New Google +1 Feature "Check It Out"

Google has implemented a new feature on its search engine which will allow users to share recommendations with their friends and contacts, very much like the Facebook 'likes' feature.

According to Google, +1 is shorthand for "this is pretty cool" or "check it out!" The new Google +1 feature will let users who are logged in to their Google account recommend search results to their chat buddies or contacts.

Visitors to Google search will also be able to view search results that have been recommended by their friends. All the recommendations made via +1 will be public, Google said, adding that users will be able to manage their recommendations from the Google Dashboard.

“The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results),” Robert Spiro, a product manager at Google, said in a statement.

The search engine giant said that soon the +1 feature will be able to incorporate recommendations from connections on social networking platforms like Twitter. In order to start +1'ing, users would need to create a Google Profile or update their existing one. The new feature is still at an experimental stage and will be rolled out slowly in English on Google.com.

10 gadgets you should actually get rid of (or not)

If you haven’t been to the New York Times‘ website recently, a visit today will show that the most popular story is Sam Grobart’s “Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (Or Not).”

In the piece, Grobart outlines several consumer electronics that you may or may not need, from digital cameras to books. But in reading it, I found myself disagreeing with several of his suggestions, which are meant for a broad (but fairly educated) audience — after all, the Timesis among the most popular news outlets in the world.

So I feel compelled to respond with my own take, as an editor immersed in the gadget world for the last three years. I agree with the basic premise that we need fewer gadgets than ever; which gadgets we give up, that’s a different matter entirely.

His takes, with my responses:

1. The desktop computer.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it…laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs.”

Nusca’s take: Agree. I gave up my desktop in 2005, and haven’t looked back. (I currently pipe my MacBook Pro’s visuals into a Dell IPS monitor, complete with external keyboard and mouse.) Gamers and other users with computing-intensive applications are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of users no longer need the bulk.

2.) Broadband Internet.

Grobart’s take: “Keep it,” because a 3G mobile broadband connection may offer connectivity, but it fails at video streaming, data caps and coverage.”

Nusca’s take: Agree, but for different reasons. I do think a large portion of computer users — those who use them occasionally — could get by on 3G, video streaming be damned, but the data caps and spotty coverage give me pause. Broadband is more Internet than most homes need, but 3G isn’t enough.

3. Cable TV.

Grobart’s take: “Depends. While you may and should hold on to a good broadband connection at home, it is debatable whether you need to pay for cable TV.”

Nusca’s take: Keep it, unequivocally. While I advocate cutting the cord in principle, my colleagues at CNET Reviews have demonstrated that the reality is not nearly as easy as it sounds. This isn’t about sports or movies — this is about simplicity. And setting up TV service without calling the cable company is about as easy as setting up a home network with Windows 95.

4. Point-and-shoot cameras.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better.”

Nusca’s take: Depends. For candid photos around town and of the kids, a current-generation smartphone handles this task, despite some quibbles about resolution. But if you’re still getting photos printed and framed, you might consider a proper point-and-shoot. (I still use them to cover events.) World travelers will likely go the dSLR route, anyway.

5. Camcorder.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it…that camcorder you have now is probably the last one you will own.”

Nusca’s take: Keep it, assuming it’s a Flip-type model. Grobart says digital SLR cameras now handle HD video with aplomb, rendering conventional shotgun-style camcorders useless, but most folks aren’t willing to shell out for such expensive (and bulky) cameras. If you’ve got a conventional camcorder, ditch it — most cheaper models don’t offer much better quality than the Flip and its counterparts, and handheld comfort isn’t enough to justify a second gadget.

6. USB thumb drive.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it. File sharing does not require hardware anymore. In almost any case you can think of, you can move files around digitally via the Internet.”

Nusca’s take: Keep it. While Internet sharing is indeed a large part of the daily grind — I send myself documents through the cloud all day — connectivity problems and speed (large photos, home videos, applications) aren’t worth taking the time to upload to the cloud, just to bring back down again. Always-on connectivity might work for the office, but it’s not always efficient at home.

7. Digital music player.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player.”

Nusca’s take: Agree for most of the population. Only gym rats would consider a small player like the Apple iPod nano, and even then, a smartphone just as easily sits in the cupholder of your treadmill. The only exception are outdoors runners, who need to shed weight.

8. Alarm clock.

Grobart’s take: “Keep it…setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many.”

Nusca’s take: Lose it. Modern smartphones can offer shortcuts into said menus, and unless you’re attached to the babbling brook setting, your phone will wake you just as effectively. Plus, overseas travelers rely on them, since a U.S. alarm clock won’t stay accurate plugged into a wall in Europe.

9. GPS device.

Grobart’s take: “Lose it…your smartphone can do the same thing, if not more, for half that price, or even free.”

Nusca’s take: Keep it, for the same reason that Grobart said to keep your alarm clock: simplicity. Sure, top-of-the-line smartphones have navigation capability, but it’s a mess of menus — not something you want to deal with when you’re driving around lost. In due time this will be corrected, but the GPS thing is still far too early to ditch your cheap, windshield-mounted unit.

