Latest Technology News

The furor over Carrier IQ tracking software only intensified on Thursday, as different affected parties attempted to limit public relations or potential legal damage. Apple and Verizon both essentially disavowed Carrier IQ, while Sprint acknowledged using the software/service but narrowed the scope. Meanwhile, the Carrier IQ website couldn't handle sudden traffic surges. BetaNews used a Google cached version to obtain the official statement, but later reached the site.

Android developer Trevor Eckhart instigated the Carrier IQ scandal in a blog post and YouTube video based on his investigation of a persistent process running on HTC Android phones. He uncovered Carrier IQ, which he calls a rootkit because of its stealth behavior and the amount of information/services tapped. "The application is hidden in nearly every part of our phones, including the kernel", he writes. "Carrier IQ also subverts standard operating system functionality".

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This is one of the more uncomfortable years the PC ecosystem has ever endured. It started out sluggish, and never really recovered. Early on, Intel’s CEO chided market researchers who didn’t echo his call for double-digit unit growth. (Full disclosure: so did I.) AMD’s board booted its leader in part for taking much the same stand.

Slow growth alone, though, isn’t what draped 2011 in a soot-colored hue. The industry has seen its share of ups and downs. But this year is different. Because while PC sales were under-performing, shipments of these new things, media tablets, skyrocketed. Coincidence?

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Taiwanese PC maker Asus has announced its quad-core Eee Pad Transformer Prime Android tablet will be available for order December 12th online and December 19th in physical retail stores.

The tablet is the first device to be built on Nvidia's new Tegra 3 system on a chip, and will carry a pricetag of $499 for the version with 32GB of storage, and $599 for the 64GB version. The Eee Station keyboard dock adds $149 to the total, but comes with the benefit of an additional battery that expands the life of the Transformer Prime by approximately six hours, bringing it to a total of 18 hours of battery life.

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Microsoft shouldn't break out the champagne just yet, but there's still reason to celebrate even if no trend is yet evident. Internet Explorer usage share nudged up ever so slightly in November, according to new data Network Applications released today. Meanwhile, Chrome kept its relentless march upward -- for the 13th consecutive month. Firefox is still No. 2, contrary to reports today from StatCounter. I trust NetApps data more.

Safari was by far the month's biggest loser, with usage share falling to 5 percent from 5.43 percent in October. The loss is no small matter. Safari is integral to Apple's broader digital lifestyle push, where synchronization is vital component -- and that includes Safari. Related: Apple shipped record number of Macs during third calendar quarter, launched iPhone 4S and iCloud and saw global PC share top 5 percent. By that reckoning, Safari share should be up, not down.

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Reports from Chinese media this week have been talking up the impending launch of Windows Phone in China. Microsoft's mobile operating system is expected to land in China some time in the first half of 2012, and Lenovo may be the first "unofficially announced" OEM partner.

Lenovo doesn't steal headlines with unconventional and groundbreaking designs or new sexy hardware. Instead, the company makes simple, functional devices that encompass a massive part of the workforce. In short, Lenovo makes kick ass black boxes.

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Anyone with children will know that it can be difficult to police use of the Internet. The fact that you have young children means that you are naturally concerned about web content, and many parents would love to be able to use the Internet with their offspring to ensure that they don’t stray into unwanted territory.

But in reality, this is often impractical as there are few people who have the time spare to be able to monitor their children, however much they may want to do so. AVG Family Safety is a software alternative to a parent’s watchful eye, making it possible to not only monitor but also control what your children use the Internet for.

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Okay, the stupidity lies with cellular carriers who let the tracking software onto their phones. Their actions will irreparably tarnish the industry's image and quite likely lead to unwanted government intervention. I'm assuming, of course, that Carrier IQ really is as bad as Android developer Trevor Eckhart claims. My God, what if it's worse?

Carrier IQ is tracking software that behaves every bit like a keylogger -- installed at a low-level like a rootkit would be. It logs all activities. That's right. Everything, even when the phone is disconnected from the network, or when using WiFi, and it continues its privacy-violating ways even after a cellular subscriber's contract has expired. Simply put: It's an abomination. It's a violation of privacy in the worst way, because cell phones are the most personal tech devices and used to maintain the most intimate relationships.

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Microsoft has released a public beta version of its Windows Security Essentials package, giving users a sneak glimpse of what to expect from future releases. There are not a huge number of changes to speak of, but the release is an important advancement for a home-user friendly security suite that has gained a large following since it debuted. Windows Security Essentials 4 beta is available right now to anyone with a Windows Live ID.

