InformationWeek David Berlind's Tech Radar Weblog

New $279 Kindle Can Finally Roam Internationally

David Berlind — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:35:40 -0500

There's a bit of news coming out of Amazon today. The company is dropping the price of its existing basic Kindle (the smaller form factor one, not the larger $489 Kindle DX) from $299 to $259 and introducing a third Kindle that's the same as the basic one, but that's $279 and can roam internationally. This is a huge boon to both international travelers and people living in countries where the 3G CDMA 1x-EVDO radio technologies found in the original Kindles (basic and DX) don't work. Given the ambiguity in the...

Ode To Gmail's "Conversations" (a.k.a. "Why MS-Entourage Stinks")

David Berlind — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:49:00 -0500

Back in the day, the people at Microsoft who were responsible for bringing the world Office for the Mac (the Macintosh Business Unit) fancied themselves as outcasts on the company's sprawling Redmond Campus; Outcasts with something to prove. When a new version was on the way, they'd parade into my office talking smack as though they just left the Windows version of Office lying on the canvas after a knock-out blow. They'd proceed to demonstrate how the Mac's underpinnings enabled functionality that the Windows Office guys could only dream of. So, why, after the Mac has come so far, does MS-Entourage suck so bad.

Eolas Scores New Browser Interactivity Patent And Sues....Everyone

David Berlind — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:16:00 -0500

Eolas Technologies has announced a new patent infringement suit, the defendants of which reads like a Who's Who list of big tech and consumer brands. Eolas is the company that filed a patent infringement suit and ultimately prevailed over Microsoft for the latter's inclusion of plug-in capability into Internet Explorer. In today's lawsuit, Eolas says that Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Google, Sun, eBay and many others (complete list below) are infringing on a patent awarded just this month (that didn't take long!).

BlackHat Bombshell #2: iPhones And Other "GSM" Phones Open To SMS Hack

David Berlind — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:37:47 -0500

With one bombshell already having been dropped at the BlackHat Conference (that most implementations of SSL are configured to give up everything including logins, credit cards, etc.), researchers dropped another one today when they demonstrated how the SMS infrastructures of GSM-flavored operators such as AT&T and T-Mobile are hackable to the point that cell phones can be hacked and their users can be tricked into divulging confidential information.

Black Hat Researcher Rains On Cloud Computing's Parade With Talk Of Vulnerabilities

David Berlind — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:52:32 -0500

iSEC Partners partner (and Black Hat researcher) Alex Stamos says there's really no such thing as cloud computing. According to him, it's just a trendy name to take your money. Regardless of what you want to call it though, the vulnerabilities inherent to it are very real. That was Stamos' message in a briefing he gave this morning at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. Among the highlights of my podcast interview with him; Salesforce gets a gold star and Windows-based virtual machines are architecturally more secure than Linux-based ones.

Black Hat Researcher Cracks Algorithm For Creating Social Security Numbers

David Berlind — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:49:22 -0500

Though it's not the bombshell that was dropped by Moxie Marlinspike, another researcher is here at BlackHat briefing attendees on how he cracked the Social Security Administration's code for creating social security numbers and how governments and organizations must respond now that SSNs are not secure in their commonly used contexts as passwords and identifiers (includes podcast interview).

Bombshell From Black Hat: Almost All Implementations Of SSL Are Configured To Give Up Everything

David Berlind — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:51:28 -0500

No edition of the Black Hat conference would be complete without a few security bombshells; The ones where attendees learn that a huge swath of their digital security -- previously thought to be totally secure -- is little more than a house of cards that, thanks to some Black Hat researcher, just came tumbling down. Here in Las Vegas, Moxie Marlinspike is one of those researchers and he's here demonstrating how SSL is that house of cards. Think your implementation of SSL is secure? Think again. It's time to go back to square one. (includes podcast interview)

Black Hat Podcast: Popularity of Social Nets Puts Spotlight On Dangers Of Cross-Site Request Forgeries

David Berlind — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:30:17 -0500

Today is the first day of the infamous Black Hat Briefings taking place at the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas and most of what the attendees will hear today is being presented publicly for the first time by the various researchers in the building. Today, for example, is the day that many researchers reveal their discoveries and exploits but in some cases, they hold back on the tools or details needed to replicate their research until the impacted vendors and organizations have an opportunity to address the vulnerabilities. Case in point: a team of researchers used NewsWeek.com as an example of a site that's vulnerable to dynamic cross site request forgeries.

