Velti Mobile Ad Report: iOS Pulls Way Ahead of Android, iPod Touch Beating iPad

After spending last year engaged in a “tug-of-war” with Android over mobile ad impressions, iOS has been building a big lead in the past few months, according to a new report from mobile marketing company Velti.

Velti’s past reports pegged iOS share of mobile ad impressions at 53 percent in March, which increased to 55 percent in April, and now to 59 percent in May. The report also points out the strong performance of the iPod Touch, which received 14.9 percent of total ad impressions — not just more than any Android device, but also more than the iPad.

Speaking of the iPad, Velti says Apple’s new-ish tablet seems to be growing (at least on the mobile ad side) more slowly than the iPad 2. At this point in its release cycle, the iPad 2 had 21 percent of total ad impressions, while the new iPad (boy, it’s awkward to distinguish between them when they don’t have numbers) only has 13 percent.  Read More

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Google Prevails Over Oracle in Java API, Android Copyright Case

In a landmark IT court case that began on April 16, a federal judge ruled May 31 that Java application programming interfaces used by Google in building the Android mobile device operating system are not protected by copyright.

Oracle, the plaintiff in the case and maintainer of the Java programming language as well as organizer of its open-source community, said it will "vigorously" appeal the verdict. (See the official statement at the end of this story.) The company had asked for nearly $1 billion in restitution and an injunction against Google for using the Android OS.

"This order does not hold that Java API packages are free for all to use without license," Judge William Alsup wrote in an order filed May 31 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

"It does not hold that the structure, sequence, and organization of all computer programs may be stolen. Rather, it holds on the specific facts of this case, the particular elements replicated by Google were free for all to use under the Copyright Act."

Because the APIs contain techniques, and since techniques by definition are not copyrightable, the decision was not a surprise to many IT professionals. But Oracle was determined to prove that Google's use of the open-source Java and its APIs was beyond fair use. Read More

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Apple Jab at Google Likely at WWDC

Apple is expected to reveal its homegrown replacement for the Google Maps application, built into iOS 6, as the highlights of the Worldwide Developers Conference opening Monday.

Attendees are also likely to get a peek at that next-generation iOS, which will reportedly launch in the fall for select devices, including a brand new iPhone handset.

Apple's anticipated break from Google Maps would be yet another sign of the growing battle between Apple and Google for domination in the mobile space.

Since the original iPhone was introduced in 2007, Google Maps has supplied the iPhone's built-in mapping and location capabilities. But Apple is reportedly looking to control its own mapping functions as location-based services and features become baked into more mobile apps.

Evidence of the growing importance of location services is all over the App Store. Popular social applications such as Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter let users share their location with friends. Google's iOS search app uses location to improve local search results, and mobile ad networks rely on location to deliver relevant advertising.

Location on the iPhone is big and promises to get bigger as people increasingly consult their smartphones for local restaurant reviews, finding the nearest car mechanic, tourism tips, and movie times. Read More

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New Google Maps kicks iPhone vs Android battle up a notch

Google is aiming to blunt Apple's upcoming abandonment of Google Maps. As Apple moves away from using Google as the built-in mapping product for iOS, Google is trying to keep control of the mobile mapping market in the way we like to see: By innovating on the product. New features from the Google mapping team will make its maps more fun and more useful.

Will they make Google Maps more fun and useful than Apple's maps? That's the big question.

3D: Table stakes

Both Google and Apple now have technology to create 3D maps that include buildings. Neither has rolled the product out yet. Today at Google's San Francisco office, we saw Google demonstrate its new 3D mapping product that will use its own library of aerial imagery to build fully-modeled 3D cities.

The ability to fly through a city and see all its buildings and trees as if you were "flying in your own private helicopter" is incredibly cool. In the demo we saw, most buildings looked close to photorealistic, although some (in particular the AT&T ballpark), had strange artifacts showing.

This 3D feature would be a great spiff for Android users and a great reason for iPhone users to download a new Google Maps app for that platform. Except for one thing: Very soon, this won't be a unique feature. Apple bought C3 Technologies in October, and that company does exactly what the new 3D feature in Google Maps does: It turns aerial photos into 3D models.

So the game will be coverage and usability. Apple's got the leg up in designing beautiful interfaces, but Google certainly has more experience in geo interfaces, both grown in-house (Google Maps) and from acquisitions, like Keyhole, the foundation of Google Earth, acquired in 2004. Read More

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Microsoft Says, Buy a New PC Now, Pay $14.99 for Windows 8 Upgrade

Consumers who buy a new PC between now and Jan. 31 can pay US$14.99 for an upgrade to Windows 8, the next version of Microsoft's PC operating, Microsoft announced Wednesday.

Steve Guggenheimer , head of Microsoft's OEM division, disclosed the price in his keynote address at the Computex trade show Wednesday, but he didn't provide a release date for Windows 8, as some had expected.

Analysts and PC makers have said they expect Windows 8 to ship before the end of the year. The fact that the upgrade offer ends Jan 31 suggests Microsoft expects it to be out by that date at least, possibly earlier.

This latest upgrade price is for consumers only, according to a slide that appeared briefly during Guggenheimer's presentation. It's limited to one upgrade per PC and five upgrades per person.

