2010
By NICK BILTON
AT&T announced Wednesday that it will start offering metered data plans for mobile device users rather than a $30 all-you-can-use monthly plan.
For people who use less than 200 megabytes of data a month, the price of the new plan is effectively cut in half.
The latest announcement could signal the beginning of a new arms race between mobile phone carriers. In the past, carriers tried to woo customers by offering mobile packages that were gauged by the number of voice minutes available each month. But as my colleague Jenna Wortham wrote last month, people are talking on mobile phones less as data usages continues to rise.
AT&T also announced a new service that will let smartphone users tether their device, including the iPhone, to a computer and use the phone to access the Internet as a modem. The tethering feature will cost an additional $20 a month. Apple iPhone users have long requested that service.
The lowest-priced data option is called DataPlus and will cost $15 a month. It gives mobile phone subscribers access to 200 megabytes of data each month enough to send and receive 1,000 e-mails without attachments and an additional 150 with attachments. The plan would also offer access to 400 Web pages, the ability to post 50 photos to social Web sites and watch up to 20 minutes of streaming video through the mobile phone.
AT&T said in a press release that 65 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 200 MB of data per month on average. If DataPlus users go over the allotted 200 megabytes in a single month they will have the option to purchase an additional 200 megabytes for another $15.
DataPro, the next step up, provides 2 gigabytes of data a month to a single phone for $25 a month. AT&T says, on average, 98 percent of its current mobile customers use less than 2 gigabytes of data each month.
The DataPro option will allow mobile phone customers to send and receive 10,000 e-mails without attachments and 1,500 e-mails with attachments. In addition, users will be able to view 4,000 Web sites and post up to 500 photos online through their phone. They will also be able to watch three hours of streaming video. If a DataPro subscriber goes over the 2 gigabytes, they will be able to purchase an additional gigabyte for $10.
The tethering feature is only available to the DataPro customers.
The service changes will go into effect on June 7 with the expected release of the iPhone’s new operating system, iPhone OS4.
Although the $30-a-month unlimited data plan will be eliminated, existing AT&T customers will have the option to be grandfathered in to their existing monthly charge.
IPad users will be affected by the service changes too. AT&T said that new iPad customers will have the option to purchase a $25 monthly plan for access to 2 gigabytes of data. This will replace the $29.99 unlimited access option currently offered for the iPad.
2010
A swipe of your smartphone could soon give you access to your hotel room.
by Chris Brandrick
The Holiday Inn is set to start trialing the use of smartphones as room keys.The chain will test the entry system at two hotels to begin with, and roll out the convenient tech on a wider basis if the trial proves successful.
Bryson Koehler from the InterContinental Hotels group explained to USA Today that "the beauty of the smartphone" is that guests already have one, and using it for access avoids "burdening people with additional items".
Starting next month guests at the Holiday Inn Chicago O'Hare Rosemont and Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center will be able to trial the new entry system. Instead of having to deal with key-cards, which are often easily lost, customers will be able to use a downloadable iPhone, Android or Blackberry app. The software allows guests to access rooms simply by holding their device next to a door sensor.
The trial is slated to last for two to three months, and may also make use of location services such as Gowalla in an effort to remind guests of hotel offers.
What other ways would you like to use your smartphone to improve your daily life?
2010
By RANDALL STROSS
FACEBOOK now has more than 400 million active users, up from only 50 million as recently as 2007. If social networking still resembled a young, hip downtown nightclub scene — one day a site is hot, the next it’s not — we might expect the crowds to decamp soon. Facebook would become another Friendster, still around but ghostly, forgotten by most.
Facebook, however, isn’t likely to have such a fate. For one thing, it has attracted many “olds,” and they tend to stay put. (Consider AOL.) More than 50 percent of Facebook’s members in the United States are 35 or older, and only 26.8 percent are 24 or under, according to an analysis of December visitors by comScore Media Metrix.
More than demographic stability favors Facebook. The site has shrewdly emulated the “network effects” strategy used by another brand that has long held a dominant position in the computer industry: Microsoft Windows.
