Warezov now targets Skype users

ROGUE net users have created a new variation of Warezov/Stration malicious code that is currently spreading through the Skype network, attacking Skype users’ machines, security specialists have warned.

WebSense Security Labs issued a warning that Skype users receive a message that says “Check this up”, with a URL containing a hyperlink.

Although the code itself is not self-propagating, when it runs, a URL is sent to all users within the user's contacts list.

When users click on the link, they are redirected to a site that is hosting an .exe file that users are prompted to click. WebSense notes that there is no vulnerability within Skype itself, but if the users runs the .exe file, several other files are automatically downloaded and run.

Once the computer is infected it can be accessed by the attacker and the Trojan will start propagating by sending the rogue message to everyone in the users contact list.

Skype has warned users against opening the malicious .exe file. The company said users should be careful before opening any attachment in general.

For more Net Working, VOIP Expo and IT Security news, click below.

Singapore moves to regulate New Media content

THE Singapore government has moved to extend its regulatory powers beyond the traditional print and broadcast world and into new media content.

The Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) has issued draft changes to its Media Market Conduct Code that includes proposals for new powers over internet-based content and is seeking public comment on the issue.

While the review looks at all forms of new media, it will play especially close attention to potential areas of regulatory conflict like IPTV, where new media may compete directly with traditional media players.

The draft was released as part of a scheduled three-year review of the Code. When the Code was first introduced in 2003, it was a regulatory vehicle for print and broadcast media, with the broadband internet still in its early commercial stages.

“The move is part of MDA’s continual efforts to nurture a pro-business environment while ensuring more media choices for the public,” the Authority said in a statement.

“The revision of the Code will ensure that it remains relevant and effective in promoting fair market conduct and competition amidst the rapid changes in the Singapore media industry,” it said.

The Code was first implemented in April 2003 to address competition issues related to the broadcasting and print sectors. The revised Code aims to move beyond these sectors to address changes in the media industry, and is expected to be released in the fourth quarter.

“The media landscape has changed since 2003 and a good example is the adoption of different business models by traditional and new media players,” MDA’s media policy director Ling Pek Ling said.

“With the emergence of new media markets and the introduction of HDTV and IPTV services, it is timely for us to look at how we can update our Code to meet the needs of the media industry,” Ms Ling said.

For more Digital Content and IPTV Expo news, click below.

Seagate expands data recovery services to Oz

DISK drive maker Seagate Technology has launched its professional data recovery services in Australia as part of a global expansion in the recovery business.

The company said its Seagate Recovery Services business offered “the last line of defence” for companies in protecting information assets.

“Corporations and consumers are increasingly placing a premium on the value of digital content they’ve created for work and play, and they cannot afford the risk of losing (that) data,” Seagate’s Asia-Pacific channel sales and marketing executive director Kevin Lee said in a statement.

“As such, Seagate Recovery Services provides the last line of defence to recover the loss of these invaluable data quickly and accurately,” he said.

The company uses its own software as part of an in-lab recovery service using a patented system called SignalTrace.

Seagate said the technology lets its service engineers recover data from all types of media – regardless of brands and formats – that have undergone severe physical damage, liquid damage, fire damage, software corruption, system sabotage and accidental file deletion.

The SignalTrace technology is drive-independent and allows for data recovery from media that cannot be addressed by traditional in-lab recovery methods, the company said.

For more Storage news, click below.

SBS

THE public broadcaster SBS Television is to offer selected programming for the first time as a commercial, on-demand downloadable service through a new strategic relationship with Telstra BigPond.

As the first example of what is expected to become a broader offering, viewers of the new SBS cult comedy Wilfred will be able to download from BigPond the next episode of the show three hours after the previous episode’s telecast has gone to air.

Each download is ad-free and priced at $2.95, with a 20 per cent discount for BigPond users. Copyright protection measures mean the download must be viewed within 48 hours of the download.

The Wilfred programming is thought to be being used as a kind of pilot, and could be expanded quickly to cover other SBS TV programming. It is not yet clear whether the deal with Telstra BigPond will raise any eyebrows in Canberra.

SBS commercial affairs director Richard Finlayson said SBS and Wilfred producers Renegade wanted to give the show “the widest possible distribution”.

“We recognise that technology is shifting the time and place of media consumption and this deal is a great opportunity to better understand the future of consumer preferences,” Mr Finlayson said.

Wilfred premiered on March 19 and follows the adventures of a cantankerous canine named Wilfred and his unlucky-in-love mistress Sarah.

For more Digital Content and IPTV news, click below.

Samsung ramps to 64GB in a flash

KOREAN semiconductor maker Samsung has used the Mobile Solutions Forum in Taipei to launch its new 1.8-inch, 64GB flash-solid state drive (SSD).

The new device is based on 8GB single-level-cell (SLC) memory chips, which boosting performance while not adding to power consumption.

The 64GB flash-SSD targets the hard-drive replacement market – so that the device is used as primary storage in devices ranging from laptops to personal navigation systems and camcorders – and is twice the capacity of the 32GB flash-SSD Samsung launched last year.

Samsung said it would start mass producing the 64GB flash-SSD in the second quarter this year.

The company says the SSD market is expected to reach US$200 million (A$248 million) in 2007, but will grow to US$6.8 billion (A$8.4 billion) by 2010, a compound annual growth rate of more than 200 per cent.

For more Mobile Computing and Components and Peripherals news, click below.

Politics intervenes in US ID card debate

A US federal government plans to introduce smartcard-based driver’s licenses with biometric photographs has been questioned by Senators and civil libertarians as too expensive and invasive of people’s privacy.

Debate has begun over the Real ID Act in the US, which would require states to save digital copies of source documents like birth certificates and registrations, and to share information on their driver’s license database with other states and the federal government.

The broad plans are similar to Australia’s Access Card – although the non-compulsory smartcard in the US, although a driver’s license, is being called an ID.

The Real ID Act was passed by Congress after the 9/11 attacks to beef up identity in the US. Like the Access Card, the Real ID Act envisages a biometric photo on the face of the card, with machine readable personal information stored on the card’s chip.

