PC World Philippines » Fei

New Facebook phishing attack “In the wild” warns Kaspersky Lab

Fei — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:00:52 +0000

February 8, 2012

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions is warning Facebook users of a new form of phishing which, tries to steal not just their Facebook credentials but also their credit cards information.

“This Facebook phishing attack is pretty interesting because it does not just try to trick the victim into visiting a phishing website,” says Kaspersky Lab security expert David Jacoby.

“It will reuse the stolen information and login to the compromised account and change both profile picture and name. The profile picture will be changed to the Facebook logo and the name will be translated to “Facebook Security” but containing special ASCII characters replacing letters such as “a” “k” “S” and “t”,” Jacoby explained.

Once an account is compromised it will also send out a message to all contacts of the compromised account. The message looks like this:

“Last Warning: Your Facebook account will be turned off Because someone has reported you. Please do re-confirm your account security by: => http://apps-xxxx-xxxxx-user.de.vu
Thank you. The Facebook Team”/

When a victim clicks on the link, he will be redirected to a website that looks and feels like Facebook’s own website. The fake Facebook site then asks the victim to provide personal information such as name, email address, password, webmail system, among others.

When submitting this form, the details will be sent to the attacker who can automatically login to your Facebook account and compromise it.

After filling up these details, the victim will be asked for final identity confirmation with a payment and by having the person give his or her credit card information.

Jacoby advises Facebook users to be aware of such threats to avoid becoming victims.

“These scams are just getting more popular and we really recommend not giving out personal information, especially not email, password and credit card information over social media. It is also recommended that you contact your security vendor and the social media vendor if you encounter these sites,” he said.

AMD execs tout firm’s tablet plans

Fei — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:59:35 +0000

By Sharon Gaudin
February 8, 2012

FRAMINGHAM – With new CEO Rory Read at the helm for about six months, Advanced Micro Devices has turned its attention to the lucrative and burgeoning tablet market.

The question is whether it’s too late for AMD, which hasn’t been at the top of its game recently, to successfully enter a new market, analysts said.

“I don’t think [AMD is too late],” said Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT. “The company’s focus on a combination of quality graphics performance, energy efficiency and competitive cost should be right down the alley of many tablet makers.

“Plus, he added, “rumors of Apple’s world domination aside, the tablet market is anything but mature. I expect we’ll see any number of challengers rising up and even winning in some markets.”

Lisa Su, general manager of AMD’s Global Business Units, told analysts and reporters last week that the company is going after the tablet market “in a big way.”

AMD is betting that a new 40-nanometer chip, code-named Hondo, will power Windows 8-based tablets once it starts shipping later this year.

AMD and Intel both have been slow to make headway in the mobile market, whether tablets or smartphones. And that’s been a problem for both chip giants.

As PC sales decline with the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets, tech industry watchers have been waiting for both companies to make a strong move to provide chips for mobile devices.

Intel last month inked deals with Motorola and Lenovo to provide next-generation Atom chips for those companies smartphones.

And then last week, AMD made its move to grab a piece of the tablet pie.

While Apple’s iPad holds a huge chunk of the market, industry analysts say there’s still plenty of room for rival devices and chips to power them.

“Tablets are still an emerging market and could be consumed by tablet-notebook hybrids like the Lenovo and Asus offerings once Windows 8 ships,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “[AMD] will need a compelling advantage if they are going to be a major player.”

Olds added that it’s smart for AMD to build a tablet chip from the ground up, instead of reconfiguring an existing chip.

“This is an area where AMD’s purchase of ATI and the resulting Fusion, which combines CPU and GPU in a single package, might really pay off,” Olds said. “One of the biggest performance inhibitors, and power drains too, is graphic processing. AMD, with its Fusion architecture, has one-upped Intel on the integrated graphics front and this could give them a solid advantage when it comes to tablets.”

Read told attendees at the financial analyst conference in Santa Clara that the company doesn’t plan an immediate move into the smartphone market.

“I think it’s understandable, especially for a company in a rebuilding phase,” said King.