Such offers are intended partly to stop people from holding off on buying a new PC because they know a new OS release is on the horizon, something that could be painful financially for Microsoft and its partners. Read More

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How CRIS revamped its data center power and cooling technologies

Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was established in the year 1986 by the Ministry of Railways to provide consulting & IT services to Indian Railways. With Indian Railways’ need for IT services growing by leaps and bounds, CRIS was required to scale up its services. The organization was required to revamp its data center, which was experiencing an exponential growth in power, cooling and space requirements.

Power management

At CRIS, initially the load of data center and facility was served together by single UPS, which was installed in March 1989. In February 1995, another UPS was installed. In this arrangement, data center load was disturbed in case any malfunctioning developed due to facility load. In order to resolve this issue, a dedicated UPS was deployed for the data center and a separate UPS was deployed for the facility. Read More

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China okays sales of Apple 3G device

Chinese authorities have recently given the licence to Apple to sell its 3G device capable of handling high-speed wireless data capabilities, reports said, adding that the US computer maker make be closer to selling its latest iPad version in China. 

Reports did not mention the name of the device, which has been listed as model number A1430.

Apple is locked in a dispute with electronics maker Proview International Holding over the trademark of iPad. 

The Apple 3G device would be compatible with the network of China Unicom, which is the US company's longtime partner and has released its popular iPhone and iPad devices. Read More

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Facebook testing ways to allow access to under 13 kids

Though Facebook bans children under 13, millions of them have profiles on the site by lying about their age.

The company is now testing ways to allow those kids to participate without needing to lie. This would likely be under parental supervision, such as by connecting children's accounts to their parents' accounts.

Like many other online services, Facebook prohibits kids under 13 because federal law requires companies to obtain parental consent if they want to collect information about those children.

Web content case: No relief to FB India 

Such information collection is central to Facebook. Every photo or status update a kid posts on Facebook could count as information collection. Many companies consider the parental-consent requirement too burdensome, so they simply ban all children under 13 instead.

But that ban is difficult to enforce. In many cases, parents themselves help children skirt it by setting up profiles for them and lying about their ages. There are an estimated 7.5 million kids under 13 on Facebook, out of more than 900 million users worldwide. Read More

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HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE APPROVES KEY FEDERAL IT LEGISLATION

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday approved two key pieces of information technology legislation, including a measure that would require agencies to appoint a chief information security officer.

Comment on this article in The Forum.Lawmakers voted out of committee both the 2008 Federal Information Security Management Act (S.3474) as well the 2008 Information Technology Oversight Enhancement and Waste Prevention Act (S.3384).

The FISMA legislation requires agencies to appoint a qualified chief information security officer who would be responsible for monitoring, detecting and responding to cybersecurity threats, and report to the chief information officer. The IT oversight bill seeks to improve agency performance and congressional oversight of major federal IT projects.

"It was extremely sobering to learn how often and how easily agency information networks can be compromised," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who introduced the FISMA bill. Carper's bill also would require agency inspectors general to measure the effectiveness of information security policies as well as direct the Homeland Security Department to conduct strategic test attacks against agency networks to uncover vulnerabilities and to improve security. Read More

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Cybercrime toll mounts for businesses

Cybercrime is more than a buzzword, it’s a critical business concern, say 1,387 IT professionals surveyed by security firm Finjan.

Ninety-one percent of respondents call cybercrime a “major business risk,” and 73% say they are more concerned about data theft than about downtime and loss of productivity from malware. In addition, 25% of respondents admit to data breaches in their organizations, according to the survey that Finjan conducted in July and released today.

Cybercrime’s impact is no surprise to those on the front lines.

“Fraud today is highly sophisticated, and the people doing it get smarter and smarter, so we have to, also,” says Gilbert Fiorentino, CEO at TigerDirect. The computer and electronics equipment retailer is a subsidiary of Systemax, which also owns CompUSA.

When credit cards are stolen in volume in big heists like the one perpetrated against TJX, those stolen cards are put to use by fraudsters who try to rip off stores like TigerDirect, Fiorentino says.

TigerDirect has 30 retail stores as well as an online Web sales operation for businesses and consumers. According to Fiorentino, the majority of the unrelenting attempts to hoodwink TigerDirect with stolen credit- and debit-cards will occur online in consumer sales. Read More

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Attacking phishing at the source

Good news on the phishing front. Google reports that they are now authenticating all e-mail that purports to come from eBay and PayPal.

Using e-mail authentication standards including DomainKeys and Domain Keys identified Mail, and working with PayPal and eBay, Google’s Gmail now verifies every e-mail that claims to come from PayPal or eBay. If it doesn’t verify you’ll never see it.

Angry eBay buyer

The first time I got one of those angry eBay buyer emails - “where’s my stuff, you thief!” - it got me going for a second. But now if you use Gmail, those e-mails won’t even make it to your trash folder. They’re just gone.