But like Australia, the card proposal faces considerable opposition, and a lengthy debate on how best to introduce it – or whether it should be introduced at all – is almost certain.

The Real ID card project is being overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS estimates its cost of introduction over 10 years at US$14.6 billion (A$18 billion).

The debate in the US has started to mirror debate that has just started in earnest in Australia. Senators in the US have complained that the card will cost too much for not much security.

They have also questioned the security of the on-chip information, saying there is technology available to crack whatever security measures might be put in place.

Like their counterparts in Australia, US civil libertarians and privacy advocates have complained that the machine-readable zone on each license will potentially provide a computer trail of where it goes.

They also say that far from being a simple driver’s licence, it will become a de facto ID standard, making it impossible to function in a variety of areas – getting on a plane, getting a job – without producing the card.

For more Smart Card news, click below.

Ad blitz: Labor turns up broadband heat

FEDERAL Labor has launched a national radio advertising campaign aimed at galvanising the support for its ambitious national broadband network.

ALP national secretary Tim Gartrell said the party had booked a national run of 30-second radio spots to push leader Kevin Rudd’s plan to invest $4.7 billion with the private sector in building a fibre-to-the-node network.

It is the second time this year the ALP national machine has booked Australian-wide campaigns, following the Australia Day TV personal message from Mr Rudd,

The 30-second ads’ national run will include areas from Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, as well as key regional areas like NSW Central Coast, NSW Central West, as well as Tasmania and Queensland.

“The ad highlights Federal Labor's plan to revolutionise Australia's internet infrastructure by creating a new world class National Broadband Network and boost internet speed by more than 40 times, the ALP national office said in a statement.

In an election year, broadband is seen by Labor as a platform for attacking the Prime Minister John Howard on his strong suit – his economic record.

Labor says government’s inaction on “real” broadband has kept Australia’s productivity growth rates low, and has robbed Australians of opportunities in new markets.

Writing in The Australian newspaper, Labor Treasury spokesman Wayne Swan said Mr Howard’s failure to act on improving broadband was evidence that government was “self-satisfied, backward looking and complacent.”

“With the possible exceptions of climate change and education, nowhere is this complacency more obvious than in its chronic neglect of Australia’s broadband needs,” Mr Swan said.

The economic arguments for Labor’s broadband plan were compelling and backed by the Government’s own broadband advisory group, which say the economic benefits of high-speed internet could be as high as $30 billion annually.

“Lifting productivity is a particularly urgent priority at a time when we are slipping further behind the productivity leaders,” Mr Swan said.

“Productivity growth in Australia averaged less than half that of the US over the past five years and represents a major hole in the Government’s economic agenda,” he said.

“Labor’s broadband plan will allow health, education and other public services to be delivered in newer, faster ways … (and) will mean Australian businesses will be kicking with the wind in hyper-competitive global economy.”

For more e-Government and Telecommunications news, click below.

Research reveals optical chip breakthrough

IBM researchers will this week unveil a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than optical components commercially available today.

The company said the breakthrough could transform how data is accessed, shared and used across the internet for corporate and consumer networks.

The technology, to be demonstrated at the 2007 Optical Fiber Conference in Anaheim, is fast enough that the download time for a typical high definition feature-length movie would be reduces from about 30 minutes or more to a single second.

The company said optical networking could dramatically improve data rates by speeding the flow of data by using light pulses, instead of sending electrons over wire.

“The explosion in the amount of data being transferred, when downloading movies, TV shows, music or photos, is creating demand for greater bandwidth and higher speeds in connectivity,” said IBM Research’s science and technology vice-president T C Chen.

“Greater use of optical communications is needed to address this issue. We believe our optical transceiver technology may provide the answer.”

The company said optical technology could move information at speeds of 160 Gigabits per second, providing a glimpse of a new era of high-speed.

As the volume of data being transmitted over networks have continued to rise, researchers have sought to make the use of optical signals more practical, saying optics could not just offered massive bandwidth, but improve signal fidelity compared to current electrical links.

IBM’s researchers say the technology could be integrated onto printed circuit boards to allow the components within an electronic system – like a PC or set top box – to communicate much faster, dramatically enhancing the performance of the system itself.

As a demonstration, the researchers built an optical transceiver with driver and receiver integrated circuits in current CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) technology, the same standard, high-volume, low-cost technology used for most chips today.

They then coupled it with other necessary optical components made in more exotic materials, such as indium phosphide (InP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs), into one, integrated package only 3.25mm by 5.25mm in size.

For more Future Parc news, click below.

Innovation costs push R&D offshore

THE cost and complexity of the innovation process is forcing some large organisations to outsource and offshore parts of their research and development functions, new research shows.

The Economist Intelligence Unit says that rather than maintaining R&D as a central function, companies are adopting a “global innovation network” model and sending aspects of their work overseas.

The “Sharing the Idea: The Emergence of Global Innovation Networks” report found that 65 per cent of companies current perform at least some parts of their R&D tasks overseas, a figure expected to grow to 84 per cent in three years.

Similarly, 65 per cent of organisations say they currently outsource part of their innovation process, which is likely to grow to 75 per cent in three years. Though the report focuses on UK companies, the trends it identifies are thought to be common across companies in developed economies.

Companies found that disaggregating R&D globally had advantages in greater efficiency, speed to market and access to talent. But the respondents said there were also challenges related to the global innovation network model – most notably the concerns about loss of control.

Some 44 per cent of companies surveyed were also concerned about theft of intellectual property as a key concern in using the global innovation model.

“Increased competition, the cost and complexity of innovation and a surplus of ideas are encouraging many companies to restructure their approach to research and development,” the report’s editor Rob Mitchell said.

“Our survey shows a considerable shift towards greater outsourcing and offshoring of R&D in what we term a global innovation network model, despite concerns about loss of control over a function that is often considered core to a company’s identity,” Mr Mitchell said.