“Despite its size and growth potential, the smartphone market has been a brutal space for vendors offering alternatives to established CPUs. The tablet market, on the other hand, is still relatively wide open. Competing in smartphone CPUs is somewhat akin to running head first into a brick wall, while tablets are more like a picket fence,” King added.

Some analysts wondered whether the company should have made a bigger splash at its meeting with analysts last week, considering it was seen as Read’s coming out event.

Industry observers had been eagerly waiting to see if Read and his team would surprise them with a re-energized product roadmap.

“AMD’s new management team presented with confidence and energy,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “They did a good job communicating their priorities for the next few years.

“But I believe that many in AMD’s ecosystem wanted to see more dramatic announcements, like … plans to take large chunks of server market share. AMD will need to start taking market share to create some real excitement around the company,” he added.

Take Great Product Photos for Your Online Store

Fei — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:00:21 +0000

By Lauren Mary-Crabbe
February 7, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO – When you’re selling items on shopping sites such as eBay and Etsy, presentation and marketing are just as important as producing a high-quality product. Customers are bombarded with images of goods of all shapes and sizes. Since they can’t try things on or test them out, it’s important for you to provide a clear, accurate, and appealing representation. Even if the cashmere scarf you knitted is beautiful in person, no one will want it if it appears out of focus, looks poorly lit, or sits wrapped around your unshaven friend’s neck.

Luckily, you don’t need to hire a photographer or use a professional studio to take great product shots. Simply follow these steps to cast your product in the best light and please the eye of would-be buyers.

Choose Your Equipment

When you’re on a shoestring budget, the best camera for product photography is the one you have. The cameras on modern smartphones are of extremely high quality–the Droid Razr and iPhone 4S, for instance, each pack an 8-megapixel camera. You can find many options for camera accessories, too, such as external lenses and tripods for smartphones–especially for iPhones. (For details, check out our list of must-have iPhone camera accessories.)
If you can afford new equipment, an interchangeable-lens camera or a digital single-lens reflex camera is the best choice for high-quality shooting and easy manual focusing. Both camera types usually come with a kit lens designed for zoom versatility; for the best results, however, a dedicated macro lens or wide-aperture portrait lens might be worth the extra cash. (See the “Choose Your Lens” section on the next page for more information.)
Between those two extremes are your standard point-and-shoot cameras, which are much more affordable than the average DSLR or interchangeable-lens model. Most basic snapshot cameras cost around $200, but at that price they usually don’t offer significantly better quality or controls than a high-end smartphone camera. For about $300 to $500, you can buy a higher-end point-and-shoot camera with a wider aperture, manual controls for focusing, and a zoom range that provides ideal focal lengths for both wide-angle (24mm) and macro photography (50mm and up).

No matter what kind of camera you use, a tripod is essential if you lack steady hands and want a consistent angle on the product while you change the lighting. Miniature tripods, such as the bendy Gorillapod, are handy and affordable. At the very least, find a solid, flat surface to rest your camera on while snapping each shot.

Understand Your Camera

Some external lenses can make your photos look as if you captured them with a more expensive camera, but other lenses are suitable only for novelty effects. For product photography, stick to the macro lens attachments. If you encounter any distortion, blurriness, or trouble focusing, ditch the attachment and stay with your original lens.

You have no need to shoot in full-manual mode for basic product photography, but you should understand how to focus your camera manually and turn off its automatic flash. Check out PCWorld’s guide to camera basics for guidance.
If you are using a smartphone, try an app that lets you manually focus and edit easily. The Camera+ app for iOS and the Camera 360 app for Android, for instance, let you take and edit your photos right on your phone.
Be careful to avoid using distracting effects. A tilt-shift, blurring effect can make your product stand out in the frame, but a retro or comic book effect won’t provide an accurate representation of your product. If you’re using the default iOS camera app on the iPhone, make sure that HDR is off.

