Productivity Future Vision

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

How to make LINQ query to Sharepoint 2010 across Site Collections

 I'm currently member in a development team, working on a project on Sharepoint 2010, and one of the tasks is to execute LINQ query on Sharepoint objects, that's ok, seems quite simple as we have experience on LINQ.

But when we tried to apply the same query across site collections we realised that despite the fact that the correct site collection is opened, we couldn't read the objects.

During searching on the internet we found a workarround by changing the SPContext before executing the LINQ query.

In the webpart itself the HttpContext is stored in a variable before executing our search method.

We have found the cause of this problem. When an SPContext is available (like in the webpart), the constructor of SPServerDataConnection tries the open the url in the SPSite of the context.

So querying a linq datasource in a different site collection doesn't work whenever an SPContext object is available.

We managed to reproduce this problem in our console application by createing a fake SPContext object which causes the same error.

Microsoft.Sharepoint.Linq.Provider - SPServerDataConnection:

public SPServerDataConnection(string url)

{

    if (SPContext.Current != null)

    {

        this.defaultSite = SPContext.Current.Site;

        this.defaultWeb = (SPContext.Current.Web.Url == url) ? SPContext.Current.Web : this.defaultSite.OpenWeb(new Uri(url).PathAndQuery);

    }

    else

    {

        this.defaultSite = new SPSite(url);

        this.defaultWeb = this.defaultSite.OpenWeb(new Uri(url).PathAndQuery);

    }

    if (!this.defaultWeb.Exists)

    {

        throw new ArgumentException(Resources.GetString("CannotFindWeb", new object[] { url }));

    }

    this.defaultWebUrl = this.defaultWeb.ServerRelativeUrl;

    this.openedWebs = new Dictionary();

    this.openedWebs.Add(this.defaultWebUrl, this.defaultWeb);

}

So, we tried to cheat on the application, below you can see the solution:

In the webpart itself the HttpContext is stored in a variable before executing our method.

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()

{

     using (SPSite contextSite = new SPSite("http://"))

     {

          using (SPWeb contextWeb = contextSite.OpenWeb())

          {

               HttpRequest httpRequest = new HttpRequest("", contextWeb.Url, "");

               HttpContext.Current = new HttpContext(httpRequest, new HttpResponse(new StringWriter()));

               SPControl.SetContextWeb(HttpContext.Current, contextWeb);               

               using (MyLinqDataContext dc = new MyLinqDataContext("http://"))

               {

                    EntityList entities = dc.GetList("");

                    {

                    }

               }

           }

     }

}

After performing the query we set the HttpContext back to the original HttpContext. 

tempContext = HttpContext.Current;

this.Search();

HttpContext.Current = tempContext;

I'm not sure if this workaround is appropriate, but at least we can now perform our cross site collection LINQ query in our webpart.

Some ways to use Sharepoint

I’ve found that people have a general idea of what SharePoint is, but many have no idea how to apply it to their own business and as a result they spend a lot of valuable time to analyse, design and develop applications for their needs. So, I’d like to share some ways that SharePoint can solve your common business needs.

I want to emphasize that listed ways are only a few of the many ways to utilize the SharePoint Services. Once you start using it, you will begin to realize the many other valuable benefits that can easily be accomplished by the everyday user. Let’s see if you can find a few productivity solutions here that you've been trying to find for your own business, organization or daily routine.


With SharePoint you can:

• SharePoint helps you build powerful business solutions using new features such as Language Integrated Query (LINQ) to SharePoint, OData Services, and the Client Object Model. You also can use Business Connectivity Services to pull external data, complete with read/write capability.
• Collaborate with team members on all documents and stay on top of who did what. Earlier versions can easily be restored in case someone has made too many mistakes. Projects can also be linked to related documents.
• Keep a central task location for assigning tasks to team members. These tasks will automatically show up in your team's Outlook 2007 To-Do List. Those tasks will also link to your projects so you can easily find out what tasks are still open for each project.
• Store all your emails on a secure and centralized Website for easy archive.
• Helps in project management by assigning tasks to your team members, and automatically notify them that they have a new task. Alerts are sent when there have been updates to the tasks.
• Organize large events and store the related documents, assigned tasks, and generally post anything and everything related to the events. It will also integrate with Outlook for added efficiency.
• Manage all projects for your team or organization so there's no need to explore buying an expensive project management solution.
• Implement a help ticket resolution for your organization or  team without breaking the bank.
• Use the efficient check-in / check-out management feature to sort your documents.
• Start a private company blog to communicate and share ideas with your team that's viewable only by those you give access to.
• Gain more control over your company's documents with the content approval function.
• Offer training materials to your teams, clients, and/or partners in a password-protected Website that can be accessed anywhere in the world.
• Offer a secure and private place to share documents and other information with clients and/or partners.
•  Create better team communication and brainstorming sessions where everyone can participate when their schedules permit.
• Centralize where company and team project announcements are posted. Everyone will receive a notification via email or mobile phone automatically, anywhere in the world.
•  Access and work with your data using your Internet-enabled mobile phone for added convenience while traveling or out of the office at client meetings.
•  Create "central" documents (and syncronize), so all team members, clients, and/or partners are able to work on the same document and make changes. Updates are accessible with a click of a button. Everyone can then sync back to the "central" document and have all edits merged into that single document.
• Create a project dashboard where on one page you can view and filter on common project elements, such as: project details, project documents, project tasks, project issues, project calendar, project milestones, project lessons learned, project risks, project change orders, and more.
• Pull up and update Microsoft Access 2007 database from a local desktop and sync information to a central location that can be accessed from any where at any time.
•  Easily add custom fields to any area and capture the information that's most important to your company, all without the help of a web designer or IT person.
•  Work offline on the files, project tasks, tasks, discussions, contacts, calendars, blogs, etc. and then sync the updated information later on.
• Create "central" documents (and syncronize), so all team members, clients, and/or partners are able to work on the same document and make changes. Updates are accessible with a click of a button. Everyone can then sync back to the "central" document and have all edits merged into that single document

And last but not least, saves you from spending a fortune to meet these communication, collaboration, and organizational needs.

Windows 8, iOS 6 set for tablet face off in 2012

The next version of Microsoft's Windows operating system puts a much bigger emphasis on tablets, yet by the time it's released Apple could be a whole two versions ahead from where it's at with its current tablet OS.

During Microsoft's public preview of its tablet-friendly next-generation Windows at the D9 confab earlier today, Windows and Windows Live boss Steven Sinofsky said the software would not be released this fall, and that a safer estimation would be that the company releases a new version of the software every "two to three years." As a frame of reference, Microsoft released Windows 7 near the end of October 2009, giving Microsoft nearly a year of wiggle room in 2012 to make good on that promise.

That message comes just days ahead of when Apple plans to take the wraps off iOS 5, the OS that runs on Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Apple's announced a new version of that software every year since 2007 and has said it will do so with the fifth major iteration at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week. Even if Apple doesn't ship iOS 5 within the usual June time frame, it's a good bet it will at least be out this fall, potentially well ahead of Windows 8 and putting iOS 5's successor on a collision course with the next Windows release.

Of course, a better match-up between the two is Lion, the latest version of the Mac OS, which Apple is also demoing next week, and will likely give a price and a release date. That particular release has acquired a few iOS-like features, but the fact remains that it's not a tablet OS.