10. Books

Grobart’s take: “Keep them (with one exception)…consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.”

Nusca’s take: Depends on your use case. If you’re a public transit rider, an e-reader is a godsend, doing away with the weight and bulk of a traditional bound book. For beachgoers, paperback books can handle sand and sun and humidity without giving you heart palpitations. For armchair readers, an e-reader works just as well — provided you can find the stuff you want to read.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

Consumers would be losers in AT&T merger with T-Mobile

UP TO this point, competition in the cellphone industry has yielded major benefits for consumers, who can choose from a vast array of handsets and service plans. The possible merger of AT&T, the second-largest carrier, with T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest, threatens that competition, and the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division should be highly skeptical in evaluating whether to approve the deal.

AT&T caught telecom analysts off guard this week when it announced a $39 billion proposal to buy T-Mobile USA from its current owner,Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile was widely thought to be a takeover target for the third-largest carrier, Sprint Nextel. Besides, the regulatory hurdles seemed stiff, and rightly so: AT&T and the top carrier, Verizon Wireless, already dwarf all other competitors, and letting one of them absorb T-Mobile, which offers a number of low-cost plans and has shown a willingness to experiment with interesting technologies, could significantly reduce pressure to keep prices down.

But the Obama administration, which last year approved the combination of concert-industry giants LiveNation and Ticketmaster, hasn’t been as stringent in antitrust enforcement as it promised. A tougher posture is in order now.

AT&T contends that the merger will help with its plans to deploy a higher-speed data network, and that it should help ease a bandwidth shortage that can only get worse as more and more people use their phones as their primary way to surf the Internet. The bandwidth crunch is a real problem for which the FCC must devise a systematic solution. But it’s not a reason to let just two companies — Verizon and an expanded AT&T — dominate an ever more vital industry. If regulators let AT&T buy T-Mobile, they’d be hard-pressed to stop Verizon from buying Sprint. And while merger advocates note that in most cities, customers can also choose from smaller carriers, it’s the big national carriers that have been responsible for technological innovation.

Should regulators block the deal, AT&T agreed to pay stiff penalties — a $3 billion fee, plus some spectrum rights to T-Mobile. These terms helped persuade T-Mobile to pursue a merger with AT&T rather than Sprint, but they also put subtle pressure on the FCC, whose job is not just to police the wireless industry but to nurture it.

The breakup of the original AT&T in 1984 paved the way for a previously unthinkable level of innovation in telecommunications. The breakup was necessary because building a competing national communications network from scratch was all but impossible. Those same concerns are valid today. A country of 300 million people can support four major national carriers, and federal regulators should think twice before letting one of them buy another.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 Review: Dual-GPU Wars

With AMD's Radeon HD 6990 stealing the performance crown only two short weeks ago, we knew it wouldn't be long before Nvidia answered the challenge. The company's GeForce GTX 590 was a poorly guarded secret, with specifications leaking as far back as last fall. Today marks the flagship's official launch and needless to say, we're excited to see how it stacks up to AMD's dual-GPU offering.

Before slamming the GTX 590 with our battery of tests, we'd like to quickly recap our Radeon HD 6990findings. Code-named Antilles, the AMD card is essentially a pair of Radeon HD 6970's fused together, albeit with lower GPU and memory clocks. Overall, it's roughly 6% slower than two 6970s in CrossFire. That deficit is compounded by the 6990's pricey $699 MSRP, higher thermals and louder operation.

In other words, despite being the fastest graphics card available (at the time anyway), the Radeon HD 6990's drawbacks made it impractical for the vast majority of users. Unfortunately, that is nearly always the case with dual-GPU cards, so it'll be interesting to see if Nvidia has kept the GTX 590's power consumption and noise levels in check while delivering the expected level of performance at a fair price.

The GeForce GTX 590 packs two GF110 graphics processors -- the same chip that powers the GTX 580, currently the fastest single-GPU graphics card available. Although the GTX 590's processors have the same core configuration as the GTX 580's, Nvidia had to reduce the graphics and memory clock frequencies to keep the card's thermal envelope within reasonable levels. Again, we saw the same compromise on the Radeon HD 6990.

Realizing that, we can already assume the GTX 590 isn't going to be as fast as two GTX 580s in SLI. However, two GTX 580s would cost at least $1,000, and since the GTX 590 needs to be relatively competitive with the Radeon HD 6990 in terms of pricing, we bet Nvidia doesn't want the GTX 590 to be as quick as SLIed GTX 580s anyway. Okay, that's enough speculation. Let's get this party started!

GeForce GTX 590 In Detail

With a suggested retail price of $699, the GeForce GTX 590 is obviously aimed at the Radeon HD 6990. Nvidia says its dual-GPU package was created for elite enthusiast gamers looking to run titles at their maximum graphics settings and screen resolutions with high levels of anti-aliasing.The company goes on to say "this is a very high-end product that's catered towards the most discriminating gamer. Think of it as the Bugatti Veyron of the graphics world." In six years, only 291 Veyrons have been delivered, so let's hope the GTX 590 doesn't share that particular feat.

