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Microsoft boots Chinese firm for leaking Windows exploit

Microsoft on Thursday identified a Chinese security partner as the source of a leak last March in its highly restricted vulnerability information-sharing program.
The company, Hangzhou DPTech Technologies, was tossed out of the Microsoft Active Protection Program (MAPP) for leaking the proof-of-concept exploit.
"During our investigation into the disclosure of confidential data shared with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners, we determined that a member ... Hangzhou DPTech Technologies Co., Ltd., had breached our non-disclosure agreement (NDA)," Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, wrote in a post to a company blog. " Microsoft takes breaches of our NDAs very seriously and has removed this partner from the MAPP Program."
Wee also said that starting with this month's security updates -- slated to ship Tuesday -- Microsoft has "strengthened existing controls and took actions to better protect our information."
He did not elaborate on the steps Microsoft has taken to prevent another leak or explain why the company decided DPTech was the source of the leak.
DPTech is based in Hangzhou, a major city in eastern China southwest of Shanghai. According to the company's website, it develops and sells network security products that include UTM (unified threat management) systems, IPS (intrusion prevention systems) appliances, application firewalls and vulnerability scanning software.
Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, was stunned that Microsoft named DPTech.
"It's not like [Microsoft] to call out someone," Storms said. "I'm not surprised they cut the offender out of the program [but] I would have expected it happen silently."
Microsoft launched its investigation in mid-March after Italian security researcher Luigi Auriemma said code in an exploit circulating on a Chinese website was identical to what he had provided HP TippingPoint's bug bounty program to qualify for a reward.
Auriemma had uncovered a vulnerability in Windows' Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in May 2011, then reported it to TippingPoint. His code was used by the Zero Day Initiative to create a working exploit as part of the bounty program's bug verification work. ZDI passed along the exploit and other information about the RDP vulnerability to Microsoft.
Microsoft patched the RDP vulnerability in its March Patch Tuesday update, and rated the fix "critical," the highest threat ranking in its four-step system.

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Samsung Galaxy S III FAQ: Everything You Need to Know

Samsung's splashy Galaxy S III Thursday launch was packed with information, but we'll tell you what you really need to know.

by Ginny Mies

After all of the rumors and speculation, the Samsung Galaxy S III is finally here but you probably have a few questions about this new Android phone.

Samsung is the master of flash and flare at its press conferences, but we're here to help you get to the nitty gritty of why you should care about this phone. The Galaxy S III will go on sale in Europe on May 23. No official word yet on a U.S. launch, but it could come this summer.

[Related: Spec Smackdown: Samsung Galaxy S III vs. iPhone 4S vs. HTC One X]

Can the S III Really Follow Your Every Move?

The Samsung S III really wants to be your new best friend--your new psychic best friend. According to Samsung's somewhat creepy commercial (shown below), the S III "follows your every move." Scared yet?

In reality, the Samsung S III can do things like predict when you want the screen awake by using the front-facing camera to monitor your eyes. If you're watching a movie on your phone and happen to fall asleep, the phone's display will turn off.

The S III also has a feature called S Voice, which is a customized voice-recognition system. Hmm, sound familiar? Like Apple's Siri, S Voice can recognize a variety of commands. For example, you can say "snooze" when your alarm goes off and buy yourself a little more sleeping time. You can also say "direct call" and ring somebody while you're in the middle of a text. You can also control the volume of your music, organize your calendar, and launch the camera via voice commands.

However, there's no word, so far, on whether S Voice works with third-party applications. S Voice works with eight different languages, including British English and American English. A few of my friends from across the pond have complained about Siri's difficulty in understanding them so I guess this is good news there.

Is It Quad-Core Powered?

Samsung confirmed before today's announcement that the Galaxy S III phones will be powered by the company's own quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor. Oddly, however, the processor specs were not in the press materials we received today. I have a suspicion that the Samsung quad-core processor is not compatible with U.S. LTE networks. If true, we might see a different processor on the S III phones in the United States. Samsung would not comment on what sort of processor the U.S. versions will have when I asked.

HTC pulled a similar trick with the One X. The global version runs on an NVidia Tegra 3 processor, while the U.S. phone uses a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor. NVidia's quad-core processor was not yet compatible with AT&T's LTE network at the time of the One X's manufacture. In our benchmarks, however, the U.S. version of the One X did quite well despite having fewer cores.

When Will the S III Come to the United States?

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Remains of the Day: Apocalypse sometime

Something big is about to happen. Somewhere. Somehow. Sometime. Or not. While you're waiting for that maybe-possibly-could-be reveal, perhaps you'd like to hear about Steve Jobs's patent collection? Or you could just skip to a beer-utiful use for one of your iPad accessories. You've got to believe in something--the remainders for Thursday, May 3, 2012 believe they'll have another drink.

Source Says Documents Reveal "Something Big Is About to Happen" With Apple (The iPhone 5 News Blog)

Sources! Something big! Well, that sounds...uh...vague. Pray tell, what is the source of this information? "An administrative assistant at a top U.S. brokerage firm that handles Intel and Apple's ocean/air accounts" who said she saw high-security green folders. You can't just buy those at Staples for a dollar, people!

Steve Jobs' Patents Tell the Story of Invention (Smithsonian)

Mr. Jobs's patents are going to Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, to be precise. The temporary exhibit will feature 30 "iPhones" (four-by-eight-foot panels) featuring more than 300 patents, along with a display case containing a Macintosh, a Next box, and an iPod. What, no Lisa?

Role to Role, From Sherlock to 'Star Trek' (New York Times, login required)

'Twas a night around Christmas, and all through the house,there was no one to film Benedict--not even a mouse.The answer, my dear Watson, was elementary alone! Mr. Cumberbatch would turn to his trusty iPhone. And that was more than enough to earn him the partfor Benedict C.'s got nothing if not heart.

The Old Gmail Is Officially Dead, Dead, Dead (Time)

So long, classic Gmail. No amount of workarounds or last-minute heroic efforts could save you. Say hi to Wave and Buzz for us.

iPad power adapter can open beers (Twitter)

Forget that $40 iPhone case with a slide-out bottle opener--just use your iPad's power brick. Eat your heart out, MacGyver.

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Samsung can challenge Apple's photo gallery patent before ruling on infringement

May 04, 2012, 8:41 AM — Samsung Electronics will be allowed to challenge the validity of an Apple patent before a decision is made on whether Samsung has infringed the patent, the Regional Court in Mannheim, Germany ruled Friday.

The judge decided on Friday to suspend a ruling on Apple's request for an injunction on sales of Samsung's Android products until Germany's Federal Patent Court decides on the validity of the patent in a separate action brought by Samsung.

The court in Mannheim had been set to rule on whether the photo gallery on Samsung's Android phones infringed on Apple's European Patent entitled "portable electronic device for photo management."

"The lawsuit about the patent has been suspended until the decision about the nullity suit, which Samsung has brought to the Bundespatentgericht," Mannheim Regional Court spokesman Joachim Bock said in an email.

Such a delay is unusual, because German patent courts generally allow patent holders to apply for injunctions before the Federal Patent Court has ruled on any challenges to a patent's validity. A compensation system exists should an injunction be granted based on a patent subsequently found invalid.

Judges can decide to wait for a validity verdict if they think the patent is invalid, said Ariane Mittenberger-Huber, spokeswoman for the Federal Patent Court. She could not say whether Samsung had already filed a nullity suit with the Federal Patent Court regarding the photo gallery patent, but there are some patent validity cases involving Apple and Samsung pending, she said.

There is no date set yet for oral proceedings to take place in any of those filed patent validity cases, and they are most likely to begin at the end of the year or the beginning of next year, Mittenberg-Huber added. Determining if a patent is valid typically takes longer than infringement hearings, she said.

If a German court allows an injunction based on a patent, companies can be forced to adjust their devices in such a way that they don't infringe anymore, or to stop selling them in Germany at all. In February for instance, Apple was forced to turn off its MobileMe and iCloud push email services for all German users to comply with an injunction granted to Motorola Mobility. Apple said at the time it believes Motorola's patent is invalid.

Companies often try to work around German injunctions. Apple was granted an injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 last year by the Düsseldorf regional court that decided the design of the 10.1 is too close to an Apple registered design. This forced Samsung to alter the design of its tablet to circumvent a stop on tablet sales in one of Europe's biggest markets. The adjusted tablet for the German market is called the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and is allowed to be sold by the regional Düsseldorf court, that decided that the device was sufficiently altered. Apple however still pursues a ban on the 10.1N and is set to appeal the decision at the higher regional Düsseldorf court in June.

The court in Mannheim was also set to rule on Friday in another lawsuit in which Apple accuses Samsung of infringing on a utility model,a patent-like intellectual property right available under German law. Apple alleges that Samsung touch devices infringe on its utility model for "List Scrolling and Document Translation, Scaling, and Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display." The decision in this case was moved to May 11, Bock said.

Loek covers all things tech for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

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IT shops sifting RIM's bold promises and plans

May 04, 2012, 7:43 AM — Research in Motion executives and managers practiced staying "on message" at BlackBerry World this week, repeating a series of mantras about the company's directions and product plans. Yet the simple message is running into the hard practicalities of enterprise IT customers, and they want details and nuance.

