Sony sued by former employees

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

sony_logo_720Sony has been sued by two former employees for failing to protect their personal data during the recent mega-hack of the company.

The former employees say the movie studio of failed to protect Social Security numbers, healthcare records, salaries and other data from computer hackers.

A proposed class action lawsuit against Sony was filed in Los Angeles. It alleges that the company failed to secure its computer network and protect confidential information.

Sony is already reeling from the disclosures in documents released by the hackers, which have exposed internal discussions to the great unwashed.

The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of all former and current employees of Sony in the United States whose personally identifiable information was compromised in the breach.

Sony “knew or should have known that such a security breach was likely” given a 2011 hack of its PlayStation video game network and recent data breaches at retailers, the lawsuit said.

Sony agreed to pay $15 million to  make the PlayStation case go away.  The plaintiffs are asking for compensation for any damages as well as credit monitoring services, identity theft insurance and other assistance.

India bans OnePlus smartphone

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

flaggOnePlus is about to see its products banned in India after a ruling by the Delhi High Court that has prohibited the company from importing, marketing and selling its flagship device.

Local manufacturer Micromax that says OnePlus is infringing on the former’s exclusive deal with Cyanogen to make the Yu series of smartphones running on CyanogenMod, with the first device slated to launch tomorrow.

OnePlus ships the One with CyanogenMod on-board, so the Delhi High Court banned the company from importing and marketing any phones with CyanogenMod’s logo on the back.

OnePlus said it was working on its own ROM to power the One but it will take until February to get it ready. Cyanogen had confirmed that it would not be offering updates to the Indian variant of the One, so OnePlus will have its work cut out getting itself ready.

The OnePlus was popular and has already gone out of stock from Amazon India, which is the only retailer for the device.

The Delhi High Court has said that OnePlus can sue Cyanogen as per Californian laws for breaching its contract. It looks like the case will run and run, but it does mean that the product will be locked out of the lucrative Indian market.

Jury clears Apple of antitrust allegation

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

Apple's Tim CookFruity cargo cult Apple has managed to convince a jury that deleting rival music from iPods was not really the actions of someone abusing their position in the market to snuff out competition.

The  jury decided Apple did not act improperly when it restricted music purchases for iPod users to Apple’s iTunes digital store.

The plaintiffs, a group of individuals and businesses who bought iPods from 2006 to 2009, sought about $350 million in damages from Apple alleging the company unfairly blocked competing device makers.

Patrick Coughlin, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the jury called it like they saw it”.

Of course Apple was over the moon.  “Every time we’ve updated those products — and every Apple product over the years — we’ve done it to make the user experience even better,” the company said.

In fact, the jurors deliberated for only a few hours on the sole question of whether the update had benefited consumers. Under US law, a company cannot be found anticompetitive if a product alteration was an improvement for customers.

However the trail revealed that Apple faced a challenge in the online music market from Real Networks, which developed RealPlayer, its own digital song manager. It included software which allowed music purchased there playable on iPods as well as competing devices.

Apple eventually introduced a software update that restricted the iPod to music bought on iTunes. Plaintiffs say that step discouraged iPod owners from buying a competing device when it came time to upgrade.

Apple argued the software update was meant to improve the consumer experience and contained many desirable features, including movies and auto-synchronisation.

The plaintiffs say that they will appeal the verdict

Verizon’s end-to-end encryption has back door

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

back-doorUS carrier Verizon really does not understand why people want end-to-end encryption on their phone lines.

The outfit just announced that it is bringing in an expensive service which guarantees security by providing the sort of encryption on the line which users want following the Edward Snowden revelations.

Verizon Voice Cypher, the product introduced with the encryption company Cellcrypt, offers business and government customers’ end-to-end encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app. The encryption software provides secure communications for people speaking on devices with the app, regardless of their wireless carrier, and it can connect to an organization’s secure phone system. All this will cost you $45 per device each month.

All sounds good but then comes the part which Verizon and Cellcrypt fail to understand why people want their product in the first place.

Cellcrypt and Verizon both say that law enforcement agencies will be able to access communications that take place over Voice Cypher, so long as they are able to prove that there is a legitimate law enforcement reason for doing so.

Seth Polansky, Cellcrypt’s vice president for North America, said building technology to allow wiretapping was not a security risk. “It’s only creating a weakness for government agencies,” he says. “Just because a government access option exists, it doesn’t mean other companies can access it.”

