Another Day With My PC

An Android made by Motorola is in the office. Reprts indicated that Motorola engineers are completing the project as soon as possible as a rival Google will release its very own Android phone later this month.

According to sources, Motorola’s very own phone will sport interface and general look similar to iPhone and other smartphones. It will have a touch screen, a slide out complete QWERT keys and a lot of social-networking applications such as Facebook and Myspace.

Motorola did not confirm the reports on their Android phone but they said that they are excited about the innovation possibilities on Android and look forward to delivering great products in partnership with Google.

Motorala’s Android phone will most probably be sold in the US in the next quarter according to some tech geeks. They added that Europe release can be delayed up to third quarter of 2009.

Source: BusinessWeek

Google Chrome is fast becoming like Firefox and Greasemonkey with its future support for Add-ons and Plug-ins.

According to Aaron Boodman, Greasemonkey founder and a member of the Google Chrome team said that Chrome will use both add-ons that extend browser features and use scripts.

Google Chrome is the latest browser to hit the web, and within a few weeks from its release it already reached almost 2 million downloads. Many users believe that Chrome will soon be a serious competitor of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer as it offers different features such as browser tab isolation.

Suggestions and ideas as to how Google Chrome add-ons should include are already pouring in. Experts of other browser groups are interested in the development of the open source browser made by the big G. Among most notable feature of Chrome are its tabs.

Brendan Eich, Mozilla CTO is studying the Chrome’s stability using tabs and he is very positive on the developments on the latest browser. “There are good process-isolation tricks that Chrome does that we’re looking into, so we’re simply going to look at better isolation techniques for security and integrity,” he said.

Source: InformationWeek

I guess you’ve already heard that Google has recently joined the Web Browser wagon by throwing Chrome out in the open for all to see and download. While it has yet to be thoroughly tested by many experts (not to mention hackers), many are already claiming that it has surpassed IE and Firefox in several aspects.

For one thing, the browser packs and travels to cyberspace lightly. The setup file is just half a megabyte while the full blown up package is just a fraction if IE7’s size. The same is true for its design. Minimalist would appreciate the seemingly simple (or bare) design of Google Chrome.

This doesn’t mean that the User Interface is virtually non-existent due to its very simple layout. On the contrary, Chrome’s UI is one of the things that its maker can be proud of. Many have been clamoring for thumbnail views of their frequently-visited pages to be displayed in the UI. Unfortunately, Firefox, IE, and the other browsers ignored this.

Shifting to Chrome is easy. There’s no need to manually import bookmarks, usernames, passwords, and other data that you normally need or provide. The Google browser automatically downloads all of these during the installation process. You could immediately use it right after planting it in your hard drive.

While Chrome has been getting good reviews so far, don’t put your full trust on it just yet. Believe me, security issues will sprout soon. It will take a lot of time (as did Firefox and IE) for Chrome to fully cement its walls against malware attacks.

Google’s Picasa 3 transcended private beta stage with a special update that enables it to perform facial recognition. Now in public beta, Picasa 3 also employs a new tool called “name tags.”

“Name tags” is a special tool on Picasa that is based on a 2006 technology that the big G got from biometric specialist Neven Vision.

Product Manager at Google Mike Horowitz explained that name tags “gives you the power to quickly label and organize your photos based on who’s in each picture.”

The new Picasa 3 features astounding capability such as the “clustering.” True to the term, the features allow users to virtually cluster or group together pictures without the need to put tags to individual photos. This can be done by simply identifying a few photos. After this, Picasa Web Albums will be able to identify the other photos based solely on the similarities of facial features of the subjects.

Horowitz also stressed that Picasa 3 desktop photo organizing software is is designed to work more seamlessly with Web Albums. “New controls in Picasa 3 make it much easier to quickly upload photos, and we’ve added a new ’sync to Web’ feature that automatically updates online albums when you add or edit photos on your computer,” he added.

The big G’s Picasa 3 also boasts friendly features like new image editing tools, movie making, photo watermarking, printing captions and photo imports from webcam captures and screen grabs.

Source: BetaNews

How many e-mail addresses do you have? I bet that you have at least two. With all the free offers from MSN, Yahoo!, and Google, it’s hard not to keep a few mistresses. My primary e-mail account is sponsored by Yahoo!, while my secondary account is from Gmail.

Some say that the viability or feasibility of free e-mail accounts would soon be defeated by users like me who keep two or three addresses. The argument seems persuasive, but it is also flawed. True, the needless opening of accounts wastes space on Yahoo! or Hotmail’s servers. However, with storage real estate getting cheaper by the day, one would wonder if anything is wasted at all.