The reference design measures just 11" long making it much shorter than the 12.2" Radeon HD 6990, so Nvidia's card should fit inside a broader range of computer cases. In fact, it's only a half an inch longer than Nvidia's official specifications for the single-GF110 GeForce GTX 580.

Based on Fermi's third-generation Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) architecture, the GeForce GTX 590 boasts 8 Graphic Processing Clusters, 32 Streaming Multiprocessors, and 1024 CUDA cores. There are also 96 ROP (Raster Operations) units and 128 TAU (Texture Addressing Units).

That's double the specifications seen on the GTX 580, but as we mentioned earlier, the GTX 590 has reduced clock frequencies. The graphics clock speed for fixed function units is set at just 607MHz which is 21% lower than the 772MHz that they operate at on the GeForce GTX 580.

The GeForce GTX 590 is paired with two banks of 1536MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1707MHz (3414MHz DDR) for a total memory capacity of 3072MB. Combine that with a 384-bit memory interface and you get a peak theoretical bandwidth of 327.7GB/s or163.9GB/s per GPU.

The GTX 590's GDDR5 memory is clocked 15% lower than the GTX 580's. Ultimately, this means that while the GTX 580's single GPU is fed a bandwidth of 192.4GB/s, each of the GTX 590's GPUs get 15% less bandwidth. When combined, they provide 70% more throughput.

Nvidia claims the GTX 590 has a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 365 watts, which is 50% greater than the GTX 580. However, that's slightly lower than the 375-watt rating AMD slapped on its Radeon HD 6990.

Nvidia has employed the same cooling measures used by other high-end GTX 500 series graphics cards. The card has a number of power monitoring chips that oversee power draw from the PCIe slot and PCIe power connectors.

By monitoring power consumption, the card determines if it is drawing too much power and throttles down. We first saw a similar design on the Radeon HD 5970, which would regularly reduce its operating frequency when running load programs such as FurMark and OCCT. Using these programs to measure the load consumption of the GeForce GTX 590 can't really be done accurately.

Other than the PCIe slot, the GeForce GTX 590 pulls power though a pair of external PCIe power connectors. The GTX 590 requires a pair of 8-pin connectors, just like the new Radeon HD 6990. Nvidia recommends using at least a 700-watt power supply with the GTX 590.

Nvidia has employed a 12-layer PCB for best signal integrity. Powering the twin GPUs is a 10-phase advanced digital power controller with overvolting capability, while two dual-phase controllers provide power for the board's GDDR5 memory.

The GTX 590 has also received a substantially overhauled cooling design. Notice there are no heatpipes sticking out the top and the PCB ventilation has been removed. Instead of using a traditional heatpipe heatsink, the GTX 590 utilizes two vapor chamber heatsinks.

With the heatsinks off, the GeForce GTX 590 looks considerably different than the previous dual-GPU solutions. In fact, the design is remarkably similar to the Radeon HD 6990's as each GPU is now located at opposite ends of the 11" PCB.

The heatsinks are separated by a large 85mm fan which is positioned in-between them rather than at the end of the card. This design is said to be more efficient as it allows the fan to spin at a lower RPM while providing the same amount of air across both heatsinks.

The GTX 590 has three dual-link DVI-I outputs along with one Mini DisplayPort connection and there's also a small amount of ventilation across the top of the I/O panel. The card can handle three displays for a maximum resolution of 7680x1600 (three 2560x1600 LCDs) -- something we plan to test.

Test System Specs & 3Dmark 11

Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 920 (Overclocked @ 3.70GHz)
- x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24)
- Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58)
- OCZ ZX Series (1250w)
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (SATA 6Gb/s)
- Gigabyte Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB) Crossfire
- Gigabyte Radeon HD 6990 (4096MB)
- HIS Radeon HD 5970 (2048MB)
- Gigabyte Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB)
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB)
- Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Nvidia Forceware 267.71
- Nvidia Forceware 267.24
- AMD Catalyst 11.2
- AMD Catalyst 11.4 Preview

According to the 3Dmark 11 performance test, the GeForce GTX 590 is actually 10% slower than the Radeon HD 6990 which is surprising given that the GTX 580 is faster than the HD 6970. It seems that Nvidia sucked a lot of life out of the GF110 by reducing the fixed functions clock frequency 21% per GPU.

40% of Social Network Users Attacked by Malware

The newest battleground for malware attacks? Facebook and Twitter. And, according to the experts, it's one of the most productive for the attackers. Why? Well, people can't help but click social links.

Last December, the anti-virus firm Sophos discovered that 40% of social network users had encountered malicious attacks. Despite Facebook's demurrals ("Despite constant attacks, our data shows that the vast majority of people on Facebook have never experienced a security issue on the site," counters Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens), another network security company has proven how easy it is to spread malware through social networks with a recent experiment. Employees of the firm, Dasient, set up accounts at 11 different social networks and posted links to malware sites. And the result? Only two networks succeeded in blocking links to sites contained in Google's list of known "poisoned" websites. In a feat of understatement, Dasient's CTO Neil Daswani said "The social networks we tested have some work to do on their malware countermeasures."