Unsheathing The Double-Edged Sword Of Black Hat 2009 In Vegas

David Berlind — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:49:09 -0500

"What I'm about to teach you could land you in jail and destroy your life and family if you choose to use it for nefarious purposes." These words and others like them have been repeated many times in the nearly 50 security classes being given during the training portion of Black Hat, now onto its fourth day in Las Vegas. The "classrooms" here at Caesar's Palace are filled with everyone from self-proclaimed hackers (their badges say so) to digital forensics specialists from the US government's most secretive agencies (their badges say nothing). There's even a male registered nurse/CISSP here (hmmmm).

Matt Mullenweg And Dries Buytaert Probably Separated At Birth

David Berlind — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:24:00 -0500

When it comes to open sourced content management platforms and their creators, there's no question about the celebrity status that WordPress and its young founder Matt Mullenweg have ascended to. If offered an opportunity to interview Mullenweg about some news, I'd undoubtedly jump on it. But when I was offered the chance to do the same with Dries Buytaert, my initial response was "Dries who?" Once I realized "Dries, the creator of Drupal," I didn't hesitate (podcast below).

Why Businesses And Individuals Aren't Racing To Go Green (And What To Do About It)

David Berlind — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:49:51 -0500

As one of the head counselors of Energy Camp (Tom Raftery of Greenmonk fame is the other; blog, Twitter), I pay pretty close attention to anything colored green; green organizations, green initiatives, green events, green vendor programs, green news, etc. It was only after the last Energy Camp at Interop in Las Vegas that it dawned on me why the overall green movement gets only pockets of traction, and what we should do about it. Hopefully, someone in Obama's administration is listening.

USAir Suffers Collosal Failure During Multiple CRM "Moments of Truth"

David Berlind — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:36:23 -0500

Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandanavian Airlines (SAS) and author of the bible on customer satisfaction (Moments of Truth) would be rolling his eyes right about now if he could have heard the telephone conversation I just had with a US Air. I've just learned that despite holding a US Air-issued Dividend Miles card (pictured below) in my hand (the one to which I've been applying my last 15+ years of US Air travel), I am a figment in US Air's imagination. Neither I nor any miles I've traveled with the air carrier exist.

First Look & Podcast: Google Apps To Support BlackBerry Enterprise Server

David Berlind — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:30:00 -0500

It's the week of May 4th and if you're down at RIM's annual user conference in Orlando, you might be wondering what some Google-folk are doing there circulating amongst all those BlackBerry-lovers. Answer: They're giving enterprises yet another reason to swap Google Apps' cloud-based email, calendaring, and contact management for their on-premises installations of Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes. I've been testing the new technology and have a podcast interview with Google's Raju Gulabani.

ReviewCam: Apture Takes Hyperlinking To A New Context And Depth For Any CMS

David Berlind — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:45:12 -0500

At Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, I had a chance to catch up with Apture CEO and founder Tristan Harris to "shoot" a ReviewCam movie of Apture's innovative cloud-based hyperlinking service that seems to automagically work with any content management system. What's special about Apture is how frictionlessly it adds new levels of context and depth when hyperlinking something (e.g.: text) in ways that the native CMS (egg: WordPress) could never do and it does this (a) by adding only a bit of Javascript to your templates and (b) without even having to go into your CMS's content authoring console. For end users of your content, the results are just as slick.

ReviewCam: At Web 2.0 Expo, Kosmix Demos Its Mashup For Researching Topics

David Berlind — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:35:01 -0500

I've been at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco all day "shooting" ReviewCams of sites and services that claim to fit into the Web 2.0 category. One such demo that I captured on video (see below) is essentially a search site that's designed for especially for people who are researching topics and who would prefer to have their search results organized in a way that's conducive to learning about some subject matter rather than just wading through pages of search results. Kosmix.com may be worth a try if you want to get smart about something in a hurry (instead of looking for a needle in a haystack).

Is Java On Deck For Google App Engine?

David Berlind — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:00:03 -0500

While working on the post that I just published about whether data that's stored in the cloud is really safe or not (answer: your mileage will vary), I came across a post from Michael Arrington that speculates on whether Google's forthcoming super secret announcement on April 7th is that Google's App Engine platform-as-a-service will support the Java programming language. Last week, during a cloud computing panel in NYC that I moderated (in front of an audience of Java developers), I asked Google App Engine product manager that exact question.

Podcast: Is Your Data Really Safe In the Cloud?

David Berlind — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:28:03 -0500

Earlier this week, over on InformationWeek's sister site that's dedicated to Cloud Computing -- Plug into the Cloud -- George Crump asked a question that I thought I knew the answer to: Is data in the cloud risky? Crump points to a "recent report that the FTC is considering a request to shut down Google Apps." But after I got done laughing at such a waste of taxpayer money, I turned back to the seriousness of the question at hand.