Microsoft's approach--as seen from the limited demo it offered today--is the same one it's been singing the praises of for years: there doesn't need to be a difference in a tablet OS and Windows as you know it. Applications can be skinned to be touch and tablet friendly, yet can also revert to standard Windows applications you'd use with a mouse and keyboard. In other words, you can can have your tablet, and a computer too.

Microsoft's reasoning there, according to Sinofsky, is that certain applications need that particular interface. That's as opposed to the developer having to completely reformulate an application, and custom-tailor it to whatever platform its on.
Sinofsky said Microsoft will be providing developers with APIs for building touch-centric applications that are able to connect to Windows applications, hopefully bridging the gap between the two.That approach is worlds apart from Apple's, at least with iOS. There the company has long stressed specific user design guidelines for iOS applications that tell developers to make applications that match the operating system's UI aesthetic.

From Apple's iOS Human Interface Guidelines document:

You know what your app does and who its audience is; now you need to make sure that your app looks and feels like it was designed expressly for an iOS-based device. This is crucial because people have high expectations for the apps they choose to install on their devices. If your app feels like it was designed for a different device, or for the web, people are less likely to value it.


Microsoft's rebuttal to that during today's demo was that legacy software is a crucial part of the Windows experience and that everything should be able to run on that platform.
One other area where Microsoft's thinking differently is that its tablet can double as a normal computer, letting users plug their existing peripherals in just like they would with a laptop. While Apple sells a keyboard accessory and is able to work with Bluetooth keyboards, the fact remains that iOS at its very core is all about touch. Adding a keyboard for apps like e-mail, word processors, and Web browsing makes sense--yet for most everything else, a mouse does not.

So will iOS 5 adopt these plug-and-play similarities on the tablet side? It's unlikely. What about Mac OS X getting more tablet friendly? Some of the features that have been brought over to Lion, including the iOS-like Launchpad app launcher, touch-screen-like trackpad inversion, and visual styling, suggest it's headed in that direction. Yet it would be at odds with the iPad if such a device were to run Mac OS X instead.

If anything's clear, it's that Microsoft still has some tricks on its sleeve. The split soft keyboard approach, which was the hallmark of the ill-fated ultra portable PC movement, is back and designed to give tablet users a way to type with their thumbs while holding the device. Microsoft's also on the brink of having an operating system that will run on x86 and ARM architectures, an area where Apple's currently divided with its computing efforts (which may not be the case forever).

We'll know more about where Apple's taking its tablet and mobile phone operating system next Monday, when WWDC kicks off. Expect a jab or two at Windows 8 from Cupertino along the way.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Groupon files its IPO papers

Groupon, helping to blow more air into the growing tech bubble, filed for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The daily-deals company wants to raise $750 million. It's hired Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs as its bankers.
The announcement comes a week after rumors swirled that online gaming company, Zynga, will file for an IPO, and two weeks after the employment networking site LinkedIn went public.
Late last year, Groupon was seen as an acquisition target for Google, reportedly for a sum of around $5 billion.

Groupon chief executive Andrew Mason wrote a letter to potential investors, explaining the company's business strategy and warning that he intends to continue to focus on long-term goals.

"We spend a lot of money acquiring new subscribers because we can measure the return and believe in the long-term value of the marketplace we're creating," Mason wrote. "In the past, we've made investments in growth that turned a healthy forecasted quarterly profit into a sizable loss. When we see opportunities to invest in long-term growth, expect that we will pursue them regardless of certain short-term consequences."
In the filing, Groupon said it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including acquisitions, though the company added that it does not have any acquisition commitments currently.
In his letter, Mason wrote that shareholders should "Expect us to make ambitious bets on our future that distract us from our current business. Some bets we'll get right, and others we'll get wrong, but we think it's the only way to continuously build disruptive products.

The filing note how quickly Groupon has grown. The company blossomed from five North American markets in June 2009 to 175 North American markets as well as markets in 42 other countries as of March. In the same period, the subscriber base soared from 152,000 to 83.1 million. Those customers helped generate $3.3 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2009, a figure that jumped to $644.7 million in the first quarter to 2011. And Groupon had 37 employees in June 2009, and now employs more than 7,100 workers.

That said, for the quarter that ended March 31, Groupon lost $146.5 million, compared to a profit of $8 million in the year earlier period. In 2010, the company lost $456.3 million, compared to a loss of $6.9 million in 2009. The filing offers some other details about the company, including executive compensation. Mason received $180,000 salary last year with no bonus. He opted to reduce his base salary this year to $575, and has eliminated the opportunity to get a bonus. That said, Mason also purchased 1.8 million shares in 2009, though he forfeited 150,000 of them this April for undisclosed reasons.
At one point in his letter, Mason took a light-hearted approach, noting that Groupon was an offshoot of The Point, a business designed to help users raise money for social action. Mason, though, shifted his focus to Groupon, which offered far more potential.

"After selling out on our original mission of saving the world to start hawking coupons, in order to live with ourselves, we vowed to make Groupon a service that people love using," Mason wrote.

Source: http://news.cnet.com

Firefox Aurora debuts, Mozilla's 'dev' channel

Somewhere between a nightly and a beta lies Firefox Aurora, Mozilla's first public browser under its new publishing schedule. Announced yesterday, Firefox Aurora for Windows (download), Mac (download), and Linux (download), is most analogous to the intent behind the Google Chrome developer's channel : to provide a place where users who don't mind browser instability can test out new features, and contribute feedback to the developers.

Mozilla is now running all four of the browser builds that it mentioned in this blog post: Minefield, or the nightly test builds; the new Aurora; the beta build, which users who downloaded the Firefox 4 betas are still using despite there not being an official beta release at this time; and the Firefox final release, which is the stable version most Firefox users have.
Currently, Mozilla Firefox Aurora 5.0a2 doesn't appear to offer anything different from Minefield or the stable release, but that will change as Mozilla pursues a release schedule similar to Google Chrome's six-week release cycle.

If you do notice anything different between the current Aurora and stable builds, let me know in the comments below.

Source: http://download.cnet.com/

Intel: USB 3.0 in 2012 with 'Thunderbolt'

Intel went on the record today saying that its silicon will support USB 3.0 in 2012 and urged developers to target both USB and its new "Thunderbolt" technology.

"Intel is going to support USB 3.0 in the 2012 client platform. We're going to support Thunderbolt capability. We believe they're complementary," said Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, speaking at Intel's developer conference in Beijing today. The event was streamed over the Web.

The "2012 client platform" that Skaugen referred to is known more commonly by the code name "Ivy Bridge," which is the family of chips that will follow the "Sandy Bridge" processors shipping in PCs today.
USB is one of the most widely used connection technologies in the world, found on everything from PCs to tablets to smartphones. Intel laid the groundwork for widespread adoption in spring 2002 when it put the technology in its silicon. When Intel includes USB 3.0--which is about 10 times faster than current USB technology--in Ivy Bridge silicon in 2012 that will mark 10 years since the chipmaker upgraded its chips to the newest USB tech.

Today, Intel has support for USB 3.0 only in select desktop motherboards. And those boards don't use an Intel chip but a separate part from NEC to implement USB 3.0.

On other hand, Intel's 2012 Ivy Bridge technology will put USB 3.0 directly into the Intel chips--referred to as chipsets--that accompany the main Ivy Bridge processor, making USB 3.0 available universally across all types of computing devices, including laptops. Not unlike what Intel did back in 2002.