Of course, Google can't be expected to save people from malware all on its own. As Gunter Ollman, research VP at security company Damballa says, "Bypassing Google's safe browsing list and similar technologies is trivial. While public awareness of the threat has been increasing, the capabilities of the attackers has been increasing at an even faster rate." It doesn't help that we apparently make it easy for them; Anup Ghosh, chief scientist at security firm Invincea says that "the faith users put into social networks is providing an enormous universe of opportunity for nefarious actors."

On that note, here are a few security tips to keep in mind while using Facebook or Twitter:
Know who your friends are, and be skeptical if they post a link to something that seems out-of-character (say, an outrageous celebrity video posted by your 80 year-old uncle).
If you're about to install a Facebook app, check the URL bar on top of your browser. If you're at a website other than facebook.com, that's a bad sign. If the app is asking for your e-mail and password, that's even worse.
When someone posts a shortened URL on Twitter, you can hover the mouse over it to see the full link.
Beware of links accompanied by vague, direct messages, along the lines of "hey, check this out!" If there's no personally identifiable information, the message may not be trustworthy.
When a Facebook status update comes from a third-party source, such as Tweetdeck, it'll say so underneath the update, but you can use this signifier to sniff out malicious activity as well. For instance, Facebook's "dislike" scam spread last year through bogus status updates, but eagle-eyed users would have noticed "via The Official Dislike Button" under those updates and stayed far, far away.

As always, the best solution is our common sense. Think before you click, as the saying goes, and always try to remember that it's very unlikely that you really need to see that apparently salacious new video of the celebrity of the moment behaving improbably badly.

Firefox 4 Is Certainly Zippy, But Is That Enough To Switch Back From Chrome?

If you’ve already downloaded the new Firefox 4today, the first you probably noticed is how much zippier it is. I pretty much had stopped using Firefox altogether because of the creekiness of its previous versions compared to Chrome, Safari, and IE9. But the new Firefox 4, which Mozilla claims is 6 times as fast as before, puts it back in the same pack at least as the rest. It’s been downloaded nearly 2 million times as of this writing (check thecounter for more up-to-the-second numbers).

I’m sure there are plenty of benchmark tests that show one browser is faster than the other, and vice versa, but my initial reactions after playing around with Firefox 4 today and comparing it side by side with Chrome is that it is just as fast if not faster. It depends on which website I visit. TechCrunch, for instance, loads a second or two faster by my stopwatch. Without the stopwatch, I can’t tell the difference. And that’s a good thing for Firefox, because speed is my No. 1 requirement for a Web browser. Nothing else is nearly as important. Sluggishness pushes users away. So that’s fixed.

Firefox also supports all sorts of HTML5 and other modern Web apps. If you want to check some out, go to its Web O’ Wonder page where you can test 360-degree videos, animations, in-browser games and other highly graphic apps. You can se emost of them on Chrome as well, but these are tuned especially for Firefox 4. The360-degree video, for instance, looks much better in Firefox and the panning around is much smoother. But there are plenty of HTML5 apps that look better in Chromeor Safari, so don’t let canned demos sway you.

The new Firefox also has some new security features like a Do Not Track option for online ads, lets you sync tabs and browsers across to mobile browsers, and makes it easier to group tabs and see all open tabs in a thumbnail view. I don’t know if the speed and other features are enough to make me want to come back. I’ve got everything set up on Chrome so nicely and I am a creature of habit. But if Chrome starts acting up or crashing my browsers, it’s nice to know I’ve got plenty of other options—and Firefox is once again on that list.

DOWNLOAD HERE FIREFOX 4!!

Chinon Stylix™ iPod/iPhone Docking Station Plays iTunes Audio and Video Files

LAKE ZURICH, IL, March 21, 2011 -- Chinon USA has merged fashion, entertainment and the latest audio-video technology in its new AVi Sytlix™ docking station for Apple iPhone and iPod.

Available in an array of colors to match your unique sense of style, the AVi Stylix is the ultimate Apple accessory. It features a 7-inch high-resolution LCD that delivers brilliant, high-resolution playback of videos stored on an iPod or iPhone. In addition, when docked to an iPhone or iPod Touch connected by Wi-Fi, the Avi Stylix will stream web videos from popular sites such as YouTube® or Netflix®. Because the screen is nearly three times the size of the iPhone's LCD, it greatly enhances the user experience and makes it easier to share the fun with friends.

The AVi Stylix sound system provides a rich, multi-dimensional audio, whether it is playing music from an iTunes® library or a dynamic movie soundtrack. Dual 2W stereo speakers output a generous range that will fill any size room. Best of all, this incredible sound comes within a small, portable package that is perfect for bedrooms, offices, dorm rooms, and any other limited space areas.