EBay and PayPal had to undertake the effort to ensure that all of their e-mails used the domain Keys and domain keys identified Mail authentication protocols. They have blazed a trail for all companies who want their customers trust. Read More

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Telenor presents a joint roaming initiative in the Nordic region

"Nordic customers are among the most advanced mobile phone users in the world, especially when in their home countries where the prices are low and easy to control. But more and more we see that our customers expect to be able to use their mobile phones when travelling, with the same kind of cost control and predictability as they have at home," says Kjell Morten Johnsen, EVP and Head of Telenor's European operations. "By introducing TravelSure, along with the new price models in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, Telenor is taking a big step towards making it affordable, worry-free and flexible to use the mobile phone while in the most popular holiday destinations for Scandinavians in the world."     

The Telenor TravelSure concept

Telenor TravelSure is a new roaming offer that will be launched in all Telenor Group operations. The launch this June in the Nordics allows Telenor customers to benefit from very low per minute prices, meaning they can stay worry-free no matter how long they talk. It also includes launching new options and expanding the per day offerings for mobile data in additional countries. From there Telenor will continuously improve the offerings for both voice and data roaming. Read More

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What’s Wrong With Windows Phone?

By any measure of success Microsoft's Windows Phone is a flop -- so far. The bitter irony for Microsoft is, it's a great phone. What's going wrong?

Here are some interesting facts.

Microsoft's Windows Phone, introduced in 2010, is a critically acclaimed mobile OS from the world’s largest software maker - a company that has a long history with mobile products. As recently as late 2009, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform claimed nearly 20 percent of U.S. smartphone users. But today, instead of building on that success, Microsoft has failed.

During the first three months of 2012, Microsoft's Windows Phone platform owned a dismal 2 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, according to Nielsen ratings. Even Microsoft's aging Windows Mobile platform had a bigger market share than Windows Phone during that time, claiming 4.1 percent of users, Nielsen reports.Read More

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Pricing for June 17 Verizon FIOS Upgrades Leaks

Times are a-changin' for subscribers to Verizon's FIOS service – for those of you that can actually access the company's fiber-optic network, that is. While the latest news has been that Verizon's planning to adjust the speeds of its FIOS service tiers, only recently have we been able to get a glimpse of just what these changes might actually cost interested users.

According to a litany of supposed training materials sent over to The Verge by an anonymous Verizon employee, Verizon's overall FIOS service will split into six different pricing levels – up two from the four price tiers the company currently offers. New to Verizon's plate will be an (absurdly fast) 300/65 Mbps service that's expected to cost a mere $204.99 monthly with a two-year service agreement. Hello, second mortgage.

Verizon's also bumping up the price of its base 15/5 Mbps service from approximately $55 per month to $65 per month and increasing the contractual obligation from one year to two. While that might cause a few subscribers to shake their fists, Verizon's price and speed adjustments aren't going to cost customers more universally. Read More

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IT Security & Network Security News & Reviews: Email Security: 10 Steps for Dealing With Dangerous Messages

The recent success authorities have had in taking down dangerous botnets has helped drive down the amount of spam flooding into business and consumer email accounts. In a report on security in 2011 released late last year, Cisco Systems found a “steep decline” in the volume of spam since August 2010, with the number of spam messages falling from 379 billion a day to 124 billion. And the picture was pretty good in the United States, which dropped from being the No. 1 source for spam in 2010 to No. 9 in 2011, according to Cisco. The amount of money generated annually from spam also was cut in half, dropping to about $500 million. However, that doesn’t mean that the security threat from spam is disappearing. According to a survey released in March by GFI Software, almost half of the U.S. businesses responding to the survey said they had experienced data breaches due to employees clicking on malicious emails, and 70 percent said their anti-spam solutions are marginally effective at best. Forty-four percent of respondents said their organizations had sustained a data breach due to spam email, 52 percent said the volume of spam flowing into their organizations had grown over the past year, and 32 percent said it remained the same. Seventy-two percent of respondents said they receive too much spam. So what can business workers do to protect themselves against malicious and dangerous emails? eWEEK has assembled a few ideas here that security professionals and IT administrators can use as a checklist to help stop the next potential data breach. Read More

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Enterprise Mobility: 4G Hotspot Summer Takeaway: Options for Staying Wirelessly Connected

Sprint began selling the Sierra Wireless 4G LTE Tri-Fi Hotspot May 18. A first, the Tri-Fi can link users to three connectivity options: 3G, Long-Term Evolution and WiMax. Where there isn't a WiFi connection, devices like the Tri-Fi offer users a way not only to hop online but to connect multiple devices: It's becoming not unusual to see support offered for up to 10 devices. With all major carriers investing in 4G LTE rollouts to support increasing data demands, Verizon Wireless and AT&T have already announced they'll soon be offering data-sharing plans, and that the industry is moving toward a new sort of metric, where revenue is tallied not by the user but by account. The thinking is that each account will be tied to multiple devices, all sipping at a single, set allotment of data. An account could be held by a single user, a family or even a small business. With shared plans, users wouldn't need separate data plans for tablets—which would encourage more people to connect them using more than just WiFi, to the carriers' delight—or for hotspots. Inspired by the Tri-Fi, eWEEK rounded up a few of its competitors to take a look at what the options are, as more people get away from their desks and head outdoors this summer. Read More

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