Once you have turned off the flash, choose a focus mode that allows you to select a single point in the frame–called “Single-Point” on Nikon cameras and “Manual AF Point” on Canon cameras. This mode is extremely common in DSLRs, and it’s available in many higher-end point-and-shoots as well. In this mode, the camera automatically focuses on a point in the frame that you’ve chosen; an empty square marks this exposure and focusing point in the viewfinder or on the live-view screen. On iOS and Android phones, you can simply touch the on-screen objects to adjust focus and exposure automatically.

Choose Your Lens: Wide vs. Standard

With a point-and-shoot, extend your lens as far as it can go optically for the basic shot of a stand-alone product. Be careful not to zoom in digitally, as that will do nothing but compromise the quality of your photo. Many point-and-shoots have a “macro” mode in-camera that can be great for capturing details and shrinking the depth of field so that your product stands out in the frame.

If you have a DSLR or a camera with an interchangeable-lens, you may have different lenses to choose from. The classic approach to product photography is to use a longer lens (50mm or over) to avoid any distortion of the product’s appearance, but online entrepreneurs are becoming more creative. Long lenses are ideal for product photography because they can provide a thinner plane of focus and cause very little distortion–perfect when you’re taking the basic shot of a product.
But you’ll also want to take secondary photos showing the product in a setting that suggests how it can be used. For these shots, a wide-angle lens can provide context since it allows more room for background objects and scenes. Be careful not to go too wide, though: Below about 24mm, you start to enter fish-eye territory.

If you have some cash to spare, you may want to splurge on a macro lens for your DSLR or interchangeable-lens camera. They’re top-notch for getting in extremely close to show the intricate details of your handiwork.

Choose Your Background: Natural vs. Studio

Aim to show your product in an environment in which it would be used, or on its own against a simple, blank backdrop. For my examples, I wanted to show off my cousin Lexie Fisher’s handmade dinosaur mugs.

Natural Lighting

For a naturally lit photo, push a table up against a window on a cloudy day, or cover the direct sunlight with sheer curtains. You want the light coming through the window to create a bright, natural, blank background. The curtain will create diffused light that won’t cast harsh shadows or cause glare. Place your product on a surface with an interesting texture, such as natural wood for a rustic, handmade item.

One popular technique used in tech-product photography is to capture the product as well as a bit of its reflection in the surface it’s sitting on. This is an easy trick to pull off: Putting the product on any dull, reflective surface, such as a dark, glossy piece of paper, will work for this effect.

Turn off all the light fixtures in the room to prevent color contamination from lights, which normally cast a different color temperature than daylight does. Then, set up some mirrors and a large, white surface to shine the window light back onto your product. You could spend hundreds of dollars on professional reflectors; for most purposes, however, a white posterboard and some makeup mirrors are perfect. Light your product so that it appears slightly darker than the light coming through the window. Then, set the exposure for a medium-to-dark spot on the product, and shoot away.

For secondary photos, use a wider lens (between 24mm and 50mm) and pair your product with items that match the aesthetic you’re trying to convey. For example, to shoot a handmade mug for sale, I placed a shiny red teapot out of focus in the background, and a crossword puzzle in the foreground. I poured hot water in the mug to create steam, and I made sure that the angles of my props led the viewer’s eye toward the product.

Studio Lighting

To create a studio situation, you can make a backdrop out of any large, thick piece of paper and some duct tape. Place the paper so that it makes a soft angle, to avoid showing the hard edges of the paper in your shot. To create dynamic lighting, turn off all unwanted lights and black out your windows. Use two lamps with the same type of bulb, set at alternating angles. (I used two 20-watt fluorescent bulbs from my desk lamps.) You can use any bulbs available, just as long as they both give off the same color so that your camera can automatically adjust and portray your product in its true color. Therefore, don’t have more than one type of bulbs, such as incandescent, fluorescent, or LED, in one shot.

To prevent glare and harsh shadows, you can diffuse the lights by placing a piece of 8.5-by-11-inch printer paper between the bulb and the product. Don’t attach the paper directly to the bulb, which poses a fire hazard. Instead, ask an assistant to hold it, or prop it up with clamps between the bulb and your product. You can also “bounce” the light to make it appear softer: Simply direct the light toward a large, white, reflective surface, such as the posterboard I used in the natural-light example, and angle the reflection toward your product.