Cost was a primary driver for companies using the model. While 70 per cent said their management viewed investment in R&D as vital to the company’s success, the R&D function was increasingly under pressure to curb costs nonetheless.

The other key driver to using the global innovation network model was that shortages of specialist talent in home countries meant that companies looked further afield to destinations where skills were in greater supply and more affordable.

For more IT Service news, click below.

Google, Yahoo get seriously mobile

IF there was any question about the mobile web being the next battleground for search giants, both Google and Yahoo answered it yesterday in separate announcements targeting mobile search.

On the same say Yahoo kicked off a recruitment drive to entice mobile content publishers to use its oneSearch system, Google opened its mobile search service to the public, inviting them to “take it for a spin.”

Yahoo yesterday launched it Mobile Publisher Services, a suite of tools designed to let publishers increase the “discovery, distribution and monetisation” of their content on mobile phones.

The new services include Yahoo Mobile Ad Network, Mobile Content Engine, Mobile Media Directory and Mobile Site Submit.

“By bringing together the global audiences of Yahoo!'s popular mobile services with those of participating publishers, Yahoo! will create a combined pool of valuable inventory,” the company said.

The company said the Mobile Publisher Services went live across 19 countries yesterday, but not in Australia. It is expected the service will be launched in Australia through a separate initiative involving the Yahoo7 joint venture partners.

Google meanwhile, has opened its mobile search functions to the public.

“The next time you visit Google.com on your phone, you'll see a link that will take you to a mobile search experience that's more tailored to your needs,” Google product manager Yael Shacham was quoted as saying in US reports.

For more Digital Content, Telecommunications and E-Marketing news, click below

Life’s Good: LG pre-installs Google on devices

SOUTH Korean manufacturer LG Electronics has signed a deal with search giant Google to pre-install its web applications on the millions of mobile phones and other devices it makes every year.

The companies said the relationship would make it easier for users to search for information, find locations, update blogs and manage email while on the move.

“Building on our efforts to set new standards for wireless handsets, we are excited to partner with Google to offer extra value to consumers with enhanced mobile internet experiences,” LG Electronics mobile communications vice-president Paul Bae said.

Select LG handsets will be available pre-installed with Google web applications in North America, Asia and Europe during the second quarter. The handsets will include one-click access to Google search through an icon in the main application menu.

Pre-loaded applications will include standard Google search, Google Maps for Mobile, Gmail for Mobile, and Blogger Mobile.

The new partnership includes joint-marketing of LG-Google handsets. The companies plan to further extend the partnership in future to include more collaboration on digital home applications.

Google signed a similar pre-install partnership with LG rival Samsung in January.

For more Web Applications and Telecommunications news, click here.

Intel confirms $3.1b chip fab plant

INTEL chief executive Paul Otellini has confirmed the company will spend US$2.5 billion (A$3.1 billion), 300 millimetre wafer fabrication plant in China.

The investment in a plant called Fab 68 in the north eastern Chinese city of Dalian will become Intel’s first fab in Asia.

“China is our fastest-growing major market and we believe it's critical that we invest in markets that will provide for future growth to better serve our customers,” Mr Otellini said.

The Fab 68 plant is the first wafer fabrication facility the company has built at a new site in 15 years. The last time Intel broke ground for a fab at a new site was with the construction of Fab 10 in Ireland in 1992.

“Intel has been involved in China for more than 22 years and over that time we’ve invested in excess of $1.3 billion in assembly test facilities and research and development,” Mr Otellini said.

“This new investment will bring our total to just under $4 billion, making Intel one of the largest foreign investors in China.”

The company said construction on Fab 68 would begin later this year and production is expected to start in the first half of 2010. Initial production would be dedicated to chipsets to support Intel’s core microprocessor business.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, the vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission that approved Intel’s foreign investment said the development was one of the biggest cooperative development projects between China and the US in recent years.

“We support Intel's initiative to expand and strengthen cooperation with relevant parties in a number of areas, such as talent training, technology standards, improved information technology for rural areas and digital health, to promote the mutual benefit and win-win of Intel and the information industry of China, and to achieve the goal of growing together,” Mr Zhang said in a statement.

When completed, Fab 68 will become part of Intel's manufacturing network that includes eight 300mm factories in 2010 with other fabs located in the United States, Ireland and Israel.

Manufacturing with 300mm wafers dramatically increases the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost compared with more commonly used 200mm (eight-inch) wafers.

For more Components and Pheriperals news, click here.

IBM cranks mainframe Linux activity

IBM has been telling its large corporate and government users for some years that they can save money by consolidating distributed UNIX/Linux applications onto a single mainframe machine running Linux.

No it has a research report to prove it.

Forrester Research analyst Brad Day says Linux on the mainframe can give users “potential cost savings, productivity gains and improved utilisation rates through capabilities such as virtualisation and security and systems management.”

The Forrester report, titled “Why Choose Linux on the Mainframe”, examined the up-front costs, human resources, and capacity issues that customers need to address in their distributed Linux or Unix computing infrastructure.

In Australia, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs was the first Linux on the mainframe user. It has been followed by several other departments and corporate users including banks.

It states that the mainframe can provide customers with many clear benefits as the “cost – driven by new Linux OS images, new applications, new staffing requirements, and an ever-increasing user base – of deploying new physical x86 servers escalates.”

IBM has meanwhile sought to make its z series mainframe more attractive to first time mainframe users. The company has launched a System z Business Class Mainframe that it claims carries a similar price tag as an equivalent midrange RISC-based Unix/Linux server.

The company had also made a series of announcements in the areas of virtualisation, utilization and manageability. Last October IBM announced a US$100 million (A$124 million) company-wide development effort to make its System z mainframe easier to use for a greater number of tech professionals.

Software enhancements designed to let IT staff more easily program, manage and administer mainframe systems – as well as increased automation of the development and deployment of applications – were unveiled recently as part of the initiative.

For more Open CeBIT news, click here.

IBM unveils WebSphere RFID tools

IBM has launched WebSphere-based middleware tools for extracting and simplifying the vast amounts of data created by new radio frequency identification (RFID) tag technology.