Economists use the term network effects to refer to the way the value of a product or service increases in tandem with the number of people who use it. If you’re one of only 10 people in the world with an e-mail account, its usefulness is limited; add a billion more, and the practical value of yours increases apace.
A Facebook member enjoys immediate benefits when each friend joins — these are direct network effects. But the average user already has 130 friends, so unless the user is unusually gregarious, the direct effects won’t increase drastically beyond a certain point.
For an individual member, the most powerful network effects may be indirect ones that come from the huge number of unknown other people in the Facebook world. Their mass attracts, in turn, suppliers of complementary products and services.
For Windows, the enormous installed base attracted third-party software developers, which in turn drew more users. Apple’s iPhone has had a similar virtuous cycle. So, too, on Facebook, developers of applications like FamilyLink, Marketplace and iLike’s Music create a software universe with seemingly infinite choices. And that attracts more users — and still more developers.
Facebook’s decision to open its site to outside developers in May 2007 was a “transformative moment,” said Charlene Li,founder of the Altimeter Group, a strategy consulting firm.
“Because Facebook allows developers on their site, the people who would have developed the next social networking site are now working with Facebook,” she said.
Nick O’Neill, founder of AllFacebook.com, a site with Facebook-related news and statistics, said, “Games are the killer app for Facebook.” Because of their social nature, popular Facebook games produce direct network effects. The dedicated farmers of the FarmVille game — it attracts 83 million users a month — nudge friends to play and become virtual neighbors, enhancing their own game experience. (That pull gives Facebook an advantage Windows lacked; its signature game was Solitaire.)
Businesses, nonprofits, government offices and celebrities use Facebook pages to disseminate information, thus forming an ever-growing simulacrum of the Web within Facebook’s walls. Network effects are at work here, too: users attract well-known names, which, in turn, draw more users to Facebook.
The White House, for example, has its own Facebook page, one of three million active pages that have an aggregate of 5.3 billion fans, the company says.
Facebook members in the United States, on average, spent more than seven hours on the site in January, according to the Nielsen Company. That is more than three times the average time spent on Google’s Web sites. Facebook’s average number of minutes per visitor grew almost 10 percent from the previous month, while the average at sites for every other company in the top 10 fell — Google, by 14.3 percent; Yahoo, 27 percent; and Microsoft, 26.9 percent.
Google does not reap the benefits of significant network effects because its search algorithms are centered on the analysis of links, and operate essentially the same way whether one person or six billion are using it. Google has tried to add new services as quickly as it can — or more quickly than it is ready to, as shown by the less-than-smooth introduction last month of Buzz, which gives Gmail some social network features.
Network effects, if powerful enough, can push a platform past the tipping point, accelerating its growth. “As the Windows example shows, once a market with network effects tips to one dominant platform, then it is very hard to tip back,” said Andrei Hagiu, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.
But network effects alone don’t necessarily produce tipping, he cautioned. Users must also perceive a high switching cost —in this case, in time and inconvenience — if they were to move to another social networking site.
Facebook increasingly makes it easy for its members to remain loyal. Outside sites can become Facebook Connect partners, offering visitors the ability to log on with their Facebook username and continue to interact with their Facebook friends even when they aren’t at the Facebook site. More than 60 million Facebook members use Facebook Connect each month, the company says.
YET Facebook Connect introduces a strategic risk for the company. As its adoption spreads, Facebook members may spend less time at the home site, with possibly negative implications for Facebook’s business model. The company says that more than half its users now log on to Facebook daily. But that share might drop significantly as more outside sites incorporate Facebook Connect.
“It could turn out that taking your network with you is more powerful than having all of the activity around your network happening in a central place,” said Noah Brier, head of strategic planning at the Barbarian Group, a digital marketing firm.
Industry watchers constantly scan the horizon for a challenger that could displace Facebook, and Mr. Brier thinks he has a sighting: “Who will be the next Facebook?” he asks. “Facebook Connect.”
2010
By RIVA RICHMOND
THE Web is a fount of information, a busy marketplace, a thriving social scene — and a den of criminal activity.