In addition to playing audio and video from an iPod or iPhone, the AVi Stylix has inputs for USB and SD cards to view movies, photos and videos, or to listen to music that is stored on either a card or thumb drive. SD cards can be directly removed from a digital camera and inserted into the AVi Stylix turning the unit into a high-end digital photo frame.

Operation could not be simpler. Just place an iPod or iPhone into the universal dock adapter, select an operation mode, and you're ready to rock - no additional cords or accessories required. An intuitive remote control provides control of an iPod or iPhone from across the room. Other features on the Stylix are a digital radio and an alarm clock.

The Chinon AVi Stylix will be available in June 2011 with an MSRP of $99.99. Chinon products are sold by several online retailers including overstock.com and bundlecity.com.

For more information, visit www.chinonusa.com.

Chinon's Avi Stylix iPod / iPhone docking station packs 7-inch LCD, streams Netflix*

It doesn't scream quality (or maybe the legion of professional stock photographers were all on vacation last week), but the June-bound Avi Stylix does have something that the vast majority of me-too iPod / iPhone docking stations do not: an embedded 7-inch LCD. The usual suspects are also here, including a Dock Connector port, twin two-watt speakers, USB port, SD card slot and a bundled remote. The kicker is its ability to stream Netflix, but there's an obvious catch; you'll need an iPhone or iPod touch with a live internet connection in order to do so. There's no actual WiFi module built into the main unit, so you'll need to rely on your connected device to pull in the content. Still, for $99.99, it might not be a bad bet for your guest room. Or your office desk, since you know you aren't getting any actual work done.

AT&T acquires T-Mobile USA in $39 billion deal

AT&T is buying T-Mobile USA. AT&T will make a $25 billion
cash payment, and $14 billion will be paid using AT&T stock.

New York (CNN) -- AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA from telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom for an estimated $39 billion in cash and stocks, the companies said in a joint release Sunday.

The acquisition will expand AT&T's 4G network 1.2 million square miles and will be accessible to an additional 46.5 million Americans, the statement said. AT&T also expects to gain enough cell towers to increase its network density by 30%.

"This transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future," AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement.

The $39 billion purchase will include a $25 billion cash payment; the remainder will be paid using AT&T stock. AT&T can increase the cash portion of the price tag by up to $4.2 billion while cutting the stock portion.

As part of the acquisition, Deutsche Telekom will have an 8% equity stake in AT&T and a company representative will join the AT&T board of directors.

The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors at both AT&T and Deutsche Telekom.

CNNMoney: AT&T to acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion

The new entity would be the biggest in the US, combining AT&T's 95 million customers with T-Mobile's 34 million users for a total of 130 million subscribers.

AT&T said the transaction would quickly provide "the spectrum and network efficiencies necessary ... to address impending spectrum exhaust in key markets" due to the exponential growth of traffic on its network.

The telecom giant added that it expects to gain enough cell towers through the deal to increase its network density by 30%.

As part of the merger, AT&T committed to expand its 4G network 1.2 million square miles, making it accessible to an additional 46.5 million Americans, mostly in rural and smaller communities, the statement said.

The AT&T release notes that its 4G expansion would help achieve the Federal Communications Commission and President Obama's goals to connect "every part of America to the digital age."

The $39 billion purchase will include a $25 billion cash payment; the remainder will be paid using AT&T stock. AT&T can increase the cash portion of the payment by up to $4.2 billion while cutting the stock portion.

AT&T didn't directly address how the merger would affect the new company's pricing. But on the website it built to announce the deal, www.mobilizeeverything.com, it notes: "Historically, during periods when carriers combined to achieve efficiencies, U.S. wireless prices fell."

The company also cites a 2010 report from the U.S. General Accounting Office which found that the average cost of wireless services (adjusted for inflation) "declined 50 percent from 1999 to 2009, during a period which saw five major wireless mergers." The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors at both AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, but will be subject to regulatory approval.

Fortune: Regulatory hurdles await merger

Charles Golvin from Forrester Research said: "AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile, if approved, brings good news and bad news. The good news: high-speed mobile broadband service will improve in quality and coverage, including ? in the long run ? those in rural communities outside the reach of terrestrial broadband today.

"The bad news: the cost of that service won't come down nearly as fast as customers would like, since AT&T and Verizon Wireless combined would own nearly three out of every four wireless subscriptions in the US. While clearly troublesome for Sprint and other mobile smaller mobile competitors, It's also bad news for cable operators, whose incipient mobility products will suffer in comparison to what AT&T and Verizon can offer."

Drones 'winning' war against al-Qaeda, says ex-CIA head

The use of the remote-controlled craft has
stirred anti-American feelings in Pakistan

More than 40 people were killed in Pakistan last week in a US drone attack near the Afghan border. The use of unmanned drones have always been controversial, but ex-CIA director Michael Hayden says they are winning the war.

Ten years on from 9/11, al-Qaeda appears to be on the back foot. One of the main reasons is that its leadership no longer enjoys untouchable sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan where for many years it has been able to plot and train its recruits.

The reason? Pilotless American drone aircraft with a payload of deadly Hellfire missiles, guided to their targets by remote control from thousands of miles away in the American desert.