There are some minor interface tweaks to be seen in the application, but it is the improvements to performance and the detection process that are most interesting. One of the concerns with running any security software is the potential for it to impact on system performance -- and this is one reason why many people simply do not bother installing security software. Performance tweaks help to reduce the strain on your system while it is protected.

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I've got a soft spot for Windows Phone. The operating system is classy, vibrant, intuitive and refreshing -- the latter particularly compared to Android and iOS. Windows Phone also is a bleeding failure, as I predicted it would be in February 2010 -- when calling the platform a "lost cause". I grudgingly admit to being right. Ah hum. Only Nokia can save Windows Phone now. They swim for land or drown together.

Yesterday, Nielsen released US smartphone operating system share at end of third quarter. For Android and iOS: 42.8 percent and 28.3 percent, respectively. Windows Phone: 1.2 percent, which is less than Symbian (1.7 percent) -- the operating system WP will replace on Nokia handsets, which have far less visibility than does WP7 in the United States; that's sadist commentary of all. Windows Mobile share is 6.1 percent, and that's a good place for Microsoft to really target. Imagine if all those customers could convert to smartphones running the newer software.

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The United Nations finds itself resecuring its network Wednesday following a hack that resulted in the login details of the employees of several divisions being posted to the Internet. Calling itself TeaMp0isoN, the group calls the UN "a Senate for global corruption" and "sits to facilitate the introduction of a New World Order and a One World Government".

TeaMp0isoN hacked accounts belonging to employees of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO) among others. Some of the fault for the hack may lie in the users themselves: TeaMp0isoN notes that several of the user IDs contained no password at all.

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Music streaming service Spotify on Wednesday unveiled the Spotify Platform, which lets third party developers build apps into the popular Spotify streaming music service.

The platform launches with apps from thirteen partners, including Billboard, Fuse, Last.fm, The Guardian, Moodagent, Pitchfork, We Are Hunted, Rolling Stone, Songkick, Soundrop, and TuneWiki. The apps can be accessed through Spotify's App Finder, which launches in beta today.

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It’s barely a week since the first public beta, but the Windows version of TeamViewer 7 was still released in full earlier today. And this is no cosmetic upgrade. The popular remote access tool has been revitalized with some major features that open it up to an entirely new audience.

Top of the list is TeamViewer’s new ability to hold online meetings for up to 25 people. Despatch email invitations to your prospective attendees, and when the time arrives they’ll be able to join you via smartphones, tablets or computers. The program provides just about all the functionality you’d expect from this kind of group collaboration tool, with everyone at the meeting able to view the same screen, see and hear everything you’re doing, exchange text chat, use a white board and share files. And it’s even possible to record a video of the event for convenient reference later.

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Earlier this month, Android developer Trevor Eckhart looked into an always-on process in his HTC Android phones called Carrier IQ, and discovered the application was actually capturing all user actions (ostensibly for the purposes of "mobile service intelligence") without providing users the ability to opt out or shut off the process.

In fact, Eckhart suggested the only option to escape the keylogging behavior of the application was for users to root their phone and install new firmware without it. For this reason, Eckhart classified Carrier IQ as a rootkit.

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Today, Microsoft reported record Black Friday week Xbox console sales -- 960,000 units. That works out to roughly one per minute, assuming six-and-a-half days of sales (reduced for Thanksgiving Day). It's a phenomenal achievement for an aging console and demonstrates how Kinect and lower-entry cost 4GB models extend Xbox vitality as a platform. Microsoft describes the milestone as the "biggest week of sales in Xbox history".

However, the sales per minute is much higher for Black Friday -- well, presumably. Microsoft says that 800,000 consoles sold in one 24-hour period, which I assume means day after Thanksgiving. That works out to 555.5555 Xboxes per minute. Consumers also snatched up 750,000 Kinect sensors -- that's standalone and bundled -- during the whole week.

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When you’re trying to troubleshoot a friend’s PC then it’s often useful to know more about what’s on their hard drive: installed programs, the \Windows folder, temporary folders maybe, and more. If you’re sitting in front of the system then you can just launch Explorer and take a look. When the friend is far away, though, this becomes rather more difficult, as Explorer provides no way to for your friend to, say, save a report on the contents of the \Windows folder.

And while you could try a command line trick or two – dir c:\windows /s > \report.txt, maybe – that won’t exactly produce the most readable of file listings. Fortunately this isn’t necessary, though -- not if you have a copy of the free Snap2HTML, which makes it very simple to record the contents of any folder tree.

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