendor to join the Microsoft + Novell pact, as a reseller of Microsoft's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates. The deal effectively makes Microsoft a real Linux distributor for the world's #2 supplier of servers.
As for Dell, already a Linux reseller for its server customers, the deal helps tilt its marketing bias somewhat more toward Novell and away from Red Hat, for which Dell is also a supplier. Dell committed this morning to a new marketing campaign that will target existing Linux customers who have not already purchased a Dell-branded distribution.
AACS LA: 'A Line is Crossed'
In its first public comments since the now-mostly-useless 32-hex-digit media processing key was posted to hundreds of thousands of pages, in defiance of a decision by popular commenting site Digg, later rescinded, to remove references to the key, the head of the AACS Licensing Authority's business group told the BBC it is tracking down those responsible for all those posts, and reserves the right to take legal action against any or all of them.
"There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection," the AACS LA's Michael Ayers told BBC technology editor Darren Waters. "We respect free speech... But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then."
Microsoft Takeover Buzz Surrounds Yahoo Again as Cost Cutting Continues
A story in this morning's New York Post - published by the would-be owner of the Wall Street Journal, which followed up on the story - has speculators buzzing yet again, stating #3 search provider Microsoft may be willing to pony up as much as $50 billion to buy out #2 Yahoo.
The Journal ran with the story this morning, crediting the Post with the revelation, and perhaps in so doing testing out the new pecking order in the business press, as Post publisher and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch continues his efforts to lure shareholders of WSJ publisher Dow Jones into a takeover deal. Earlier this week, Murdoch offered Dow a premium well above its market price for shares.
Creative Gives Flash MP3 Another Toss with Zen Stone
With Apple's iPod becoming nearly ubiquitous, a serious #2 competitor in the same market has to strike out and make bold moves if it is to distinguish itself. That's what Creative Technology (the former Creative Labs) has been trying to do with its Zen series of MP3 players - look for the niches where buyers who would reject the iPod would flee, and then attack those niches with stylish designs and gusto.
Creative's already done this on the high side of the market with the Zen Vision:W, an attractive portable media player that makes a case for itself with a larger screen and more flexible support for video standards like DivX and XviD.
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