Social networking site Facebook has closed its Facebook Lite, which was launched in September 2009 and was regarded as an option for people with slow internet connections.
On its official "fan page", Facebook confirms that it's ending the Facebook Lite project - "Thanks to everyone who tried out Facebook Lite. We're no longer supporting it, but learned a lot from the test of a slimmed-down site. If you used Lite, you'll now be taken to the main Facebook.com site," reads the announcement.
However, there were no further details mentioned on the site's closure. Industry observers believed that Facebook launched the barebone site to attract the users of the popular microblogging site Twitter.
Mumbai police have managed to track down two or three websites that are used to send masked messages and are collaborating with IT experts to get to the bottom of the matter, reports V Narayan from TNN. Two cases on getting rude SMS from a number a person knows, going to police with a complaint and then finding out that the supposed sender is clueless about what happened, have been reported to Mumbai police in the past month.
Though the police officials are yet to track down the sender, they have managed to unearth a bizarre truth, that of the 'masked SMS'. The user has to register on a website (for as little as $10) and can send text messages to and from any mobile number on the planet without being identified. "We have received two complaints in the last one month where the sender's number was camouflaged," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria told TOI.
The masked SMS service is easy to operate. Giving TOI a demo, the IT expert logged on and sent this reporter an SMS from his colleague's number with utmost ease. Of course, the friend had no record of the said message in his outbox. Senior Nasscom officials say these websites can be blocked but it's a long process.
IT industry sources said, "It's rare for the real miscreant to be caught in such a situation because people might register under false identities and also commit credit card fraud to pay the small registration fee," says IT expert Vijay Mukhi. If caught, can the culprit be charged under our laws? "Yes," says Mukhi. "Section 66 A of the IT Act talks about sending offensive messages using any communication device, Section 66 C is the identity theft section and Section 66 D the cheating by impersonation section." A pornographic message will be charged under Section 66 E, while Section 66 F is quoted in the case of cyber terrorism.
If proved, the offence of identity theft attracts a 3-year jail term plus a cash fine of upto Rs. 1 lakh in India. While there is a misuse of computer act that is invoked in such cases in the U.S., the law in India is still inadequate to handle such innovative mobile spoofing. "Based on our findings we will decide what action should be taken against these websites. If need be, we could pull them down as well," he added.
Commenting on the action plan for this matter, Mukhi says, "Not immediately. As of now, one just has to be careful and cross-check the credibility of a message before filing a complaint." He added that the need of the hour is to spread awareness about the problem. "Time was when wi-fi was misused but we've managed to tackle that. Camouflaging is a dangerous issue and must be dealt with seriously and immediately."
Facebook has surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States, according to industry tracker Hitwise. The important milestone, as described by Hitwise Director of Research Heather Dougherty, came as Facebook enjoyed a massive 185 percent increase in visits in the week ending March 13, compared to the same week in 2009, reports Economic Times.
Visits to search engine home Google.com increased only nine percent in the same week. However, the tracker does not include Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.
Google has been positioning challenges in recent months to Facebook and the micro-blogging site Twitter by adding the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service.
Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, according to tracking firm comScore.
To help users in getting content from television and the web, Google and U.S. satellite TV operator Dish Network are testing a television programming search service.
The report published in The Wall Street Journal said that the service, which runs on TV set-top boxes containing Google software, allows users to find shows on the satellite TV service as well as video from websites like YouTube. It also allows users to personalize the line-up of shows.
With this step, Google e3ntered into a group of companies, which have been trying for years to marry the web and TV and their business models - from rivals Microsoft and Apple to the makers of TV and set-top boxes.
Besides Dish Network, Google is also in touch with a range of other television service providers and hardware makers, prodding them to use its Android-based technologies to offer a broader range of programming, a more personal experience and ads.
The hackers behind the attacks on Google Inc and dozens of other companies operating in China stole valuable computer source code by breaking into the personal computers of employees with privileged access, a security firm said on Wednesday.
The hackers targeted a small number of employees who controlled source code management systems, which handle the myriad changes that developers make as they write software, said George Kurtz, chief technology officer at anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc.
The details from McAfee show how the breach of just a single PC at a large corporation can have widespread repercussions across the broader business.