Podcast: New Rev Of SUSE Linux First To Officially Support .NET, Silverlight

David Berlind — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:05:23 -0500

With no change to its business model or pricing (subscription-based support starting at $349 per server), Novell launched version 11 of it Linux distribution known as SUSE Enterprise Linux. For the first time, according to Novell officials, support is now available for running applications that were originally designed for Microsoft's .NET or Silverlight platforms. But, given how IT shops are starting to pinch pennies by moving to the cloud, must Novell change course?

ReviewCam Of Sun's Innovative Drag, Drop, & Deploy Virtual Datacenter Designer

David Berlind — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:52:56 -0500

While at Sun's CommunityOne East Developer Conference where Sun announced a pretty compelling entry into the cloud computing market (called the Sun Cloud, see the details and listen to the podcast), I caught up with Sun Cloud Computing CTO Lew Tucker who sat down with me to demo a GUI-based virtual datacenter deployment tool (all in a Web browser). Perhaps Sun should call it 4D; Drag, Drop, Deploy, and (voila!) Datacenter (in Sun's Cloud that is). I caught the entire thing on tape as one of our video ReviewCams (below).

Podcast: Sun's Cloud To RESTfully Give Developers Access To Virtual Data Centers

David Berlind — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:52:02 -0500

The Web is brewing with analysis of the news that IBM is in talks to buy Sun. Most of it covers the sensibility of IBM buying into Sun's existing businesses and customers. But, should IBM acquire Sun, it will also get a portfolio of cloud offerings that are being announced later today at Sun's CommunityOne East Developer Conference in New York. Given the traction that cloud computing is getting and how IBM isn't viewed as a cloud player (by a long shot), an acquisition of Sun would instantly put IBM in the game against the likes of Amazon and Google with a new offering that actually packs quite a punch.

Interop Insider #4 (MP3): Arista Networks Positions Itself As "The" 10-Gb Networker Of The Clouds

David Berlind — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:04:51 -0500

Although she dodged the question at the end of my podcast interview (below), Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal can't help but think that history is going to repeat itself. Following Cisco's acquisition of Crescendo Networks in the '90s (where she worked), Ullal ended up working for Cisco for 15 years. Notwithstanding its newly announced Intel-based blade servers, Cisco usually prefers to buy than build. If everything Ullal says about Arista's 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches and "the cloud's" appetite for them is true, she'll probably end up at Cisco again (by way of acquisition).

Podcast: Sun Looks To Start Privacy And Governance Alliance For Cloud Computing Industry

David Berlind — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:59:33 -0500

Stealing a page from the playbook it used to launch the Liberty Alliance (and undermine Microsoft's Passport service in the process), Sun Microsystems' newly appointed cloud computing chief governance officer, Michele Dennedy, tells me in this podcast how she now has her sights set on forming a similar industry consortium for governance and privacy in the area of cloud computing. Additionally, Dennedy's appointment is one of many ducks that Sun is getting in a row as it gears up to make some allegedly blockbuster cloud computing announcements in New York City on March 18.

Interop Insider #3 (MP3): ScienceLogic's David Takes On Goliaths BMC, CA, IBM, And HP

David Berlind — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:33:49 -0500

Based out of Reston, Va., ScienceLogic CEO David Link is no Silicon Valley insider. He might as well be, though, because the technology that ScienceLogic has cooked up in the form of it's 7-in-1 EM7 data center management appliance is the sort of solution that usually requires a patchwork of solutions from the management titans normally associated with such functionality: BMC, CA, IBM, and HP.

TechWeb And InformationWeek Launch ReviewCams: Video Reviews Of Web Services & Software

David Berlind — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:12:08 -0500

If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to check out our first ever ReviewCam. Using video, the goal of our ReviewCams is to put you up close and personal with an editor's-eye-view of Web services or software.

ReviewCam: Socialcast Privatizes The Power Of Twitter, Del.icio.us, And FriendFeed For Enterprises

David Berlind — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:16:02 -0500

In this, our first ever "ReviewCam", Socialcast CEO founder Tim Young demos his company's namesake service while we're "rolling tape" on the demo. For $1 per user per month Socialcast offers its customers a private service that includes Twitter-style microblogging, Del.icio.us-style social bookmarking, and FriendFeed-style lifestreaming. But for brownie points, Socialcast also integrates with the actual Twitter, Del.icio.us, and other social networks like YouTube, Digg, Facebook, and Google Reader.