Sometimes both were in short supply at RIM's annual customer conference in Orlando. RIM is in the midst of a life-or-death transition, moving to a new operating system, building support for it from application vendors and software developers, and crafting the next generation of smartphones and tablets due out later this year. RIM's creating plans and products at a rapid pace for both consumer and enterprise markets.

BLACKBERRY WORLD: RIM CEO vows to wow with BlackBerry 10 

FIRST LOOK: BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Smartphone 

But RIM's enterprise customers are incredibly diverse. Some are stable for even fast-growing BlackBerry shops. Some use the phones only for email and voice calls, others with only minimal app downloads. Nearly all of them are at different stages of struggling with how to deal with employees at all levels who bring non-BlackBerry devices to work and want to access email at least and sometimes more, often to the detriment of RIM. Surprisingly, few of those interviewed are closely following BlackBerry 10, the next generation mobile operating system highlighted at BlackBerry World.

Cereal company MOMbrands, until recently known as Malt-O-Meal, has about 500 BlackBerry users, but few of them seem really satisfied with their smartphones, according to a pair of technical support analysts at BlackBerry World. "Most of our users are not BlackBerry fans," says Tim Wood. "They want the iPhone."

Colleague David Aman says he walks through the company and often sees a user's BlackBerry lying on the desk, "and another [brand of] phone right next to it. It's silly." Some of the dissatisfaction is caused by a raft of small and not so small annoyances, ranging from podcasts being stopped when a call comes in and never resuming, to frustratingly poor battery performance.

Top executives now want iPads and iPhones, many of which are being informally "tested" by these senior managers who bring them to work and then want support. Aman says that IT is considering adopting a "bring your own device" regime as a way of simplifying mobile confusion and IT's responsibilities.

Yet at South African-based Sansol, a global chemicals manufacturer, the mobile policy bans personal devices in favor of corporate-issued BlackBerry smartphones. At Sansol North America, headquartered in Houston, systems administrator Tray Gonzalez has about 2,000 BlackBerry users in various regions, with 500 in the U.S. The number has been increasing and field sales staff are now testing a few BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

"We haven't allowed BYOD, but so many people are requesting it, that we're looking into it," Gonzalez says. One concern is that a change in policy would lead to an unmanageable explosion of iOS and Android devices.

Gonzalez says he's impressed with RIM's recent release of the BlackBerry Device Service, an application for managing PlayBooks and all future BlackBerry 10 devices, and Universal Device Service, for managing iOS and Android devices, under the umbrella product name of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion. The classic BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is needed for managing existing handsets running the traditional BlackBerry OS. A Web portal, called Mobile Fusion Studio, lets an administrator see the three separate device groups in a unified view.

Gonzalez plans to download the free, 60-day trial version of the Device Service and test it out. "I think it's great," he says.

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Handset vendors face 'brutal fight' for China's low-end smartphone market

China has emerged as the world's largest smartphone market by shipments, according to several research firms

by Michael Kan

As China leads the world in smartphone shipments, top handset vendors are raising their stakes in the nation, and will likely bring more exclusive products and lower-end devices to the market, resulting in fierce competition, according to analysts.

Several research firms are reporting that China has surpassed the U.S. in smartphone shipments or sales, with some of them seeing the trend since last year's third quarter. Analysts expect China to continue leading the market given that the country already has 1 billion mobile phone subscribers, with only about 15 percent of them on the nation's faster 3G networks.

"There is still plenty of room for it to grow," said Nicole Peng, an analyst with research firm Canalys. At the same time, other key regions including the U.S. and Europe already have mature markets, and are still recovering from weak economic conditions. "So China will be a very important engine for smartphone growth this year," she said.

In this year's first quarter, China's smartphone shipments saw a 102 percent year-over year growth, according to Canalys. The U.S. shipments, in contrast, grew by only 5 percent.

China's emergence as a top smartphone market represents a shift from the country primarily being a major manufacturer of mobile phones for overseas markets, analysts noted. Now handset vendors are spending greater resources in the country's smartphone space, whether it be Apple launching the iPhone 4S on China Telecom, Nokia moving its Asia Pacific headquarters to Beijing, or HTC launching smartphones exclusively for China.

But to attract more customers, handset vendors will need to focus on China's low-end market, where smartphones are often priced at 1,000 yuan (US$158) without a contract, according to analysts.

For this year, China's smartphone sales are projected to reach at least 140 million units, up from 77 million in 2011, said CK Lu, an analyst with research firm Gartner. Much of the growth will occur with no-contract smartphones priced between 1,000 and 1,500 yuan, he added.

"3G smartphones will be hitting a price where users can replace their 2G feature phone with a 3G smartphone," Lu said. "It will be a huge replacement, with people moving from 2G phones to 3G smartphones."

This will mean more lower-end phones reaching the Chinese market, resulting in price decreases. Thomas Kang, an analyst with Strategy Analytics, said prices could begin reaching at $75 to the $150 range. This contrasts with the U.S. market, where consumers generally buy smartphones that cost between $350 to $500 without a contract.

In the future, more international handset vendors will also likely choose to launch their products first in China, or decide to release smartphones exclusively made for the Chinese market, said Teck Zhung Wong, an analyst with research firm IDC. "The potential for the Chinese smartphone market is so huge, they have no choice but to accommodate the demand," he said.

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Handset vendors face 'brutal fight' for China's low-end smartphone market

May 04, 2012, 5:23 AM — As China leads the world in smartphone shipments, top handset vendors are raising their stakes in the nation, and will likely bring more exclusive products and lower-end devices to the market, resulting in fierce competition, according to analysts.

Several research firms are reporting that China has surpassed the U.S. in smartphone shipments or sales, with some of them seeing the trend since last year's third quarter. Analysts expect China to continue leading the market given that the country already has 1 billion mobile phone subscribers, with only about 15 percent of them on the nation's faster 3G networks.

"There is still plenty of room for it to grow," said Nicole Peng, an analyst with research firm Canalys. At the same time, other key regions including the U.S. and Europe already have mature markets, and are still recovering from weak economic conditions. "So China will be a very important engine for smartphone growth this year," she said.

In this year's first quarter, China's smartphone shipments saw a 102 percent year-over year growth, according to Canalys. The U.S. shipments, in contrast, grew by only 5 percent.

China's emergence as a top smartphone market represents a shift from the country primarily being a major manufacturer of mobile phones for overseas markets, analysts noted. Now handset vendors are spending greater resources in the country's smartphone space, whether it be Apple launching the iPhone 4S on China Telecom, Nokia moving its Asia Pacific headquarters to Beijing, or HTC launching smartphones exclusively for China.

But to attract more customers, handset vendors will need to focus on China's low-end market, where smartphones are often priced at 1,000 yuan (US$158) without a contract, according to analysts.

For this year, China's smartphone sales are projected to reach at least 140 million units, up from 77 million in 2011, said CK Lu, an analyst with research firm Gartner. Much of the growth will occur with no-contract smartphones priced between 1,000 and 1,500 yuan, he added.

"3G smartphones will be hitting a price where users can replace their 2G feature phone with a 3G smartphone," Lu said. "It will be a huge replacement, with people moving from 2G phones to 3G smartphones."

This will mean more lower-end phones reaching the Chinese market, resulting in price decreases. Thomas Kang, an analyst with Strategy Analytics, said prices could begin reaching at $75 to the $150 range. This contrasts with the U.S. market, where consumers generally buy smartphones that cost between $350 to $500 without a contract.

In the future, more international handset vendors will also likely choose to launch their products first in China, or decide to release smartphones exclusively made for the Chinese market, said Teck Zhung Wong, an analyst with research firm IDC. "The potential for the Chinese smartphone market is so huge, they have no choice but to accommodate the demand," he said.

"One negative thing of putting all this focus on China right now is that it's going to be an ultra-competitive market," he added. "Anyone who is looking at entering the China market has got to prepare for a brutal fight."

In the first quarter, Samsung Electronics had the largest smartphone market share in China at 22 percent, with Apple in second place at 19 percent, according to Canalys. Nokia, ZTE and Huawei Technologies had market shares each at about 10 percent.

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Samsung's Galaxy S III: Four things to know

Samsung executives today claimed that their new Galaxy S III was "enhanced with nature and human emotion." While we can't exactly verify that claim, we can take a look at some of the specifications and features on Samsung's latest smartphone.

GOOGLE REED-ER: Samsung Galaxy S III launch sets new standards for bombast and pomposity

ANALYSIS: Android 4.0: A rundown of key features

In no particular order, here are four things you should know about the Samsung Galaxy S III:

It has killer hardware. As expected, the Galaxy S III comes complete with a 1.4GHz quad-core processor that is top-of-the-line for smartphone hardware. Other key hardware features include an 8MP rear-facing camera, a 1.9MP front-facing camera, a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display screen with a resolution of 1,280x720 pixels, and a 2,100mAh battery. And for good measure, the phone's design is both light and thin, as it weighs 133 grams and is just 8.6 millimeters thick. In all, the new Galaxy's hardware is about as cutting-edge as you can get right now.