Not for nothing are the drones known as "Predators".

Former CIA director, Gen Michael Hayden, could not sing their praises loudly enough - although ironically the word "drone" cannot pass his lips, so sensitive and allegedly secret is the CIA's programme of targeted killings.

How can a programme be secret when its results are plain for all to see?

Gen Michael Hayden believed the results had been spectacular.

"A significant fraction of al-Qaeda senior leadership in the tribal region has been 'taken off the battlefield'," he said.

"That used to mean 'killed or captured'. In the last couple of years it simply means killed. We just aren't doing any capturing."

Ironically the CIA's drone programme was greatly accelerated under President Obama who has authorised more than 160 Predator missions - four times as many as his predecessor, President George W Bush, targeting not just al-Qaeda but Taliban leaders also hiding in the border areas.

The programme has been highly contentious and controversial.

Gen Hayden denied the attacks were state-authorised assassinations. He said the US was at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was simply acting in self-defence.

When I pointed out that legally the war was in Afghanistan not Pakistan, he said that was not how the American administration looked at it.

"No they're not assassinations. This is a war, this is action against opposing armed enemy force. This is an inherent right of America to self-defence.

"I can only fulfil my moral and legal responsibilities to the citizens of my republic by taking this war to this enemy wherever they may be."

Judge, jury and executioner

There is another side to the equation.

However effective the CIA may believe its programme to be, it has damaged America's reputation in Pakistan still further, fuelling anti-American propaganda and bringing yet more recruits to the militants' cause.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote


I think we'd be naive to believe the propaganda that says that firing these fantastic weapons is killing the right people”Clive Stafford SmithReprieve

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the attacks, although it is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of innocent victims.

It is estimated by the New America Foundation that between 2004 and 2010 they may have been responsible for around 25% of those killed.

Human rights lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have grown increasingly concerned about the US government appearing to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Jameel Jaffer of the American Council for Civil Liberties said: "This is quite an awesome power, the power to label somebody as an enemy [then] wipe them out without judicial process of any kind."

His sentiments are echoed by the director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith.

"Who does get killed? Are these really Taliban people and al-Qaeda or are they random civilians who had nothing to do with it?" he said.

"I think we'd be naive to believe the propaganda that says that firing these fantastic weapons is killing the right people."

Gen Hayden has not been fazed by such arguments.

"It has been a very strong significant force in making the al-Qaeda senior leadership spend most of their waking moments worrying about their survival, rather than threatening yours or mine. And that is a war-winning effort," he told me.

But other highly-respected and experienced voices in the intelligence community do not share Gen Hayden's view about winning the war.

In her first television interview, I asked the former director general of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, if she thought the war was winnable. She has spent 40 years fighting terrorism.

"Not in a military sense. There won't be a Waterloo or an al-Alamein," she said.

"The terminology about winning the war on terror was not something that I ever subscribed to.

"If we can get to a state where there are fewer attacks, less lethal attacks, fewer young people being drawn in, less causes, resolution of the Palestinian question, I think we can get to a stage where the threat is thus reduced."

At the end of the interview, given her long experience in fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland and her intimate knowledge of the secret talks between MI5 and the IRA, I asked her if we should talk to al-Qaeda as we had once talked to the IRA.

Her reply took me by surprise. "I would hope that people are trying to do so," she said.

"It's always better to talk to the people who are attacking you than attacking them, if you can.

"I don't know whether they are, but I would hope that people are trying to reach out to the Taliban, to people on the edges of al-Qaeda to talk to them."

I then asked her if she thought that al-Qaeda would listen.

"I don't know," she said. "Doesn't mean to say it's not worth trying."

Peter Taylor will report for BBC Two's The Secret War on Terror on Monday, 21 March, at 2100 GMT. Catch-up afterwards on BBCiPlayer.

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ICANN approves .xxx for adult sites

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said Friday it approved the .xxx domain for adult web sites after years of nixing the idea.

A spokesman for ICANN, which holds jurisdiction over top-level domains, confirmed the go-ahead.

ICM Registry, the nonprofit organization that has been pushing to establish .xxx, will distribute it to porn sites. Even before approval, the site hosted a start-up plan pending the proposed domain's entry.

"In order to provide an orderly process for members of the registrant community and to use our resources effectively during this intervening period, ICM has decided to undertake the first phase of the Industry Reservation Period," the group's site said.

In June, ICANN's board of directors approved the top-level domain, which is the technical name for the .com, .xxx or .net part of a URL . It was sent to the next committee for approval.

In the past, ICM Registry has argued that the .xxx domain is beneficial to the public, because it indicates a clear signal that the domain contains pornography.

Courtesy of CNN.

UPDATE 1-Mizuho Bank says its ATMs in Japan stopped working

(Reuters) - Mizuho Bank said on Thursday that all of its automatic teller machines (ATM) throughout Japan and its Internet transaction system have stopped working.

A spokesman for Japan's second-largest bank said the reason for the outage was not known, although he doubted its was due to this week's power outages in the Tokyo area and eastern Japan or last week's massive earthquake.

