Steven Max Patterson
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Steven Max Patterson
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Ahead of Google I/O, Google previews new Android N Multi-Window support
Google released more information about Android N (referring to N as Not the real name). The preview of the mobile operating system gives the impression of a more in-depth system and user-level polish that has been Google’s obsession since Android 4.4 Kitkat.Multi-Window Support Multi-Window support stands out as the most important feature for users, consumers and developers. It allows apps to be opened in two separate windows and used on a split-screen display. User interest in Multi-Window has become increasingly important as mobile devices replace PC apps with mobile apps. When work moves to a mobile app, users want many of the same PC features, keyboards, split screens, drag and drop, etc.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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WhatsApp copies Apple’s strong encryption defense
The decision by WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum to encrypt direct messages, group messages and voice calls drew a lot of attention to the Facebook subsidiary—given the recent dispute between the FBI and Apple.Security experts described how the improved WhatsApp protected users’ privacy and where it fell short. Security writers called it the FBI's worst nightmare. And pundits talked about recent reports that the White House withdrew its support for legislation that would allow judges to order WhatsApp to decrypt customers’ messages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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GE’s move to Boston could revive local tech business ambitions
Jeff Immelt candidly told Boston’s business and political elite yesterday about what GE hoped to get from the company’s move to Boston. He said GE moved to Boston for two reasons: to win the Internet of Things and rethink how companies work in this winner-take-all technology innovation economy.He also said he liked Boston because of the chip the tech community has on its shoulder; an obvious reference to the Silicon Valley’s domination of nearly every segment of technology. The Boston technology ecosystem, arguably the richest and most diverse R&D center in the world seems to have lost the DNA for growing big tech companies like the personal Internet, social or the sharing economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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GE’s move to Boston could revive local tech business ambitions
Jeff Immelt candidly told Boston’s business and political elite yesterday about what GE hoped to get from the company’s move to Boston. He said GE moved to Boston for two reasons: to win the Internet of Things and rethink how companies work in this winner-take-all technology innovation economy.He also said he liked Boston because of the chip the tech community has on its shoulder; an obvious reference to the Silicon Valley’s domination of nearly every segment of technology. The Boston technology ecosystem, arguably the richest and most diverse R&D center in the world seems to have lost the DNA for growing big tech companies like the personal Internet, social or the sharing economy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Facebook’s Open Compute Project helps competitors build hyperscale data centers together
The conversion from free to paid registration and a spike in Open Compute Project Summit keynote attendance signaled that open hardware innovation is trending up. Summit attendees are companies like Facebook that buy land, build big data center buildings and fill them with commodity computing and networking hardware. Their mission is to build hyperscale, hyperefficient infrastructure that is flexible in handling workloads and agile in delivering new services in minutes. Jason Taylor, OCP CEO, introduced Google’s Vice President of Infrastructure Urz Hölz as a surprise last OCP Summit keynote with Apple-like “wait there’s still more” showmanship. Hölz presented his team's open source hardware submissions, a new approach to powering the ocean of servers used in hyperscale web company data centers operated by Facebook and Google at a more power efficient 45V instead of 12V and a new rack design.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Leaders’ STEM education determines stance on iPhone encryption case
Robert Hannigan head of Britain’s NSA equivalent agency the GCHQ, finally stopped asking for a backdoor to encrypted devices. Instead he called for an end to what he called the “abuse of encryption” by ISIS and other terrorists and criminals at the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, according to a report by the MIT Technology Review.Hannigan wasn’t getting what he wanted by calling it a backdoor so he changed the name for building flawed encryption that law enforcement can exploit to “ending the abuse of encryption.” Hannigan’s attempt to use speechwriters and political spin to solve a mathematical problem is a fool’s errand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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US defense secretary talks offensive cyber-weapons and bug-bounty
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter spoke last at the RSA conference after NSA Director Rogers and Attorney General Lynch because he was prepared for a more substantive dialog with the RSA Conference audience. He had real news to deliver, his opinion to share about encryption that is central to the FBI and Apple iPhone encryption dispute and innovation programs to pitch.Carter is a different sort of Washington bureaucrat. A PhD in medieval history and particle physics from Yale with a second PhD from Oxford who was a Harvard professor of world affairs and held high level Department of Defense (DoD) roles during the Clinton and Obama administrations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google CSO peers out from the fishbowl to talk security