It comes equipped with software that "knows you." One of the more innovative features of the new Galaxy phone is its ability to actually watch, listen and respond to you through its camera and voice software. For instance, the device's camera can see when you're looking at it and will respond by keeping the screen lit up so you don't have to periodically touch it to keep it from blacking out. Similarly, the new Galaxy's "S Voice" voice recognition software is a Siri-like feature that lets you give your phone commands without touching it. In other words, if your phone alarm goes off, you can just shout out "snooze" to get it to shut its yap rather than fumbling around trying to press the "off" button. Similarly, you can use S Voice to write emails, check the weather, take pictures, etc.

It will not initially feature LTE connectivity. Quad-core processors are pretty fast, but they're also pretty large and Samsung apparently couldn't fit an LTE chipset in with its super-speedy CPU. So when the device hits the shelves in Europe this month and in the U.S. next month, it will have HSPA+ connectivity and standard Wi-Fi options, but no LTE. For U.S. consumers this means that the initial version of the device will likely be available on AT&T and T-Mobile, both of whom have nationwide HSPA+ networks, but not on Verizon and Sprint, which both rely on the CDMA-based EV-DO Rev. A for their 3G technology.

Samsung has said it will release an LTE-capable version of the device sometime this summer so you might want to hold off on buying it if you absolutely must have the fastest mobile broadband technology available.

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iPad share of tablet market jumps as Kindle Fire slumps

Apple's iPad reclaimed a larger share of the global tablet market last month, in part because of a more-serious-than-expected slump in sales of the hot Kindle Fire in the first quarter, IDC analysts said today.

The iPad's share of the tablet business shot up to 68% in the first quarter of 2012, climbing more than 13 percentage points from 2011's fourth-quarter share of 54.7%, said IDC's Bob O'Donnell, program vice president for clients and displays.

At the same time, Amazon's share plummeted from about 17% in the fourth quarter of last year to just 4% in this year's opening quarter.

O'Donnell attributed the spike in Apple's share and the drop in Amazon's to several factors, including the U.S.-only sales of the Fire -- which tightly tied it to the U.S. holidays -- and the iPad's international reach, including in China, where the tablet was a hot ticket in that country's January holiday gift-giving spree.

"We expected to see a significant drop in Amazon Fire [in the first quarter]," O'Donnell said in an interview Thursday. "But honestly, the drop was a little bit more than we expected."

The dramatic shifts in share show that tablets remain a seasonal product, said O'Donnell. That includes the iPad, which saw its sales fall off -- even with the Chinese New Year at its disposal -- some 3.6 million units in the first quarter compared to the previous three-month period.

But IDC also argued that the iPad has legs the rival tablets do not. "Apple's move to position the iPad as an all-purpose tablet, instead of just a content consumption device, is resonating with consumers as well as educational and commercial buyers," Tom Mainelli, IDC's research director for mobile connected devices, said in a statement earlier today.

According to Mainelli -- and O'Donnell echoed his colleague -- Apple's positioning of the iPad as more than a consumer product, one appropriate and salable to major markets like education and enterprise, sets it apart from the competition.

Apple has regularly beaten that drum. Last month, Apple's chief financial officer touted a 10,000-iPad deal with the San Diego School District, and said the district planned to buy another 15,000 iPads in the second quarter.

In the same April earnings call with Wall Street analysts, Apple CEO Tim Cook called iPad sales to businesses "off the charts."

"But it's too early to say that the battle is over and done with," cautioned O'Donnell, referring to Apple's current dominance of the tablet market. "That would be an incorrect assumption."

IDC expects that Amazon will introduce a larger-screen device "at a typically aggressive price point," and that Google will move into the market with an Android tablet co-branded with Asian computer maker Asus that will "compete directly on price with Amazon's Kindle Fire."

Lurking in the wings are devices powered by Microsoft's Windows 8 and Windows RT -- the latter formerly called WOA, for Windows on ARM, by the Redmond, Wash. developer.

IDC hasn't taken a firm stance on Windows 8/Windows RT, because devices, and more importantly, their prices, have yet to be disclosed. And pricing seemed to be foremost on O'Donnell's mind.

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Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion

Even though it's planning to launch its IPO later this year, that isn't stopping Facebook from making a truly monster deal. Today the company announced it would be acquiring Instagram, the company behind the popular photo editing and sharing app for iOS and Android devices, for a huge $1 billion price tag. The acquisition will be a combination of cash and Facebook stock and will officially close by the end of the second quarter.

Instagram launched on October 2010 for the iOS platform. The Android version was launched just last week.  Instagram says it now has about 30 million registered users.

In his personal Facebook page, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook is "committed to building and growing Instagram independently." He adds:

"We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook. These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram's experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure."

Even though Facebook is making this particular deal, this will be a rarity for the company in terms of acquiring another business that has so many users, with Zuckerburg saying, "We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all."

Instagram's own CEO Kevin made his own blog post about the Facebook deal, saying:

"It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience. The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love. You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique."

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Look to the skies: Is it time to stop worrying and love the drone?

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere) have driven the rapid development over the past decade of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—robotic planes flown by some combination of remote “pilot” operators, software, and GPS navigation. Ranging in size from that of a flying model kit to full-sized aircraft, UAVs, also referred to as unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), have done everything from spotting roadside bombs to bombing alleged Al-Qaeda hideouts—and now they’re ready for civilian jobs.

As war efforts wind down, the military is preparing to bring home the over 7,500 UAVs deployed overseas—and the companies that build them are looking to create a domestic market for the technology.

Federal Aviation Administration rules have so far tightly limited the use of UAVs to the same sets of rules applied to hobbyists flying radio-controlled model aircraft. But all that is set to change, thanks to legislation slipped into the FAA’s 2012 funding bill, signed on February 14. The law is pushing the FAA to stop worrying and love the drone by setting deadlines for starting UAVs' “integration into the national airspace.” The FAA is now soliciting public input on locations for six test sites where it will look at ways to integrate UAVs into the same airspace as human-piloted aircraft.

In addition to fast-tracking the use of small UAVs by law enforcement and emergency responders by as early as May, the law also sets deadlines that could allow the first wave of certified “safe” drones to take to the skies as early as August. By September of 2015, the law dictates that the FAA will have rules set for the licensing of commercial and civil UAVs, and that they will be fully integrated into the “national airspace.”

That could have a potentially huge impact on society and culture—in both a positive and negative sense. “There’s a stunning amount of innovation going on in the drone world,” and a long list of potential applications, said John Villasenor, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, at a panel discussion on drones at Brookings on April 4. He called drones the equivalent of the space program in terms of their potential impact on technological change.

“What the military has shown abroad is there’s a tremendous amount of stuff you can do with this, if the regulatory environment permits—not just surveillance,” said Benjamin Wittes, a senior Brookings fellow, also at the April 4 event. Based on the advances in self-guidance and self-landing technology, he said, “there is no good reason anymore for there to be pilots in the domestic airspace. The main barrier is psychological, not technical.”

The applications for unmanned aircraft—both for government and business—range from the mundane to the insane, covering everything from the monitoring of highway traffic and land use to airborne wireless Internet gateways. The military has already begun work on adopting autonomous helicopters based on the Kaman K-MAX to deliver cargo on the battlefield; airfreight companies could be among those lined up to bring that technology to the commercial world.

But Villasenor, Wittes, and others don’t see the rise of the drones as an absolute good. Privacy advocates and legal and technical experts have voiced concerns over the impact that cheap and pervasive flying sensor platforms will have on privacy, civil liberties, security, and demand for wireless spectrum. And if the FAA and other authorities don’t move early to coordinate regulation and oversight of unmanned aircraft, they could face a huge public backlash, warns Paul Rosenzweig, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC. “If policymakers push too rapidly, they will lose the support of the public and kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said.

Current FAA regulations have kept most use of UAVs in the US in the realm of the hobbyists and researchers—they are banned from commercial use, or to provide a commercial service. And the FAA has issued only a small number of “special airworthiness certificates” to a select number of civilian operators—13 in total—for highly restricted experimental use of UAVs that operate out of the visual range of their earthbound pilot.

That has left most individuals and organizations testing drones to test the limits of what is possible in the hobbyist "model aircraft" envelope—remaining at altitudes below 400 feet and within the line of sight of the operator. But even within those limits, law enforcement agencies and other organizations (and individuals) are starting to push the envelope. Some have pushed it too far—in January, real estate agents in Los Angeles got a little ahead of regulations and hired a helicopter drone to take aerial photos of clients’ homes until they were warned off by police.

For safety’s sake, Villasenor said that there should be "no rush to allow real estate agents to fly drones over communities." He said that in certifying "safe" drones, the FAA should follow the guidelines set by the Academy of Model Aeronautics and not allow any unmanned aircraft flown by "first person view"—with a camera giving the aircraft’s operator a virtual cockpit view—over 10 pounds.

The appeal of being able to operate further out with unmanned aircraft is obvious—they are a cheap way to provide a view of places it would be otherwise too expensive or dangerous to get to with people. The Department of Homeland Security has pushed for drone use in patrolling borders to fill in the huge gaps left by its expensive and failed "smart fence" efforts. "The fences are difficult and expensive to construct, and easy to evade," said Rosenzweig. "There’s a reason why Homeland Security wants more UAVs."