Google said in January that it had detected a cyber attack originating from China on its corporate infrastructure that resulted in the theft of its intellectual property. Google said more than 20 other companies had been infiltrated, and cited the attack, as well as Chinese Web censorship practices, as reasons for the company to consider pulling out of China.
The Chinese government has said that Google's claim that it was attacked by hackers based in China was "groundless."
Kurtz said on Wednesday that he believes that the hackers, who have not been apprehended, broke through the defenses of at least 30 companies, and perhaps as many as 100.
He said the common link in several of the cases that McAfee reviewed is that the hackers used source code management software from privately held Perforce Software Inc, whose customers include Google and many other large corporations.
"It is very easy to compromise the systems," Kurtz said.
Perforce President Christopher Seiwald said McAfee performed its analysis on a version of the Alameda, California-based company's software that had many of its security settings disabled. Customers typically enable those settings, he said.
Kurtz said the hackers succeeded in stealing source code from several of their victims.
The attackers also had an opportunity to change the source code without the companies' knowledge, perhaps adding functions so the hackers could later secretly spy on computers running that software, Kurtz said.
But investigators have yet to uncover any evidence that suggests that they made such changes, he said.
McAfee, the world's No. 2 security software maker, has spent the past few months investigating the attacks. It declined to identify its clients.
Other makers of source code management programs include International Business Machines Corp, Microsoft Corp and privately held Serena Software Inc.
With an aim of keeping the user connected forever, Olive Telecommunications launched country's first hybrid dual powered handset that works on AAA batteries named as Olive FrvrOn.
While using if the lithium Ion power runs out, the user can shift to the replaceable AAA battery in the phone. Launched at a price of Rs.1699, FrvrOn has 1.5-inch color display, stereo handset and speaker phone. Other features of the phone include FM radio, polyphonic ring tones.
Skype and Nokia today jointly announced the release of Skype for Symbian, a Skype client for Nokia smartphones based on the Symbian platform. Skype for Symbian will allow Nokia smartphone users worldwide to use Skype on the move, over either a WiFi or mobile data connection (GPRS, EDGE, 3G). It is now downloadable for free from the Ovi Store, Nokia's one-stop shop for mobile content.
Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President for Smartphones, Nokia said, "Symbian enables us to bring smartphones to more and more people and ensures scale for our solutions and compelling services, such as Skype. We're seeing around 1.5 million downloads a day on Ovi Store now and believe that the Skype client for Nokia smartphones will have wide appeal to Symbian users."
Skype for Symbian enables Nokia smartphone users to:
- Make free Skype-to-Skype calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world*
- Save money on calls and texts (SMS) to phones abroad.
- Send and receive instant messages to and from individuals or groups
- Share pictures, videos and other files.
- Receive calls to their existing online number
- See when Skype contacts are online and available to call or IM
- Easily import names and numbers from the phone's address book
Russ Shaw, General Manager, Mobile at Skype said, "With Skype for Nokia smartphones, more than 200 million smartphone users worldwide, will be able to take the Skype features they love with them on the move. Alongside Skype's relationships with operators and handset manufacturers worldwide, making Skype available direct to consumers will help millions of users keep in contact with the people that are important to them without worrying about the cost, distance or whether they are away from a computer."
The initial Skype for Symbian application is compatible with the following Nokia touchscreen models: Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530 and the following non-touch devices: Nokia E72, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia E51, Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 5320
Microsoft seeking to regain its footing in the fiercely competitive mobile market is expected to unveil a new smartphone platform at the industry’s biggest trade show. The US software giant has remained tight-lipped about what CEO Steve Ballmer will announce at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, but analysts widely believe he will reveal an upgrade of the Windows operating system.
Microsoft has been up against strong competition from telecommunications giant Nokia’s Symbian platform and internet giant Google’s Android. “They do seem to have been pushed on to the backfoot with the Android which seems to have caught them on hoof,” said Jeremy Green, mobile analyst at research firm Ovum.
Google plans to build a fibre optic broadband network that will connect customers to the internet at speeds 100 times faster than most existing broadband connections in the US, the company announced on its corporate blog.
"Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make internet access better and faster for everyone," two Google product managers, Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, wrote in the blog post Wednesday.
