Hotspot Shield Comes To Android, Keeps Your Mobile Browsing Secure

With mobile phones becoming a bigger and bigger target for would-be data thieves, it's important to make sure your information is safe. On Thursday, Anchorfree released the Android version of Hotspot Shield, giving Android users another tool for protecting themselves.

The app (which is available for download from the Google Play Store) uses a VPN to encrypt a user's browsing session over Wi-Fi. Hotspot Shield for Android will also encrypt other apps as well, theoretically plugging any data leaks that could be occurring due to a poorly written application. Extremely useful for when you're browsing over a public hotspot and aren't sure who could be listening in.

Anchorfree has told me that the app will work on all Android phones running version 2.0 or higher, and that the app also includes built-in compression software to reduce the amount of data you use. The company claim that Hotspot Shield's compression capabilities will allow you to double the amount of web content you can access with your current data plan, but I have yet to test its claims to see if they hold true. Expect a full review of the application in the coming weeks.

If you want to learn more about Anchorfree and its app, you can check out the company's website or download the app yourself from the Play Store. It is a paid service, but you can try it out the free version (that doesn't include the compression capabilities) before deciding whether it's for you or not.

(courtesy:pcworld.com)

Google's World Wonders Project Brings Ancient, Modern Sites Online

Want to take a trip to Stonehenge? How about Versailles?

While many of us can't hop on plane to visit those places, thanks to Google's new World Wonders Project they’re just a mouse click away.

The project allows you to virtually tour 132 historic sites in 18 countries. Sites include Stonehenge, Pompei, Shark Bay in Australia, Yosemite National Park and the palace at Versailles.

From the World Wonders home page, you can choose a virtual tour by location or by theme.

Once you arrive at a site, you can immerse yourself in it. You can "walk" around using Google's Street View technology. Since automobiles weren't allowed in some of the sites in World Wonders, Google had to use cameras mounted on tricycles to create street views of the locales, the company explained in a blog.

In addition to taking a ground-level tour of a site, you can display information about it with a click.

On some sites, you can also look at 3D models of the locale, watch videos about it and see photos of it, some of them gleaned from sources such as Getty Images and Ourplace.

A number of education guides for about a half-dozen of the sites in the project are also offered for students at World Wonders.

World Wonders was developed under the auspices of the Google Cultural Institute, which, in the past, has brought to the Internet such gems as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the archives of Nelson Mandela.

(courtesy:pcworld.com)

Cricket Wireless Brings iPhone to its Prepaid Network

Remember the days when you could only get the iPhone on AT&T? My, how things have changed. Cricket Wireless has announced that it will bring the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S on its prepaid network. This is the first time the iPhone has been offered on a prepaid carrier.

That means you’ll have to shell out a little more for the iPhone since it won’t be subsidized. When the phones go on sale June 22, a 16GB iPhone 4S will cost $500 and an 8GB iPhone 4 will cost $400. Before your jaw drops at those prices, take into consideration how cheap Cricket’s plan is: $55 per month for unlimited voice, SMS and data. Calling the data unlimited is a little misleading, however: you must stay within Cricket’s faire usage policy of 2.3GB of data a month.

Since Cricket’s plan is prepaid, you won’t get slapped with surprise post-paid, usage-based fees as you might on a contract carrier. If the prepaid model appeals to you, but you’ve never been too thrilled with the current prepaid phones out there, this will be good news for you. Just be sure to check where Cricket’s coverage is as it doesn’t cover all of the United States.

(courtesy:pcworld.com)

RIM sinks, but patents, network have value

Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, is in steep decline. The company, once the crown jewel of the Canadian technology industry, is now worth 1 percent of Apple's market capitalization. One way for RIM to stop the downward tailspin: It could sell itself to a competitor or financial firm. But who would step up to buy RIM —and why?

Late Tuesday, the company said it expects to post an operating loss for the current quarter, a sign that BlackBerry sales are falling even faster than analysts expected. On Wednesday, the company's stock hit its lowest level since 2003, the year RIM went from making two-way e-mail pagers to smartphones.

The stock has fallen 93 percent since their peak in 2008. Since then, the BlackBerry's dominance as the smartphone for on-the-go business people has been eviscerated by Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and more recently, by phones running Google Inc.'s Android software. Research firm IDC says BlackBerrys now account for 6.4 percent of the global smartphone market, a third of what they had two years ago.

In that time, the company's financial performance has suffered. RIM reported a 25 percent revenue decline in the latest fiscal quarter, to $4.2 billion from $5.6 billion. For the full fiscal year that ended on March 3, it earned $1.2 billion, or $2.22 per share, on revenue of $18.4 billion. That's down from net income of $3.4 billion, or $6.34 a share, on revenue of $19.9 billion in fiscal 2011.