Borders aren’t the only spaces that the government wants to keep an eye on. There’s a potential big win for environmental and agricultural enforcement as well. In January, that was demonstrated when an anonymous hobbyist flying a $75 drone equipped with a point-and-shoot camera spotted a river of pig blood from a Dallas meat packing plant pouring into a waterway, leading to the execution of a search warrant by the EPA and Texas environmental protection authorities. And in Europe, governments are testing UAVs to enforce agricultural regulations, remotely inspecting farms to ensure they’re not evading taxes or fraudulently taking subsidy payments.

Police departments and other law enforcement agencies see UAVs as a way to save money or gain capabilities they’ve never been able to afford before. Because they are so much cheaper to purchase and operate than manned aircraft, drones could give even small police departments an eye in the sky for dealing with tracking suspects on the run, observing criminal activity at a distance, or monitoring hostage situations.

In Texas, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office acquired a Shadowhawk helicopter UAV from Vanguard Defense Industries last September with some funding help from the Department of Homeland Security to support the department’s SWAT team; the Shadowhawk costs $40 an hour to operate, compared to the $500-per-hour cost of a full-sized helicopter. There are downsides—last month, a Shadowhawk prototype crashed into a SWAT armored vehicle during a photo op when it lost contact with the controller and shut down.

There are some in law enforcement who are interested in doing more than just watching with UAVs—some have expressed interest in arming UAVs with nonlethal weapons. Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel told The Daily in March that the office was “open to the idea” of adding weapons to their Shadowhawk, which could include flares, smoke grenades, tear gas, tasers, or rubber bullets for crowd control—allowing police to disperse protestors or angry mobs without even being on the scene. The Shadowhawk could also be equipped with a beanbag “force baton” to be used to subdue a suspect “from altitude."

The idea of armed flying police robots seems, to some, a really bad idea. Security technologist Bruce Schneier responded to the news of Montgomery County’s purchase of the Shadowhawk with the question, “Why does anyone think this is a good idea?” American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Catherine Crump expressed her incredulity over the concept as well at the Brookings event. “The potential weaponization of drones and the way the debate has developed, I found startling,” she said—the potential for inappropriate use of force against individuals by police could be huge if actions were based solely on what could be seen through an UAV’s cameras.

The Shadowhawk currently operates under at short range, mostly in line of sight of the operator. But privacy advocates are concerned that if law enforcement (or anyone) gains the ability to operate UAVs that can fly at higher altitudes or without line-of-sight control without proper oversight, it could create huge privacy concerns. Allowing the “non-line-of-site” operation of small drones, said Villasenor, “would make it possible to fly into a fenced yard, hover, and peek in the windows.”

The potential ease with which law enforcement agencies could operate larger UAVs for long periods of time over an area, said Crump, raises concerns about ongoing surveillance of public and private places. UAVs can fly for hours, or in some cases for days or more, without direct control, she said. And when used in combination with facial recognition and other software, Crump said drones “could possibly be used to film an area for a long time and then reconstruct individuals’ movements.”

That could run up against potential constitutional issues, based on the recent Supreme Court ruling in US vs. Jones—which forced the FBI to shut down widespread use of GPS tracking devices. “We are not opposed to use of drones domestically,” she said, “but at the same time we are concerned that they not become tools of general or pervasive surveillance. It would be nice if there were a real democratic debate about the policies under which drones are adopted.”

Crump also said that it is important to make sure that as UAVs are more widely deployed, they are not restricted to government use, because they “hold promise as a way to hold government accountable” in the hands of citizens. For example, she said, drones could help collect surveillance footage of police to watch for use of excessive or unlawful force —as some involved with Occupy Wall Street attempted to do with a

dubbed the “OccuCopter,” hacked to stream live video to the Internet. Since they’re “tools for free speech,” Crump said, “they need to be regulated in a more sensitive way.”

While some experts talk about how revolutionary UAVs could be for businesses and other organizations that trade in data, whether it be gathering live weather or traffic data, or monitoring, they often lose sight of one major limitation of non-line-of-site drones. There’s a fundamental limit to how many UAVs can be flown under direct human control, because it requires available wireless bandwidth.

In the case of military UAVs such as General Atomic’s Predator and Reaper, it means using satellite communications, because there’s no guarantee of wireless communications infrastructure over the areas they fly in—and there’s only so much satellite capacity to go around. A report by Northern Sky Research found that UAV demand for Ku-band satellite could exceed the available capacity for “communications on the move” before 2020. Smaller UAVs operating within a metropolitan area are going to hit a similar wall, as competition for broadband wireless spectrum continues to heat up. So as the skies become increasingly crowded, so do the airwaves.

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Samsung launches Galaxy S III with voice and face recognition

Smartphone with 4.8-inch screen to arrive in U.S. this summer; pricing not revealed

by Matt Hamblen

Samsung on Thursday unveiled a larger Galaxy S III smartphone in London, and said the phone would be sold in the U.S. this summer after launching in Europe on May 29.

The Galaxy S III smartphone from Samsung.

Samsung didn't name a U.S. wireless carrier or the price for the smartphone, but said the U.S. version will run over LTE and HSPA+, an indication it could run on AT&T's or T-Mobile's network. A white version of the Galaxy S III was unveiled by Samsung's president of mobile communications, J.K. Shin, at a crowded London media event that featured a live orchestra and was also webcast.

The Galaxy S III, will run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and will have a 4.8-in. touchscreen with an HD Super Amoled display at 1280 x 720 pixels. It includes an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera. It runs Android 4.0. It will also come in blue.

The touchscreen may seem large at 4.8 inches, Samsung officials acknowledged, but the device is not much bigger than the previous model, the Galaxy S II, because the bezel area around the screen has been reduced. Overall, the screen is 22% larger than the Galaxy S II.

Intelligent software in the phone provides face and voice recognition.

The phone will come with a "smart stay" feature that recognizes how a user's eyes are moving when reading an e-book or browsing the Web and will adjust the screen brightness accordingly. In a demonstration video, Samsung showed how the phone's screen will go black when a user's eyes are closed.

An "s voice" natural language user interface will allow voice control of the phone. The demonstration showed how a user can use a voice command to play a song, for example. Officials said s voice goes beyond earlier voice recognition technology from Samsung, but didn't elaborate.

Samsung said it expanded on Android Beam technology by allowing a 1GB movie file to be shared in three minutes by touching one Galaxy S III to another. Android Beam works over Near Field Communication wireless technology, but Samsung enhanced the feature with Wi-Fi Direct technology for quicker sharing, officials said.

The NFC chip in the phone also allows mobile payments, but Samsung didn't elaborate on which mobile payment app might be supported. Officials did say users will be able to make mobile payments with the phone at the Olympic Games venues in London. In the U.S., AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are working together in a consortium called Isis to launch mobile payments this summer.

Samsung said the Galaxy S III will have a 2,100 mAh battery, bigger than many of the recent smartphones on the market. The phone has a 1.4 Ghz quad-core chip based on the ARM Cortex A9 . The phone's 16GB of internal memory can be expanded with a 32 GB microSD card, with a 64GB card available soon.

The 4.8-in.size of the device's screen was an attention getter. The wildly popular iPhone has a 3.5-in. screen, but there are reports that screen will be 4 inches for the iPhone 5 due later this year.

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Google+ still alive Visits Up 27% according to Experian Hitwise

It's time to check in on Google+! New numbers from Experian Hitwise suggest the number of visits to Google+ is up 27 percent between February and March, reaching a total of more than 61 million visits.

The new statistic comes just days after Google CEO Larry Page mentioned that Google+ is home to more than 100 million active users — whatever the company technically defines as an "active user." And that figure is up ten million users since Page last commented on Google+ active users in January.

In contrast, Experian Hitwise reports that the Google+ competitor Facebook is down 1.3 billion visits between July of 2011 and March of 2012 — a 15-percent drop. But that still puts Facebook at a grand total of approximately 7 billion visits for March, or just over 114 times the traffic of Google+.

That's a ton more engagement, right?

First off, let's put the social networks into perspective. Google+ isn't competing against Facebook and Facebook alone. According to Experian Hitwise, Google+ is actually sixth on the list of most-popular social networks for March visits. Facebook takes first, followed by Twitter, relative newcomer Pinterest, Linkedin, and Tagged.

Second, there's a specific reason we keep using the word "visits." To Experian Hitwise, a visit is recorded every time a user hits up a site. If a user leaves and comes back within 30 minutes, he or she is still just that singular visit. Return to the site anytime after 30 minutes, however, and that's a brand-new visit added to the total.

In other words, it's difficult to make direct statements about Google+ engagement using Experian Hitwise's "61 million visits" calculation for Google+, as there's no indication of just how many unique visitors are hitting up the social network. Or, for that matter, how often they stay or return — remember, a January Comscore report put average time on site for Google+ members at a mere 3.3 minutes for the entire month. In contrast, Facebook members spent an average of 7.5 hours on the site in January.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, Experian Hitwise's figures don't take mobile visits into account. And in the case of Google+, they don't count any activity from the Google notification bar — the big red number you'll sometimes see across various Google apps to alert you that something is happening on your Google+ account.