They said that Google plans to build and test the network in trial communities around the country starting later this year and that the tests could encompass as many as 500,000 people. They cited 3-dimensional medical imaging and quick, high-definition film downloads among the applications of such high-speed internet access.
"We'll deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fibre-to-the-home connections," the post said. "We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."
"We're doing this because we want to make the web better and faster to everyone," said Kelly, who also promised that the network would operate on open access network, in which users could choose various internet providers and which would not give preference to any one kind of content. Kelly appealed to local officials who were interested in having their community participate in the trial to contact the internet giant.
The announcement continued Google's recent initiative to expand into market sectors beyond its core web search speciality. In the last year it has made a splash in the mobile phone market with its Android operating system and Nexus One handset, and Tuesday announced a social networking feature aimed at taking on Facebook and Twitter.
While broadband industry incumbents may fear the entry by Google, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski welcomed the move, the Washington Post reported.
"Big broadband creates big opportunities," he said in a statement. "This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed internet apps, devices and services."
Google Inc took the wraps off the first of its smartphones on Tuesday, a device with speech recognition that it hopes can take on Apple's iPhone over time and help shore up the company's dominance in Internet advertising.
Analysts say the phone -- to be sold directly to consumers -- is not expected to dramatically alter the carrier-hardware vendor relationship the industry relies on, nor is it likely to yield a revenue windfall in the short term, though executives said it could be profitable.
Google plans to use what it calls a "superphone" -- the first of many types of smartphones that it will make -- to expand its reach from the PC to the mobile world and ensure its online products and ads get prominent placement on a new breed of wireless Internet devices.
The highly anticipated Nexus One, which marks the first time the 11-year-old Internet search titan has designed and sold its own consumer hardware device, could provide Google with a viable challenge to the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry.
It "wasn't the game-changer people thought it could be," Canaccord Adams analyst Jeff Rath said. Google could have shaken up the industry by offering the device for free, but instead chose more traditional pricing, he said.
Rath added that though his early impression was that the Nexus One was a good phone, it was unclear how much better it was than Motorola's Droid, released last year and that also runs on Google's Android operating system platform.
"It's very close to the Droid, some people will debate whether it's better. But it looks like an incremental improvement rather than a blow-the-doors-off improvement," Rath said.
The Nexus One, which was garnering favorable first reviews on tech Websites and forums on Tuesday, ships immediately from Google's online store for $179 with a two-year contract from Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, or $529 without a service plan.
Executives said the phone will be carried on Verizon Wireless's network in the United States, and eventually on Vodafone's in Europe. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Vodafone and Verizon Communications.
WAIT AND SEE
Investors are taking a wait-and-see view on Google's first effort to sell a hardware product directly to consumers.
Google's stock has risen about 7 percent since the start of December, setting a 52-week high of $629.51 on Monday. But analysts say that was driven by improvements in its core business of Internet search advertising, rather than the prospect of tapping a new pool of revenue selling smartphones.
Its shares closed 0.44 percent down at $623.99.
The Nexus One phone comes a little more than two years after Google jumped into the mobile market with the announcement it was developing a free smartphone operating system. Google's Android software is currently available on more than 20 phones from vendors including Motorola and Samsung Electronics.
It pits Google -- the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, with annual revenue of about $22 billion in 2008 -- against a variety of more experienced players in the increasingly crowded smartphone market, including Palm Inc and Nokia.
Some analysts were positive on Google's effort to continue to establish the Android as a popular operating system for smartphones and wireless devices.
"It will help them keep consistency for Android platform," said Jim McGregor, Chief Technology Strategist for In-Stat.
The new phone helps Google "get their partners all on developing a single platform that applications can be developed on."
Motorola, which is banking on the Android system to power a new generation of smartphones to revitalize a flagging business, said on Tuesday it welcomed the competition. Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told Google's audience he did not see the Nexus One as a threat, but as an expansion of the market.
Google worked closely with HTC to develop its phone, which uses a 1 gigahertz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm Inc. The Nexus One is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs 130 grams -- which executives said was lighter than a Swiss Army knife and no thicker than a No. 2 pencil.
The phone will feature a 3.7-inch (9.4 centimeter) touchscreen display. It will run the 2.1 version of the Android operating system and feature OLED display technology, a trackball for user interface control, an accelerometer chip, and a 5 megapixel camera.
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