June 2011

Facebook Seeks Bigger Role in Software for Mobile Apps

Facebook is angling to play a bigger role in shaping the way software gets developed for mobile devices.

The social network, which has turned its popular website into a platform for developing games and other add-on programs, so far hasn't wielded the same influence on mobile gadgets like Apple's hit iPhone and iPad. But there are signs the company is trying to change that situation. Facebook executives, among other things, are encouraging developers who write Facebook apps to do so for mobile devices using a relatively new technology standard called HTML5. The company has also been using HTML5 to enhance its own mobile offerings, which are used by more than 250 million people to tap into its services.

Some app developers and analysts believe Facebook's underlying motivation is to position itself as an alternative development platform for programmers that now tailor mobile apps specifically for Apple's iOS operating system or Google's Android. Technology blog TechCrunch reported that Facebook is working on a mobile platform dubbed "Project Titan" that was designed to bypass Apple by using the HTML5 technology that works with the iPhone and iPad's mobile browser, Safari.

Connecticut AG challenges Facebook over photo tagging feature that uses facial recognition

Connecticut's attorney general does not want Facebook to automatically tag users in photographs without their permission.

Attorney General George Jepsen (D-CT) has joined lawmakers and privacy watchdogs in objecting to how Facebook has rolled out the photo-tagging feature, which uses facial recognition technology to identify people. He called the lack of an opt-in process "troubling" and said it could expose users to "unwelcome attention and loss of privacy."

Oracle seeks billions in Google lawsuit

Oracle has put a multibillion-dollar price tag on its claim that Google built the popular Android software by using some of Oracle's Java code without permission, according to documents filed in San Jose federal court.

Google is disputing Oracle's claims for patent and copyright infringement, but recent court filings indicate Oracle is seeking a share of Google's extensive advertising revenue in damages for the alleged violations. The case is being watched closely in the tech world because it could have broad implications for the commercial software and mobile computing industries. Oracle acquired rights to the widely used Java programming language when it bought Sun Microsystems last year. Google, meanwhile, has made its Android operating system into one of the most popular platforms for smartphones and tablets in the world. The two tech giants have been wrangling in court for months, attempting to define complex technical and financial issues before a scheduled trial date this fall. Many of their arguments have been filed under seal, on the grounds they concern proprietary business information.

Sen Warner introduces transparency bill

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) which would create a single electronic platform to track all federal spending.

The bill would establish an independent body to track all federal spending. The new board would be in charge of creating data reporting standards that all agencies would have to follow while submitting data on all grants, contracts, loans and other outlays. The legislation appears identical to a bill introduced June 13 by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) of the same name.

CEA Calls On FCC To Wrap Up AT&T-T-Mobile Review This Year

The Consumer Electronics Association is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to wrap up its deliberations of AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile USA before the end of the year, saying that dragging it out longer would create too much uncertainty for businesses that rely on the wireless services provided by the two firms. CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro said his group is not taking a position on whether the mergers should be approved, noting that both AT&T and T-Mobile are CEA members. "Rather, we urge the commission to decide the merger's fate in 2011," he wrote in a letter to the FCC. "Delay beyond this calendar year is unreasonable and puts the companies, their competitors and consumers in limbo and serves no countervailing interest."

TV Spots Resist Flow of Dollars to the Web

Despite the torrent of dollars marketers are pouring online, big advertisers aren't expected to cut back their television budgets anytime soon.

Even as Americans watch less TV and spend more time on the Web, mobile phones and other entertainment options, marketers are investing more money than ever on television ads. New forecasts call for the $59.7 billion U.S. television-advertising market to grow steadily for the next half decade and continue to capture a dominant share of total U.S. ad spending. "Television is going to play a very prominent role well into the future," said Joel Ewanick, global chief marketing officer at auto maker General Motors Co., the second-largest advertiser in the country by spending. Advertisers are expected to boost their spending on TV by 3.3% this year, with the medium capturing a 34% share of the total U.S. ad market, according to data released Thursday by Interpublic Group of Co.'s Magnaglobal, in one of Madison Avenue's most closely watched forecasts. The ad-buying firm says that, by 2016, TV's share of the advertising market is expected to increase to 38%, or $81.3 billion.