The WebSphere RFID Premises Server 6.0 aggregates and analyses RFID data and other sensor information from every corner of an enterprise and then applies built-in business logic.

IBM said the system leverages a Services Oriented Architecture, integrating that raw data with enterprise applications, such as ERP or billing systems.

The product was unveiled at the RFID World Conference in the Dallas, Texas.

IBM said the open architecture meant that data could be seamlessly connected with business processes, letting companies better capitalise on RFID technologies.

Specifically, it lets companies use data from remote locations – such as distribution centres or retail outlets – to create and manage RFID solutions based on real business scenarios, either to drive new revenue streams, or reduce costs.
Enabling data to flow across the enterprise in a more consistent, standardized and accessible manner is the key to attaining ROI from RFID data. Data that was once money left on the floor can be transformed into unanticipated revenue opportunities.

IDC estimates that an organization employing 1,000 knowledge workers loses US$5.7 million (A$7 million) annually, solely in time wasted reformatting information. Not finding the right information costs that same organisation an additional US$5.3 million a year.

“We're entering a new phase in RFID adoption, whereby business value is the name of the game," IBM vice-president Martin Wildberger said.

“As initial RFID deployments begin to evolve into large scale productions, RFID solutions must drive new business value, return on investment and business process flexibility and innovation,” he said.

For more RFID and Supply Chain news, click here.

Gates returns to Harvard

BILL Gates didn’t feel the need to finish undergraduate studies at Harvard University before plunging into the whole change-the-world, computer-on-every-desk thing.

Not that Harvard holds it against him. The university has invited the Microsoft chairman to be principal speaker at its 356th Commencement day in June, returning Gates to the halls where he met his friend and current Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Gates had already founded for-profit businesses in software and consulting during his during his junior year, so by the time he had met and befriended Ballmer, his work at Harvard was probably done. (Harvard says Ballmer lived “down the hall at Currier House” when the two were undergrads.)

Well, that and forming a friendship – and a lot of computer code – with the other Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Gates is a member of the Harvard College Class of 1977, which is to celebrate its 30th reunion at the Commencement.

Having arrived as a freshman at Harvard in 1973, Gates was to have graduated in 1977, but famously dropped out in 1975 to focus with Allen on building the Microsoft into the US$44 billion (A$55 billion) revenue business it is today.

For more Business Software news, click here.

Don’t get hung up on access speeds: Google

GOOGLE’S top corporate officer in the region has welcomed the Federal debate about funding broadband, but warned that access speeds are just one issue.

Google South Asia managing director Richard Kimble has told ABC television that while it was encouraging to have both sides of Australian politics proposing better broadband, they needed to look at the “overall ecosystem” for improvements.

“It is very important that we get high access speeds, particularly in the bush … not just the big cities,” Mr Kimber told the ABC Lateline Business program.

“But it's (also) about the content, it's about the education, it's about the skill set of people working in the industry,” he said.

“We need to think for Australia how we're building the whole ecosystem, how we're building the talent of our future internet leaders, our future internet businesses.”

Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced last week a $4.7 billion plan to roll-out a nationwide, 12Mbps fibre-to-the-node broadband network to the 98 per cent of the population. The plan would make the Government a shareholder in a joint-venture with private sector organisations, using money drawn from the Future Fund.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan has rejected the proposal as “robbing the future”, saying Government will achieve the same end without raiding taxpayer funds.

Mr Kimber said policies for developing and maintaining skills would also play a huge role in Australia’s success in leveraging net infrastructure. Google’s experience had been that Australia boasted rich talent, but in limited numbers.

“We've got very talented people in this space, but there are probably not enough of them,” he said.

“I'd really like to see Australia having a big push in this area. The old adage about being a clever country is something we should start thinking about again.”

While welcoming the debate about improving internet access speeds, Mr Kimber said Australia had actually performed reasonably well – although it was time to start thinking about stepping up improvements.

“The issue now is our neighbours are growing quickly and so the days of our leadership in this space are numbered,” he said.

“The time is right to take a fresh look and start to think about what we will do in the next five to 10 years.”

For more e-Government and Telecommunications news, click here.

Asia reaches 1.1b mobile subscribers

THE fast growing Asia-Pacific mobile telephone market shows no sign of slowing and will boast more than 1.14 billion subscribers by the end of the year, according to research group Frost & Sullivan.

The company said subscriber growth in the region had been driven by dramatically falling mobile call costs, reduced handset prices, and the expansion of network infrastructure in key emerging markets like India and Indonesia.

The region remains one of the few truly fast growing regions in the world, with booming economies, large populations and still small mobile penetration rates.

The report highlighted the remaining potential for growth.

For example, with 142 million subscribers, India overtook Japan as the region’s second biggest mobile market after China. Yet mobile market penetration in India is just 13 per cent, meaning the market is still largely untapped.

The Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Mobile Communications Outlook 2007 study looked at 13 major regional economies. The report found Subscriber numbers across the region had growth at a compound annual rate of 24 per cent between 2002 and 2006.

“The impact of the emerging markets on the rest of the region is likely to grow in significance as regional carriers search for sustainable growth, and as economies of scale further drives down 3G handset prices,” said Frost & Sullivan industry manager Janice Chong.“

“Of the expected 190 million net subscriber additions in 2007, 90.8 per cent are likely to stem from the emerging markets” Ms Chong said.

Mobile broadband is likely to be the next killer application in the region’s promising mobile landscape. The business case for 3G may not lie in 3G itself, but in 3.5G – commonly known as high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA).

“HSDPA and WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) are expected to play a prominent role in 2007, given the number of trials that have taken place in 2006,” Ms Chong said.

While the launch of HSDPA has taken precedence in certain countries, WiMAX may still be the focus in emerging markets like India and Indonesia.

For more Telecommunications and Wireless news, click here.

Yahoo offers unlimited free email storage

TEN years after launching its hugely popular web-based email service, Yahoo is celebrating by announcing its users could now access unlimited email storage for free.