Criminals have found abundant opportunities to undertake stealthy attacks on ordinary Web users that can be hard to stop, experts say. Hackers are lacing Web sites — often legitimate ones — with so-called malware, which can silently infiltrate visiting PCs to steal sensitive personal information and then turn the computers into “zombies” that can be used to spew spam and more malware onto the Internet.
At one time, virus attacks were obvious to users, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a training organization for computer security professionals. He explained that now, the attacks were more silent. “Now it’s much, much easier infecting trusted Web sites,” he said, “and getting your zombies that way.”
And there are myriad lures aimed at conning people into installing nefarious programs, buying fake antivirus software or turning over personal information that can be used in identity fraud.
“The Web opened up a lot more opportunities for attacking” computer users and making money, said Maxim Weinstein, executive director of StopBadware, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that receives funding from Google, PayPal, Mozilla and others.
Google says its automated scans of the Internet recently turned up malware on roughly 300,000 Web sites, double the number it recorded two years ago. Each site can contain many infected pages. Meanwhile, Malware doubled last year, to 240 million unique attacks, according to Symantec, a maker of security software. And that does not count the scourge of fake antivirus software and other scams.
So it is more important than ever to protect yourself. Here are some basic tips for thwarting them.
Protect the Browser
The most direct line of attack is the browser, said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response. Online criminals can use programming flaws in browsers to get malware onto PCs in “drive-by” downloads without users ever noticing.
Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most targeted browsers because they are the most popular. If you use current versions, and download security updates as they become available, you can surf safely. But there can still be exposure between when a vulnerability is discovered and an update becomes available, so you will need up-to-date security software as well to try to block any attacks that may emerge, especially if you have a Windows PC.
It can help to use a more obscure browser like Chrome from Google, which also happens to be the newest browser on the market and, as such, includes some security advances that make attacks more difficult.
Get Adobe Updates
Most consumers are familiar with Adobe Reader, for PDF files, and Adobe’s Flash Player. In the last year, a virtual epidemic of attacks has exploited their flaws; almost half of all attacks now come hidden in PDF files, Mr. Weafer said. “No matter what browser you’re using,” he said, “you’re using the PDF Reader, you’re using the Adobe Flash Player.”
Part of the problem is that many computers run old, vulnerable versions. But as of April, it has become easier to get automatic updates from Adobe, if you follow certain steps.
To update Reader, open the application and then select “Help” and “Check for Updates” from the menu bar. Since April, Windows users have been able to choose to get future updates automatically without additional prompts by clicking “Edit” and “Preferences,” then choosing “Updater” from the list and selecting “Automatically install updates.” Mac users can arrange updates using a similar procedure, though Apple requires that they enter their password each time an update is installed.
Adobe said it did not make silent automatic updates available previously because many users, especially at companies, were averse to them. To get the latest version of Flash Player, visit Abobe’s Web site.
Any software can be vulnerable. Windows PC users can identify vulnerable or out-of-date software using Secunia PSI, a free tool that scans machines and alerts users to potential problems.
Beware Malicious Ads
An increasingly popular way to get attacks onto Web sites people trust is to slip them into advertisements, usually by duping small-time ad networks. Malvertising, as this practice is known, can exploit software vulnerabilities or dispatch deceptive pop-up messages.
A particularly popular swindle involves an alert that a virus was found on the computer, followed by urgent messages to buy software to remove it. Of course, there is no virus and the security software, known as scareware, is fake. It is a ploy to get credit card numbers and $40 or $50. Scareware accounts for half of all malware delivered in ads, up fivefold from a year ago, Google said.
Closing the pop-up or killing the browser will usually end the episode. But if you encounter this scam, check your PC with trusted security software or Microsoft’s free Malicious Software Removal Tool. If you have picked up something nasty, you are in good company; Microsoft cleaned scareware from 7.8 million PCs in the second half of 2009, up 47 percent from the 5.3 million in the first half, the company said.
