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February 1, 2005
Technology Review: Demo: The Art of Interfaces.
The MIT Media Lab, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, is developing new user interfaces that are both artistic and functional. It’s research with a focus: says Hiroshi Ishii of the Tangible Media group, "We want to make information graspable."
February 2, 2005
Technology Review: Cybercash on Vacation.
But while the mathematics is still fascinating, the emergence of any system based on it is receding into the nebulous future. Today, credit card companies dominate the Web with a system that, at its heart, is little different from the one that employed carbon-paper chits.
BusinessWeek: EarthLink's Bold Wireless Gambit.
The idea is for the joint venture to become the first U.S. high-end virtual wireless-service provider -- virtual because it doesn't own its network, leasing capacity instead from other operators. Until now, similar ventures, like Virgin Mobile, targeted only the low end of the wireless market.
February 3, 2005
Technology Review: The Password Is Fayleyure.
Michael Schrage. So why are we demanding that millions of people spend more and more time and memory on a security procedure that yields less and less protection? The world doesn’t need “better” or “more secure” passwords; it needs to wean itself from passwords and PINs as the medium of authentication.
February 4, 2005
NY Times: What's Bugging the High-Tech Car?
Some complaints turn out to be not failures, but features that are difficult to use, said Brian Moody, road test editor for Edmunds.com, the auto information site. Systems that combine many tasks into a single controller, like BMW's iDrive, draw lots of complaints in Edmunds's online forums.
February 7, 2005
NY Times: As Piracy Battle Nears Supreme Court, the Messages Grow Manic.
With the Supreme Court scheduled next month to hear a pivotal case pitting copyright holders (represented by MGM Studios) against the makers of file-sharing software (Grokster and StreamCast Networks), some participants are putting their message machines into high gear.
EE Times: Display IP company develops high-res pixels based on eye behavior.
Clairvoyante is working with several display and display component suppliers to get its PenTile Matrix technology incorporated into their products, under licensing agreements. The technology uses a concept called subpixel rendering to increased perceived resolution, taking advantage of characteristics of the human visual system...
February 8, 2005
PC World: IBM, Sony, Toshiba Unveil Nine-Core Cell Processor.
The prototype chip discussed Monday is comprised of one 64-bit PowerPC processor core and eight separate processing cores that the companies call "synergistic processing elements," or SPEs. The cores can support multiple operating systems and programming models through the use of virtualization technologies...
InfoWorld: Subscribe vs. build.
The old adage that "time is money" has never been more true, and as outsourced services grow less expensive and more capable, the business justification diminishes for keeping IT functions such as spam filtering and CRM in-house, even when running on "free" open source platforms.
February 9, 2005
IBM developerWorks: Performance anxiety.
Jokes aside, computers are, in fact, doing more than they used to. A lot of the things computers do are fairly subtle, happening beneath the radar of a user's perception. Many functions are automatic and, as discussed in last month's column, you could probably do without some of them. But still, a lot is going on.
February 10, 2005
NY Times: You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention.
A growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying the problem of diminished attention. And some are beginning to work on solutions. Ben Bederson, who builds computer interfaces at the University of Maryland, said his design goal is to generate a minimum of distraction for the user.
eWEEK: Microsoft Details New Longhorn Displays.
Microsoft Corp. first talked about the auxiliary display concept at the Windows Hardware Engineering conference in 2004. And Intel Corp. showed a prototype of a device with an auxiliary display affixed to a laptop lid at its Intel Developer Forum conference last fall.
February 11, 2005
Boxes & Arrows: Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization.
You can optimize your internal resources by understanding where and how you can find UI information about your users within your own company. To provide context and practical guidelines, this article presents examples of how to mine internal resources at a large enterprise software company.
February 14, 2005
Useit.Com: Authentic Behavior in User Testing.
When test participants are asked to perform tasks, they usually get so engaged in using the interface that the usability lab's distractions recede. Users know that there's a camera, and maybe even a one-way mirror hiding additional observers, but their attention is focused on the screen.
News.Com: SanDisk queues up $100 1GB mini SD card.
SanDisk's new card will be available in the second quarter, which is typically the weakest when it comes to demand. Combined with an overabundance of memory in the market, lower prices aren't a big surprise, and more drops are expected.
February 15, 2005
ExtremeTech: New Tech Prevents DVD Copying, Kills "Rippers".