The company said it would start a phased roll-out of unlimited storage from May, lifting the current 1GB limit of users of Yahoo Mail’s free service, and the 2GB cap currently imposed on its premium service customers.

The transition to unlimited storage could take several months, according to Yahoo Mail vice-president John Kremer.

“As much as we’d like to just flip a switch and “unlimit” everyone on the same day, we’ll be rolling this out over a few months to facilitate a smooth transition — we know there’s virtually nothing more precious than your inbox,” Mr Kremer said.

The Yahoo move seems to confirm what many have suspected for a long time – that storage prices have fallen so dramatically it is now possible for service providers to sell it for free.

Certainly it is a long way from where Yahoo Mail started ten years ago where users were offered maximum total storage of 4MB for their email accounts.

And David Nakayama, who founded the RocketMail web-based email that was acquired by Yahoo to become Yahoo Mail, said the original quota for the service was 2MB per user – and that the maximum total storage capacity for all RocketMail users was 200GB,

“At Yahoo, we’re now receiving more inbound mail than that (200Gb) every 10 minutes,” Mr Nakayama said.

It is not clear whether the other free email providers will follow the Yahoo leada. Microsoft’s Hotmail service currently has a storage cap of 2GB, while Google’s Gmail is capped at 2.8GB.

Mr Kremer said the company would put anti-abuse limits in place to protect users, primarily outlawing things like using the service to resell storage capacity.

“We’re psyched to be breaking new ground in the digital storage frontier by giving our users the freedom to never worry about deleting old messages again,” Mr Kremer said.

For more Web Applications and Data Storage news, click here.

Barcodes on mobile phones could be the ticket

A NEW technology that sends barcodes to mobile phones that can be read by standard point of sales devices could become a new standard for selling tickets and redeemable vouchers.

US-based communications and commerce software developer Ecrio has launched the system called MoBeam lets companies send gift certificates, vouchers, and tickets to mobile phone screens which are then read by existing point of sale devices.

Ecrio said technologists have know for years how to send barcode information to mobile phones – via email, SMS, WAP and other mediums – but had so far been unable to transfer that information to barcode scanning devices.

Issues with screen resolution, reflection and other technical limitations have prevented scanners from effectively reading the barcodes displayed on a mobile screen.

The MoBeam system finally solves these longstanding problems, enabling the instant transmission of any barcode sequence from the handset to the scanner, Ecrio said.

“MoBeam is the missing link between today's mobile consumer and a worldwide commerce infrastructure based on barcodes,” Ecrio chairman and chief executive Nagesh Challa said.

“For instance, a traveller using mobile search functions can be sent a digital coupon, easily redeemed at point-of-sale via the traveller's handset.”

“With over 35 million scanners in place across the United States alone, the existing barcode network will be in place for years to come,” Mr Challa said.

“We look forward to helping retailers, financial services companies, carriers, handset makers and other barcode partners take advantage of an ecosystem that delivers tickets, coupons, gift cards and more directly into the hands of consumers.”

Ecrio said the new service would be available globally and that Visa International had agreed to integrate MoBeam barcode technology into its recently announced mobile platform.

For more Point of Sale and Wireless news, click here.

Labor attacks ‘hysterical’ Costello fund claims

GOVERNMENT claims that it private sector will complete building a high-speed national broadband network without taxpayer assistance were fanciful, Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said.

Senator Conroy also attacked Treasurer Peter Costello’s claims that Labor’s plans spend $4.7 billion on a broadband network would leave government unable to meet its superannuation obligations as hysterical.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s claim that the private sector would go ahead with building a national broadband network within three years ignored the major telecommunications companies deep concerns about the regulatory system, Senator Conroy said.

“Unfortunately she’s choosing to ignore that Telstra have written to the stock exchange and said that they cannot and will not build the network without significant change in the regulatory settings,” he said.

“G9 the alternative proposal have also said that they will need regulatory change. And Helen Coonan is on the record repeatedly as saying she won’t be changing the regulations until 2009.”

“We’ve said we’ll make the regulatory changes, we’ve said we’ll contribute to the funding of this, because what we want to see is all Australians with access (speeds),” Senator Conroy said

Labor leader Kevin Rudd last week announced a plan to build a 12Mbps fibre to the node network to reach 98 per cent of the population.

He said Government would invest up to $4.7 billion in a joint-venture with the private sector to build the network, using the $2 billion Communications Fund and up to $2.7 billion from the Future Fund to bankroll the project.

The Future Fund was set up as a “locked-box” investment to be used to fund government $90 billion superannuation liability, with budget surpluses tipped into the scheme.

When it was set up government said it expected to cover the liability by 2020 – and Mr Costello argued last week the Labor “smash and grab” plan would leave the Future Fund short.

But Finance Minister Nick Minchin has distanced government from Mr Costello, saying the Future Fund was now expected to meet its targets years early.

“Nick Minchin in this morning’s papers admits that the Future Fund will be reaching its target early and that they will not be putting future surpluses into the Future Fund,” Senator Conroy said.

“What we are seeing at the moment is a bunch of broadband sceptics that just don’t get it,” he said. “John Howard seems to believe that the Great Wall of China was built by the emperor Nasi Goreng to keep the rabbits out.”

“Peter Costello’s attack last week was so desperate, so over the top, that even the fund managers who are looking after the fund have indicated that the fund will meet its surplus and meet its targets. And that’s why Nick Minchin has today belled the cat.”

For more Telecommunications and e-Government news, click here.

ACS enjoys broadband view from the fence

THE Federal election is months away, but it’s already too close to call. So the Australian Computer Society is taking a punt on both parties.

The Coalition government and its Labor opposition might have spent the day savaging each others policies for rolling out a nationwide broadband capability, but the ACS liked what it heard. And it has backed them both.

Forget the stark differences in their approach, the ACS says they’re both right, and is happy enough that there is a debate at all.

The peak professional body for the ICT sector took a seat on the fence – where it could get a comfortable view of the debate – and “welcomed comments on the need for investment into broadband infrastructure from the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Helen Coonan and Shadow Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Stephen Conroy.”