Shares of Mizuho Financial dropped more than 4 percent to 130 yen, although they pared losses to trade down 2.2 percent at 134 yen, in line with the benchmark Nikkei 225 average which lost 2.5 percent. (Reporting by Mariko Katsumura; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Internet Explorer 9 speeds past the competition

The latest version of Microsoft's browser is fast, lean and means business.

By Preston Gralla

Computerworld - Throw away what you think you know about Internet Explorer -- because the just-released IE9 will turn it all on its ear. Think IE is sluggish? Think again, because according to SunSpider tests, it rivals or beats the speed demons Chrome and Opera. Believe that IE sports a tired-looking interface? No longer --- it now has the same type of stripped-down look that Chrome originated, and that the latest version of Firefox uses as well.

IE9 (available only for Vista and Windows 7) also introduces other goodies, such as HTML5 support, Windows 7 integration, a double-duty address bar and more. It's clearly Microsoft's best shot at stopping the erosion of its market share by rivals Firefox and Chrome.
Moving to a clean interface

Microsoft takes a page from Google Chrome with its design for IE9 -- it's simple and clean, putting as much focus as possible on Web content and not on the browser itself.

Internet Explorer 9 sports a simple, stripped-down interface.

All unneeded buttons and controls have been eliminated, and tabs are now at the top of the browser. (For a bit of simple eye candy, the top and the sides of IE9 are transparent.) The arrangement works. Web pages take center stage, with very little to distract you. There's not even a search box; as with Chrome, the address bar does double-duty as a search box.


Three small icons on the upper-right corner of the screen give you access to IE9's options: a Home button, a Favorites button for managing bookmarks, and a Tools button shaped like a gear. The Tools button leads you to most of the browser's other features and options, such as security, privacy, add-ons, customizing search and so on.

When you open a new tab in IE9, you get thumbnails of frequently visited pages.

There's another new feature to the IE9 interface as well. When you open a new tab, it displays thumbnails of pages you frequently visit. Rival browsers have done this for some time, but IE9 adds a new twist: At the bottom of each thumbnail is a bar that shows how frequently you visit each page. The longer the bar, the more you've visited the page. And there are some very useful other things you can do from this page as well, including reopening your last browsing session, reopening tabs you've closed during the browsing session, and getting recommendations for sites you might want to visit, based on the sites you frequently visit. You can also launch an anonymous browsing session, which IE terms "InPrivate Browsing."
IE9: The new speed demon?

Among the loudest complaints against previous versions of Internet Explorer was its lack of speed. In a world in which graphics-heavy Web pages get heavier every year, videos are becoming normal elements and Web-based apps are replacing desktop-based applications, this sluggishness could have become a fatal flaw.


Microsoft was clearly cognizant of that when it went to the drawing board for Internet Explorer 9. Its new JavaScript engine, called Chakra, uses multiple processor cores to do its work, and compiles scripts in the background on one of those cores. IE9 also uses the computer's GPU to accelerate text and graphics rendering, especially HTML5 graphics.

I ran tests on IE9 and competing browsers using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark. I used a Dell Dimension 9200 with a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and 2GB of RAM running Windows Vista. I ran three sets of tests on each browser and averaged the results.


IE9 beat all the others. It took an average 280 milliseconds (ms) to complete the tests, followed by Opera 11.01 at 308.8 ms, Chrome 10.0.648 at 316.7 ms, Firefox 4 Release Candidate at 319.1 ms and Safari 5.0.4 at 410.2 ms.


As a practical matter, there's not much difference in these tests between the top four performers. It's not going to be noticeable by most surfers. But in previous tests I ran, Internet Explorer 8 took between five and six times the amount of time to complete the SunSpider tests as its next-slowest rival, Firefox, making this an astonishing speed improvement. And the fact remains: On this test, Internet Explorer beat all rivals.

When IE9 and competing browsers were run using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, IE9 proved to be the fastest. (Lower numbers are better.)

It's an open question, though, as to whether Internet Explorer's hardware-accelerated GPU handling of processing-intensive work is superior to other browsers. The upcoming Firefox 4 also uses hardware acceleration, andMicrosoft and Firefox have been trading fire over which browser is superior in that respect. We'll have to wait until a set of agreed-upon benchmarks emerge for measuring that capability before judging.

Keeping up with standard

Past versions of Internet Explorer have been criticized for not adhering to Web standards, something that Microsoft has fixed in Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft now has an Internet Explorer Test Drive page to demonstrate embedded videos and other features.

