05:22 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

E-Week is reporting that there is a Cryzip Trojan that infects your computer, encrypts your files, and demands a $300 payment via E-Gold online currency.

If infected, you get a nasty message containing this text, "If you really care about documents and information in encrypted files you can pay using electonic currency $300. Reporting to police about a case will not help you, they do not know password. Reporting somewhere about our E-Gold account will not help you to restore files. This is your only way to get yours files back." They apparently avoid capture by rotating the funds across various accounts.

Fortunately, it's not likely to be a mass problem. The LURHQ Threat Intelligence Group has said, "Infection reports are not widespread, so it is not believed this is a mass threat by any means." And that "[M]ore attention means the likely closing of the accounts used for the anonymous money transfer."

Via Digg.

05:12 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Have you ever wondered how you ended up spending all day reading RSS feeds? Surely there's a better way. Well, here's your chance to get efficient. Check out the tips in this Daniel Miessler article pointed to in this LifeHacker post.

The bad news... you probably still won't be able to completely read everything you find across your 200 favorite news feeds just because you got efficient.

12:07 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

There have been rumors about various huge online storage services to be offered by Google. In fact, all the online service talk seems to be centered around Google, with surrounding chatter about Microsofts renewed search momentum, and Yahoo's desire to open up its APIs. But everyone has thought Google is the one that can "get 'er done." Recently, there's even talk about how they will open up a marketplace that will render eBay a relic.

According to a Business week blog post, the company is set to make an announcement this morning that will shake things up and could make Amazon one of the contenders for dominance of the online business platform world.

And that's what all these search engine and online applications and portal wars are all about aren't they? Control of the platform where business of the 21st century is conducted. No wonder Microsoft is so worried. Their toe in the search and portal and online application is just the beginning of the related Microsoft initiatives. They have been working for years to take over identity verification systems, and spam control (via identities), and even working really hard to build a development platform for web-based apps. Are those things random efforts, just to follow the current needs. I'd say absolutely not. They want to corner the business platform for the next couple of decades as much or more than Amazon, Google, Yahoo and others.

So out of the blue, we now find that it may be Amazon, not Google, that opens up the doors to an unlimited storage service first. They are likely to be providing services to businesses or consumers that includes both online storage and eventually they are probably aiming to become a one-stop service for all your needs for doing online business. They want to become the business platform on the web.

Can they do it? I don't know, but they are definitely a large-scale web-based successful technology business. And there's a lot at stake. You never know.

Update:It's already announced! See next post in this thread.

10:20 AM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | iRex

David Rothman over at TeleRead has just confirmed that the iRex e-book reader will be shipping in the U.S. in the Spring of 2006 as expected.

His source is from a post by an iRex contact known by him, so it looks like it's for real. The confusion about ship date was due to a U.S. News & World Report article that made it sound like it was going to be a 2007 ship date. But apparently it was "a misunderstanding from the way the article is written." That may mean the reporter just got it wrong, or maybe the 2007 date does refer to something relevant, but different.

Either way, it's March 2006 already, so we'll know soon!

08:47 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Until now you were required to use Adoble's clunky Acrobat Reader if you wanted to view password-protected or encrypted PDF files on your handheld. Those times are over with DataViz's latest update for its Documents To Go software package. It adds support for password-protected PDF files as well as for PDF files encrypted with the RC4 (40-bit and 128-bit) algorithm.

You can find out more about the upgrade from our friends at Palm Addicts.

08:27 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It was exactly ten years ago, back in March 1996, when Palm Computing (then a division of U.S. Robotics, later a division of 3Com, and finally a standalone corporation) introduced the very first Palm handhelds: the Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000. Digged out from a 1996 product advertisement:

"The Pilot connected organizer is a handheld extension of your PC, rather than a miniaturized PC running a stripped-down version of a PC-style operating system. U.S. Robotics Palm Computing subsidiary engineered Pilot to leverage the capabilities already on your desktop, without forcing you to split information between a handheld and a full-size device."

Neither the Pilot 1000 nor the 5000 had an infrared port, backlight, or flash memory. RAM was limited to 128k and 512k, respectively, and both were powered by a Motorola 68328 16MHz running Palm OS V1.0!

For nostaglic sake, I uploaded some goodies for you:

• the official press release announcing the Pilot series back in January 1996
• the official 14-page product advertisement from U.S. Robotics
• two ancient demos, one for Macintosh and one for Windows (16bit!)

From all of us: A Happy Birthday, Palm Pilot!

04:38 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We have seen the future, and it is tiny. The engineers at Sharp have managed to reduce the size of a 802.11g/b WLAN module to 10 × 10 × 1.6 mm. To improve usability in mobile devices, they've also reduced power consumption to a respectable low 0.9mA in standby mode. Sample of the module dubbed DC2J1DZ115 will be available for 20,000 Yen/piece this month.

If you are adept at Japanese check out the official press release (otherwise Google Translate is your friend).

09:45 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We passed some news your way recently about a new Samsung SPH-B5200 gaming phone. But what we didn't know at the time is that the slider moves in two directions, so you can either get a game controller or a phone pad depending on which way it slides.

Pretty neat idea that appears to work well. As the mobile device market heats up, we are beginning to see form factors galore! So why not the simple clamshells? Designers think people don't want them. Just wait... they'll be back.

Clickable thumbnails after the jump.

Via MobileKorea.TV