“The important point is that equitable and affordable access to broadband is achieved – how that’s achieved is of secondary importance in our view,” ACS chief executive Dennis Furini said.

“We are pleased that both sides of politics maintain a focus on broadband access as a critical national issue and we commend them for moving the issue of broadband infrastructure up the agenda,” he said.

Mr Furini said high speed broadband infrastructure would have a “catalysing effect” on content, product and service innovation.

While welcoming the current debate, the ACS has a more ambitious view of what “high-speed” means – an order of magnitude higher than either political party.

It wants 30Gbps minimum to every Australian household by 2015.

Labor said this week it would invest up to $4.7 billion in a joint-venture with private sector companies to roll out FTTN-based (fibre-to-the-node) 12Mbps broadband access to 98 per cent of the population. The other two per cent – in rural and remote areas – would get access to improved speeds using more appropriate technologies.

Labor says it will pay for the plan by drawing down $2 billion from the Communications Fund, as well as Telstra dividends from the Future Fund, and receipts of further sell-down of Government’s remaining 17 per cent stake in Telstra.

The Coalition recognises the need for improved broadband speeds, but has not mandated what speeds should be and says the market should decide where investments go and what technology – DSL, fibre, wireless or satellite – should be used.

The ACS says it doesn’t care who oversees the roll-out of broadband. It just wants it done.

“Mobile communications and hardware convergence will create new user markets and a market for software and content – areas where Australian ICT is strong and provides leading solutions,” Mr Furini said.

“However without a consistent, reliable, high speed national broadband infrastructure that employs the latest technologies, Australia’s economic growth will suffer,” he said.

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Google toys with new ad-click models

GOOGLE is experimenting with new pricing models for its advertising as possible replacements for pay-per-click, the model on which the search giant was built.

The company said it had started limited beta trials of pay-per-action advertising, a model under which advertisers only pay when a pre-determined set of actions are completed on their site.

Google says pay per action gives their advertiser the options of paying one when a customer makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes some other function pre-determined by the advertiser themselves.

“Advertisers have the freedom of defining the value of a completed action, ultimately giving them more control over their advertising costs,” the company said in a statement.

“Designed to complement Google’s existing cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models, pay-per-action pricing offers advertisers yet another choice, enabling them to reach their customers in a new way, and thereby better meeting their goals and objectives,” it said.

The company said it would over the next few weeks start trialling the new pricing model among advertisers and publishers over the next several weeks. It has invited businesses that want to participate in the beta to apply online.

Pay-per-action ads are only shown on Google AdSense for content sites. AdSense publishers are able to choose whether they want to serve pay-per-action ads on their sites.

The company said the pay-per-click ads would be indistinguishable within content from the pay-per-click ads.

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Skype links to Paypal to offer money tranfers

INTERNET telephone leader Skype will soon offer a money transfer service through the online payment service PayPal that lets users send money to other Skype users, cofounder Niklas Zennstrom said.

The Skype chief executive told a technology conference in Silicon Valley the company was working with PayPal on the design of the new service, which will effectively make Skype a competitor to companies like Western Union.

Many of the 171 million Skype users use the system to reduce costs in keeping contact with overseas friends and family, a group seen as strong potential users of international money transfer, Mr Zennstrom said.

The payment service, which is called Send Money, is expected to be formally unveiled in about a month. The tie-up makes sense – both Skype and PayPal are subsidiary units of online auction goliath eBay.

PayPal is already the most common way Skype users pay for premium services (like making calls to traditional phones).

Overseas observers are saying the money transfer service is likely to be one of a growing number of applications to be offered through Skype.

Third-party software developers are understood to have been encourage to look at Skype as a platform where voice is just one service. The company wants developers to build other services on top of the system, and has already announced a series of premium business services to be offered.

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ATO opens eTax to non-Microsoft platforms

LINUX and Macintosh users will soon be able to file their tax returns online – just as Microsoft users have for a decade – as the ATO revamps its eTax system to make it platform agnostic.

Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo said for the second year running more people filed their tax returns electronically than with paper.

More than 1.6 million people lodged online, Mr D’Ascenzo said, 75 per cent of them repeat users from the previous year.

And all of them were Windows users, because since the ATO started trialling eTax in 1997, the system has only been available for Windows users.

Mr D’Ascenzo said the ATO would over the next two years completely revamp the eTax platform, adding more functionality and making it accessible to anyone with access to the Internet.

The revamp is being carried out by IBM under a $4.4 million contract awarded to the company last December.

“Looking even further ahead we will redevelop e-tax to make it compatible with any computer system that has internet access,” Mr D’Ascenzo.

“We will test this with a small group of users in 2008, aiming to make it available more broadly in future years – pending the success of the trials.”

Mr D’Ascenzo said the eTax system had been expanded for this financial year to include an enhanced ability to download information from third-party sources. This will include more than 20 banks for interest data, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to assess pension payments, the Department of Eduction to assess allowances and Medicare for out of pocket medical expenses.

ETax users have already been able to download information from Centrelink, Medicare Australia, the Family Assistance Office.

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Virtualisation slows server market growth

RAPID advances in x86 multicore architectures and continued innovation in virtualisation software will take a multi-billion dollar bite out of server hardware shipments by 2010, research group IDC says.

An updated IDC forecast made clear that x86-based server deployment patterns were changing dramatically. The research group says multicore and virtualisation technologies would cost the x86 market more than 4.5 million shipments and $2.6 billion in customer spending between 2006-2010.

Previous IDC projects had the x86 server market increasing by 61 per cent by 2010. That growth is now expected to top out at 39 per cent.

“The server market is at a crossroads, and customer buying behaviour is increasingly driven by the strategic business benefit of the IT investment rather than a singular focus on cost containment,” IDC Enterprise Platforms Group vice president Matt Eastwood said.

“In today's business environment, it is clear that technologies such as virtualization and multicore are particularly important enablers for the consolidated IT infrastructure organisations are increasingly seeking to deploy.”