And with Advanced Micro Devices also on board, USB 3.0 appears on track for industry-wide adoption--finally. AMD said yesterday that the chipsets that come with its Fusion processors will support USB 3.0.
But USB 3.0 is only half of the connection story for Intel. Skaugen was careful to point out that developers of peripheral devices like printers, scanners, and cameras should target both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt--the latter a new connection technology that combines high-speed data transfer and high-definition video on a single cable and runs at a peak speed of 10 gigabits per second. Apple uses Thunderbolt connectors on its MacBook Pro laptops.

"We encourage all of you working on peripherals around the PC to engage on both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt," Skaugen said.


Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Android Is Destroying Everyone, Especially RIM -- iPhone Dead In Water

Google's Android OS has gained an astonishing 7 points of market share in the US smartphone market in the past three months, Comscore says.


RIM's market share over the same period collapsed, dropping almost 5 points.
Apple's iPhone share increased slightly, but is dead in the water and has now fallen way behind Android (in smartphones).(If you include iPod touches in the calculation, Apple's share has actually fallen).


Android now has a third of the US market (33%). RIM's share has plummeted to 29%. Apple is holding at 25%.
In the "also ran" category, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 did nothing to stop its decline, which fell from 9% to 7.7%. And Palm, which is barely worth mentioning anymore, fell another point to 2.8%.


Why do the Android gains matter? Are Apple bulls right that Apple has an insurmountable hold on the "premium" segment of the market and that it doesn't matter who has the other 75%?
The Android gains matter because technology platform markets tend to standardize around a single dominant platform (see Windows in PCs, Facebook in social, Google in search). And the more dominant the platform becomes, the more valuable it becomes and the harder it becomes to dislodge. The network effect kicks in, and developers building products designed to work with the platform devote more and more of their energy to the platform. The reward for building and working with other platforms, meanwhile, drops, and gradually developers stop developing for them.


Importantly, it's not a question of which platform is "better." (This is irrelevant.) It's a question of which platform everyone else uses.  And increasingly, in the smartphone market, barring a radical change in trend, that's Android.
So that's why Android's gains matter. And, yes, Apple fans should be scared to death about them.


Apple is fighting a very similar war to the one it fought--and lost--in the 1990s. It is trying to build the best integrated products, hardware and software, and maintain complete control over the ecosystem around them. This end-to-end control makes it easier for Apple to build products that are "better," but it makes it much harder for the company to compete against a software platform that is standard across many hardware manufacturers (Windows in the 1990s, Android now).
As we explain here, two important things are different about the current Android - iPhone battle than the Mac - Windows war in the 1990s. First, Apple is maintaining price parity (or better) with the leading Android phones. (Macs always cost more than PCs). Second, Android is still a fragmented platform, which significantly reduces the benefits of "interoperability" across multiple manufacturers.


Google is working to fix the second problem, though--enacting much tighter rules about how Android can be used. And if the platform is to become dominant and ubiquitous, it will likely continue to tighten these rules.


And Apple's price parity certainly does not appear to have stopped the Android juggernaut.
The unit and platform numbers below, which show the change in market share from November to February, are not unit sales in the month. They are total usage stats, showing how the platform usage shifted over the period.


So these Android gains should scare the bejeezus out of Apple bulls -- and Apple itself. And Apple's decision to not release the iPhone 5 in June will likely exacerbate rather than slow this trend.




Source: http://www.businessinsider.com

Comodo hack may reshape browser security

 Major browser makers are beginning to revisit how they handle Web authentication after last month's breach that allowed a hacker to impersonate sites including Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Skype.com.
The efforts are designed to remedy flaws in the odd way Web security is currently handled. Currently, everyone from the Tunisian government to a wireless carrier in the United Arab Emirates that implanted spyware on customers' BlackBerry devices and scores of German colleges are trusted to issue digital certificates for the largest and most popular sites on the Internet.

Microsoft's manager for trustworthy computing, Bruce Cowper, told CNET that the company is "investigating mechanisms to help better secure" certificate authorities, which issue trusted digital certificates used to encrypt Web browsing, against this type of attack.
On Friday, Ben Laurie, a member of Google's security team, said the Mountain View, Calif., company is "thinking" about ways to upgrade Chrome to highlight possibly fraudulent certificates that "should be treated with suspicion."
If the technology were widely adopted and glued into major browsers, that would have made last month's Comodo breach a non-event. The Jersey City, N.J.-based company announced on March 23 that an intruder it traced to Iran compromised a reseller's network and obtained fraudulent certificates for major Web sites including ones operated by Google and Microsoft. The FBI is investigating.
Comodo alerted Web browser makers, which immediately scrambled to devise ways to revoke the fraudulent certificates. There's no evidence the certificates were misused.
Peter Eckersley, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has compiled a database of public Web certificates, says one way to improve security is to allow each Web site to announce what certificate provider it's using.
Each browser trusts as many as 321 certificate authorities equally, a security nightmare that allows any of them to publish fake certificates for, say, Google.com. It's as if hundreds of superintendents in New York City had the master keys to every unit in every apartment building--as opposed to the normal practice of one master key per each superintendent.
Eckersley says browsers should be developing "a way for each domain name holder to persistently specify its own private certificate authority if it wishes to." Once that is established, "mistakes at any one of thousands of other organizations would no longer give hackers a magic key to your systems," he says.
Securing domain names with a technology called DNSSEC will also play a "large" role, he says. Other long-term technical fixes that have been proposed have names like DANE, HASTLS, CAA (Comodo's Philip Hallam-Baker is a co-author), and Monkeysphere.
Comodo's revelations have highlighted the flaws of the current system. There is no automated process to revoke fraudulent certificates. There is no public list of certificates that companies like Comodo have issued, or even which of its resellers or partners have been given a duplicate set of the master keys. There are no mechanisms to prevent fraudulent certificates for Yahoo Mail or Gmail from being issued by compromised companies, or repressive regimes bent on surveillance, some of which have their own certificate authorities.
The Internet death penalty
Another option would invoke the Internet death penalty: revoking Comodo's status as a trusted source of digital certificates. Each major browser has a different list of which certificate authorities are trusted, and Comodo appears on all of them. (See related CNET article and spreadsheet.)
Mozilla says in a Web page that it is "interested in more detailed impact assessments" of how the death penalty applied to Comodo--an unprecedented punishment--would work in practice.
Cowper declined to provide details about whether a similar step is being considered for Internet Explorer: "Microsoft will not discuss any decision about Comodo's membership in the Windows Root Certificate Program." He added: "Microsoft is in ongoing discussions with Comodo regarding this incident. After completing this review and evaluating the appropriate mitigation steps, Microsoft will ensure that Comodo and other (certificate authorities) comply with any updated program requirements."
Microsoft already requires that certificate authorities submit "complete a qualified audit and submit the audit report" every 12 months. So does Mozilla.
Google's Chrome browser relies on the list of trusted certificates compiled by Microsoft and, under OS X, Apple. "We haven't deviated from the default lists, nor do we have current plans to," a Google spokesman says. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Melih Abdulhayoglu, Comodo's founder and chief executive, says that security has been tightened as a result of the breach in an Italian partner's network.
"There is no 100 percent security," Abdulhayoglu added. He said that "any large" issuer of digital certificates is susceptible to concerted attacks. "VeriSign and Comodo, we've both had issues."
Norway-based Opera Software, maker of the eponymous Web browser, is considering a "move towards stricter requirements regarding having revocation information available before allowing a secure connection to complete."
Opera's Yngve Pettersen wrote in a blog post last Thursday that such a requirement would make it easier to revoke certificates that were issued fraudulently.


Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Microsoft sues Barnes & Noble over Android devices

Microsoft filed suit today against Barnes & Noble as well as the makers of its Android-based e-reader and tablet devices for patent infringement, part of its broader campaign against Google's mobile operating system.
The software giant alleges that its patents cover a range of functions "essential to the user experience." The company specifically cites the way users tab through various screens on the Nook e-reader and the Nook Color tablet, both of which run Android, to find the information they're after, as well as the way they interact with documents and e-books.

"The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights," says Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate VP and deputy general counsel for intellectual property and licensing, in a press release.

Microsoft says it's tried to no avail to reach licensing agreements with Barnes & Noble and its hardware partners. "Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action to defend our innovations and fulfill our responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year to bring great software products and services to market," Gutierrez says.

The suit was filed with the International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington. Microsoft also named Foxconn International Holdings and Inventec Corporation as defendants in the case.

A Barnes & Noble spokeswomen declined to comment on the suit, saying the company doesn't comment on litigation as a matter of policy. Google, though, fired back. "Sweeping software patent claims like Microsoft's threaten innovation. While we are not a party to this lawsuit, we stand behind the Android platform and the partners who have helped us to develop it," Google spokesman Aaron Zamost said.

Microsoft previously sued Motorola, alleging that several of its Android devices infringe on Microsoft patents. Microsoft would prefer that companies making Android devices follow the lead of its longtime partner HTC, which worked out a deal last year covering its own Android devices.

Despite its many patents, Microsoft rarely sues over infringements. In a blog post, Gutierrez says that this suit is the seventh proactive patent infringement case brought by Microsoft in its 36-year history. "We simply cannot ignore infringement of this scope and scale," Gutierrez writes.

Microsoft, which is losing ground to Android in the marketplace, is pushing hard to take the fight to the courthouse. One tactic: make using Android, which is offered for free to manufacturers, more costly by raising the specter of litigation. Microsoft has claimed over the years that Linux-based products infringe on its patents, which has led to several licensing deals with companies making devices using the technology. And Android is based on the open-source operating system.

As Todd Bishop of GeekWire notes, the patents Microsoft is alleging infringement of are different from the ones cited in the Motorola case. This time, Microsoft is suing over patents such as ones that cover editing electronic documents, and capturing and rendering annotations.

The market for mobile devices is so lucrative that litigation is a key strategy to keep rivals off balance. Last year, Apple sued HTC for infringing on iPhone patents covering the graphical user interface and the underlying design. And Oracle, too, sued Google, alleging it infringed on patents related to Java in Android.

The size of the market is clearly one reason why Microsoft is willing to take on Barnes & Noble, long a loyal partner and customer for a variety of products and services. A decade ago, Barnes & Noble was one of Microsoft's marquee partners for its Microsoft Reader software, an early entrant into the electronic book market. Back then, Barnes & Noble created an eBook superstore, using the Microsoft technology, for customers who wanted to read books on laptops and the existing hodgepodge of dedicated reading devices that used Microsoft's technology. That business has since shuttered.

Barnes & Noble also partnered with Microsoft on its ill-fated Windows Live Search Cashback program, which paid rebates to customers who found products with Microsoft search engine and purchased them. And Barnes & Noble lent its name to the list of customers touting its business intelligence software back in 2004.
In addition to a permanent injunction barring the defendants from infringing on Microsoft's patents, the company is also seeking compensatory damages "with interest and costs, and in no event less than a reasonable royalty" as well as treble damages for the defendants "willful and deliberate" patent infringements.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Google excises Gears from Chrome

Standards groups are unwieldy and slow-moving. But when it comes to expanding what browsers can do, they turned out to be a faster way for Google to bring a handful of features to the Web than its Gears plug-in.
So it comes as no surprise that Google, after letting the Gears project spin down over the last year and a half, is removing the software altogether from its Chrome browser.

"It's finally time to say goodbye to Gears," said Gears team member Aaron Boodman in a blog post. "There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12."

Google launched Gears with much fanfare as an open-source project in 2007. The headline feature was the ability to get Web applications to work offline--in other words, when the network connection was down--and the star examples were Google Docs and Gmail.

But only a few other Web developers, such as Zoho, WordPress, and iStockphoto, dabbled with Gears, and Google decided instead to focus on bringing Gears features to Web browsers through standards rather than its own plug-in.

One thing is very different about the browser landscape now compared to 2007: Google has a browser. When Gears was introduced, a plug-in for others' browsers was about the best Google could do to advance the Web programming state of the art. Now, with Chrome, it's got its own vehicle to bring new Web features to market. Chrome accounts for about 10 percent of browser usage worldwide today, making it a much more effective vehicle for advancing the Web than Gears ever was--in particular because browser rivals also are adding many features found in Gears.

When it comes to offline support, the key idea is a mechanism to let the browser store data. Several of these are available or nearly so, including HTML5's Application Cache. Another important one that's catching on is IndexedDB. Mozilla and Microsoft, the top two browser makers, endorsed IndexedDB, and the technology prevailed over a rival called Web SQL Database.

Technologies such as these will likely be the way Google restores offline access to Google Docs, a feature it promised would arrive "early in 2011."

The writing has been on the wall for Gears since Google announced its preference for HTML5 standards over Gears in December 2009. But its influence lives on in more ways than just offline data storage.
Boodman pointed to a handful of features demonstrated with Gears that have made their way into Web standards:

• Web Workers, which lets a browser run multiple JavaScript tasks at once, including background tasks, letting developers keep a Web application user interface responsive and taking advantage of multicore processors.
• The File interface, which adds better file-handling features to browsers, for example letting people upload a video in separate pieces called blobs so a 500-megabyte file transfer won't be derailed by a flaky network.
• Geolocation lets the browser--once given a user's permission--tell a Web application the physical location of that user. That can help locate the person on a map, for example.
• Notifications let Web applications produce the sorts of pop-ups so widely used by e-mail, instant messaging, and other communication software.

These standards are in varying stages of implementation in Web browsers right now, but all of them look to have solid support among browser makers. In the end, Gears was probably more of a success than a failure.


Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Internet Explorer and Safari first to fall at Pwn2Own 2011, Chrome and Firefox still standing

Computerworld - Google's $20,000 was as safe at Pwn2Own Wednesday as if it had been in the bank.


The search giant had promised to pay $20,000 to the first researcher who broke into Chrome on the hacking contest's opening day.


But no one took up Google's offer.


"The first contestant was a no-show," said Aaron Portnoy, manager of HP TippingPoint's security research team, and Pwn2Own's organizer. "And the other team wanted to work on their BlackBerry vulnerability. So it doesn't look like anyone will try Chrome."


Only two entries had pre-registered for Chrome: Moatz Khader and one or more researchers going as "Team Anon." (Researchers may remain anonymous if they wish.) Based on a random drawing several weeks ago, Khader was to get first shot, with Team Anon second.


Team Anon is also slated to tackle RIM's BlackBerry OS on Thursday.


Late Wednesday, TippingPoint provided a tentative schedule for today's Pwn2Own; that schedule doesn't show any planned Chrome exploit.


Even if someone unexpectedly stepped up to take a crack at Chrome and exploited the browser, Google would be on the hook for just $10,000. As part of the deal it struck with TippingPoint, the two will split the $20,000 payment for a successful hack on the second or third days of the contest.