A long lens is best for studio situations because it will keep the shot tight enough to exclude the edges of the backdrop. If you have a large backdrop, you can include contextual objects for secondary photos.

Go Easy on the Editing

Any basic photo-editing software, such as the free Windows Live Photo Gallery or the $99 Photoshop Elements, can help you level out and color-correct your photos manually. Though it’s fine to run your product images through Photoshop, keep your editing simple. Be careful with Auto-Fix, HDR, and retro filters that might manipulate the color of your product or darken the clean white background that you rearranged your furniture to create. And resist the temptation to cut and paste your product image into a celebrity’s hands.

Genius launches Bluetooth Headset HS-980BT

Fei — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:00:08 +0000

February 7, 2012

Genius has launched a new Bluetooth Headset, HS-980BT. This headband headset gives more flexibility for music and phone calls. The bluetooth function lets you connect the headset to other bluetooth enabled devices such as a smartphone or tablet. Users can control the music volume and select tracks or even answer phone calls with this headset without accessing their devices. Just plug in the USB cable to recharge its battery. The swivel ear cups and adjustable headband design is not only very comfortable but also convenient for travel.

Features include: an adjustable headband swivel ear cups, rechargeable Lithium Ion battery, and talk time up to nine hrs, and music play time up to 7.5 hrs.

Genius is distributed in the Philippines by MSI-ECS. For more product information and other inquiries, email marketing@msi-ecs.com.ph or call (02) 688-3180 to 83.

Windows Phone 8 Details Leak

Fei — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:59:52 +0000

By Ian Paul

February 7, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO – Deep integration with Windows 8 and SkyDrive, NFC support, and variable screen sizes for mobile devices are among the wealth of new features coming to the next version of Windows Phone, including according to two online reports. Speculation about what the next version of Microsoft’s mobile OS, dubbed Windows Phone 8 and codenamed Apollo by the company, has been rampant for months.

A purportedly leaked Microsoft video obtained by PocketNow, reveals more details about what Microsoft has in store for its next mobile revamp. PocketNow posted only a screenshot from the leaked video, so it’s impossible to verify the blog’s claim; however, much of PocketNow’s report was later confirmed by Windows blogger Paul Thurrott who has sources inside the company.

It’s not clear when the new version of Windows Phone is coming, but Thurrott claims the new OS will launch near the time of Windows 8′s expected October release. When WP8 does launch, Microsoft reportedly expects the Windows Phone Marketplace to have 100,000 apps available. At the end of 2011, the Marketplace offered about 50,000 apps.

Here’s a look at some highlights of what Microsoft is reportedly planning to bring to the next version of Windows Phone.

Kernel Cousins

Similar to how Apple’s iOS is based on Mac OS X, Windows Phone 8 is expected to use parts of the Windows 8 codebase including the kernel, networking capabilities, security models, and multimedia support. Windows Phone 7 is currently based on the Windows CE kernel. The kernel is the software layer that allows applications to communicate with device hardware.

Windows Phone 8 will also be getting multicore processors support, meaning dual- and perhaps quad-core devices will be possible. This has been expected for some time. Nokia in November started making plans for future dual-core Windows Phone devices, and Microsoft execs have also promised that dual-core Windows Phones are coming.

PocketNow says the new mobile OS will also be able to handle up to four different screen resolutions allowing for more variety of device sizes among Windows Phone devices.

Microsoft may also support removable microSD storage in the next version of Windows Phone. Currently, Windows Phone 7 devices must reformat SD cards into a proprietary format. The cards cannot be removed and essentially become an integrated part of the device’s storage.

NFC to Pay on the Fly

As previously reported, Windows Phone 8 is expected to have Near-Field Communication support allowing for contactless payments similar to Google’s recently announced Google Wallet. Microsoft’s NFC support may also allow for quick data sharing between PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Integration

Microsoft’s Windows 8 demonstrations have already shown how the company plans to bring together many of its services under the new desktop OS such as increased SkyDrive integration. This will apparently continue with WP8, which is also getting SkyDrive integration and cloud sync making your content available across all your devices.