IDC says the two technologies combine well. Virtualisation technology has the ability of organisations to exploit the benefits of multicore technology – which in turn accelerates the ability for organisations to consolidate data centre infrastructure.

“Unlike other previous multicore introductions that took time to become mainstream as customers changed their application code, virtualisation allows customers to fully exploit the improvements in x86 processors immediately, accelerating business benefits and thereby increasing adoption rates,” IDC research vice-president Michelle Bailey said.

Looking forward, IDC believes the server and component vendors will optimise around quad-core technology before moving ahead to octi-core technology.

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Rudd drops $4.7b bandwidth bombshell

A future Labor government would spend $4.7 billion with the private sector in an Australia-wide broadband network to drive productivity and underpin new education initiatives, Federal leader Kevin Rudd said.

The broadband investment was a “nation-building” project critical to Australia’s future prosperity, an area of economic development the Howard government had neglected, the opposition leader said.

“We believe this is a critical step when it comes to Australia’s long-term economic future,” Mr Rudd said.

“There’s been inaction, inaction big time when it comes to the development of an effective national broadband national network to meet the future demands of the Australian economy.”

“This is a gaping hole in the Government’s economic performance to date. It is retarding the development of Australian business, in particular small business into the future and we look forward to taking this proposal forward,” he said.

The Fibre to the Node (FTTN) roll-out would deliver minimum broadband speeds of 12Mbps – about 40 times faster than current average broadband speeds – to 98 per cent of the population, Mr Rudd said.

The remaining two per cent of the population, in mainly in regional and remote areas, would have their broadband much improved under the funding scheme, but using technologies more economically suited to the covering vast geographies.

Labor said it would fund the initiative by drawing down money from the $2 billion Communications Fund, as well as taking money from the Future Fund – both in the form of Telstra dividends, as well as through proceeds from the further sell-down of government’s remaining 17 per cent in Telstra.

Mr Rudd said the broadband investment was fundamental to infrastructure Labor plans to boost flagging productivity growth as a means of building prosperity beyond the mining boom.

It also underpins education investments Labor has already announced.

Labor Communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said the investment government commits to the project would be into joint-venture infrastructure with the private sector.

The “open access network” would act as a wholesaler, providing the telecommunications pipe on a commercial basis so that any company could use the network to deliver services to Australians, Senator Conroy said.

The open access arrangement was “the key to stimulating productivity, stimulating economic growth, stimulating provision of services to school kids, to small businesses, to macro economic settings,” Senator Conroy said.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan pilloried the Labor broadband plan, calling it nothing more than a “reheated Beazley proposal” and rob Australian’s financial future.

“This is text book Labor and a very clear signal that if elected, they will spend the Future Fund and send Australia back into recession,”

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Telecom players dive into OpenIPTV

NINE of the world’s largest telecommunications and consumer electronics companies have joined forces to accelerate the development of global standards for internet protocol television.

AT&T, Ericsson, France Telecom, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Siemens Networks, Sony and Telecom Italia have founded an industry consortium called Open IPTV Forum that will work to define interoperable end-to-end specifications for the delivery of IPTV services.

Open standards could streamline and accelerate deployments of IPTV technologies, the companies said. It would also reduce costs for network operators, content providers and consumer electronics companies, as well as improve services for consumers.

The Open IPTV Forum plans to establish requirements and architecture specifications as well as protocol specifications later in 2007.

Industry observers have welcomed the drive to industry standards, but some have questioned how the absence of Microsoft might affect the success of the Forum’s plans.

Regardless, the Forum members said the opportunities for creating more interactive content services, and the possibilities for better integration of content and communications were worth pursuing.

“The evolving IPTV service has many advantages, including personalization, interactivity and on-demand access for all forms of digital content,” the companies said in a statement.

“Unique possibilities exist for integration of content and communication services offered across mobile handsets and home devices.

“By ensuring the interoperability between consumer equipment and services compliant to the Open IPTV Forum’s specification, the end users can easily access their choice of contents and services among multiple service providers.”

“With this scope in mind, the Open IPTV Forum will work on the basis of suitable open-standards technologies, and will also address key technology elements such as content protection, necessary interfaces that allow IPTV services to be delivered over both managed network environment and the public Internet, and adequate measures to ensure interoperability between such services and retail consumer devices.”

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Feds seek Web 2.0 ‘Citizen policy-makers’

THE Howard Government has unveiled sweeping plans to employ Web 2.0 practices to encourage greater citizen participation in policy-making.

Special Minister of State Gary Nairn wants to use the Web 2.0 style of interactions between citizens and stakeholder organisations in the consultation phase of public policy design.

Mr Nairn wants to use the Australia.gov.au portal as the entry point to discussion forums for citizens to provide feedback on Government proposals and publications.

The principals were developed through a consultation group covering Australia’s three tiers of government in conjunction with the Australian Government Information Management Organisation (AGIMO).

The Minister last week launched a set of “Principles for ICT-Enabled citizen engagement” as part of a wider government commitment to support a consistent experience for everyone engaging with the government electronically.

“By examining existing national and international approaches to citizen engagement using ICT, we have ensured our Principles will operate as a best practice guide,” Mr Nairn said.

When applied to government and citizen consultative processes using ICT, the Principles will guide, facilitate and encourage a consistent approach for agency and citizen engagement using ICT.

The principles were developed in collaboration with a public sector community of practice group called the e-Democracy Community of Practice covering the three tiers of government in Australia.

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EU canes service providers on copyright

DRAFT changes to copyright laws in Europe has switched responsibility for breaches from the end-user to the online service provider and network.

The draft criminalises copyright breaches for companies with services or networks that are used to carry illegally copied material, meaning employees could face jail time for corporate breaches.

The controversial draft law from the European Commission has widespread implications for IT companies across the industry, but could make life especially difficult for firms like video-sharing giant YouTube, or music sharing services like LimeWire.

The initiative has already created an alliance of the strangest of bedfellows, with open source and freeware organisations like the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure joining in opposition corporate lobby groups like the Business Software Alliance.