If Chrome comes out unscathed, as it now appears it will, the browser will have survived three consecutive Pwn2Owns, a record.


On Wednesday, researchers successfully exploited Safari and Internet Explorer. A team from French security company Vupen took down Safari 5 running on a MacBook Air notebook in five seconds, and independent researcher Stephen Fewer used a trio of vulnerabilities to hack IE8 on Windows 7.


Portnoy was impressed with Fewer's work. "The most impressive so far," said Portnoy. "He used three vulnerabilities to [not only] bypass ASLR and DEP, but also escape Protected Mode. That's something we've not seen at Pwn2Own before."


ASLR, for address space layout randomization, and DEP, or data execution prevention, are a pair of technologies baked into Windows that are designed to make it more difficult for exploits to reliably execute. Protected Mode is IE's "sandbox," which isolates the browser -- and thus any attack code that manages to infiltrate it -- from escaping to do damage on the system as a whole.


Pwn2Own continues today and Friday, when Mozilla's Firefox and four smartphones running Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows 7 Phone and RIM's BlackBerry OS will be in researchers' crosshairs.

Tablets are the 'post-PC era'? I beg to differ

I've been hearing "post-PC era" so much now that I wince when I hear the term. Clearly it must be time for me to get something off my chest.

There is no post-PC era.

Not as I see the landscape, at least. To me, tablets are a big break with the past when it comes to user interface, but deep down, more stays the same than changes. And the better tablets get, the more they'll simply absorb what we do with PCs.

In short, tablets will become PCs. Different PCs from today's PCs, but PCs.

Granted, I might be using the term "PC" differently from the main proponent of the "post-PC" idea, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who eagerly trotted the phrase out over and over during the iPad 2 launch last week. Apple often means "Windows personal computer" when it uses the term "PC," as evidenced in the Mac vs. PC ads. And there was a day when PC Magazine, PC World, PC/Computing and their ilk were indeed devoted to the Wintel world and not Macs.

But I prefer the term PC in a more generic "personal computer" sense. I use a MacBook Pro, a Lenovo Windows XP laptop, and a Dell Windows 7 laptop, and to me they all feel like, well, personal computers. There are differences between the Windows and Mac machines, sure, but I use the tools for exactly the same work and personal tasks. In short, for personal computing.


Today's differences


Right now there are plenty of legitimate distinctions between tablets and PCs. First and foremost, tablets have a touch-screen interface rather than the traditional combination of a keyboard and a mouse or trackpad. They're smaller and lighter. What they lack in processor power they make up for in battery life. They come with a different operating system that means the vast array of PC applications won't run. And at least in the case of the iPad, they lack the profusion of ports to connect external monitors, digital cameras, wireless network dongles, backup systems, thumb drives, and, yes, heated slippers.

Then there's the matter of how people use tablets. There's plenty of overlap--Web browsing, e-mail, social networking, casual games--but there are differences as well. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son has ditched his PC for an iPad at work, but most people probably aren't ready to follow him just yet even if conservative corporate IT administrators could be persuaded to make a pretty radical change.

Many routine work chores become harder or impossible on a tablet. Microsoft Office is absent, typing on a virtual keyboard isn't the same, and file storage and transfer is a more complicated matter.

On the flip side, there are things tablets can do that PCs today can't. Games, drawing apps, and other interactive software take on a new direct, physical connection with a large touch screen and an accelerometer that tells a program how a person is moving the tablet around. Watch Apple's demo of iMovie for the iPad to get a feel for how far user interfaces are moving away from WordPerfect 5.1.

In addition, tablets function as book readers much more gracefully than laptops and are significantly more portable. The battery life means they're not nearly as tethered to power sockets. And the instant-on availability means people put off by the hassle of booting a PC might grab a tablet for a mid-conversation search to identify six wives of Henry VIII.

All these new options for tablets lead Gartner to agree with the post-PC idea: "We expect growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives, such as the iPad and other media tablets, to dramatically slow home mobile PC sales, especially in mature markets," said George Shiffler, a Gartner research director, last week.
In other words, to some extent, it's an either-or situation, where tablets replace PCs in some circumstances.

Tomorrow's similarities
To this point, I agree with the "post-PC" idea, too. Smartphones and tablets are qualitatively different from PCs, and they're supplanting PCs to some significant extent both when it comes to purchasing choices and daily usage.

But when I unleash my imagination and fast-forward a few years, I think the distinction between what we call PCs and tablets will fade.

Let's start with peripherals. Today, you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to your iPad. As I see things shaking out, wireless connections--Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct, or something else--also will permit many other devices to be attached. And as tablets adapt to the business world, I predict they'll get ports. Maybe Intel's new Thunderbolt, though doubtless expensive today, will provide a one-port-to-rule-them-all simplicity that will get along better with the sleek tablet world.

Processor power, too, will improve. Certainly very thin and light designs can't accommodate the hot and power-hungry CPUs of high-end or even mid-range PCs today, but the better mobile processors become, the more average computer user's workload they'll be able to handle.

The way I see things shaking out, people will often end up carrying a tablet with them. When necessary, modular keyboards, mice, and large monitors will be linked up to assemble something that would be awfully hard to think of as anything but a PC. Maybe for the laptop crowd, people who don't always have the luxury of a desk to clutter up with assorted accessories, keyboards will snap on or be built into optional covers.
I don't think PCs, as we see them today, will die out. But they'll be relegated to a smaller niche. Laptops have steadily encroached into the mainstream PC world, edging tower and desktop PCs away from the center of the market toward those on a tight budget, gamers, workstation users, and cubicle farm dwellers. Tablets, I think, will do the same thing to today's conventional laptops--push them out to the fringes where people need optical drives or major processor power or aren't willing to pay a premium for lots of flash memory or something slimmer than a pancake.

A continuum of PCs
"It's a shame, almost, that we squandered the term 'personal computer' 30 years ago," lamented the John Gruber of Daring Fireball while swooning over Apple's iPad 2 announcement.
Nonsense, I say. "Personal computer" was a perfectly reasonable term then, and the term will be just fine until Ray Kurzweil's singularity arrives and Skynet converts all the humans into smart matter.
A MITS Altair, a TRS-80 Model 4, an Osborne 1, an Apple II, a BBC Micro, a Macintosh SE, a Gateway 486DX2-40, a Power Computing PowerCurve 601/120, an IBM ThinkPad, an Asus eee PC--they're all PCs to me.

There have been some revolutionary shifts over the years, of course. Graphical user interfaces, hard drives, networking, graphics processors, portability, CD-ROM drives, the Internet, Wi-Fi--each of these have profoundly changed what a PC is.

With tablets, we get touch screens, orientation sensitivity, and geolocation.
In the future, maybe we'll get voice control that works, a high-speed, all-purpose optical communications port, biometric identification that rids us of our 450 usernames and passwords, smartphones that beam information to our contact-lens displays, batteries that recharge from the sun or from a glass of whisky, truly reliable and pervasive wireless networking, and nanobots swimming among our neurons so we can download the ability to speak Mandarin Chinese.

Is it personal? Is it computing? Then it's a personal computer.


Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Facebook plans to resume address, phone sharing

Despite congressional criticism, Facebook is planning to resume the aborted rollout of a feature that allowed the optional sharing of addresses and mobile phone numbers.


Facebook said in a letter (PDF) released today that it is evaluating different ways to "enhance user control" over information sharing that would go into effect "once the feature is re-enabled."