RIM issued the dire warning about its business Tuesday, adding that it will lay off a "significant" number of employees.

Still, the company is defiant. Chief executive, Thorsten Heins, says he can turn things around with the help of fresh smartphone software. Heins joined RIM four years ago and was most recently its chief operating officer. He replaced co-CEOs Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis in January after the company lost tens of billions in market value.

"My charter from the board of directors is very clear: long-term value creation with RIM," Heins told The Associated Press in an interview at the company's headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, earlier this month.

Analysts give RIM only a slight chance of coming out of the crisis. To hedge its bets, the company has hired bankers to look at its options. It's not actively looking to sell itself, Heins said, but it wants to be prepared.

"We are prudent because we know the situation is somewhat challenging," Heins said. "So we are just looking at everything that could be an option. That doesn't mean we are pulling on those options. But we need to understand ... what is our field of action that we could take in case we need to?"

As RIM's prospects worsened, last year marked a turning point in the way analysts assess RIMs value. Instead of treating it like a company with a future, they started looking at it as a collection of parts that could be split up and sold separately to the highest bidder.

Michael Walkley at Canaccord Genuity believes most of the company's value lies in the monthly fees it gets from phone companies in exchange for running the systems that deliver email and Web pages to BlackBerrys.

RIM has 78 million users connected to this system, but Walkley estimates that only 20 million are corporate and government users who are likely to stick around because of the communications security RIM provides. The rest are consumers who will jump to competing phones, he believes. That business is worth about $2.75 billion to a competitor, Walkley wrote in a research report Wednesday.

The other major component of RIM's value is its patent portfolio. The company had an early scare in U.S. patent courts in 2006, when it was forced to pay $612.5 million to a small company founded by an inventor who had patents on wireless e-mail delivery. Since then, it's filed for thousands of patents to use as a defense against future suits.

Patents on wireless technologies exploded in value last year, as Apple and Microsoft Corp. started suing makers of phones that run Google's Android software. Countersuits followed. A consortium that included Apple and RIM bought the patents of a defunct Canadian maker of telecommunications gear, Nortel, for $4.5 billion last year. That compares with the $1.13 billion Nortel's once-prominent wireless networks business fetched in 2009.

As a counter-move, Google bolstered its own patent portfolio by buying Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a U.S. phone maker with only slightly better prospects than RIM, for $12.5 billion.

Where does that leave RIM? Christopher Marlett, the CEO of MDB Capital, said RIM's patents are worth more than $1 billion, and could be worth as much as $4 billion if a bidding war develops between Apple, Google, Microsoft Corp. and perhaps Samsung Electronics Co.

"It's a question of how aggressive they get," Marlett said. His firm is an investment bank that focuses on intellectual property, including patents.

Walkley puts the value of RIM's portfolio at $2.5 billion, excluding the patents RIM bought from Nortel and shares with Apple, Microsoft and other buyers.

RIM has $2.1 billion in cash, but Walkley discounts this completely, since the phone business will likely start using up cash soon, and downsizing will require severance payments. That means the email network and the patents comprise RIM's entire value at $5.25 billion, by his estimate.

That's very close to RIM's current market capitalization, at $5.4 billion, though a buyer could be expected to pay a premium.

The cash cushion also means that RIM is in no imminent danger of going bankrupt. But as the shares decline, RIM is likely to face increasing pressure from shareholders to unlock the company's value through a sale, and to abandon the comeback plan.

A possible middle ground would be to sell the patent portfolio while keeping the rest of the company. Two months ago, AOL, once a pioneering Internet service provider, sold and licensed its patents —which are more modest than RIM's for $1 billion— to Microsoft.

Microsoft is one company that's been suggested as a potential RIM buyer. The software juggernaut is trying to get back into smartphone software, but its Windows Phones haven't been popular so far. Buying RIM could give it a chance to establish itself as a provider of trusted wireless email services, though moving subscribers from BlackBerry to Windows could be challenging.

(courtesy:news.yahoo.com)

Flame virus a new age cyber spy tool

The Flame computer virus that smoldered undetected for years inMiddle Eastern energy facilities confirmed fears that the world has entered a new age of cyber espionage and sabotage.

Internet defenders on Wednesday were tearing into freshly exposed Flame malware (malicious software) that could be adapted to spread to critical infrastructures in countries around the world.

While the components and tactics of Flame were considered old school, the gigantic virus's interchangeable software modules and targeted nature were evidence that malware is a potent weapon in the Internet era.

"We are seeing much more specific types of malware and attacks," said McAfee Labs director of security research David Marcus.