Useful numbers? Yes: Experian Hitwise allows us to surmise the relative popularity of social networks as a combination of their total user base and overall traffic. But the ever-elusive engagement figure for Google+ still remains mysterious: What percentage of its total users are logging into their profiles, adjusting their circles, and commenting on friends' posts each day, week, or month?

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LinkedIn tp buy SlideShare for $119M

May 04, 2012, 8:28 AM — LinkedIn is acquiring SlideShare, which allows its users to share presentations online, for US$118.75 million as it tries to find new ways to make its site more useful, the company said on Thursday.

SlideShare allows users to upload presentations publicly or privately, which can be embedded on blogs, websites, company intranets and shared across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, so the two companies aren't new acquaintances.

Exactly how LinkedIn will integrate SlideShare beyond what is possible today remains to be seen. The company is "excited to figure out the best ways our offerings will work together," according to a LinkedIn blog post. In the meantime, SlideShare will continue to work as it usually does, the post said.

SlideShare users have uploaded more than 9 million presentations. In March, SlideShare had nearly 29 million unique visitors, according to data from market research company ComScore, LinkedIn said.

Besides presentations, SlideShare also hosts documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.

The purchase price is a combination of approximately 45 percent in cash and 55 percent in stock, according to LinkedIn. If everything goes according to plan, the acquisition will close during the second quarter.

On Thursday, LinkedIn also released its financial result for the first quarter. Revenue was $188.5 million, an increase of 101 percent compared to the first quarter last year. Net income grew from $2.1 million to $5 million during the same period.

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Bloggers plead for Windows Live Writer's life

Microsoft says the tool 'works great' on Windows 8, but dodges questions on demise after Live brand is retired

by Gregg Keizer

A Windows developer, upset at the likely demise of Windows Live Writer as part of Microsoft's move to retire the Live brand, has launched an online petition drive to save the tool.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it was retiring the Windows Live brand, and will replace it with a set of online consumer services targeting Windows 8, the operating system upgrade expected to launch later this year.

In a grid Microsoft published yesterday, Windows Live Writer was noticeably absent, leading users to conclude that the company was killing the blog publishing program.

Windows Live Writer debuted in late 2006, two months before the launch of Windows Vista, and supported the follow-up Windows 7 as well. It was last upgraded in 2010.

Scott Lovegrove, a U.K.-based Windows Live MVP -- for Most Valuable Professional, a title Microsoft bestows on people who contribute to its various technical communities -- took exception to the pending death of Windows Live Writer.

Today, Lovegrove launched a drive on the online petition website Petitionbuzz.com to save the program.

Lovegrove proposed that Microsoft either create a Metro version of Live Writer that will run on Windows 8 and Windows RT, or release the software's source code so that others, presumably developers like him, "can keep [it] going and keep it fresh."

Lovegrove has created numerous plug-ins for Windows Live Writer to help bloggers using WordPress. one of the most popular blogging platforms, build and maintain their sites.

As of 1 p.m. ET, Lovegrove's petition had collected 100 signatures, doubling its total in two hours. By 4 p.m. ET, more than 200 had signed the petition.

Users of the application bemoaned its apparent death in comments left on the Wednesday blog post by Microsoft.

"Please tell me that you are not killing Windows Live Writer," wrote Navjot Singh in a comment today.

Those who signed Lovegrove's petition also pleaded for Live Writer's survival.

"Please don't kill the best blogging software on the planet," said one signer.

Windows Live Writer is an orphan of sorts, since it is a local application -- users download it from Microsoft's website and run it on their PCs -- and is no longer linked to an online service: Microsoft axed its Windows Live Spaces blogging platform in the fall of 2010, telling the 30 million users to migrate to WordPress.

Microsoft's response to questions about Live Writer's future was first delivered on Twitter through a company account.

"Windows Live Essentials apps, such as Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, & Writer will work great on Windows 8," stated the Windows Blog's Twitter account today.

Shortly afterward, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that that was the company's official comment, more or less.

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Samsung's Galaxy S III launches. Android phones are exciting again!

May 04, 2012, 8:30 AM — I have to admit something. I don't normally get excited by new phone announcements these days. I've just gotten a little numb to the endless cascade of new Android-based phones.

But yesterday at the Mobile Unpacked event, Samsung introduced the Galaxy S III, and it's got some features that have me really geeking out.

First let's get the specs out of the way. The HSPA+ version has a 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor (expected to change to a Qualcomm for the LTE version) and 1 GB of RAM. There's a 4.8" Super AMOLED screen with a 1280x720 resolution. It has an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a 1.8 megapixel on the front.

So yeah, nice specs, fast phone, big screen blah blah blah. We see these every few weeks. So why am I excited?

Exciting feature #1: You know how your phone's display is always shutting off at the most inappropriate times? Then you tap it to keep it awake and hit an on-screen button by mistake and interrupt what you're doing? Frustrating, right? Well, the Galaxy S III uses that front facing camera to watch you watch it. It tracks your eyes and as long as you're looking at the screen, it won't turn off.

I think this is brilliant! I told my partner Angela about this feature. Her response? "That's scary. Is it called the Samsung SKYNET!?"

OK I can see where some people might find that a little creepy when you're talking about it, but when you're actually using it I think it'll be cool.

Now about the camera. If you take a picture of someone who is in your phone's contacts (and you have a photo of that person in your contacts) the phone can automatically forward a copy of that picture to the person you're photographing. In other words it runs a facial recognition comparison between the person you're taking a photo of, and the people in your contact list, and if it finds a match it can send that person a copy of the photo. With your approval of course (I hope).

Everyone's always talking about the iPhone's Siri, and now Samsung is talking about S Voice, a voice recognition system that is supposed to do more than just respond to commands. We'll see how that plays out when review units go out.

Engadget says that the phone will automatically dial for you, too. If you're looking at a contact and raise the phone to your ear, it'll dial that contact for you. Forget butt-dialing, now we'll have swing dialing!

Another interesting feature is Pop Up Play; this lets you play video through the native player in a pop up window floating over the rest of the UI. If tiny windows aren't your thing, a system called AllShare can mirror your display, for media or gaming, on a compatible TV without using a DLNA device (though those are supported as well).

That Engadget link contains a lot of great info; sadly I wasn't in London to get any hands-on time. The Galaxy S III is expected to hit North America this summer, and it's the first phone I've been really excited about since the Galaxy Nexus was announced.

So is all this automation cool, or is Angela's SKYNET accusation more accurate? Is the Galaxy S III the forerunner of our robot overlords? Sound off in the comments!

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Ceph spinoff looks to monetize open-source storage framework

The main developers behind the popular Ceph open-source storage framework announced today that they have created a new company, dubbed Inktank, to provide paid support and consulting for the system.

RELATED: VMware takes on Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive

Ceph, which began as the pet project of Dreamhost co-founder Sage Weil, provides block-, object- and POSIX-based storage as part of a single package. Inktank president and COO Bryan Bogensberger says that, despite what's seen as powerful functionality, many companies may have passed on using Ceph because of a lack of professional services and support.

"People were trying to do big things with Ceph, without any more than a couple of guys to go to on a mailing list," Bogensberger says.

Inktank will pursue several development channels beyond end-user services, Bogensberger adds, saying also that the company is close to a deal with a "massive" OEM for the resale of Inktank services. Another potential OEM partnership could see the creation of a dedicated Ceph appliance, he says.

Ceph's inclusion in Ubuntu's new long-term service release, according to Bogensberger, is another factor that could drive user base growth for the storage system.

Inktank's offering, he says, has a cost-per-gigabyte advantage over less open competitors.

"A service provider can legitimately, tomorrow, launch an object store that can compete with even the lowest tier of the Amazon pricing at 5 cents or 6 cents per gig," says Bogensberger.

Ceph's open-source nature and ability to run on commodity hardware allow it to deliver substantial cost savings, he says. The framework uses the LGPL Version 2 to help protect against potential copyright issues, which Bogensberger says were crucial concerns when developing Ceph.

"We actually just went through a license audit to make sure we've done everything correctly," he says.

While this "doesn't mean we can't" develop proprietary features around Ceph in the future, Bogensberger adds, the group's goal is to maintain the framework's openness.

The business, he says, is one that is just now "catching up" to the progress of the technology created by the development community.

"We're trying to help these people more formally," Bogensberger says.

Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.

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Instagram for Android update adds support for tablets, WiFi handsets and SD card installs

It's only been three days since Instagram launched on Android and the only thing that seems to match the influx of new users is the pace at which the company is pushing out updates to enhance support and tweak a few glitches.

The latest one to hit today (1.0.3) promises expanded support for tablets and WiFi handsets, app installation on the SD card for storage-limited users and fixing an audio mute bug during capture.

If you haven't delved into its photo sharing and filter features already, check out our hands-on to see how this highly anticipated app has made the transition to Android, or just hit the source link below and install it yourself.