IE9 lets you easily route your searches to other search providers rather than your default one. As you type in a search term, icons of other search providers appear underneath the list of matches. Simply click any icon to launch the search using that provider. That's all well and good. But when you do this, you're actually changing your default search provider to the alternate provider. So even if you only want to search Wikipedia once for a particular search, choosing its icon means that all subsequent searches will be done through Wikipedia as well, until you change it back -- a feature that can be very troublesome.
Making friends with Windows 7

Microsoft has tweaked IE9 for Windows 7, giving the browser some capabilities not available when it runs in Windows Vista. The most noticeable is that you can pin a Web site to the taskbar by dragging its URL to the taskbar. The site's icon then appears in the taskbar; to visit the site, click the icon. When you get to the site this way, the site will essentially "brand" IE9 -- the forward and back buttons will use the colors of the pinned site, and the Web site's icon will appear in the upper left of the browser. IE9 does this on its own; no development on the part of the site owner is required.

 Web developers can use the Windows 7 Jump List to add site navigation and additional features (such as music controls) to the pinned icon.

These features, while potentially very useful, may not turn out to be as helpful in actual practice. Adding features to the Jump List requires programming on the part of the site owner. In the past, Microsoft has added special features such as Web Slices that required site owners to do development work in order to take advantage of them -- and they rarely did so. Given that even Microsoft.com hasn't done any programming to take advantage of Jump Lists, it's not clear that this will become widely used.

 Pinning a site can also prove to be somewhat annoying, because when you launch a site in this way, it launches in its own browser, and not as a tab in an already open browser. That means each pinned site will run in its own browser instance, making it confusing to switch among them.

 IE9 also uses another Windows 7 feature, Windows Snap. Tear away a tab away from IE9 and drag it to the side of the screen, and it resizes the tab and places it in its own window, to fill half the screen.

Performance Advisor and Notification Bar

Browser add-ons can slow a browser's performance, and IE9 includes a nifty tool called the Performance Advisor to help you track down ones that might be particularly problematic. When you launch IE9, the Performance Advisor looks to see whether any add-ons might slow down the browser and then opens the Notification Bar at the bottom of the screen.

IE9's Performance Manager lets you turn off add-ons that may prove a drag on the browser's performance.

 If you click "Disable add-ons," you'll see a screen that shows name of the add-ons, their manufacturers and an estimate of how much extra time they each take when you're launching your browser, opening a new tab or navigating to a Web site. Even Microsoft's own add-ons are included. You then have the option of disabling any to speed up browsing. This is a great tool for letting you decide whether the capabilities of an add-on are worth the browsing delay it exacts.

The Notification Bar offers other info as well. It tells you, for example, if you're visiting a Web page that includes both secure and nonsecure content, such as an online store that uses an HTTPS/SSL secure connection, but also displays ads, images or scripts from a non-HTTPS server. At that point, the Notification Bar warns you that IE9 is displaying only secure content and gives you the option of displaying both types of content by clicking the "Show all content" button. This is useful but potentially annoying, because this notification appears every time you visit the Web site; you have to click the button each time.

The Notification Bar pops up relevant warnings and notifications.

 Improved security and a download manager

IE9 also includes a variety of security improvements. One of the most important is to the SmartScreen Filter, which is designed to protect you from visiting phishing sites, and whose capabilities have been expanded to protect against malicious downloads.

 When you download a file in IE9, the SmartScreen Filter uses a new "download reputation" feature to examine the file's reputation -- how many other people have downloaded the file, and if they have found it to be safe or malicious. If the SmartScreen Filter determines it's safe, you simply download the file. But if the file has a malicious reputation, or if very few people have downloaded it so that it has no reputation to check, you're warned. You can then decide whether to download.

This feature won't replace your existing anti-malware program. It's designed for protection against malicious files so new that anti-malware software may not have had a chance to flag them as malicious. Some anti-malware software has begun to use similar technology to this, but still, it's nice to have this built into IE9 -- multiple means of protection are always a good idea.

IE9 includes a well-designed Download Manager that tracks all of your downloaded files and lets you search through them. In addition to the download reputation feature, the manager will warn you when it detects that you're downloading a file from a malicious Web site.
What's missing

Internet Explorer still trails Firefox and Chrome in one area: add-ons. Both those browsers have thriving ecosystems of third-party developers writing add-ons; Internet Explorer doesn't.

Through the years, Microsoft has tried to get around this by creating technologies that Web sites and others can easily plug into, such as the aforementioned Web Slices and Accelerators, as a way to send information from another Web site directly to your current browser page.

Despite Microsoft prodding and promotion, neither of those technologies ever took off. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a way for Microsoft to build that same ecosystem. If you're a fan of plug-ins and add-ons, you likely won't be a fan of Internet Explorer.

 Another issue is that Microsoft has no plans to develop IE versions for mobile platforms other than Windows Phone 7. This may put it at a disadvantage in a mobile future when people want to sync browser information among their computers and mobile devices.
The bottom line

If you've stopped using Internet Explorer because of speed problems or a tired-looking interface, you should give IE9 a try (assuming you use Windows 7 or Vista, of course). You'll be surprised by its dramatic speed improvements and slicker interface. Improved adherence to Web standards is a plus as well, as are new features such as a double-duty address bar and the Performance Advisor. Existing IE users will want to upgrade right away -- it's hard to argue against a faster, cleaner-looking browser with a host of other nice extras.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

Read more about Internet in Computerworld's Internet Topic Center.