Before @

One thing that’s definitely squandered, though, is the address. It’s almost a certainty that the e-mail address that you prefer has already been taken by somebody else. You’ll probably need to add a series of numbers after your preferred e-mail address in order to make it unique and personal.

There are people who purposely register multiple e-mail addresses. They won’t be using those accounts, though. Instead, they would be selling it to persons who want to have that account. Those addresses usually bear a very common name or a popular or catchy word.

Segregation

Going back to my contention that having multiple e-mails is not exactly needless or wasteful, many people keep multiple addresses in order to separate the good from the bad, the precious from the worthless, and above all, the spam from the ham.

Like thousands of people around the globe, I keep separate e-mails for work and play. My Gmail account keeps all correspondences from my boss and officemates, while my Yahoo! address keeps all those letters, e-cards, and hilarious mails from relatives and friends.

Bigger and Better

Five years ago, one of the main reasons why people maintain multiple e-mail accounts is because of limited storage space. Those who receive mails with large attachments always keep around 3-5 e-mail accounts.

Storage space problems are already relics of the past. Gigabytes of space are now being offered even on free accounts. This is virtually limitless, unless you’re constantly trading large multimedia files. If size is all that you’re worrying about, then I could assure you that you only need one e-mail account. To borrow Gmail’s ad, you’ll never need to delete another message again. To have a secondary e-mail, then, due to space concerns is a needless glut.

Spam

Another reason why people open up second or third accounts is that their primary e-mail has already been infested with junk mails. Spam has been a major problem for both e-mail account providers and holders alike for the past several years. Those who had it bad receive hundreds, or even thousands, of worthless and unsolicited mails on a daily basis. While many e-mail accounts have a “Report as Spam” feature, the unwanted mails usually find their way back to the addresses.

E-mail account holders should be very responsible in opening and maintaining addresses. It’s common knowledge that free services or products tend to be abused. Don’t waste precious space and addresses. They might be free and abundant, but they’re certainly not unlimited.

Be also vigilant in checking the source of suspicious or unknown e-mails as they usually carry harmful attachments or point you to links that contain unwanted applications which could modify your Windows registry and other system files. Always scan attachments before downloading them. If you think you’ve inadvertently opened an infected e-mail, open up your registry cleaner and antivirus and conduct a complete system scan.

The hackers are at it again, and this time they’re exploiting on something that’s catching cyberspace by storm – blogs.

The “viral storm,” as the BBC article has put it, has infected many accounts at Google’s Blogger. Weblinks were reported to have suddenly appeared on hundreds of Blogger pages. These links point to Web sites which could cause malicious applications to be downloaded on to the user’s PC.

How Was It Done?

Google was caught off guard by the attacks. It would seem that the hackers did not directly target Blogger’s servers. Security experts said that what the authors of the unauthorized acts might have done in order to infiltrate hundreds of blogger accounts was to simply use a feature of the Web service which allows users to e-mail their articles to their blogs.

Another theory espoused by security analysts is that the infected blogs are actually spurious ones, meaning that the hackers themselves were the ones who created and maintained them. This angle does not seem to far-fetched as many malware authors have resorted into masking their creations or schemes with legitimate programs or services.

Asking for It

Blogs are definitely easy targets for hackers, especially those that are hosted by unsecured servers. Users are also partly to blame for the exploitation of blogs by malware authors. Many bloggers are too careless in maintaining their accounts. They often make public, through their posts, certain information which would enable a stranger to open their account. Take note that if an account holder forgets his password, all that he has to do is provide certain personal information to the host in order for the latter to release a new password to the owner. Surprisingly, these personal data are often readily available at the profile page of the account holder. It’s simply an effortless task for any hacker to open up existing accounts and throw in spurious or malicious Web links on existing posts.

Possessed PCs

Infected and unprotected PCs are also aggravating the problem. Google lamented that the spam e-mails are being generated by systems which are enslaved by worms and viruses that instruct the unit to disseminate files or e-mails without the knowledge of the computer’s owner. This can be easily observed in infected Instant Messengers. Compromised IMs often send out messages containing spurious links to all of the account holder’s friends. Of course, this is done without the knowledge and consent of the user. By the time he discovers the infection, many of his contacts may have already clicked on the link and have inadvertently made their PCs into new hosts to the malicious program.