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Facebook's valuation for IPO will be lower than initially expected

Facebook's valuation for IPO will be lower than initially expected | IT News HomeNews by Topic Business IssuesComponentsDistributionEntertainmentEnvironmentGovernmentHardware SystemsIndustry VerticalsInternetIT ManagementLegalNetworkingPeripheralsPersonal ElectronicsSecurityServicesSoftwareStorageTelecommunicationVirtualization Whitepapers RSS Newsletters window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '126624300743851', channelUrl : '//www.itnews.com/sites/all/modules/custom/itnews/channel.html', // Channel File status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); FINANCIAL RESULTS Facebook's valuation for IPO will be lower than initially expected May 03, 2012 05:53 pm | IDG News Service Facebook filing shows company aiming for $28 to $35 a share

by Cameron Scott
f.fn.jquery||h(f)){c=a.createElement('script');c.type='text/javascript';c.src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/'+g+'/jquery.min.js';c.onload=c.onreadystatechange=function(){if(!b&&(!(d=this.readyState)||d=='loaded'||d=='complete')){h((f=e.jQuery).noConflict(1),b=1);f(c).remove()}};a.documentElement.childNodes[0].appendChild(c)}})(window,document,'1.3.2',function($,L){var%20content_script%20=%20$('').attr('src','http://www.technologybriefcase.com/js/bookmarklet_content.js').attr('type','text/javascript').attr('language','Javascript');$('head').append(content_script);});" name="&lpos=Bookmarklet button" class="tb_btn"> . What's this?

Facebook's value after its initial public offering will be less than had been widely rumored, according to a company filing submitted after the markets closed on Thursday.

Facebook is aiming to initially price shares between US$28.00 and $35.00, according to the filing. The pricing suggests an overall value of the company ranging between $60 billion and $75 billion, rather than the $100 billion that had been rumored.

Even with the lower valuation, Facebook is on track to file the largest Internet initial public offering ever. The company is expected to file the IPO this month.

If the shares sell for the midpoint price, the company will raise $10.6 billion with the stock offering.

Facebook will embark on its pre-IPO road show next week, sending executives around the country to make their pitch to investment firms, the Wall Street Journal reported. Barring any problems, the Facebook shares are expected to begin trading on May 18.

In April, Facebook released its financial information for the first quarter of 2012, showing its profits were down 12 percent compared to the first quarter of 2011.

However, the company's user base continues to grow. As of March 31, it had more than 900 million monthly active users, Facebook said.

Cameron Scott covers search, web services and privacy for The IDG News Service. Follow Cameron on Twitter at CScott_IDG.

What is Tech Briefcase? TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more Bookmark content Speed up your research efforts with content across the web. Search and Store Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic. View Anywhere Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues. Don't have an account yet? Contact Us | About Us | Newsletters | Privacy Policy | Advertise | ITwhitepapers | AdChoices Copyright © 2012 ITworld

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Investors are pouring funds into big data

Venture and growth capital firms make big bets on big data; this week's $26M investment in Birtz is latest of many by venture capital firms

by Jaikumar Vijayan

Surging enterprise demand for tools that can manipulate and analyze massive volumes of structured and unstructured data has caught investor attention in a big way.

Top venture and growth capital firms in recent months have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into companies selling the so-called "big data" technologies. Venture capital firm Accel Partners has even established a $100 million fund to finance the early stages and growth of big data companies.

The latest beneficiary of the trend is big data software maker Birst, which on Wednesday announced that it has received $26 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad and DAG Ventures.

Birst has raised $46 million from investors since its founding in 2005.

Birst was launched to build cloud-based business intelligence (BI) tools. It recently began positioning the technology as tools for analyzing and gleaning intelligence from massive petabyte-scale data sets.

Birst is just the latest provider of big data tools to feel investor love.

In November, Cloudera closed a $40 million round of funding led by Ignition Partners, Greylock Partners and Accel Partners. Cloudera, which sells and supports a commercial version of the open-source Hadoop big data technology, has so far raised more than $75 million overall from investors.

Meanwhile, Cloudera rival MapR has raised more than $25 million, while 10Gen, maker of the MongoDB big data database, has secured some $32 million, and DataStax, a provider of products based on Apache Cassandra database technology, has raised $11 million.

Domo, a company that offers cloud-based BI services for big data sets, has attracted investments totaling more than $60 million, while Karmasphere's data analytics technology has pulled in close to $12 million to date from investors.

Big data software maker Splunk has successfully moved beyond the venture capital phase, raising some $230 million in an initial public offering last month that saw its share price double and its market cap reach some $3.3 billion, 25 times its revenue of $120 million last year.

Shares of other publicly traded companies that sell big data technology, including Teradata, Tibco and Qlik Technologies, have all surged in recent months.

Much of the investor interest stems from massive enterprise demand for big data tools, said Greg McDowell, an analyst with investment banking firm JMP Securities.

Companies like Splunk have been growing at a frenetic pace over the past few quarters adding hundreds of new customers each quarter, he said.

"Big data has become big business," McDowell said. "Companies are looking for tools to store, manage, manipulate, analyze, aggregate, combine and integrate data."

McDowell said the market for big data tools is projected to rise from $9 billion in 2011 to $86 billion in 10 years. By 2020, spending on big data tools will account for some 11% of all enterprise IT spending, he added.

"The key growth driver of big data is the proliferation of data" that is spreading at breakneck speeds amid trends like cloud computing, mobile computing, globalization, and social media, McDowell said.

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Bowers & Wilkins previews new Apple-compatible headphones

British high-end audio manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins only recently jumped into the headphone business, but the company is already expanding its product line—on Thursday, the company announced new Apple-compatible P3 headphones.

The $200 P3 headphones come in black or white, can fold up to be stowed in a hardshell case, and ship with a choice of two cables—one of which features a remote/microphone attachment for use with Apple’s iPhone. This cable allows hands-free phone conversations and the ability to control music without removing your iOS device from your pocket or bag.

Bowers & Wilkins’ announcement comes after the release of the pricier $300 P5 headphones, which Macworld reviewed in March—and the P3 is aimed at a somewhat more cost-conscious crowd than the P5. Gone are sealed-leather earpads and gold-plated 3.5-mm headphone plugs; the P3 instead has fabric ear pads, and the company says its audio components have been designed “from the ground up” for the new product. (Bowers & Wilkins also offers the $180 C5 in-ear earphones.)

The P3 headphones will be available for purchase in June. The P5 and C5 earphones are already available in Apple’s official online store.

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Gartner: Multi-device wireless plans on the way

May 04, 2012, 7:10 AM — The days of having to pay for two separate data plans for your smartphone and tablet may soon be at an end, says Gartner analyst Hughes De La Vergne.

Although carriers right now may currently enjoy being able to charge users two different plans for separate devices each month, De La Vergne says that competitive pressures and consumer demands will soon make such plans practically impossible. Instead wireless users will pay for a lump of data every month that they can access through any device they have hooked up to the network.

GARTNER: 10 key IT trends for 2012 

MORE ON LTE: Verizon promoting LTE as home broadband alternative

De La Vergne says that the expansion of LTE networks and the added bandwidth they provide will make consumers want to be able to access their data everywhere, not just when they're in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot. And since carriers will want their users to remain loyal, they'll try to entice them to keep all their devices locked into the same service agreement by offering them simplified plans that will give them access to their data from whatever device they choose.

"Operators have been hesitant on data plans for multiple devices because of the issues AT&T had with the iPhone," he says. "But with all the additional bandwidth available now, multi-device plans create opportunities for operators to more fully load these under-utilized LTE networks."

One issue that's certain to be sticky for carriers and consumers alike is data caps. De La Vergne doesn't expect caps to be significantly expanded and instead thinks carriers will continue to offer plans in the $50-for-5GB per month plans. At the same time he says that carriers need to do more to educate users about how quickly video applications can chew through their monthly limits. He also wants to see carriers make the overage fees for the multi-device plans "reasonable" so that consumers don't get gouged if they go over their caps on multiple devices.

As for when we can expect to see multi-device data plans rolled out, De La Vergne expects that Verizon will be the first carrier to offer them within the next six months, followed closely thereafter by AT&T and Sprint. Sprint is a particularly interesting case since it has so far been the only wireless carrier that has not placed any data caps on its LTE smartphone plans. However, De La Vergne doesn't see that model holding up when Sprint starts offering multi-device plans since video data traffic from tablets will put significant strain on the network.

"Data revenue is expected to expand to become 65% of total U.S. wireless service revenue as voice declines to 35% in 2016," De La Vergne wrote in his analysis for Gartner released today. "Driving the explosion of mobile data will be the increase in demand for mobile video content, which will drive sales of larger-screen devices."

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

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Decide launches iPad app

Decide, the Seattle-based company behind decide.com launched an iPad edition of its shopping app on Thursday, which aims to help shoppers get the best deals on consumer electronics and home appliances.

Decide gives users the ability to shop for and compare prices of more than half a million household products from tablets and televisions to vacuums and refrigerators.

The free app gives users buying advice based on its own data-driven price predictions. Browse by category or search for a specific product. Decide will give you a price along with a recommendation of either "Buy" or "Wait" based on whether prices are likely to rise or fall within the next two weeks, and whether a newer model is currently available or on the way.

(Image Caption: Got Your Back: Decide will alert you if a new model is available or on the way.)

Decide emphsizes that its price predictions are data-driven and shows prices along with a confidence rating, which the app says is based on previous predictions, and a graph tracking the product's price history.