Another tool that can defend against malvertising, among other Web threats, is K9 Web Protection, free from Blue Coat Systems. Though it is marketed as parental-control software, K9 can be configured to look only for security threats like malware, spyware and phishing attacks — and to bark each time it stops one.
Poisoned Search Results
Online criminals are also trying to manipulate search engines into placing malicious sites toward the top of results pages for popular keywords. According to a recent Google study, 60 percent of malicious sites that embed hot keywords try to distribute scareware to the computers of visitors.
Google and search engines like Microsoft’s Bing are working to detect malicious sites and remove them from their indexes. Free tools like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor and the Firefox add-on Web of Trust can also help — warning about potentially dangerous links.
Antisocial Media
Attackers also use e-mail, instant messaging, blog comments and social networks like Facebook and Twitter to induce people to visit their sites.
It’s best to accept “friend” requests only from people you know, and to guard your passwords. Phishers are trying to filch login information so they can infiltrate accounts, impersonate you to try to scam others out of money and gather personal information about you and your friends.
Also beware the Koobface worm, variants of which have been taking aim at users of Facebook and other social sites for more than a year. It typically promises a video of some kind and asks you to download a fake multimedia-player codec to view the video. If you do so, your PC is infected with malware that turns it into a zombie (making it part of a botnet, or group of computers, that can spew spam and malware across the Internet).
But most important, you need to keep your wits about you. Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated ploys, and your best defense on the Web may be a healthy level of suspicion.
2010
Why is it that just when you need to get something from the Internet quickly, your computer seems to grind to a halt? It can be maddening – we’ve all been there.
When your computer slows down, a number of causes may race through your head. Perhaps the computer is out of memory? Maybe that new software you installed is slowing it down? Could it be that you’ve contracted a virus or spyware? Or maybe you just have a bad Internet connection. If you really are concerned about a virus, spyware or other malware infecting your computer, find help at Internet Security Central.
Otherwise, it’s possible your browser isn’t configured for peak performance. These tricks may not solve all your problems, but they should help get you going in the right direction.
1. Change Your Home Page
This may seem simple, but a graphic-heavy home page, or one with a lot going on in the background, may make your browser take longer to get going. For example, if you have your home page set to a site with a number of large ads, try switching your home page to your favorite search engine and see if that makes a difference.
To do this in Internet Explorer 7 or 8, simply go to the page you want to make your home page and click on the arrow to the right of the Home button, located on the far right hand side of your IE Tab Bar. Select the option labeled Add or Change Home Page and select Use this webpage as your only home page. In Firefox, navigate to the page you want as your home page, click on the icon to the left of the web address and drag it to the Home toolbar button right next to it. Click Yes to confirm.
2. Clear Your Cache
The cache contains details of your browsing history. Images, video, audio files and cookies are stored, presumably to make browsing faster. However, if you have too many temporary files saved on your computer, it will eventually begin to slow down.
To clear your cache and create more space in Internet Explorer 8, click the Tools button on the IE toolbar and select Internet Options. Click Delete under Browsing History and then click Delete one more time.
In Firefox, click Tools, select Options, then Advanced. On the Network tab, click Clear Now in the Offline Storage section.
3. Disable Add-Ons
Sometimes, with or without you knowing it, your browser ends up with add-ons such as extra toolbars, animated mouse pointers, stock tickers or pop-up ad blockers. While add-ons can make your online experience better, they can occasionally interfere or conflict with other software on your computer. Try starting Internet Explorer without add-ons to see if the problem goes away. Click the Start button, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Internet Explorer (No Add-ons).
In Firefox, you are given the option to Disable all add-ons if you start Firefox in Safe Mode.
4. Disable Graphics in Internet Explorer
This may seem like a drastic measure, but if you are desperate, it works and it is easy.
On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, then the Advanced tab. In the Settings box, scroll down to the Multimedia section. Clear the following boxes and then click Apply.
• Play animations in Web pages
• Play sounds in Web pages
• Play videos in Web pages (Note: This option is not available in Internet Explorer 8)
• Show pictures
Random photo
 |