NPR Pushes Digital Initiative

National Public Radio has kicked off a 10-week, 18-city "road show" to sell its affiliates on a new digital plan it hopes will help secure public radio's long-term health at a time when some of its chief sources of revenue have come under threat.

The nonprofit news organization is trying to persuade its 268 member stations to outsource more of their online operations to NPR by offering them a suite of digital services it says will help them raise money and expand their websites beyond archived radio programs into breaking news, blogs and other material. The campaign is a critical one for NPR, though not because of the fees it would collect for providing the additional services. The biggest percentage of NPR's revenue comes from the money local radio stations pay to air its programs, such as "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered." But a push in Congress to cut federal funding for public radio, as well as the toll the weak economy has taken on corporate underwriting and support from foundations, threaten to make it harder for the stations to pay for NPR's shows while also producing local programming.

Government in cyber fight but can't keep up

Apparently, the Pentagon is about to roll out an expanded effort to safeguard its contractors from hackers and is building a virtual firing range in cyberspace to test new technologies. The twin efforts show how President Barack Obama's administration is racing on multiple fronts to plug the holes in U.S. cyber defenses. Notwithstanding the military's efforts, however, the overall gap appears to be widening, as adversaries and criminals move faster than government and corporations, and technologies such as mobile applications for smart phones proliferate more rapidly than policymakers can respond, officials and analysts said.

A Reuters examination of American cyber readiness produced the following findings:

Spin-offs of the malicious code dubbed "agent.btz" used to attack the military's U.S. Central Command in 2008 are still roiling U.S. networks today. People inside and outside the U.S. government strongly suspect Russia was behind the attack, which was the most significant known breach of military networks.
There are serious questions about the security of "cloud computing," even as the U.S. government prepares to embrace that technology in a big way for its cost savings.
The U.S. electrical grid and other critical nodes are still vulnerable to cyber attack, 13 years after then-President Bill Clinton declared that protecting critical infrastructure was a national priority.
While some progress has been made in coordinating among government agencies with different missions, and across the public-private sector gap, much remains to be done.
Government officials say one of the things they fear most is a so-called "zero-day attack," exploiting a vulnerability unknown to the software developer until the strike hits.

Experts say security concerns about cloud computing are overstated

Think tank and industry experts downplayed widespread security concerns surrounding a government transition to cloud computing, saying the cloud may actually be safer than traditional storage of government information in federally owned data centers.

Technology has been developed, though not widely implemented, that allows cloud storage providers to host encrypted data that only the data's creators can decrypt, not its hosts, said Dan Reed, Microsoft's vice president for technology policy. That technology also includes monitors that tell a government agency or other data creator if the cloud provider babysitting the data makes any attempt to decrypt it, he said. There's also new technology in the pipeline that would allow agencies and other data creators to analyze and sift their own data while it's in the cloud without first decrypting the data itself, he said. Reed was speaking at a panel discussion on the not-yet-introduced 2011 Cloud Computing Act, hosted by the Brookings Institution. There's been a great deal of speculation about what that act, sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), will include.

App Flap: Free Press Takes Verizon Criticism to Hill

In letters to the leadership of the House and Senate Commerce Committees, Free Press argues that reports that Verizon Wireless and other carriers got Google to restrict access to free tethering applications in the Android Market -- those apps turn smart phones into their own free, mobile wi-fi hotspots -- means that Verizon is violating the open access requirement on its spectrum.

Verizon says it was Google, not Verizon, that removed the apps. "Verizon does not block applications," the company said in a statement. "Google manages its own applications store, evaluated the applications in question, determined that they were in violation of it terms of service and removed them." Verizon may not have removed them, but they wanted them removed. A source familiar with the application take-down says that Verizon pointed Google to those apps as a violation.

Benton

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