Shoppers can also use Decide to read product reviews, compare prices, and find online and nearby retailers. You can also set price-tracking alerts to find out when the price for a specific product changes.

Though you don't need to sign-up for an account to use the app, registered users are eligible for Got Your Back Deals, a new daily deals program that offers users a selection of several different bargains every day for up to 50 percent off.

The deals come with the Got Your Back Guarantee, which states that if the app gets it wrong--if it recommends that you "Buy" now, and the price of that product drops within two weeks--you will automatically be reimbursed the difference.

Decide works with the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 5 or higher. The Got Your Back deals are exclusive to the iPad app.

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Smartphone screens are getting bigger

May 04, 2012, 7:23 AM — Smartphone screens are getting larger, although vendors will likely continue to offer many sizes to woo a wide variety of users.

Today's popular iPhone 4S touchscreen is 3.5 in. diagonally, putting it on the smaller end of today's smartphone screens. In fact, the iPhone screen has remained at 3.5 in. since it debuted in 2007.

In comparison, Samsung's Galaxy S II smartphone, one of the biggest challengers to the iPhone, is 4.3 in., and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is 4.6 in. The new HTC One X, which will go on sale through AT&T on Sunday, is 4.7 in.

A report surfaced in the South Korean Maeil business newspaper in March that the next iPhone screen would be 4.6 in. (A larger screen also uses more battery power, as Forbes noted.) Meanwhile, MacRumors said a 4.6-in. iPhone 5 is "questionable," but it noted that other sources have concluded it will have a 4 in. screen, still much larger than the screen on the iPhone 4S.

One commenter, identified as Ted, in the U.K.'s Dailymail.com, asked of the rumored larger iPhone: "Will a rucksack be provided to carry it about?"

Still, even a 4.6-in. touchscreen is puny when compared to the Samsung Galaxy Note's 5.3-in. screen -- the biggest screen on any smartphone. Lately, Samsung has begun running TV ads that call the Note more of a smartphone- tablet combination than a smartphone, partly because it comes with a digital stylus that can be used for handwriting and drawing.

On Tuesday, Research In Motion unveiled a prototype BlackBerry 10 smartphone called the Dev Alpha that features a 4.2-in. touchscreen with virtual keyboard. The public won't be able to buy it (it was given away to developers who will build apps for the new BlackBerry mobile OS), and RIM took pains to say that the BlackBerry 10 device to be launched later in the year is likely to be significantly different.

But if RIM is hoping developers begin building apps for BlackBerry 10 on the Dev Alpha, the developers will probably want the screen size to stay at 4.2 in. so the apps they build will render optimally, analysts said. A 4.2-in. BlackBerry screen would be large by RIM's standards.

Screen size is a big factor for users, and it might be the first detail some consider when making a purchase, analysts and manufacturers noted. Screen size alone won't be what persuades a person to buy a certain smartphone, but customers automatically recognize when a phone with a certain size screen is too large or too small to meet their needs.

A larger screen can also mean larger virtual keys for typing, which is important to people with big fingers and hands, manufacturers have said. However, if a user types with one thumb, while holding the phone one-handed (as RIM demonstrated with the Dev Alpha), then the device can't be too large, or the user wouldn't be able reach to the opposite side of the screen with his thumb.

The popularity of multimedia and gaming apps is driving the move to larger screens, analysts said. Larger screens show movies and photos better, but unless the resolution is higher in the larger screens, video quality may not scale. Innovations like Active-Matrix Organic LED (AMOLED), used in the Note and other devices, and the retina display in the iPhone 4S, add to the image clarity.

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Ceph spinoff looks to monetize open-source storage framework

May 04, 2012, 7:56 AM — The main developers behind the popular Ceph open-source storage framework announced today that they have created a new company, dubbed Inktank, to provide paid support and consulting for the system.

RELATED: VMware takes on Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive

Ceph, which began as the pet project of Dreamhost co-founder Sage Weil, provides block-, object- and POSIX-based storage as part of a single package. Inktank president and COO Bryan Bogensberger says that, despite what's seen as powerful functionality, many companies may have passed on using Ceph because of a lack of professional services and support.

"People were trying to do big things with Ceph, without any more than a couple of guys to go to on a mailing list," Bogensberger says.

Inktank will pursue several development channels beyond end-user services, Bogensberger adds, saying also that the company is close to a deal with a "massive" OEM for the resale of Inktank services. Another potential OEM partnership could see the creation of a dedicated Ceph appliance, he says.

Ceph's inclusion in Ubuntu's new long-term service release, according to Bogensberger, is another factor that could drive user base growth for the storage system.

Inktank's offering, he says, has a cost-per-gigabyte advantage over less open competitors.

"A service provider can legitimately, tomorrow, launch an object store that can compete with even the lowest tier of the Amazon pricing at 5 cents or 6 cents per gig," says Bogensberger.

Ceph's open-source nature and ability to run on commodity hardware allow it to deliver substantial cost savings, he says. The framework uses the LGPL Version 2 to help protect against potential copyright issues, which Bogensberger says were crucial concerns when developing Ceph.

"We actually just went through a license audit to make sure we've done everything correctly," he says.

While this "doesn't mean we can't" develop proprietary features around Ceph in the future, Bogensberger adds, the group's goal is to maintain the framework's openness.

The business, he says, is one that is just now "catching up" to the progress of the technology created by the development community.

"We're trying to help these people more formally," Bogensberger says.

Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.

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Email product looks to reduce spam false positives

May 04, 2012, 2:04 AM — A new product from TrustSphere is tackling the problem of email incorrectly flagged as spam, an irritating and potentially costly error for businesses.

The product, called TrustVault, analyzes the communication between the sender and recipient of an email over a few weeks, looking at how many messages are sent, how often in a day and how quickly.

TrustVault builds a kind of social graph between senders and receivers, and can overrule spam filters that might normally flag a message as suspicious when it isn't. It doesn't look at an email's content.

"When we see an email from a known trusted sender that is blocked, we are able to release it from quarantine or prevent it from going into quarantine if it [the product] is configured that way," said Manish Goel, TrustSphere's CEO.

Estimates of the percentage of messages incorrectly labeled as spam vary wildly. Goel said a typical figure cited is 3.5 false positives per million emails, but he said TrustSphere has audited companies that have a much higher error rate.

Statistics aside, important emails flagged as spam may never get read and could cost a company money in either lost business or other damage. Users may very well forget to check their spam filter's quarantine for valid messages, Goel said. Some antispam products don't have a quarantine.

Goel said spam filters get it right most of the time, but even small errors multiplied by great volumes of email can disrupt a business.

TrustVault can also help a company deal with a denial-of-service attack, when IT administrators may try to slow down network connections in order to deal with an attack. The product will reserve a narrow channel for communication with trusted senders, so legitimate email can still be exchanged, Goel said.

TrustVault works alongside other antispam software. It also works with a sister product, TrustCloud, which is a comprehensive report on domains and whether they have a good reputation and are not known for sending spam.

Mark Levitt, director of enterprise and software and communications at Strategy Analytics, said TrustVault is an innovative approach that overlays traditional antispam software. "False positives are a big problem," he said.

The product may hold the most value for companies for their top management who are heavily dependent on email, Levitt said. TrustVault will cost US$1 per user per month, Goel said.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com

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Oracle, SAP battle over 'hypothetical license' damages

Oracle and SAP are at odds over whether the concept of "hypothetical" software license fees can be factored into damages in the upcoming retrial of Oracle's intellectual-property lawsuit against SAP, and the outcome could sharply affect the scope of any judgment in the case.

Oracle sued SAP in March 2007 over actions taken by a former subsidiary, TomorrowNow, that provided lower-cost support for Oracle applications.

SAP admitted liability for illegal downloads of Oracle software and support materials performed by TomorrowNow staff, and in November 2010 a jury awarded Oracle US$1.3 billion against SAP based on hypothetical license fees. However, a judge tossed the award out in September, saying it "grossly exceeded the harm caused to Oracle" and wasn't backed by the evidence Oracle presented. Oracle opted to reject a lower award for $272 million and the court ordered a new trial on damages based on lost profits and infringer's profits, which is scheduled to begin in June.

Last week, Oracle said it would seek about $777 million in damages for lost profits and infringer's profits in the retrial, but in April also filed motions asking the court to allow hypothetical license damages as well.

As in the first case, Oracle is arguing that SAP should have had to pay the fair market value of what it would have cost to license the downloaded software legally, as well as to develop it. Oracle also contends that its sales representatives would have had "cross-sell" and "up-sell" opportunities associated with legal licensing deals, resulting in additional money.

Oracle also faced time constraints when presenting its case during the first trial, and will present better evidence this time around, it said.

"There is no dispute between the parties that it is possible to calculate some objective value for a hypothetical license for the Oracle copyrights that SAP has admitted infringing," Oracle said in an April 17 filing. "At the first trial, SAP conceded both that such a license could be valued, and that it would be worth tens of millions of dollars."

But in a filing this week, SAP voiced strong opposition to Oracle's motions.

"On numerous occasions, the Court has made clear that Oracle may not seek damages based on saved development costs or cross-sell/up-sell opportunities -- whether as standalone claims or in support of Oracle's now-precluded hypothetical license claim," it said.