Also planned is a new Skype client that PocketNow claims will be integrated into WP8, allowing Skype calls to operate similarly to standard phone calls. Thurrott, however, expects only a tweaked Skype client that is not integrated into the WP8 OS. Microsoft acquired Skype in May 2011.

Enterprise users will reportedly benefit from Exchange ActiveSync support, 128-bit BitLocker full-disk encryption, and a secure boot process.

If the reports are accurate, Windows Phone 8 sounds like it will be a welcome upgrade for Windows Phone fans. But it also sounds like Microsoft is mostly playing catchup to features and services already available on the iPhone and Google’s Android OS.

Dell Introduces a Virtualization Powerhouse

Fei — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:00:05 +0000

February 6, 2012

The Dell PowerEdge R710 rack server is designed to be the building block of today’s virtualized enterprise. Engineered in response to input from IT professionals, it is the next-generation 2U rack server created to address any virtualized business application efficiently. The R710 features the high-performing Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, a large memory capacity and I/O (input/output) bandwidth, and streamlined deployment with hypervisors from VMware, Citrix and Microsoft, which help build a foundation for virtualization.

Virtualized I/O-intensive applications require a large pool of resources that scale effectively. IT managers must balance performance while trying to maintain current power envelopes. The Dell end-to-end solutions help customers build an efficient enterprise.

Reduce operating costs and energy usage with Dell Active Power Controller and with Intel Intelligent Power Technology, which proactively put your server into lower power states when demand decreases. Control cost without sacrificing performance — with industry-standard, efficient enterprise solutions from Dell.

Dell PowerEdge R710 is distributed by MSI-ECS. For product information and availability, contact Kat Cac at kcac@msi-ecs.com.ph or +63-2688-3906.

HP Expands IT Performance Software Suite

Fei — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:59:05 +0000

February 6, 2012

HP recently announced new editions to the HP IT Performance Suite that will strengthen executive visibility into application development, infrastructure and operations management to ensure IT alignment with enterprise needs.

The HP IT Performance Suite is the next-generation enterprise performance software platform that enables IT management to improve performance with operational intelligence. The suite delivers a comprehensive view across all IT assets, automates IT management and adjusts IT performance to meet specific business goals.

The new solutions allow clients to:

— Ensure IT alignment to enterprise strategy with new editions specifically for a company’s vice presidents of applications and of operations, powered by the HP IT Executive Scorecard, which provides insights to optimize application development as well as infrastructure and operations management via a single dashboard view.

— Rapidly develop and deliver high-quality applications that are closely aligned to changing enterprise needs with HP Application Lifecycle Intelligence (ALI) 2.0, offering end-to-end visibility to changes made within the development life cycle.

— Enhance service availability with HP Business Service Management (BSM) 9.1 software that analyzes large amounts of complex data and metrics to anticipate IT incidents and proactively remediate potential issues.

“IT leaders have a lot of data at their disposal, yet they do not have a single system to manage and make sense of that information to run IT as a business,” Mike Ng, general manager, HP Software, South-East Asia. “HP IT Performance Suite gives IT executives real enterprise insight with critical and actionable data that has a significant impact within the enterprise IT landscape as well as in the boardroom.”

The new HP IT Performance Suite: VP of Applications Edition and VP of Operations Edition provide common metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for evaluating and reporting on an IT organization’s performance. As a result, IT executives are able to accelerate decisions that improve enterprise agility by automating data collection and analysis from multiple sources into a single, customized dashboard view of IT metrics.

The new HP IT Performance Suite: VP of Operations Edition contains more than 50 out-of-the-box KPIs and works in hybrid environments, including public or private clouds as well as traditional environments. Comprehensive access to performance metrics enables better automation, delivery and monitoring of services across the IT operations environment. This allows IT executives to plan, design and implement processes that support dynamic infrastructure demands.