"When you talk about a situation where the attacker knows the victim and tailors the malware for the environment it jumps out," he said. "That speaks to good reconnaissance and an attacker who knows what they are doing."

Gathering intelligence on targets and then crafting viruses to exploit specific networks as well as the habits of people using them is "certainly in vogue" and is an attack style heralded by the Stuxnet malware, Marcus said.

Stuxnet, which was detected in July 2010, targeted computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Most Stuxnet infections were discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there, especially the Russian-built atomic power plant in the southern city of Bushehr.

Suspicion fell on Israel and the United States, which have accused Iran of seeking to develop a weapons capability under the cover of a civilian nuclear drive. Tehran denies the charges.

"Stuxnet and Duqu belonged to a single chain of attacks, which raised cyberwar-related concerns worldwide," said Eugene Kaspersky, founder of Kaspersky Lab, which uncovered Flame.

"The Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war, and it's important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any country."

Flame malware was larger than Stuxnet and protected by multiple layers of encryption.

It appears to have been "in the wild" for two years or longer and prime targets so far have been energy facilities in the Middle East.

High concentrations of compromised computers were found in the Palestinian West Bank, Hungary, Iran, and Lebanon. Additional infections have been reported in Austria, Russia, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.

Compromised computers included many being used from home connections, according to security researchers who were looking into whether reports of infections in some places resulted from workers using laptops while traveling.

While Stuxnet was crafted to do real-world damage to machinery, Flame was designed to suck information from computer networks and relay what it learned back to those controlling the virus.

Flame can record keystrokes, capture screen images, and eavesdrop using microphones built into computers.

In an intriguing twist, the malware can also use Bluetooth capabilities in machines to connect with smartphones or tablets, mining contact lists or other information, according to security researchers.

"There is lot of intelligence gathering and espionage-like behavior from the malware," Marcus said. "You can turn that to target any industry you want.

"It looks like the infection spread is specific to Middle East, but malware is indiscriminate in a lot of things so it can jump," he continued.

Marcus advised companies to not only keep network software up to date but to ratchet up security settings because threats such as Flame are carefully crafted to "fly under the radar."

For example, Flame reportedly sneaked back out to the Internet by activating a seemingly innocuous Internet Explorer online browsing session.

Geographically targeted cyber espionage and even modular components in viruses have been around for years, Rik Ferguson of security firm Trend Micro said in his blog at countermeasures.trendmicro.eu.

Flame stands out for being a malware behemoth of nearly 20 megabytes and for its use of Bluetooth capabilities, according to Ferguson, who branded the malware a tool, not a weapon.

"You can't get around the fact that the thing is gigantic," Marcus said. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to really confound researchers. We are going to be ripping this sucker apart for a long time to figure everything it was doing."

(courtesy:news.yahoo.com)

The White House's Next Enemy: Botnets

The Obama administration has picked its next digital target: Botnets, networks of computers that hackers can aim at a single website, overloading it with illegitimate traffic and knocking it offline -- all unbeknownst to the owners of the computers involved.

To fight against botnets, the White House has endorsed a voluntary plan built around principles developed by the Industry Botnet Group, or IBG, a group of telecom non-profit and trade organizations.

Some of the group's recommendations include coordinating anti-botnet efforts across different sectors and countries, single firms sharing lessons learned with other businesses and respecting the privacy of Internet users during anti-botnet operations.

"The issue of botnets is larger than any one industry or country," White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said in a statement. "This is why partnership is so important. The principles the IBG are announcing today draw on expertise from the widest range of players, with leadership coming from the across the private sector, and partnering with the government on items like education, consumer privacy and key safeguards in law enforcement."

Additionally, the "Stop, Think, Connect" campaign, sponsored by several companies including Microsoft, PayPal and Google, also took the opportunity to announce a joint educational effort with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Homeland Security. Called the "Keep a Clean Machine" campaign, the program aims to teach average computer users and businesses how to avoid, detect and get rid of botnets and other malicious code.

The White House also said that the FBI and Secret Service had "stepped up private sector information sharing," which led to the successful elimination of botnet networks. Meanwhile, a financial industry organization announced a plan to share information about botnet attacks with firms outside the financial sector.

Computer security firm McAfee said that nearly five million computers worldwide have taken part in botnet attacks.

(courtesy:news.yahoo.com)

Hands-on with Intel's new ultrabook-friendly Ivy Bridge CPUs

The first batch of Intel's third-generation Core-i-series processors (also known by the code name Ivy Bridge) arrived in late April. But, those initial chips only covered the very high end of the spectrum, being quad-core Core i7 CPUs destined for high-end gaming and multimedia laptops.