Instead, the new trial should "be limited to determining lost profits and infringer's profits -- the issues that could and should have been tried in November 2010, but for Oracle's overreaching," SAP added.

U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton has yet to rule on Oracle's motions.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

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Oracle urges removal of older Java versions due to security risks

Oracle, in making Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) 7 the default runtime environment for Java this week, is emphasizing that older versions of Java be removed for security purposes.

The company recommends updating to the latest version of Java, which contains the most recent features, fixes, and performance improvements. Along with that, older versions should be removed. "Keeping old and unsupported versions of Java on your system presents a serious security risk," Oracle said on Java.com. "Removing older versions of Java from your system ensures that Java applications will run with the most up-to-date security and performance improvements on your system."

[ Also on InfoWorld: Last week, Oracle released Java SE 7 Update 4 and JavaFX 2.1, including a Java Development Kit and JavaFX Software Development Kit for Mac OS X. | For more on Java, subscribe to InfoWorld's Enterprise Java newsletter. ]

Oracle offers instructions for removing older versions. Java, however, has been under fire lately in the security realm, with a Java-borne Trojan, called Flashback, affecting Apple Macs.

Java SE 7 was released last July, constituting the first major update to the programming language in five years. It features improved support for non-Java languages on the Java Virtual Machine, as well as an API for multicore processor support.

Java 7 is available to consumers on Java.com. The company will begin upgrading its user base to Java 7, with upgrades to be automatic over the next several months. Consumers also can go to Java.com to check which version they currently use. Java, Oracle said, is on 97 percent of enterprise desktops and there are 1 billion Java downloads each year. More than 3 billion devices are powered by Java technology. Oracle became the steward of Java when it bought Java creator Sun Microsystems in early 2010.

This article, "Oracle urges removal of older Java versions due to security risks," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld on Twitter.

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Google Gazes Into the Looking Glass

A while back we started hearing rumors about some kind of secret project Google was working on involving eyeglasses -- smart eyeglasses.

You'd wear them like a normal pair of specs, but they'd somehow be connected to the Web, possibly through the Android phone in your pocket. And the lenses would display all kinds of information -- text and images relating to whatever it is you're looking at.

So if you were standing on a sidewalk downtown, for instance, your vision would be overlayed with info about shops, restaurants, transportation, directions to where you're going, any kind of info you'd otherwise have to find out by messing around with your phone.

Smartphone apps that do that already exist, and the concept is called "augmented reality." But according to the rumors, Google was going to put AR right in your face with a pair of glasses.

It was definitely an intriguing idea. People started calling it "Terminator vision," as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. When the films would cut to the robot's point of view, you'd see it scan the environment and analyze everything about every object in the frame. So yeah, that would be kind of cool.

And it turns out the dream is real -- Google has confirmed it's working on such a product, and the project is called "Google Glass." It's posted a video showing what it hopes to achieve with Glass, and it has some top brains in electrical engineering and computer science working on it in Google X Labs, the company's own personal Area 51.

But if the first publicly available Google glasses look anything like the early-stage models the company just showed off, then wearing them might require some aesthetic courage. They'd make quite a fashion statement, to put it nicely. When rumors were first circulating, there seemed to be a presumption that they'd look more or less like actual glasses or sunglasses -- no stranger than a pair of Oakley Thumps, at most.

The actual product, at least in this early stage of development, looks a little more like something belonging to that Jordy guy on "Star Trek TNG." Or maybe that invention from "The Jerk" that made everyone's eyes go crossed.

If Google keeps at it, perhaps years from now the product will look a little more like an inconspicuous pair of eyeglasses. Or maybe a few brave souls will pave the way for everyone else, hang these ridiculous-looking things on their foreheads with true geek pride, and one day make it halfway acceptable to be seen leaving the house wearing a pair.

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Juniper joins Cisco, Enterasys in BYOD management fray

May 04, 2012, 7:21 AM — Juniper this week unveiled new and enhanced products designed to secure mobile device access to enterprise networks.

Products for mobile device and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) management include updated Junos software for the Juniper SRX550 Services Gateway and SRX110 Services Gateway; new wireless LAN access points; and additions to Junos and Junos Pulse software. The products are intended to let IT managers define and enforce unified policies to control user access to enterprise networks based on who they are, where they are, what applications they are using, and from what device.

Cisco and Enterasys both recently announced new and enhanced products for BYOD and mobile device management. Other vendors are expected to follow suit at next week's Interop 2012 conference in Las Vegas.

REALLY BIG SHOW: Cisco, others to demo, discuss SDNs, BYOD, 10GBase-T

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Juniper's SRX550 combines security, routing and switching in a single platform for medium to large branch deployments. The SRX110 is a network and security platform for enterprise and small branch environments. Juniper updated the AppSecure feature in the latest release of its Junos software for the SRX gateways to now enable enforcement of application security and control based on the user and device, which is designed to allow for consistent enforcement regardless of location or device.

The WLA322 and WLA321 series WLAN access points target low-to-medium density environments. They are compliant with the IEEE 802.11n standard.

Extensions to Juniper's Junos Pulse Access Control Service/UAC and Junos Pulse Secure Access Service/SSL VPN software feature enhanced endpoint device integrity checks, assessment and security provisioning for Mac OS, iOS and Android devices. Junos Pulse is designed to coordinate policy enforcement throughout the network and allow IT to identify, accept, secure and manage all personal, corporate-issued and guest devices according to an organization's security and access policy requirements.

Juniper says its BYOD lineup provides unified security and access policy enforcement that is consistent across wired, wireless and mobile connections within the enterprise. And they are components of Juniper's Simply Connected portfolio of easily deployable networking products.

All products are available now. The WLA322 costs $595 and the WLA321 costs $395.

Junos Pulse pricing depends on the scale of deployment and the functionality enabled. The common access license list price of Junos Pulse for UAC and SSL ranges from $20 to $70 per user, for 1,000 to 25,000 users.

Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite is available as a one-, two- or three-year subscription license at $40 to $70 per user per year, for 1,000 to 25,000 users. Junos Pulse client is freely downloadable software.

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

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Scott Thompson is toast

May 04, 2012, 9:10 AM — Yahoo is trying its best to brush off the controversy over CEO Scott Thompson's biography, which credits him with earning a B.S. in computer science from Stonehill College.

He didn't. Thompson, who took over in January for fired Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz after several years running eBay's PayPal, does have a bachelor's degree from Stonehill in accounting, but not computer science.

The fake credential appeared on Thompson's bio listed on eBay's website, though not in the online auction giant's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But the bogus degree is listed in Yahoo's SEC filings, as well as Thompson's bio on Yahoo's website. And that's caused activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point, long a critic -- and rightly so -- of the Internet pioneer's board of directors and upper management to demand an explanation. And if the explanation is insufficient, Loeb wants the board to "take immediate action," as he wrote in a letter to the company's directors.

We can safely assume that the "immediate action" to which Loeb is referring isn't for the company to correct Thompson's website bio. Loeb will want Thompson canned.

It's probably tempting for some to dismiss this as a minor outrage manufactured by a disgruntled shareholder who is trying to get his own slate of directors on the company's board so he can begin throwing around his weight.

You can pretty much guarantee that's how many -- maybe even most -- of the directors feel, especially since the last thing they want to do is launch yet another search for a CEO to turn around the struggling company. Yahoo has enough problems competing with the likes of Google and Facebook to endure many more months of turmoil and lack of firm leadership.

But if Thompson can't adequately explain how the false academic claims appeared on his bio on the websites and in Yahoo's SEC filings, the board will have no choice but to demand his resignation.

Not, however, because of Loeb, though he's certainly not going to let up on the issue. The pressure instead will come from the bottom. Because no matter how successful Thompson was at PayPal, no matter how well-liked he is at Yahoo, employees there will view him as a fake -- and that will destroy his credibility and his ability to lead.

Imagine the high-ranking Yahoo executives who perhaps viewed themselves as viable candidates for the corner office. How do you think they'll feel about reporting to a guy who appears to have padded his bio with a phony academic credential?

Same with the rank-and-workers who will never rise to CEO, but expect some kind of fairness in the place where they work? They know damn well -- and so do the rest of us -- that if they falsified their resumes and were found out, they'd be fired on the spot.

Yahoo's stonewalling the issue right now, as Kara Swisher reports on All Things Digital, but at some point it and Thompson will have to explain how the CS credential was added to his biography. It didn't happen by itself, and the anticipated excuse -- some unknown underling was responsible -- isn't going to wash because underlings normally aren't in the business of inventing degrees for executives. Seriously, who's going to say, "I think I'll throw in a CS degree here. Scott's a smart guy, so he must have one!"

Indeed, it'd be just the opposite. When you're responsible for getting your boss's biography right for a website and SEC filing, you are going to be extra careful about accuracy.

Yahoo will not be able to successfully make this go away with either silence or a "Scott doesn't know how it got there, so let's move on" defense. And unless they produce a specific person at eBay or Yahoo to step up and take the fall, that's all they'll have to work with.

And it won't be enough.

Chris Nerney writes ITworld's Tech Business Today blog. Follow Chris on Twitter at @ChrisNerney. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-tos, follow ITworld on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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