While Verizon is required by US law to build networks that can be wiretapped, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires phone carriers to decrypt communications for the government only if they have designed their technology to make it possible to do so. All Verizon and Cellcrypt needed to do is structure their encryption so that neither company had the information necessary to decrypt the calls, they would not have been breaking the law.

Verizon believes major demand for its new encryption service will come from governmental agencies conveying sensitive but unclassified information over the phone. It might have a point – such agencies want encryption and do not have to worry about others snooping on them.

 

SSDs make the notebook grade

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

seagate-hddBusiness users of notebooks can expect a plethora of notebooks in 2015 that use solid state drives (SSDs) rather than the traditional electromechanical storage.

SSDs are far faster at accessing operating systems and data than HDDs and Digitimes has talked to a number of suppliers that think their use will increase next year.

The main reason is that as SSDs proliferate, their prices will continue to drop and the report suggests that as many as a fifth of business notebooks will use them next year

SSDs are still expensive compared to HDDs however. Digitimes said that a 128GB flash drive will cost $60 in the next few months, but you can buy a one terabyte drive for that amount.

So the notebook vendors will probably use a combination of SSDs and HDDs in hybrid devices.

But it will be a while before notebooks intended for home use and using SSDs will be cheap enough for home use, although most analysts believe that time is not far away.

Shoppers face full on technology blast

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

highstreetCompanies using technology to track and attract shoppers mean the number of retail deployments by the end of this year has risen 100 percent compared to 2013.

This year, most deployments were in clothing, grocery and shopping malls using information like customer analytics, offers, product search and navigation.

But next year burger joints and coffee shops are expected to take up smartphone applications.

ABI Research senior analyst Patrick Connolly said: “We are seeing growth across all major technologies, including BLE, Wi-Fi and audio, with 2015 being an important year for handset based location, sensor fusion, magnetic fields and LED.”

Most deployments so far have been in the USA but that’s set to change next year and in coming years, without any single company having a dominant market share, he said.

“In 2015, we also expect to see camera analytics companies like ShopperTrak, Irisys and Brickstream playing an increasing role as they expand their offerings into BLE, Wi-Fi and in-store analytics,” he said.

NAND flash prices to fall

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

memoryfutureThe price of NAND flash is flat or showing a slight fall, and prices are expected to drop significantly in 2015.

Trendforce reported that manufacturers are overstocked and that means prices will stay flat until the end of this year.

But prices are expeted to drop because sales of PCs, smartphones and tablets will fall by 10 percent in the first quarter.

These price drops will apply to the contract market rather than the spot market – the contract market is largely made up of manufacturers who commit themselves to volume amounts rather than scrabble around in the spot market.

And that means that in order to cut costs and reduce losses, the buyers of contract NAND will adopt more conservative buying strategies.

That, in turn, will mean the US and Asian manufacturers of NAND flash will keep prices down or even reduce them in the first quarter of next year.

Web throws copyright rules into confusion

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

Wikimedia CommonsPeople are having trouble figuring out how their online content can be protected in this internet age.

Casey Fiesler, a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech, surveyed a dataset of 100,000 public forum posts from websites dedicated to video, writing, art and music.

She and her colleagues discovered that copyright is widely discussed on public threads.  She said that “at any given point, an estimated 13 percent of the posts in Youtube help forums are about copyright”.

And most of those threads were dedicated to questions about copyright as none of the sites she looked at gave copyright advice.

“Over and over again, the prevalence of problems related to copyright was expressed by creators in the conversations. Most of the posts in our dataset could be labelled as expressing some sort of problem,” she said.

The researchers found the five most challenging areas were avoiding trouble, dealing with consequences, fear of infringement, dealing with infringement and not enough information for people for them to make informed decisions on copyright.

The researchers concluded that sites should have clear information about copyright, and having website owners answer copyright related questions.

BT writes £12.5 billion cheque for EE

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

handsetBT has confirmed it will acquire EE in a move that will scare the beejeesus out of the UK mobile market.

Buying EE will give BT the biggest 4G network in the UK which it is says will complement its fibre network.

BT had been using EE’s network for its mobile virtual network operator deal, but hopes the deal will enable it to create a complete network for its customers so they are using its services, whether at home on fixed connections or on the go using the mobile services, or its existing WiFi services.

It also gets 24.5 million customers currently on the EE network.

We expect to see deals involving telephone, mobile phone, broadband and mobile services in one bundle.

BT accountants already think that they will save a pile through network and IT rationalisation as well as in areas of procurement, marketing and sales costs.

Still it is bad news for O2 which was touted to be the other company that BT was thinking of buying. The decision not to go with O2 will be a blow to the Spanish Telefónica which had been keen to flog its business unit in the UK.