While more mainstream Ivy Bridge CPUs have been expected for some time, Intel has now officially revealed new details of the Core i5 and low-voltage Core i7 chips. We've been testing systems with some of the new processors, most notably the 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3427U. This is a low-voltage mobile processor specifically targeted at ultrabooks, a category both Intel and PC makers are trying to expand.

The ultrabook, for the uninitiated, is a trademarked Intel marketing term that represents a list of hardware and software requirements for ultrathin laptops. There are specific rules for components, system height, screen size, and other factors, but the basic thrust is to create premium laptops that rival Apple's MacBook Air.

To date, we've liked a lot of the ultrabook hardware we've seen, but current models are all using second-generation Intel Core i-series CPUs, so they feel a bit dated now that we've been talking about Ivy Bridge for so long.

With the Core i5-3427U and other new dual-core CPUs, many of the same benefits we've seen in massive gaming systems such as the Origin Eon 17-S and Maingear EX-L 15 can now trickle down to superslim, highly portable laptops.

One of the biggest of those advantages is even more relevant for smaller laptops. Intel's new HD 4000 graphics replaces the previous HD 3000 version, and the company promises that you'll be able to play current high-end PC games without needing a separate Nvidia or AMD GPU. On the gaming rigs we've previously tested, that was mostly a moot point, as those laptops have powerful discrete graphics cards already.

On an ultrabook or other mainstream laptop without a separate GPU, HD 4000 becomes much more valuable. The ability to play more than the most basic PC games will help ultrabooks and other mainstream laptops become more full-fledged entertainment devices.

Intel provided a sample Core i5-3427U ultrabook with HD 4000 graphics for testing. We've run gaming tests on that system, several of the earlier quad-core Core i7 Ivy Bridge laptops, and a handful of other new dual-core Intel third-generation Core-i-series laptops that will be announced in the near future.

The Intel sample ultrabook ran Street Fighter IV at its native 1,600x900-pixel resolution at 21.4 frames per second. Other Ivy Bridge systems ran the same test at up to 33 frames per second with the help of powerful quad-core CPUs. Those may not sound like amazing frame rates, but previous second-generation Core i5 laptops with Intel's HD 3000 graphics usually ran the same test at about 13 frames per second.

Newer games, such as Skyrim or Diablo III, ran at playable, if not impressive rates, as long as detail levels were kept to lower settings. This isn't going to be a serious gamer's main way to play, but it's fine for travel or occasional dungeon runs. You can read a more in-depth discussion of Intel's HD 4000 graphics here.

Battery life gets less of a boost, but the second-generation Core i-series platform was such a big step forward for battery life that there's not as much headroom to make gains. Our Intel-provided generic 13-inch ultrabook ran for 5 hours and 6 minutes on our video playback battery drain test. That's an excellent score for a 13-inch laptop, and hopefully indicative of what we'll see in future ultrabooks. Ivy Bridge systems with standard voltage and/or Core i7 CPUs have run for an hour or two less in our tests, but those have generally been very good as well.

The new Intel third-generation CPUs are as follows. A "U" designation indicates low-voltage, "M" means standard voltage. The former is for ultrabooks and other superslim laptops; the standard chips will end up in regular midsize laptops.

Core i7 
i7-3667U, i7-3517U, i7-3520M

Core i5
i5-3427U, i5-3317U, i5-3360M, i5-3320M, i5-3210M.

The list of previously released quad-core Core i7 processors can be found here. Stay tuned for full reviews of laptops using these new CPUs starting today, with the Lenovo ThinkPad X230, and continuing through the coming weeks.

Below are benchmark results comparing several laptops with new dual-core Ivy Bridge CPUs, contrasted with the Lenovo IdeaPad Y480, which has one of the Ivy Bridge quad-core Core i7 CPUs released several weeks ago.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

325 

Asus Zenbook UX32V

505 

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

512 

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)

641 

Adobe Photoshop CS5 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

151 

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

167 

Asus Zenbook UX32V

197 

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)

203 

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

100 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

100 

Asus Zenbook UX32V

113 

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)

130 

Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

364 

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)

306 

Asus Zenbook UX32V

273 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

231 

Annual energy consumption cost

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)

$3.56 

Lenovo Thinkpad X230

$3.57 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

$5.29 

Asus Zenbook UX32V

$6.20 

System configurations
Asus Zenbook UX32V
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 620M + 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 500GB Hitachi 5400rpm

Intel Ultrabook (Whitebox)
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3427U; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 64MB(Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 240GB Intel SSD

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE + 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 750GB Western Digital 5400rpm

Lenovo Thinkpad X230
Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-3320M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 64MB (Shared) Intel HD 4000; 320GB Hitachi 7200rpm.

(courtesy:cnet.com)