Posted 11/20/09 at 03:46:07 PM by Bart Salisbury

Someone was bound to connect the dots, even if the dots weren’t intended to make a pattern. With Microsoft working with the National Security Agency (NSA), the nation’s biggest, most top-secret spy agency, some suspicious were bound to be raised. But, not to worry, Microsoft assures us: It did not plant deep in Windows 7 code a backdoor for the NSA to spy on you.

Microsoft’s story is the NSA helped Microsoft with the “Security Compliance Management Toolkit.” The toolkit, which rolled out after Windows 7, allows enterprises, government agencies, and large-scale organizations the ability to manage levels of security risk beyond those of regular users. The NSA is a happy partner in such ventures because of its concerns for cybersecurity.

But there lurks behind the story the NSA’s need for gathering intelligence, which a backdoor into an OS would greatly aid. Cisco, for example, has built into it’s products, such as its Internetworking Operating system (ISO) and VoIP lines, lawful intercept capabilities. (Which require a court order.) It’s not a big leap to conclude that perhaps Microsoft might have done the same.

Some have questioned the wisdom of Microsoft’s working with the NSA, including Marc Rothenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Said Rothenberg: “The key problem is that NSA has a dual mission, COMPUSEC, computer security, now called cyber security, and SIGINT, signals intelligence, in other words surveillance.” He added that it might be tough for any company, even Microsoft, to turn down an NSA “suggestion” for a backdoor.

Roger Thompson, chief research officer of AVG, sides with Microsoft. “I can't imagine NSA and Microsoft would do anything deliberate, because the repercussions would be enormous if they got caught,” said Thompson.

For now, Microsoft says it isn’t there. Whether that curbs your paranoia or not is another matter entirely.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 03:06:30 PM by Bart Salisbury

You curiosity can now be slaked: Google’s Chrome OS is now ready for download and review. The bad news is you’ll need VMWare to run it. The good news is you can run it on OS X, Linux, or Windows.

But will it be worth the effort? If it’s something you really, really got to do, then yes, it will be worth the effort. For the rest of us, with episodes of The Colbert Report to catch up on, maybe not. Our colleagues over at Engadget have tried it out and report Chrome OS is “really a browser with an OS attached rather than vice versa.”

Chrome OS is browser-like in its construction, and Internet oriented. There are minimal app launcher options. And the more interesting apps, says Engadget, required a Google.com account to access. Without one you will be stuck playing with Gmail and Calendar (which Engadget reports suffer from “significant lag and choppiness”).

Still, with a Thanksgiving weekend to kill, Chrome OS might give you an option other than family, food, or football. You’ll find a download link for Chrome OS at gdgt.com.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 02:24:59 PM by Bart Salisbury

Attendees at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles got a sneak preview of IE9 yesterday. From what was presented it’s not really clear what type of personality IE9 will take on.

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, stated Microsoft want’s IE9 to be “a good balance between things we know and have to do and moving the whole notion of browsing forward.” The task of delivering the “most world class browsing experience we can develop,” he added, has to be done “in the most responsible way.” Which suggests IE9 will be brought into line with existing browser potential, but won’t be pushing any cutting-edge technology.

Changes and improvements are plenty. First off, IE9 will use the Trident rendering engine, running on DirectX instead of GDI. DirectX will shift graphic processing from software to hardware, which will boost the display of graphics and text, and provide smoother rendering of animation and video.

While DirectX adds advantages, apparently it also tosses up some roadblocks. Dean Hachamovitch, the general manager of the Internet Explorer team, says DirectX is hard to get right: “there's a huge benefit but it takes a lot of work to get all of the details right – like how do controls like Flash work and what about printing?” Being best positioned to “get all the details right”, DirectX helps Microsoft, but may not help out cross-platform browsers, which may not want to make the commitment.

Sunspider JavaScript benchmarks put IE9 about five times faster than IE8. And IE9 scores 32 out of 100 on the ACID 3 test. That’s faster than IE6, but still seems a bit pokey. I’m using my PC-inferior Mac to write this, and Firefox 3.5 scores 92, while Safari 4 hits 100. Steven Sinofsky, Windows senior vice president, concedes: “that’s a test we need to do a better job on.”

IE9 will better support standards, such as CSS, including CSS3. IE9 scores 574 out of 578 on the CSS3 selectors test--much better than the 330 out of 578 scored by IE8. (Again, Safari and Firefox on my Mac both score perfect 578s.)