If approved the deal will mean Deutsche Telekom as a 12 percent share in BT and a seat on the company’s board. Orange will take just a four percent share and will not have a seat on the board.

It is not all clear sailing though. The deal has to be approved by the Ofcom regulator.  While it is not likely to block the deal, the combined entity could be forced to dispose of some spectrum. BT’s Openreach and Wholesale units might have to be hived off from the main company.

 

Snowden taught companies something

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

Edward_SnowdenAfter years of ignoring warnings from experts, companies and individuals started to take security more seriously after the Snowden leaks, according to a new survey.

More than 39 per cent have taken steps to protect their online privacy and security because of spying revelations by one-time NSA employee Edward Snowden, according to the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

The survey found that 43 percent of Internet users now avoid certain websites and applications and 39 percent change their passwords regularly.

The survey reached 23,376 internet users in 24 countries and was conducted between October 7 and November  12.

More than 39  percent of those surveyed indicated they are taking steps to safeguard their online data from government prying eyes.

Writing in his blog, Security specialist Bruce Schneier said that Snowden’s whistleblowing on the NSA is having an enormous impact.

“I ran the actual numbers country by country, combining data on Internet penetration with data from this survey. Multiplying everything out, I calculate that 706 million people have changed their behavior on the Internet because of what the NSA and GCHQ [a British intelligence and security organization] are doing.”

This means that two-thirds of users indicated they are more concerned today about online privacy than they were a year ago. When given a choice of various governance sources to effectively run the world-wide Internet, a majority chose the multi-stakeholder option — a “combined body of technology companies, engineers, non-governmental organizations and institutions that represent the interests and will of ordinary citizens, and governments.”

A majority indicated they would also trust an international body of engineers and technical experts to store their online data, while only 36 percent of users would trust the United States to play an important role in running the Internet.

Nearly three-quarters of the Internet users surveyed indicated they want their online data and personal information to be physically stored on a secure server in their own country.

Those surveyed also indicated that 64 percent are concerned about government censorship of the Internet and 62 percent are worried about government agencies from countries other than the US secretly monitoring their online activities

Another notable finding was that 83 percent of people believe that affordable access to the internet should be a basic human right.

 

Samsung and Apple back together

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

Samsung HQ Silicon Valley - MM picThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn which claims that Apple is now back in love with Samsung and the pair have produced a new monstrous off-spring called the A9 chip.

According to the Korean IT News  Samsung Electronics has begun production of ‘A9,’ the application processor for Apple’s next-generation smartphone. It applies the 14nm FinFET microprocess for system semiconductors, for the first time.

Samsung began production of Apple’s A9 in the Austin plant in the US using the 14nm FinFET technology. Samsung has production lines capable of FinFET process production in Austin, US and Giheung, Korea, but began to produce A9 only in Austin as it is in the initial stage.

The outfit said that it would start production of the 14nm FinFET chip at the end of this year, but did not disclose whether the company received an order from Apple for the production of A9 chips or whether the production line is actually running.

Samsung is happy with the yield of the 14nm FinFET process, and supplied samples as good as finished products early enough.

The Austin plant began official production first at Apple’s request, and industry insiders said it is a move to produce the chip in the US, not Korea. They guessed that the Austin plant was chosen because of the next-generation chip’s problems with performance security and supply.

The initiation of the A9 chip production enabled Samsung to recover the foundry quantities from Apple, which have been discontinued for some time, and get the upper hand in the 14nm FinFET technology competition with TSMC, killing two birds with one stone.

However, this is clearly a burying of the hatchet between the two companies. Apple and Samsung stopped AP production as they were embroiled in patent litigation back in 2012. It appears that Apple has been lured back to Samsung with its winsome 14nm FinFET ways.

Relationship counsellors are quick to warn that it is early days yet.  Apple has been seeing other people during the break. Taiwan’s TSMC began the risk production of the 16nm FinFET plus (16FF+) process, and began to produce chips in July earlier than originally anticipated Q3.

Apple is effectively two timing the rivals. Shuttling between Samsung and TSMC, if TSMC’s production line is stabilised in the future, there is no knowing how SEC will respond.

Samsung’s foundry business was hit hard when Apple orders stopped. Although the entire semiconductor business is booming, securities companies predict that the system LSI business, including the foundry business, will suffer a loss to the tune of KRW800 billion this year. SEC is expected to recover sales loss to a certain extent with the production of Apple A9.