The social-networking site encountered some criticism in January after announcing the feature, which allowed applications to request permission to access user information. Only if the user clicked "Allow" was information shared.


Only three days after announcing the platform update, Facebook voluntarily delayed it, with Douglas Purdy writing that "we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so."


Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), who have a history of assailing tech companies including Apple and Google over perceived data transfer snafus, suggested in a letter (PDF) on February 2 that the pop-up permissions window was insufficient "given the sensitivity of personal addresses and mobile phone numbers compared to other information users provide Facebook."


Facebook's response, prepared by Marne Levine, vice president for global public policy, stressed that applications that run on the Facebook platform have long had the ability to ask for information. For example, Levine wrote, "a photo-printing application that prints photos for a user requests permission specifically to access a user's photo; a social-gaming application that allows users to play a game with his or her friends requests permission to access the user' friends list."


In last month's announcement that dealt with contact information, Levine wrote, "we allowed applications to ask users for that information, through a permissions screen...that provided clear and conspicuous notice to the user regarding what information the application is seeking."
And in response to the politicians' point about minors, Levine said that anyone under 13 is prohibited from using Facebook, and the company is "actively considering" whether to allow applications to request information from even older minors.


Markey said in a statement today that he's not satisfied with Facebook's response.
"I don't believe that applications on Facebook should get this information from teens, and I encourage Facebook to wall off access to teen's contact information if they enable this new feature," Markey said. "Facebook has indicated that the feature is still a work in progress, and I will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure that sensitive personal user data, especially those belonging to children and teenagers, are protected."


Separately, Facebook announced last week that it's asking for comments on a proposed revamp of its privacy policy that's meant to make it easier to understand.


Source: http://news.cnet.com/

New evaluation algorithm in Google Search Engine for higher quality sites in search

Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.

It’s worth noting that this update does not rely on the feedback we’ve received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which we launched last week. However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.

So, we’re very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it’s a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results. We’ve been tackling these issues for more than a year, and working on this specific change for the past few months. And we’re working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results.

To start with, we’re launching this change in the U.S. only; we plan to roll it out elsewhere over time. We’ll keep you posted as we roll this and other changes out, and as always please keep giving us feedback about the quality of our results because it really helps us to improve Google Search.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow, and Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer

Intel's Thunderbolt: What you need to know

Intel's long-awaited Light Peak technology, now known formally as Thunderbolt, is finally available on its first consumer device, and the company today unveiled more details about when we'll be seeing it in consumer PCs and gadgets.


First unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum back in 2009, the data transfer tech promises to replace a handful of ports with one that can do more things, and do them faster.


Its first inclusion in a computer is in Apple's MacBook Pro line, which refreshed earlier today with Thunderbolt ports across the line (see CNET's hands-on here). Intel followed up a few hours later with a press conference about the technology, as well as its plans to bring it to computers and devices over the next year or so.


To help readers better understand what the technology is and why it matters, CNET has put together this 
FAQ.


What is Thunderbolt? 
Thunderbolt is Intel's new input/output technology that promises to bring transfer speeds that exceed what is currently available with USB 3.0, as well as extending that speed across several devices at once. In terms of where you'll see it, Thunderbolt will appear as a new port on laptops and PCs, as well as on devices that support it.
  
The technology itself makes use of existing DisplayPort and PCI-Express data protocols to open up what you can do with a single port into multiple uses and at high speeds. This includes "daisy chaining" up to seven Thunderbolt-equipped devices together, while retaining full speed across all of them at once.


How fast is it? 
Thunderbolt currently runs with a top speed of 10Gbps, though promises to one day top 100Gbps in data throughput when it moves from a copper wire to optical fiber. In the interim, copper wire has both speed and cable length limits, keeping cable length at 3 meters or less. The data transfer is also bidirectional, meaning it can both transmit and receive data at the same time, and at its top speed.


During Intel's press conference about the technology this morning, the company demonstrated it working on a MacBook Pro, pulling four raw, uncompressed 1080p video streams through a Thunderbolt storage array, and feeding into a Thunderbolt-attached display, all the while topping more than 600MBps in its transfer speeds. An earlier test of just file transferring had gotten it up to 800MBps.


To put this in perspective of what's been available up to this point, that's twice as fast as the theoretical limit of USB 3.0, 20 times faster than USB 2.0, and 12 times faster than FireWire 800.
Here's a demo from this morning's Intel press conference that gives you an idea of what it's capable of in a video editing and viewing work flow, as well as a file transfer:





When can I get it? 
The long and the short of it is that you can get Thunderbolt today, so long as you buy Apple's MacBook Pro, which is the first laptop to ship with a Thunderbolt port as a standard port across its entire line.
As far as it arriving on PC laptop and desktop machines, the company today estimated that we wouldn't see it there until early next year given OEM design cycles. In the interim, there will be a slew of Thunderbolt-ready devices like hard drives and displays that will take advantage of the technology arriving in the spring. One of the first will be a LaCie external hard drive called the Little Big Disk that packs multiple solid state drives in a single enclosure that works with Thunderbolt.


Will I be able to add it to my old PC or laptop? 
If your old machine is a PC you built, replacing its motherboard with one that will carry Thunderbolt will do the trick. During Intel's press conference today, the company stayed mum on offering it as an expansion to PCs through PCI Express slots, or laptops through ExpressCard technology.


Does this replace USB? 
Intel is positioning Thunderbolt as an "adjacent" technology, one that will compliment it. That said, USB's ubiquity means it's not going anywhere just yet. Intel has also said it plans to support USB 3.0 in future chipsets alongside Thunderbolt.


How much will it cost? 
Intel has stayed mum on cost besides saying that it was competitive with other high performance I/O solutions. As far as its inclusion in the new MacBook Pros, it's been added as a standard feature across the entire line, versus being a paid add-on at the time of configuration.
The same cost principle goes for Thunderbolt's cables too. Because Thunderbolt is not an open specification, that means companies cannot simply make their own through a license, though that could change once we're into the lifespan of the product.




Source: http://news.cnet.com

Symbian is here to stay, says Nokia

Nokia stalwart Symbian isn't quite making its exit yet even though the world's largest phone maker is switching to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone platform.


"Just because we're changing our direction in terms of smartphone platform, it doesn't mean that the existing platform is completely broken," said Vlasta Berka, general manager for Nokia Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei, at the launch of the E7 smartphone in Singapore today. "We still have obligations to our users, developers, business partners, and customers."
According to Nokia, there are currently 200 million Symbian users around the world. The Finnish outfit said it expects to sell about 150 million Symbian devices going forward.


"Symbian is here to stay. Symbian will still be around, but it's just going to go somewhere around the corner," Berka added.


The latest E7 smartphone features a 4-inch AMOLED display, physical QWERTY keyboard, 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 16GB of onboard memory and a suite of enterprise solutions. It retails at S$989 ($774) in Singapore.


Berka also tried to allay fears that Nokia will cease support for the Symbian platform. He said over 50 improvements, from visual to performance enhancements, will be rolled out for the rest of this year.


Last week, Nokia's Chief Executive Stephen Elop noted that the Qt development environment that is used for Symbian devices would not be usable on Windows Phone 7 applications. He said this was to ensure that differing platforms don't confuse developers or consumers.


According to Gartner, Symbian's market share dropped from 46.9 percent in 2009 to 37.6 percent in 2010.