Link to Disaster

Some of the weblinks are not that damaging to the user, as when the user is merely directed to a Web site which sells products and services. Ad links are annoying, but at least they’re not destructive. Unfortunately, some of the links contain spyware or other forms of malware which wreak havoc on system registries and other critical files and databases. A compromised registry could easily convert a system to a very accommodating host to various types of viruses and spyware. The infected unit virtually becomes a beehive of malicious programs. Worse, it will also become a launch pad for attacks on other units. Users should be responsible enough to secure their units, as well as their blogger accounts, in order to prevent virus or worm infections.

The blog post that I’ve written about YouTube’s reluctance to regulate the uploading or downloading of videos in its Web site hasn’t even seen its first sunset yet in my page when the news that the Google subsidiary has started to implement a new video identification technology went out.

Hand in Hand 

Time Warner and Walt Disney will be teaming up with the embattled video-sharing Web site in the project. If the program goes well, copyright owners would be able to detect illegal uploads of their videos.

Although I’ve given a paragraph about this on my previous article, the tone that I’ve given to it was quite skeptical. Let’s face it. YouTube’s popularity skyrocketed when surfers discovered that it was a haven not only of homemade videos, but also of Hollywood-produced ones. You can’t blame people then for entertaining the suspicion that the Google company would really be hesitant in testing any kind of technology that would prohibit its clients from uploading or accessing protected contents. But, then again, it’s still too early to put that halo above YouTube’s head.

I hope that other video or file-sharing Web sites, such as Limewire, would also implement a similar technology in order to protect copyrighted products. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the free circulation or sharing of information on the Internet. However, I’m also batting for the respect of the rights of the companies or people who created them.

Going the Extra Mile 

Aside from creating a fingerprinting technology in order to detect unauthorized uploads or downloads, I wish that they would also come up with an innovation that would warn users beforehand that the file that they’re downloading contains a malicious code or content. I wouldn’t want to see my PC conk out on me because the file that I’ve downloaded raided my Windows registry. But I’m not rushing them. Besides, what are registry cleaners and antiviruses for.

YouTube isn’t rushing to filter out copyright-protected materials in its database, and I’m sure we all know why.

Copyright owners are crying foul over the popular video-sharing Web site’s refusal or lack of effort to install programs that would sort out protected contents from its catalog. They are accusing YouTube of willfully allowing Intellectual Property Rights infringement by turning a blind eye on the illegal downloading or showing of licensed materials.

The Google subsidiary is denying the accusations, saying that it cannot install the technology because it is partly defective. The search engine giant’s Google Video is also on the watch list of various entertainment and media groups for copyright infringement.

“Doable”

While the Herculean task of filtering YouTube’s database seems to be impossible, copyright owners insist that it is not. In fact, some video-sharing Web sites have already implemented a technology that could do just that. YouTube’s competitors, such as Dailymotion.com, Guba, and Eyespot have already incorporated the innovation into their systems. Microsoft’s own video-sharing service has also started to appease copyright owners by screening its database’s contents.

The technology that is being used by YouTube’s counterparts works by creating a digital ID of a video. The Web site’s database then looks for the video that matches the ID and removes or prohibits its download or display without the consent of the copyright owner.

Still on its Infancy

The filtering system is not fool-proof, though. In fact, it failed some tests. Newteevee.com said that the program failed to detect a number of illegal downloads that they have made. However, both YouTube’s competitors and copyright owners said that the technology is still a welcome development.

Despite the installation of the new filtering system on the databases of some video-sharing Web sites, Google is still hesitant in following its competitors’ footsteps. It cited the technology’s flaws and the difficulty of implementing it in its entire network.

I’ve always advocated for the free circulation or sharing of information on the Internet. However, this should be done within the parameters set by laws. However, the problem lies not on the implementation of the laws, but on the law themselves. May are questioning of the viability or applicability of copyright laws on the Internet. The video-sharing community might get an answer from judiciary soon. Google is currently facing a $1 billion copyright infringement law suit from Viacom.

Downloading Trouble

If you’re conscious about respecting protected contents, then be your own filter by refraining from downloading licensed videos. There are thousands of alternatives on the Internet. Be very careful when downloading them, though. There are many videos which are infected with various types of malware. It’s very difficult to detect which video files are corrupted. Victims often realize too late that their PC has already been taken over by unwanted applications after downloading and playing an infected file.

If you can’t help yourself from downloading different types of files on the Internet, then at least make it a point to conduct a regular registry and virus scan on your system. An early detection of malicious codes in your Windows registry could spare you from experiencing a system crash or slowdown.

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