Tony's Cabin

Microsoft is expected to bring new Windows Phone 7 handsets to the market this holiday season. However, for two enterprising high school students Christmas came early. Christian Hood and Eric Lo won Microsoft’s Imagine Cup event with a 2D game they developed, called Droid Assault, using an emulator in place of hardware. The developing duo earned prize money for the win, but Microsoft felt the program was worthy of more and provided both students with a preview Windows Phone 7 handset. While all of the Imagine Cup participants received vouchers for Windows Phone 7 devices, those vouchers can’t be redeemed until the official launch of the devices.

So Hood and Lo are the unexpected first recipients of handsets running on Microsoft’s upcoming platform, making them the coolest kids in their class. More importantly, this event signals that Microsoft’s mobile efforts around Windows Phone 7 are moving at a fast pace and that devices could be in consumer hands sooner rather than later. By saying “holiday availability” initially, Microsoft left the door open to interpretation, and many assumed the phones wouldn’t arrive until November or December at best. But if a preview version is good enough to be out in the wild — beyond Microsoft’s control — then devices could appear in carrier stores by October. An earlier than expected delivery hinges upon many things — code readiness, hardware partner relationships, and carrier agreements — but would be a positive sign for Microsoft.

Windows Mobile has languished in terms of development and adoption as consumers, and even some enterprises, have embraced Android, iOS4 and BlackBerry phones over the past couple years. An earlier than anticipated launch would also help quell memories of Microsoft’s embarrassing Kin debacle, which saw the company kill the Kin phone just six weeks after launch.

I have a hunch Hood and Lo are happy that their bonus prize wasn’t a leftover Kin.


By Kevin C. Tofel Jul. 9, 2010, 1:06pm PDT
http://gigaom.com/2010/07/09/first-windows-phone-7-handsets-hit-the-wild/?utm_source=gigaom&utm_medium=recent-posts

Argentinean hackers have stolen the e-mail addresses, IP addresses, usernames and passwords of more than four million Pirate Bay users. Pirate Bay is the most popular BitTorrent site, a place to download pirated apps.

This time, it was Pirate Bay that was pirated. A trio of hackers in the Latin American country have claimed responsibility for the attack and even produced a video demonstrating their successful hacking tactics.

"The community caused problems to huge companies and corporations which turned into threats between this companies and them," wrote hacker Ch Russo. "What we have done, we did not do it with anger, or for commercial value. As always, we saw the change, the moment and decided to take it. The protocol or procedure done to achieve this wasn't anything out of the ordinary."

Pushing Software

Russo is well aware of how valuable that information would be to the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), considering the number of illegal song and movie downloads from Pirate Bay. However, Russo doesn't appear to have any plans to turn over the information to these industry associations.

"Probably these groups would be very interested in this information, but we are not [trying] to sell it. Instead we wanted to tell people that their information may not be so well protected," wrote Russo. Russo does seem to have a money motive, though. He's marketing his security-exploit software program called Impassioned Framework.

Pirate Bay moved quickly to take down the hacker video, which showed how malicious actors discovered and exploited several SQL injection vulnerabilities on the site. Pirate Bay was the victim of a similar attack in 2007, despite efforts to shore up security.

The Pirate Bay temporarily went offline for maintenance, offering the following message: "Upgrading some stuff, database in use for backups, soon back again. Btw, it's nice weather outside I think."

Is the MPAA Watching?

What happens with the four million e-mail addresses could make people feel uncomfortable about using the service, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. Then again, he said, with the MPAA's aggressive pursuit of Pirate Bay, he's not sure anyone should feel too secure about using the service anyway.

"The fact that this hacker could get these e-mail addresses would suggest that other people could do it as well and may have already done it and aren't telling anybody," Enderle said.

"This hacker is being vocal; another organization with a vested interest in penetrating the security of Pirate Bay may have already done so," he said. "Just because the MPAA is not talking about it doesn't mean they aren't monitoring the use of the site. It's not in their best interest to go around bragging that they penetrated the site."