Google’s Vice President Security and Privacy Engineering Gerhard Eschelbeck spoke yesterday to a packed house at the RSA Security Conference about his professional life. Google operates in a fishbowl because its business model depends on both consumers, enterprise users and privacy regulators trusting it to store vast amounts of data in its data centers. Given this scrutiny and gigantic computing scale makes Google intriguing. It’s a benchmark establishing best security practices.Eschelbeck’s stark mission statement “to protect users’ data” speaks of the alignment of his security group with the company’s cloud services and advertising business model.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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With new startup, Check Point Software co-founder bets on perimeter-less security
The launch of cloud security startup Cato Networks by cybersecurity expert Shlomo Kramer reminded me of the episode of USA's Mr. Robot when Elliot Alderson explains why he chose his healthcare provider – limited security budget and limited security staff let him break through the perimeter defenses and change his medical records to cover up his lifestyle. In the real world, though, cyber threats are scaling faster than enterprises can respond. Like Elliot, Kramer is counting on enterprises with limited security staff and budgets turning to his new venture for end-to-end, perimeter-less security.According to a report by Reuters, Cato Networks is different because it asks customers to move all their traffic to its encrypted network. In other words, Cato is the opposite of Check Point Software Technologies, the company Kramer co-founded in 1998 that invented a perimeter defense used by almost all enterprises. The mobile internet has changed how the enterprise works. Large numbers of employees operate outside of the traditional security perimeter, necessitating a new way of looking at cyber defenses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why the FAA’s new drone rules fall short
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released rules governing the registration of drones yesterday that left me slack-jawed – first with disbelief, then with fear. The rules show that the FAA is oblivious to either the risks of drones or the technological measures that could mitigate the risks, or both.The rules are simple and apply to drones that weigh between 0.55 pounds (250 grams) and less than 56 pounds (approximately 25 kilograms) including payloads. Beginning on December 21, drone owners must voluntarily register their drones with the FAA and pay a $5 fee, which will be waived for the first 30 days. Drone owners who fail to register face stiff penalties: a fine of up to $27,500 for civil violations, and a fine of up to $250,000 and up to three years in prison for a criminal violation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google’s new Data Loss Prevention tools could drive enterprise adoption of Gmail
Enterprises that do not have an extremely large IT operating scale or unique compliance requirements don't have much of a reason to operate internal email systems. Yesterday, Google announced Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for its enterprise Gmail service, eliminating one more compliance reason justifying the operation of custom email services within the enterprise. DLP checks email messages and attachments for sensitive data to prevent disclosure to unauthorized personnel. Sensitive data includes trade secrets or intellectual property or data regulated in industries like healthcare and financial services.Innovation often takes a back seat to compliance; the more regulated the business, the more compliance becomes a roadblock to innovation. Before Google released DLP, the burden of data loss compliance standards prevented some enterprises from taking advantage of Gmail's 900 million mailbox scale. Few enterprises can operate email services with the redundancy, resilience, and security of Google's Gmail. DLP means that many enterprises running less-efficient email services for compliance reasons now have a Gmail option.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google Play Services 8.3 simplifies Android sign-in to a single tap
Google has updated Google Play Services. Users will notice changes from these updates in their apps quickly. For most Android users, Play Services remains out of sight and under the hood, serving apps with application programming interfaces (API), OAuth 2.0 identity services, security, malware scanning, and other mobile services.With the release of Google Play 8.3, Google has changed the sign-in button to make it work more like Chrome's web sign-in. When a new app that uses this updated Play Services release is downloaded, the developer can present the new branded sign-in button: Google This is a big interaction fix for users who previously had to select from multiple accounts, create new profiles, and grant user permissions just to sign into an app. It wouldn't be noticeable except for all the streamlined web sign-ins available, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, that reduce sign-in to a click. Now Android sign in to apps is reduced to a tap.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How CISA encourages both cybersecurity information sharing and warrantless surveillance
Sharing cybersecurity data involving threats, probes, breaches, and information on attackers between companies and government agencies is a great idea. However, although shared data will strengthen the cybersecurity defenses, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), backed by Amazon, Facebook, and Google, among others, and the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which is backed by Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, are both against it.Smart companies are already doing something similar. At the RSA Security Conference three years ago (a century ago in cybersecurity time) Zion Bankcorp's data scientists explained how the bank went from reacting to law enforcement warnings of cyberthreats to becoming proactive, frequently reporting threats to law enforcement, who subsequently relayed official warnings to other organizations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Misguided House bill could make cars less safe