The draft law aims to curb copying of copyright-protected music, film and software. But opponents of the draft are concerned about a clause that criminalises the aiding and abetting, or incitement to infringe an intellectual property – by providing the service or network service that allows the copying.

For more Digital Content news click here.

Don’t get up: Apple TV ships with remote

APPLE has started shipping its much anticipated wireless set-top box that lets users view content from a personal computer (or Macintosh) on their widescreen television.

Priced at US$299 (A$370), the Apple TV works with users’ existing WiFi network, as well as 802.11n, the newest and fastest version of the WiFI standard.

The product will be available in stores in Australia from this week.

“Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet age—providing an easy and fun way to play all your favorite iTunes content from your PC or Mac on your widescreen TV,” Apple’s senior vice-president Philip Schiller said.

The Apple TV has a 40GB hard drive to store up to 50 hours of video or 9,000 songs, or a combination of each and can deliver high-definition 720p output.

The company said Apple TV is integrated with iTunes, letting users run through iTunes menus on their television screen. The unit is delivered with an Apple Remote, which the company promises has a simple, useable interface.

The unit connects to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theatre systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analogue and optical audio ports.

It uses Apples standard AirPort 802.11 wireless networking technology, and can auto-sync content from one computer or stream content from up to five additional computers to your TV without any wiring.

For more Wireless and IPTV news click here.

Online ad market: More blistering growth

ONLINE advertising revenue in the US jumped 34 per cent in 2006 to US$16.8 billion, continuing four years of record growth, a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers found.

Internet advertising has continued it run of quarter on quarter growth started in mid-2002, with growth rates accelerating in the past two years.

The report put advertising revenue for the fourth quarter last year at US$4.8 billion, a 15 per cent increase over the US$4.15 billion achieved by the industry in Q3.

“Results for 2006 confirm a very healthy environment for online advertising,” said PricewaterhouseCoopers partner David Silverman.

“All signs point to a steady increase in the level of spend by traditional advertisers that are using online advertising as an important part of their media mix.”

“The continued growth in Interactive advertising is clearly based on marketers' recognition that they connect with consumers most effectively through interactive media,” IAB chief executive Randall Rothenberg said.

“The increase underscores marketers' understanding that Interactive advertising can engage consumers, build brands and sell products and services.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers director Peter Petrusky said “online advertisers continue to test how to use the internet with other media to leverage a combination of consumer touch points across different media.”

The 2006 fourth quarter and full year online ad revenue figures were estimated by surveying and aggregating data from the top 15 online ad sellers. The IAB sponsors the Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which is conducted independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

For more e-Marketings news click here.

Privacy concerns over RFID plans

PRIVACY advocates have rejected a draft RFID Code of Practice for retailers issued by the barcode and product numbering association GS1, highlighting consumer concerns about the technology.

The Australian Privacy Foundation said the Code was “fundamentally flawed” because it did not protect consumers from RFID (radio frequency ID) technologies being used to track products after they pass the retail point of sale.

In a submission to GS1, the APF also expressed disappointment that GS1 had not taken the “next logical step” in registering the Code with the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, which would make it binding on signatories.

The APF submission welcomed the “timely and well-structured” GS1 initiative in seeking to create a Code of Practice. The foundation said it was particularly pleased that Code had defined the term ‘deactivation’ to mean that RFID tags could not be re-activated “in whole or in part.”

But it is highly critical of the Code putting the responsibility for ensuring deactivation on the consumer rather than the retailer.

“The draft Code of Practice is fundamentally flawed in its opt-out approach to de-activation at point of sale,” the Privacy Foundation submission said. “The default option should be that RFID tags are de-activated at the point of sale, unless the consumer expressly requests that the tag remains active.”

“We are also disappointed that the industry has not taken the next logical step of seeking registration of the Code by the Privacy Commissioner so that it becomes binding on signatories.

The AFP is also critical that the Code does not include the relationship between the retailer and the manufacturer in the way RFID can be used.

“While it is comforting for a consumer to know that the retailer from which a particular item was bought will not abuse the information that can be gathered, such a feeling may be one of false security should the tag be left active, and in the event that the manufacturer of the item or other third parties will be monitoring the tag,” the submission says.

For more RFID news click here.

Govt smartcard trips at first hurdle

THE Howard Government has been forced to take proposed legislation for its $1 billion health and welfare smartcard back to the drafting table after a stinging criticism of the Access Card by a Senate committee.

Human Services Minister Chris Ellison has delayed sending the first bill to parliament related to the Access Card after an all-party committee raised serious concerns about the card’s introduction.

The committee also chastised Government for the haste with which it has sought to push legislation through the Senate – and for issuing public tender documents for contracts potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars before the proposal had been debated by law-makers.

The report said biometric identifiers on the Access Card risked making the card a de facto national ID scheme. It also questioned privacy provisions, and said the card could make problems of identity theft worse rather than better.

When it became clear the Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill would not make it through the Senate in its current form, Senator Ellison – who had hoped to have it passed by the upper house in two weeks – agreed to delay the bill to address the committee’s concerns.

The Committee said it wants all proposed legislation related to the Card contained in a single bill, rather than in two parts as Government had sought.

The first part, which the committee criticised, was to establish a legal framework for the card, while the second was to cover remaining issues – including the hugely contested privacy and security safeguards.

The committee report said the Senate could not be expected to make decision on the first legislative package “on blind faith” without seeing the rest of the legislation.

Senator Ellison has agreed to combine the proposed laws into a single Bill.
“Bringing both tranches of legislation together allows members of the public and other stakeholders to see the full detail of the access card at the same time and help dispel some of the misconceptions about the access card,” Senator Ellison said.
He said he was confident concerns raised by the Senate inquiry could be addressed, and said government remained committed to having the legislation passed through both houses this year.
Labor Human Services spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek called the Senate report an embarrassment, with Coalition Senators making multiple recommendations critical of the card.

“Seldom do Coalition Senators make recommendations that are critical of a government program … but the Access Card is so bad that they have swallowed their fears and spoken out,” Ms Plibersek said.

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