The new HP IT Performance Suite: VP of Operations Edition includes the HP IT Executive Scorecard, which collects data from a range of HP Software solutions that include HP Business Service Management, HP IT Service Management, HP Project and Portfolio Management, HP Data Center Automation, HP Cloud Service Automation and HP Cloud Services Architecture.

The HP IT Performance Suite: VP of Applications Edition benchmarks performance data against more than 60 out-of-the-box KPIs to evaluate an application organization’s efficiency, strengths and problem areas.

This edition uses HP Application Lifecycle Management software to aggregate data from the tools used in managing all aspects of an application life cycle. These include requirements management, project planning, tracking, quality assurance, testing, application development including source code configuration management, as well as build management, defect resolution, performance validation and release.

Organizations heavily invest in tools to manage application development life cycle. Concurrently, developers are working with a growing number of emerging technologies, teams are spread globally and ongoing customization of applications are becoming vital priorities for business innovation. The lack of integrated tools that coordinate development life cycles hinders the delivery of high-quality applications, which in turn impacts achievement of business goals.

HP ALI 2.0, a key component of the HP Application Lifecycle Management platform, creates traceability between assets and work streams across the application life cycle, including source code change and build management systems. This real-time visibility provides application delivery teams the intelligence and insight needed to be efficient, nimble and quality focused.

HP BSM 9.1 introduces predictive analytics into IT performance with HP Service Health Analyzer (SHA), a zero-configuration, zero-maintenance offering. By analyzing and remediating potential issues before they occur, clients can increase service availability and reduce business risk and operating costs.

Developed with HP Labs, the company’s central research arm, HP SHA sifts through large amounts of complex data in mobile, physical, virtual and cloud environments in real time to deliver actionable business insight. HP SHA analyzes historical norms and current trends of both applications and infrastructure data to correlate metric abnormalities with topology, or mapping.

HP Software Services provides comprehensive services for the IT Performance Suite – from transformation consulting and implementation, to support and education services. For the new VP of Applications Edition and VP of Operations Edition, HP Software Services offers a Solution Discovery Workshop and software implementation services. In addition, upgrade, education and support services help clients accelerate adoption of BSM 9.1.

HP IT Performance Suite: VP of Applications Edition and VP of Operations Edition are available worldwide. Pricing is based on implementation. HP Application Lifecycle Intelligence 2.0 is available worldwide at no additional costs to HP Application Lifecycle Management clients. HP Business Service Management 9.1 is available worldwide. Pricing is based on a licensing model.

More information about the HP IT Performance Suite is available at www.hp.com/software.

HP Unveils First Business Ultrabook

Fei — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:00:54 +0000

February 3, 2012

HP introduced its first business Ultrabook, which features a thin and light design, strong security options and a responsive solid-state hard drive for the ultimate mobile experience.

The HP Folio also delivers up to 9.0 hours of battery life, the highest performance available among Ultrabook devices currently on the market.

With battery life to get you through the workday, users are no longer saddled with carrying power adapters to charge their notebook PC. Plus, a wide array of ports, including Ethernet, eliminates the need to carry cumbersome dongles. Mobile professionals can now stay productive and get through their entire business day – from home to business and back home – with only the HP Folio.

“This category of product breaks new ground and will be a likely choice for businesses to offer to employees looking for a more consumer centric experience,” said Albert Mateo, General Manager, Personal Systems Group, HP Philippines. “We expect Ultrabooks will re-ignite interest in the small form factor PC category, and by 2015 expect 95 million Ultrabooks will be shipping WW annually.

Measuring less than 0.75-inch thin and utilizing an ultra slim 13.3-inch diagonal high-definition (HD) BrightView display, the HP Folio weighs just 1.50-kilos.

Powered by the latest Intel Core processors, the HP Folio also includes Intel Rapid Start technology which gets your system up and running fast to help you save time.

The HP Folio includes a backlit keyboard for mobile users who work in low-light conditions. A full array of ports, including RJ-45 and USB 3.0, allows users greater flexibility to connect to the information they need. The HP Folio also includes a solid-state drive (SSD) with 128 GB of storage for fast response times and increased reliability.