Source: http://asia.cnet.com/

It's time for Google Docs to work offline

Google is betting on a future with ubiquitous, affordable, wireless, high-speed Internet access. That may be smart in the long run, but this week that philosophy drove me straight back into the arms of Microsoft.
My technology choices generally come down to pragmatic rather than religious choices, and it was pragmatism that led me to embrace Google Docs last year. I like the fact that I can work simultaneously on multiple computers--indeed, even on mobile phones these days--and that multiple people can easily collaborate. My requirements for advanced formatting and formulas are low enough that I generally can put up with the shortcomings.


Here's what I don't like, though: For Google Docs, you need a network connection.
I just spent five days at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Contrary to what one might hope for a show devoted to the latest in mobile communications, the wireless networking at the show generally ranged somewhere from crippled to crushed.


For reasons that baffle me, network giant Cisco sponsored the show's Wi-Fi, with signage in the halls touting it and attendees receiving a flier explaining how to use it. I'd have thought that Cisco, a company with a brand to promote and protect, would have learned by now to steer clear of tech trade shows in which auditoriums filled with Net-enabled gadgets bring wireless networks to their knees.


I eventually hobbled by with a Vodafone 3G dongle plugged into my computer's USB port, but that only works some of the time (it was too bulky to use the dongle and the other USB port at the same time, for example). And of course the data plan is expensive, I had to unplug it much of the time, and connecting to the network is slow.


Under these circumstances, was I going to rely on a word processor that needed a network connection? Not a chance.


Thus, it was back to Microsoft Word for me during the show.
I recognize that these trade show circumstances might be a little extreme when it comes to network failings, but there have been plenty of times driving around my previous home in California and my present one in England in which the network doesn't work for me. Taking the train into London, a classic commuter scenario if there ever was one, is one example.


Google had tried to enable offline Google Docs in years past using its now-discontinued Gears plug-in. That didn't work for me for a number of reasons: First, I use a Mac when traveling, and Gears broke with the release of Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard. Second--and maybe this was some kind of user error--I just found it awkward.


I wasn't alone. The relatively low usage of the feature probably minimized the pain when Google announced last year it was temporarily ditching the offline feature in a Google Docs overhaul that I otherwise like for new abilities.


"We need to temporarily remove offline support for Docs starting May 3rd, 2010. We know that this is an important feature for some of you, and we are working hard to bring a new and improved HTML5-based offline option back to Google Docs," said product manager Anil Sabharwal in a blog post at the time.
How long will we have to wait? In December, Google promised that offline Google Docs will return "early in 2011." An eighth of the way into the new year, I'm looking at my clock, and Google isn't commenting on any particulars at this stage.


What's the holdup? First, I suspect, is browser support for a new standard called Indexed DB, aka Indexed Database. A general consensus backing IndexedDB only emerged a year ago, and browser support is only arriving now..


Aside from the browser issues, Google has some re-engineering to do as well. The earlier offline technique used a different offline storage technique in Gears very similar to a browser technology called Web SQL Database. But facing Mozilla and Microsoft opposition, Web SQL lost out to IndexedDB.
In a perfect world, offline Google Docs would be an invisible, unnoticeable step away from online Docs. That means first and foremost that I'd be able to edit a document without an Internet connection, of course, with changes being synced with the online incarnation once a Net connection was re-established. But it would mean more than that. I also should be able to create new documents, search my archive, and perform file-management tasks such as adding a document to a collection.


Those features are among the most basic actions one takes for granted in the Microsoft Office world. Although Google Docs shows promise, without those features, it's profoundly broken until that perfect network arrives.




Source: http://news.cnet.com/

Nokia baits developers with free Windows Phones

Microsoft and Nokia may have spent much of Mobile World Congress trying to convince attendees of the merits of their fresh, new partnership, but the harder step will perhaps be urging Nokia's loyal Symbian developers to shift alliances.


There's nothing like free stuff to help change one's mind. To that end, Nokia will be giving away one E7 smartphone and one Nokia-made Windows Phone to each developer in Launchpad, it's program for mobile app developers, according to information procured by SlashGear.


In addition, Nokia will waive its tech support charges for developers for the next three months. 
Developer support is one key to make Nokia's Microsoft pairing successful, especially as the two companies are poised to battle Canada's Blackberry maker RIM for market relevance behind Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms.


On the handset front, Nokia will also feel pressure from Sony Ericsson, as both brands will keep a hungry eye trained on the US smartphone market.




Source: http://www.cnet.com/

Investing in Groupon Would Be a Bum Deal

I've yet to receive a Groupon offer I couldn't refuse. Most of the offers that hit my in-box are for discounts at day spas or hair salons. Clearly, they're targeting a different gender, and at no point has Groupon asked me for any information that would help it prepare offers that might be more to my liking. Both Google and Facebook have loads of personal data about their users -- and I'm certain they will use it to tailor personalized deals.


Despite Groupon's recent high-profile missteps, enthusiasm over the daily deal site's anticipated initial public offering doesn't seem to be dissipating.


That's unfortunate, at least in my opinion -- and my thoughts have nothing to do with Groupon running what were widely perceived as culturally insensitive Super Bowl ads or the bad deal it offered on Valentine's Day flowers.


The bottom line is that Groupon, as a business, is a poor investment.


For months, we've been hearing that Groupon is poised to launch an IPO sometime this year. Recent reports indicate it could happen as early as this spring.


That would be would be a wise move on the company's part, if you believe the Wall Street investment bankers who peg Groupon's value at US$15 billion. Among social media companies, only Facebook, which has an estimated value of $50 billion, is believed to be worth more.


A Bad Business Model


If Groupon proceeds with an IPO, the well-connected investors who are able to purchase the true initial shares will probably turn a nice profit  as the stock skyrockets in the short term. The regular people who buy in later won't be as lucky. Many of them are likely to end up feeling as if they bought into a Ponzi scheme.


My lack of enthusiasm over Groupon's prospects is based on two simple facts:


There is nothing unique about Groupon's business model; and
Groupon is doing almost nothing to enhance the model.
Groupon's business is built around a simple premise: Offer one discount a day on a product or service that users can purchase in their home towns. The discounts are often substantial -- sometimes as much a 90 percent.


Everybody loves a bargain, so it makes sense that the Groupon site has become popular. The company reportedly generates $1 billion in annual revenue by offering deals to 50 million subscribers in 35 countries.


Too Much Competition


There are many problems with Groupon's business model, however, starting with the fact that it's very easy to copy. That became evident when Groupon started its international expansion and ran into 147 competitors in Japan alone.


There also are numerous websites now peddling software programs that purportedly will allow just about anyone to create a Groupon clone. One of these sites will let you download a basic version of its software for free; the "premium" version is $95.


It's farfetched to think anyone could create a true competitor to Groupon with a $95 piece of software, but more formidable entities -- including Google and Facebook -- certainly could build services that would make Groupon nervous.


Facebook Deals is already operating in the U.S. and is set to launch in Europe and Canada, and Google Offers is expected to debut any day now.


Groupon thought it had effectively conquered the competition in Japan by shelling out $10 million to acquire the company that had amassed the largest share of that country's daily deal market.


Poor Order Fulfillment


Then, a problem that has plagued Groupon in the U.S. cropped up in Japan. Its new acquisition started selling coupons to more customers than the local businesses offering the deals could handle. This became major news in Japan when a restaurant on the outskirts of Tokyo ran out of the caviar it was supposed to be serving as part of a Groupon New Year's dinner package and began serving what customers described as limp fish instead.