 

Sony was going to be a fake pirate

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

 0099413191_LEmails found by hackers turning over Sony have revealed a cunning plan by Sony’s TV and movie division to flood pirate sites with fake files.

The plan was to circulate a fake version of a television show on torrent sites but instead of a full file it was just going to promote the real show and explain where to buy content.

The idea was praised for being “clever” but spiked because of a strict policy against using torrent sites.

Pamela Parker, a senior executive in the division responsible for international television content, wrote in an email that was leaked to the public after hackers attacked Sony Pictures Entertai​nment that she loved the idea.

“Unfortunately the studio position is that we absolutely cannot post content (even promos) on torrent sites,

“The studio spends millions of dollars fighting piracy and it doesn’t send a good message if we then start using those same pirate sites to promote our shows.”

Sony’s lawyers were also concerned that official use of torrent sites would complicate any lawsuits the industry might want to bring against them in the future.

Paula Askanas, executive vice president of communications for international television, said in another leaked email that there was some concern that doing anything could inhibit the MPAA in a future lawsuit going after the sites.

The matter came up back in March, just after the second season of the thriller series “Hannibal”—which Sony says is one of its most-pirated shows in Europe—had premiered in the US and was starting to show up on illegal filesharing sites.

The plan, which was championed by Polish marketing employee Magda Mastalerz, was to upload a 60-second “Hannibal”-themed anti-piracy ad to popular torrent sites disguised as the first episode. The promo was aimed at convincing people in Central Europe to stop downloading and watch the show legally on the Sony-owned channel AXN.

Sony’s lawyers and the executive vice president responsible for intellectual property quickly struck it down. The final decision: “no one is allowed to use these pirate sites as marketing tools,” as Askanas wrote.

 

Dutch prepare to take on Google

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

boyne2_1Search engine outfit Google could face fines of up to $18.6 million if it does not stop violating the privacy of internet users in the Netherlands, the Dutch data protection agency warned.

The DPA said that Google is breaching the country’s data protection act by using people’s private information such as browsing history and location data to target them with customised ads.

Google has until the end of February to change how it handles the data it collects from individual web users or will have to start writing cheques.

The company’s handling of user data under its new privacy guidelines, introduced in 2012, has also been under investigation in five other European countries – France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.

Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch DPA appears to have had a gutsful of Google prevaricating.

“This has been ongoing since 2012 and we hope our patience will no longer be tested,” said.

Google needs to adequately inform users in advance and ask for permission before it uses data in this way, the DPA said.

It ordered the company to stop the violations or face incremental fines up to a maximum of 15 million euros. It said Google must start informing users of its actions and seeking their consent.

Google should be careful, the Dutch managed to humiliate the British Empire on more than one occasion and a tech Empire should be a doddle.

 

Amazon faces strike action

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

Amazon-Cloud-OutageGerman workers at Amazon warehouses have staged a three day strike – starting today.

They want better pay and conditions and are being backed by trade union Verdi. Reuters said the union expected 2,000 workers to walk out with five of Amazon’s nine distribution centres in Germany affected.

But Amazon claims only a tiny number of workers had taken strike action and 19,000 people in Germany continue to pack their boxes, ahead of the Christmas holidays.

The trade union has staged previous strikes because it wants Amazon to up pay along with collective bargaining agreements in Germany, Reuters said.

But Amazon claims that the people working in warehouses earn more than average pay compared to other people packing boxes and shifting stuff around the massive warehouses.

Germany is Amazon’s second biggest market after the USA.

Sales of smartphones soar

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

android-china-communistEmerging markets worldwide have accounted for the growth of smartphones in the third quarter of this year, growing by 20 percent.

Gartner said Samsung lost market share, but Chinese manufacturers are showing positive growth.

Altogether, sales of smartphones accounted for 301 million units shipping in the third quarter.

Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner, said in the third quarter smartphones represented 66 percent of the total mobile phone market.  She thinks that by 2018 nine out of 10 phones will be smartphones.

Western Europe saw a decline in growth of 5.2 percent, but the USA saw high growth of 18.9 percent, fuelled by the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

In terms of market share, Samsung holds 24.4 percent of the market, Apple holds 12.7, Huawei holds 5.3 percent, Xiaomi has 5.2 percent of the market and Lenovo five percent.

As far as operating systems are concerned, Android ruled the roost in the third quarter (83.1%), Apple was next with 12.7 percent, Windows only held three percent and Blackberry 0.8 percent.

Cozza said: “The smartphone market is more than ever in flux as more players step up their game in this space.  With the ability to undercut cost and offer top specs, Chinese brands are well positioned to expand in the premium phone market too.”