By Jennifer LeClaire
July 8, 2010 01:52PM
http://www.newsfactor.com/mobile/?sid=74239&do=story

Something big is brewing. We’ve just been informed that HTC is holding an event in London where they will be celebrating a GLOBAL announcement about the future of HTC design. A satellite event in New York City will also be taking place.

All signs point to the HTC Hero being announced and we would be absolutely ELATED if that were the case. But you can never be certain with these things and HTC could have more planned, less planned or anything in between or outside planned. Whatever they have planned you should definitely be excited because HTC has helped pave the Android way and we know every product they launch packs hotness.

Mark it down. June 24th. London. Circle it in red permanent marker.

by Rob Jackson on June 2nd, 2009
http://phandroid.com/2009/06/02/htc-announcement-june-24th-in-london/

Today, during Computex 2009, NVIDIA and its partners have announced no less than 12 new MIDs (mobile internet devices) based on the NVIDIA Tegra processor.

Leveraging on NVIDIA Tegra’s capabilities, the new devices (netbooks and tablets) provide desktop-like Internet browsing, supporting Flash, 1080p video playback, and animation acceleration.

Moreover, the MIDs come with “up to 5x the battery life of current netbooks”.

Those visiting the Computex 2009 fair (2 – 6 June, Tapei, Taiwan) can check-out the following Tegra-based devices:

Compal CN88 (netbook)
Inventec Rainbow (netbook)
ICD Ultra (tablet)
Mobinnova Mabo (tablet)
Mobinnova ViewBook N910 (netbook)
Pegatron Vivid (netbook)
Wistron M5 (netbook)

“These new Tegra-based products combine excellent Internet and media capabilities, always-on operation, and wireless connectivity for the un-tethered Internet experience consumers have been craving,” declared Michael Rayfield, general manager of mobile business at NVIDIA.

Via Press release


Posted on 02 Jun 09 by ilinca
http://www.unwiredview.com/2009/06/02/12-new-nvidia-tegra-devices-announced-at-computex/

A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of third-party developers use to run a variety of interactive programs on Windows.

The service pack for the .NET Framework, like other updates, was pushed out to users through the Windows Update Web site. A number of readers had never heard of this platform before Windows Update started offering the service pack for it, and many of you wanted to know whether it was okay to go ahead and install this thing. Having earlier checked to see whether the service pack had caused any widespread problems or interfered with third-party programs -- and not finding any that warranted waving readers away from this update -- I told readers not to worry and to go ahead and install it.


I'm here to report a small side effect from installing this service pack that I was not aware of until just a few days ago: Apparently, the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult -- if not dangerous -- to remove, once installed.

Annoyances.org, which lists various aspects of Windows that are, well, annoying, says "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly install software on your PC." I'm not sure I'd put things in quite such dire terms, but I'm fairly confident that a decent number of Firefox for Windows users are rabidly anti-Internet Explorer, and would take umbrage at the very notion of Redmond monkeying with the browser in any way.

Big deal, you say? I can just uninstall the add-on via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface, right? Not so fast. The trouble is, Microsoft has disabled the "uninstall" button on the extension. What's more, Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry, an exercise that -- if done imprecisely -- can cause Windows systems to fail to boot up.

When I first learned of this, three thoughts immediately flashed through my mind:

1) How the %#@! did I miss this?

2) The right way would have been to just publish the add-on at Mozilla's Add Ons page.

3) This kind of makes you wonder what else MS is installing without your knowledge.

Then I found that I wasn't the only one who had these ideas. Microsoft has heard these criticisms from others who long ago commented on this unfortunate development (see the comments underneath this post).

Anyway, I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but it's probably infuriating to many readers nonetheless. Firstly -- to my readers -- I apologize for overlooking this..."feature" of the .NET Framework security update. Secondly -- to Microsoft -- this is a great example of how not to convince people to trust your security updates.

By Brian Krebs | May 29, 2009; 7:40 AM ET
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html