The Valentine's Day fiasco -- in which people who purchased coupons for $20 off flowers at a special FTD-Groupon website later learned they could have gotten a better deal by going to the regular FTD site without a coupon -- proves that Groupon is not paying close enough attention to ensuring its customer  actually get the discount they're expecting.


Beyond the fulfillment issues, Groupon has weaknesses that companies like Google and Facebook should find easy to exploit. Chief among these is the lack of personalization.


No Personalized Deals


I've subscribed to Groupon for several months now, and I've yet to receive an offer I couldn't refuse. Most of the offers that hit my in-box are for discounts at day spas or hair salons. Clearly, they're targeting a different gender, and at no point has Groupon asked me for any information that would help it prepare offers that might be more to my liking.


Both Google and Facebook have loads of personal data about their users -- and I'm certain they will use it to tailor offers to specific users on their deal sites.


Even Foursquare, which I have criticized as being less than a viable business in the past, is working on personalization. It apparently is close to launching a feature that gives users recommendations on new places to visit based on the places they have previously checked in.


A Missed Opportunity


Meanwhile, Groupon is offering refunds to customers who bought the FTD Valentine's Day coupons and still apologizing to the people of Tibet for giving the impression that it was exploiting their problems for financial  gain with its Super Bowl ad.


One big ironic twist to this story is that it was only after Groupon turned down its $6 billion purchase offer that Google started working on Google Offers.


Ultimately, Groupon's management team may find itself wishing it had taken that deal when it had the chance.


Source: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/

The New Wave of App Development

The rapid growth of mobile devices is happening alongside several related trends, and together they're fundamentally changing the way software is developed. Tablets are gaining in popularity over netbooks, smartphones are getting smarter, enterprise workers want to use their phones for both business and personal tasks, and a growing amount of developer activity is happening online.


Several new and ongoing phenomenons, all intertwined, will mark the next phase of application development.


There will likely be more emphasis on mobile apps. Tablets, particularly the iPad, are already cannibalizing netbook sales , and as mobile devices get multicore processors with more power and capabilities, they'll increasingly be useful in the enterprise .


Add to that the consumerization of technology, which is a fancy way of saying that workers use their personal mobile devices both at work and in their personal lives, and the demand for mobile apps gets a boost.


"Large enterprises are already starting to employ significant numbers of mobile developers in-house," Leila Modarres, vice president of marketing at DeviceAnywhere told TechNewsWorld. "In 2011, the majority of medium and large enterprises will be working on rolling out apps to their workforces, and in a lot of instances they'll develop them from scratch."


There will be an increase in Web app creation as developers seek to create products once that will run on multiple platforms, Modarres said.


An increasing amount of appdev activity will be conducted online  as enterprises seek to reduce costs, and that will further boost the concept of Platform as a Service (PaaS).




Going Mobile


The growing market penetration of tablet devices as well as smartphones "means that smart devices of one sort or another will slowly become the de facto communications, work and leisure tools," DeviceAnywhere's Modarres suggested.


That will give rise to the automation of mobile app testing.


"Enterprises already rely on test automation outside of the mobile world," Modarres pointed out. "Now, as they embrace mobile platforms, they want to extend the same time-saving and efficiency benefits to their work with mobile applications."


The Rise of Web Apps


There will also be a move toward developing Web apps because they'll let developers write apps once and run them on any platform.


"If you're a developer and want to be able to write once and write on many devices, the browser becomes a very compelling option," Dan Nguyen, vice president of product management at OpenWave, told TechNewsWorld.


The move toward browser-based development dovetails nicely into the shift toward mobile apps because many of the major companies offering browsers, such as Apple and Mozilla, are basing these products on WebKit.


"With new smartphones and now with Apple, Android, RIM (Research In Motion) and HP (NYSE: HPQ) through webOS using WebKit in their browsers, WebKit is becoming the de facto core of the new smartphone browsers," Nguyen stated.


"Unifying around WebKit offers uniformity that didn't exist before on the desktop or smartphone, and that reduces the fragmentation we have had to deal with in terms of apps," Nguyen elaborated. "Now apps are rendered consistently on browsers."


This will be especially useful for mobile apps, because there were "orders of magnitude more fragmentation" on the mobile side, Nguyen said.


Further, Web-based development can tap a broad pool of talent, Nguyen pointed out. "There are orders of magnitude more Web developers than Objective C developers," he remarked. "Also, tools for Web development are broader and more mature than those for mobile development, Web development having started back in the 1990s."


Appdev for the Non-Geek


New browser-based development platforms like the one from Mobiflex let anyone develop a mobile app using drag and drop, without knowing anything about technology or appdev.


"We give a whole range of users out there that don't have coding skills build their app in a visual way," George Adams, cofounder and CEO of Mobiflex, told TechNewsWorld.


Using Mobiflex to create an app is similar to creating slides in PowerPoint presentations, Adams said. "If you know how to do spreadsheets or PowerPoint you can build a complex, robust app that can run natively on either your iPhone or Android phone."


Users create their app layout on Mobiflex's platform, place buttons in the appropriate locations and select either the Android or iOS platform to run their app on. Mobiflex's code then translates the flow diagram and visual representation of the app screen in WYSIWYG fashion into native code for the smartphone platform of choice, Adams said.


While Mobiflex is currently targeting smartphones and tablets, its model can work for the enterprise, Adams contended.


Meanwhile, Microsoft has released WebMatrix, a free Web development tool that it claims lets anyone create, customize and publish websites easily. This includes IIS Express, a development Web server; AP.net, which is a Web framework; SQL Server Compact, an embedded database; and Razor, a new inline syntax for coding pages that adds dynamic functionality to HTML.


Moving Into PaaS


Increasingly, developers will turn to Platforms as a Service (PaaS) because they want to focus on creating apps rather than on managing servers and installations, Paul Kopacki, vice president of developer relations at Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), told TechNewsWorld.


"That's why so many developers are increasingly embracing cloud computing platforms like Heroku and Force.com," he added.


There will be two trends in PaaS, according to Vidur Apparao, chief technology officer at LiveOps.


One is the expanded use of domain-specific language, and the other is the exposure of PaaS services and capabilities to broadly focused languages and frameworks.


"These may seem like contrary trends, but are actually not mutually exclusive," Apparao told TechNewsWorld. "In fact, they support the same underlying goals -- the removal of barriers to adoption of PaaS services and support of a variety of types of applications and styles of application development."


Successful PAAS frameworks of the future will allow rapid application development through domain-specific languages within the framework as well as easy integration and use within broadly focused languages and frameworks, Apparao predicted.


Increasingly, established SaaS (Software as a Service) vendors will begin offering PaaS-like services, Apparao forecast.


"SaaS vendors have invested in robust, scalable, multitenant architectures, and the most successful vendors will respond to developers' increasing demands for openness and flexibility," he explained. "SaaS companies with rich, powerful Web services APIs will begin to host developer logic for more time-critical tasks and will create the facilities required to offer developer sandbox instances of their platform."


Mobilizing PaaS


PaaS will begin moving toward mobile integration, Rob Christensen, senior vice president at EDL Consulting, told TechNewsWorld.


"Standard protocols such as REST and Web service support are included in today's PaaS environments," Christensen said.


While this is critical for mobile integration, Christensen expects to see PaaS environments add features such as data synchronization, authentication and built-in push notification. 


Source: http://www.technewsworld.com