IE9 is at best a work in progress. Right now there is no canvas or SVG support, and no real commitment to HTML 5 standards. But, with no release date yet announced, and a technical preview not available until sometime next year, it’s a good bet IE9 will evolve into something a bit different than what we’re seeing today.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 01:52:07 PM by Paul Lilly

Get ready for a blue Christmas if the only thing you asked for this holiday season was a Nook e-book reader. The device's popularity apparently caught Barnes and Noble off guard, who has sold out of the its initial supply and said preorders have exceeded expectations.

And if you listed Sony's Digital Edition Reader as your backup gift request, then it's a double dose of 'bah, humbug' coming your way. It too is in short supply, and Sony said it could not guarantee it would have enough to fulfill demand in time for Christmas.

The situation isn't dissimilar from what Amazon went through last year with its Kindle e-book reader, although the current king of the hill has managed to get its distribution channel squared away since then. So why are Sony and Barnes and Noble struggling?

"Even without specific problems in the supply chain, the manufacturing process takes time for new products -- it could be 3 months from the time they place the orders with their factories until they actually ship," Sarah Epss, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in an email. "Sony and B&N wanted to show the market they could compete with Amazon for the holiday season. Consumers responded enthusiastically, but unfortunately, these companies are struggling to deliver on their promise. Now they have to face disappointed consumers with empty packages under the tree."

According to Epps, both companies jumped the gun on their products announcements because neither was truly ready for the holiday shopping season.

Other items you're not likely to find in your stocking this year: HD 5970 videocard, handheld tablet.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 12:40:01 PM by Paul Lilly

Better late than never, and while it took a long time, iPhone and iPod touch users can now download Trillian, the multiprotocol IM client, through Apple's App Store.

The $4.99 app comes with many of the same features as its desktop counterpart, including grouped and sorted contacts. Tabbed chat windows also find their way onto the iPhone and iPod touch version, and so does the ability to copy and paste, which is more a credit to Apple than Cerulean Studios, the company responsible for Trillian.

Users can also synchronize content across multiple IM clients, so that changes made on the iPhone version will appear in real-time on the Windows client.

In a nod towards cloud computing, Cerulean Studios says that all chats are stored on the company's server, which means they won't be lost if you suffer a dropped connection. The app can also be set up to send IM alerts when Trillian is shut down.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 11:15:49 AM by Paul Lilly

AMD's newest HD 5970 is the fastest videocard on the planet, and as it turns out, it's also the hardest to find. And not just in the U.S. either, the card has been equally elusive in the EU.

According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, several AMD launch partners confirmed there would be limited availability of the card, and that's been the case so far. Newegg showed some stock in the wee morning hours on November 18th, but by the time noon (PST) rolled around, stock was gone. The $625 price tag doesn't appear to be slowing demand.

Fudzilla says it's been told to expect to see stock of the XFX Radeon HD 5970 and 5970 Black Edition sometime today, but it's unclear if that will include the U.S. market, or be limited to Europe.

Seen the HD 5970 in stock somewhere? Hit the jump and post a link. 

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Posted 11/20/09 at 11:00:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Whoever is the first to market with a next-gen handheld tablet will have accomplished what's becoming a tremendous feat: shipping the freaking thing. Michael Arrington insists that his CrunchPad hasn't entered the realm of vaporware, and Apple still continues to deny the existence of its own tablet, which the most recent rumor says will ship sometime in the second half of 2010.

And then there's the Archos 9 PC Tablet, which went up for order on October 22nd, but is still a few weeks away from shipping, SlashGear reports. If you plan on picking one up at retail, expect to wait even longer. According to Archos, the 8.9-inch Windows 7 UMPC won't arrive in stores until sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

Archos didn't say what's causing the delay, and it will be interesting to see how the pushed-back launch affects sales. By the time the tablet ships, Intel will be churning out next-gen Atom chips, making the Archos' 1.1GHz Atom Z515 even more unappealing.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 10:45:44 AM by Paul Lilly

Up to 1 million Xbox modders were pretty pissed to find that they had been banned from Xbox Live following the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the biggest launch in entertainment history. The mass ban was intended to prevent pirated copies of the highly anticipated game from spreading, a notion Microsoft will now have to defend in a class action lawsuit filed against the company.

"Although modification of Xbox consoles is arguably against he terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft 'conveniently' timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfar 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game," says AbingtonIP, the Texas-based law firm who filed th suit.

According to the lawsuit, the timing of Microsoft's widespread ban may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription sales than if the bans had taken place before the release of Halo 3: ODST and CoDMW2. The lawsuit also claims that some of the bans locked out users who had modded their consoles for reasons other piracy.

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