Gervin said he's sympathetic to that viewpoint: Macrovision currently encodes digital bitstreams using ACP, which includes rules-based restrictions that can allow content to be piped to various devices within the home. Macrovision has the ability to move that rules-based technology onto the DVD, Gervin said. So far, no studio has taken him up on it.
Information Week: Vonage Complaining Of VoIP 'Blocking'.
Leading Voice over IP service provider Vonage Holdings has complained to the Federal Communications Commission that competitors are blocking the use of its service, according to FCC chairman Michael Powell and others close to the company.
February 16, 2005
Computerworld: Hallmark apologizes for Valentine's Day Web site outage.
An army of love-struck Internet users seeking to pick up or send Hallmark electronic cards on Feb. 14 was turned away from the company's site, which was off-line for a large part of the day. "We thought we were ready to handle a huge amount of traffic on Valentine's Day. Obviously, we thought wrong," Hallmark wrote in an e-mail to customers...
February 17, 2005
Computerworld: The curse of the secret question.
Bruce Schneir. The point of all these questions is the same: a backup password. If you forget your password, the secret question can verify your identity so you can choose another password or have the site e-mail your current password to you. It's a great idea from a customer service perspective -- a user is less likely to forget his first pet's name than some random password -- but terrible for security.
February 18, 2005
eWEEK: Google's Tool Bar Links Stir Debate.
While Google billed the feature as an easier way to gather related information, some Web publishers and technology analysts were quick to criticize AutoLink. They compared it to Microsoft Corp.'s Smart Tags technology that unraveled amid widespread criticism in 2001, saying AutoLink similarly changes Web content to the potential benefit of Google.
Washington Post: Users Bypass Copy Protection on Napster To Go.
American Technology Research analyst PJ McNealy said that no matter how protected a music file is, you can capture the output and save it on the hard drive. "Now, portable subscriptions are a bigger bullseye or goal for people," he said.
InfoWorld: Microsoft on 'rootkits': Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Microsoft security researchers are warning about a new generation of powerful system monitoring programs, or "rootkits," that are almost impossible to detect using current security products and that could pose a serious risk to corporations and individuals.
February 21, 2005
NY Times: Federal Effort to Head Off TV Piracy Is Challenged.
In only a few limited circumstances has the F.C.C. issued design regulations for the manufacture of consumer electronics - and in those cases, only after a statutory mandate from Congress. The V-chip is one example; closed-captioning capabilities in TV sets is another.
Schneier on Security: Cryptanalysis of SHA-1.
But there's an old saying inside the NSA: "Attacks always get better; they never get worse." Just as this week's attack builds on other papers describing attacks against simplified versions of SHA-1, SHA-0, MD4, and MD5, other researchers will build on this result.
February 22, 2005
WIRED: Why Your Broadband Sucks.
Lawrence Lessig. The solution is not to fire private enterprise; it is instead to encourage more competition. Communities across the country are experimenting with ways to supplement private service. And these experiments are producing unexpected economic returns.
InfoWorld: Google Maps pushes the envelope.
Jon Udell. The W3C can bless this approach or not, but with Google Suggest and now Google Maps, Google has thrown down the gauntlet. The modern browser is an XML-aware client. Savvy Web developers have known about these features for a while, but now Google has legitimized them and pushed them squarely into the mainstream.
February 23, 2005
Technology Review: Subscription Music's Curious Silence.
News of the hack appeared first on various message boards, and was quickly picked up by the Los Angeles Times, which had the dishy dirt of Apple Computer chief executive officer Steve Jobs emailing the news around to record labels, writing "I thought you should know if you haven't heard about this."
February 24, 2005
Adaptive Path: Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications.
Jesse James Garrett. Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what’s possible on the Web.
February 25, 2005
PC World: NTT Develops Mobile-Phone Hydrogen Fuel Cell.
The power density of the NTT cell, which is a measure of the amount of power it can generate relative to its size, is up to 200 milliwatts per square centimeter. When the fuel cell is commercialized, it will be able provide a third-generation mobile phone that uses 2.5 watts of power with about 9 hours of talk time...
February 28, 2005
Useit.Com: Ten Best Intranets of 2005.
Selecting the ten best intranets gets harder every year because the number of great designs keeps increasing. While tough on the judges, this is good news: it shows that the intranet usability movement is winning.
PC World: Motorola Merges Its Plan for Faster Wi-Fi.
There are two remaining proposals for the 802.11n standard, which calls for wireless LANs that offer more than 100 megabits per second of data throughput. A task group of the IEEE is set to vote on the two plans on March 14, and if either plan gets 75 percent of the vote it will become the draft standard...
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