The HP Folio features HP CoolSense technology, which uses advanced hardware and intelligent software for a noticeably cooler notebook. The notebook also includes an HP Imagepad for highly accurate, advanced multitouch gesture support.

Additional features include an HP TrueVision HD Webcam for brighter, cleaner HD images, and Dolby Advanced Audio.

Users who need a desktop-like environment or additional audio, video, network and USB connectivity can connect the HP Folio to the HP USB 2.0 dock.

The HP Folio is expected to be available from January onwards with a starting price of Php 55,990.

Microsoft opens door to Kinect for Windows apps

Fei — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:59:31 +0000

By Nancy Gohring
February 3, 2012

SEATTLE – As promised, Microsoft on Wednesday shipped version 1.0 of the Kinect for Windows SDK and runtime and said partners have started selling the Kinect hardware.

The Kinect motion and voice sensor was initially designed for use with Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console. But it soon became clear that developers wanted the chance to build new kinds of applications using the sensor. Microsoft has been letting people build Kinect apps for PCs, but only for non-commercial use. This release of the SDK (software development kit) means that developers can launch commercial products using the sensor.

The SDK and runtime include a few improvements over the most recent beta version, Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows, wrote in a blog post. They enable support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer, include improved skeletal tracking of users and have a “near mode” for tracking movement as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device.

They also have the latest Microsoft speech recognition technology and an installer that developers can use in their application set-up programs.

Eisler wrote that the company expects to release updates to the SDK and runtime two to three times a year.

He didn’t name who is selling the Kinect hardware but said the suggested price is US$249. Amazon.com is selling it for that price. Microsoft plans to soon offer a special academic price of $149 for qualified educational uses.

At CES in January, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company planned to release the Kinect SDK and hardware on Feb. 1.

Late last year Microsoft kicked off a program designed to give Kinect developers a leg up. The company is selecting 10 people or startups who will spend three months in Seattle working out of the Kinect offices. They’ll receive technical training and support and have access to investors and Microsoft executives. They also get $20,000.

Microsoft has highlighted a wide array of applications that might be possible or are already in development for the Kinect. In one video, Microsoft shows people using the Kinect to play instruments without the instrument, a doctor in an operating room flipping through X-ray images without having to touch them, and a teacher controlling a display of the night sky by waving his arms.

Blue Coat Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in Leading Industry Analyst Firm’s WAN Optimization Controller Magic Quadrant

Fei — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:14:04 +0000

January 31, 2012

Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions, has announced that it has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers¹byresearch and advisory firm Gartner, Inc. Blue CoatMACH5 WAN Optimization appliances and virtual appliances provide traditional and next generation WAN optimization to reduce network costs and accelerate performance of important enterprise applications, file access, backup and email in addition to, live and on-demand video, Web content and Web-based and cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications.

“The requirements for WAN optimization are changing dramatically. The increasing adoption of video, Web-based applications and cloud computing services require that a next generation of WAN optimization solutions support new performance needs,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president, Blue Coat Systems. “Blue Coat uniquely addresses WAN optimization requirements for both traditional data types and applications, such as backup and disaster recovery, while also addressing the critical and growing need to accelerate cloud- and Web-based applications and video.”

The MACH5 solution includes video delivery using a combination of stream-splitting, advanced video caching technologies and pre-population to scale the use of internal company video with minimal network impact. This enables enterprise video initiatives without driving up network bandwidth costs and crippling of the performance of other business critical applications. Video delivery is a fully integrated function of the MACH5 solution, and it supports Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, HTML5, QuickTime and Microsoft Window Media.

The MACH5 solution also includes “one-sided” (asymmetric) acceleration technology to accelerate and dramatically reduce bandwidth requirements of cloud-delivered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and Web content with the use of a single appliance at the customer’s location but without requiring a WAN optimization device in the cloud provider’s infrastructure. MACH5 utilizes object caching and multiple optimizations to accelerate Web-based applications from a company’s own data center or one based in the cloud.

For additional information, visit www.bluecoat.com.

1. Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers” by Joe Skorupa, December 2011.