Car owners could face more danger from hackers if a draft bill (pdf) by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (HECC) becomes law. The law would make independent oversight of the electronic safety of motor vehicles a crime subjecting well intentioned security researchers to a $100,000 fine per instance. Today’s cars have 200 – 400 microcontrollers and microprocessors in them making the access of each an individual offense subject to fines that could add up to millions.The security flaws of the Jeep Grand Cherokee were exposed this summer by security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek who were able to shut down the vehicle during operation by cracking the Wi-Fi password. The risks of huge fines would stop researchers from exposing critical motor vehicle vulnerabilities but it would not stop hackers with malicious intentions from invading vehicle control systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Android Stagefright: The heart attack that never happened
Since Joshua Drake of Zimperium announced his talk at the Black Hat conference on Twitter, speculation in the blogosphere has been rampant. BLACKHAT USA 2015 Stagefright: Scary Code in the Heart of Android: https://t.co/oBZpiBFx1x by @jduck— Mobile Security (@Mobile_Sec) July 23, 2015 If some of the claims were true, Android phones would be exploding into flames. Since the introduction of version 4.1 Jelly Bean, Android has been protected from buffer-overflow vulnerabilities such as Stagefright with Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). A glance at the chart below reveals that 90% of the Android devices are protected by ASLR. Drake's estimate of one billion Android devices affected by this vulnerability was inflated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Gigabit Internet access grows out of its niche
Google Fiber launched in Kansas City in 2011. It offered gigabit speed at $70 per month and ignited the development of an ultrafast Internet access category that has since spread throughout the U.S. According to Michael Render, principal analyst at market researcher RVA LLC, 83 Internet access providers have joined Google to offer gigabit Internet access service (all priced in the $50-$150 per month range).Render’s data shows that new subscribers are signing up at an annualized growth rate of 480 percent each year. Between the third quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015 gigabit, subscribers grew from 40,000-174,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple Watch’s nose-dive predictions suggest Apple needs a new way to innovate
Slice Intelligence's Apple Watch estimates confirm that Apple needs a different narrative for innovation in new product categories. The company's Wizard of Oz –like assertion that it knows everything that consumers might ever want hamstrings its ability to introduce an Apple version of an evolving product category that's not perfect.Business Insider and MarketWatch have both announced the death of the Apple Watch, with data from Slice Intelligence pointing to a 90% decline in Apple Watch sales since the device's opening week on the market. It might just be a bad case of schadenfreude due to the ingestion of bad data. Literally translated from German, schadenfreude means damaging joy, but often is interpreted to mean evil glee. Apple, the most valuable brand, is under a microscope because of its success compounded by persuasive marketing. Now that a marketing survey may indicate a drop in Apple Watch sales, many observers are rejoicing with evil glee that the hugely successful company might fail. But the shipment data hasn't been verified by Apple, and no one knows the company's expectations for Apple Watch sales over the entirety of its debut year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
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Hyundai now offers an Android car, even for current owners
Android Auto, a product that up until now was only talked about by industry insiders and journalists, just shipped this week.Well, it didn't really ship, because it is being released as a software update to the 2015 Hyundai Sonata that existing owners can download. It will also be factory-installed on new models. Android Auto is an attempt to incorporate the convenience and safety of pairing a smartphone to a car without the distraction. It also points out that the car has become a software-driven mobile device, not unlike computers and smartphones.See also: Volvo charges extra for self-driving car feature that brakes for pedestrians Android Auto reduces driver distraction from smartphone use by integrating the smartphone with the console stereo system that the industry calls a head-unit. It focuses the driver's attention in short, safe interactions with the console display when using Android apps. According to Hyundai, "at any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010." Distracted driving endangers drivers and their passengers, as well as those who share the road with them. According to the National Safety Board, Continue reading
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The Apple Watch’s cure for notification overload? More notifications
Sometimes I just can't be positive about certain things. That I can't rejoice over the Apple Watch selling out makes me feel like misanthrope Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson's character in the movie As Good as It Gets. In fact, I think Melvin's most memorable line may sum up the Apple Watch: "What if this is as good as it gets?" Melvin, of course, was referring to his life with obsessive compulsive disorder, and I'm referring to a consumer device that requires at least a Panglossian level of optimism to get excited about.But the Apple Watch will either fix wearables or finally put the category to rest. If the ultimate consumer wearable can't be made useful by the ultimate designer of consumer products, we can close the dresser draw and pull the shades on this product category.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How Google’s partnership with Intel, TAG Heuer could fight off Apple Watch
Apple should take notice of the partnership announced today at the Baselworld watch and jewelry conference, because Google has put together partners that could build a watch that even iPhone customers would want. One can't dispute that Apple will sell a lot of watches. Just take a look at investment bankers UBS and Bernstein's forecasts. But if this Android Wear partnership is effective, it might be hard for Apple to achieve its optimistic forecasts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here