Apple waiting on 4G?

Though there is apparently an iPhone heading to Verizon, and in all likelihood, a new model iPhone next summer, neither model will run on any wireless carriers' 4G networks, according to a report in TechCrunch today.
The post cites "sources" that say that the iPhone Apple is making with CDMA chips won't support the Long Term Evolution, or LTE 4G standard, and neither will the iPhone 5 -- or whatever Apple calls the next-generation device it builds. CDMA is the the wireless technology used by Verizon and Sprint.
That's because, according to the report, Apple doesn't want to have to work with the first round of LTE chips and is concerned that they'll be "bulky" and "power hungry."
Instead, Apple will reportedly make an iPhone that has a combination of GSM and CDMA chips next summer, which will allow one phone to operate on all carriers.
It's not out of character for Apple to skip brand new technologies in its products. The company did the same thing with its first iPhone in 2007, opting to introduce the phone on AT&T's 2G Edge network and not 3G, even though it was available in dozens of markets across the U.S. at the time.

4G networks are becoming available in many markets, but the roll out won't be near completion until near the end of 2011. At that point, 4G will be standard and Apple probably won't need much convincing to offer an compatible iPhone by 2012.

Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7 devices

Microsoft on Monday unveiled its plan to battle the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones with its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.

At a press event in New York, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows Phone 7 smartphones would be available in the United States on AT&T's (T, Fortune 500) network.

"When Microsoft first showed us Windows Phone 7, we knew it was going to be a winner," AT&T CEO Mobility and Consumer Markets Ralph de la Vega said at the event. "It was different than anything we've seen."

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) also announced partnerships with Samsung, LG and HTC, which will make devices to run the new smartphone software.

Samsung's phone, called the Focus, will be available on November 8, and the Surround from HTC and Quantum from LG would be in stores in time for the holidays, Microsoft said. All three phones will cost $199.99.
The Windows Phone 7 lineup will eventually include nine phone models available in 30 countries, Ballmer said.
"It's a different kind of phone," he said. "It gets you in, gets you out, and back to life as fast as humanly possible."
Instead of the typical smartphone user interface -- a series of small icons to launch applications -- Windows Phone 7 uses large, dynamic tiles that Microsoft hopes will be both intuitive to use and easy to navigate.

Social networking is baked in, with a "people hub" that tracks updates across a user's contact list. A camera button wakes the phone into shooting mode quickly, so that it is able to almost instantly begin snapping photos. Games are a focus: Xbox Live players can take their accounts on the go, and Electronic Arts is a launch partner, bringing the Sims game to the phones.
Windows Phone 7 integrates deeply with other Microsoft products. Notes taken on phone with OneNote automatically sync to the cloud with Office Live. Along with top-notch support for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange -- which should make corporate IT departments very happy -- the phones offer a spell check that automatically underlines misspelled words with the red squiggly line familiar to Word users.
But one feature was noticeably missing at launch: copy/paste. Microsoft didn't put that in the original code because it didn't think it would be needed, thanks to auto-links between applications, a company executive said. But developers demanded it, and Microsoft plans to add it in an update in early 2011.

Battling rivals: Microsoft has struggled to sell smartphones since Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone and Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android came storming onto the scene in the past few years. Windows Mobile commands less than 11% of the U.S. smartphone market, down from nearly 20% at the same time last year, according to comScore.

Over the past several years, many consumers thought that Windows Mobile began to feel outdated, both in the software itself and the phones that ran it, compared to its suddenly more successful rivals.
As a result, Microsoft opted to scrap its mobile operating system entirely, giving it a new name, a unique look and some compelling features that differentiate it from the competition.

The phone is also important for AT&T, which in all likelihood will be ending its exclusivity agreement with Apple for the iPhone in January.

AT&T is looking to bolster its lineup by the end of the year, and is very committed to throwing a tremendous amount of marketing muscle behind the Windows phones, according to Lloyd Walmsley, senior analyst at Primary Global Research. That should be good news for Microsoft, especially as consumers start to plan holiday gift purchases.

But Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up against its rivals. Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry now has more than triple the market share of Microsoft, and the iPhone and Android are both twice as big.

"Microsoft is way behind, and knocking Android and the iPhone out of the top spots will be almost impossible," Walmsley said. "I think it's even going to struggle to be a No. 3, but you can never count them out."

To succeed, Microsoft will have to convince potential customers that its unique offerings are compelling enough to pass up an iPhone, an Android phone or even a BlackBerry. 

Facebook unveils new Groups tool



PALO ALTO, Calif. (CNNMoney.com) -- Facebook unveiled three new features on Wednesday to give users better tools for communicating with sheltered groups and increased control over the information that they share on the social network.
"Until today, we've made it pretty easy to share with everyone on the site publicly," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO. "But for a lot of people, just your friends isn't actually private."


One new feature, called Groups, allows users to target their updates to specific sets of friends, without posting the information to everyone in their network.
Facebook created what it called "a social solution" to the problem. Users can create groups on the fly, similarly to how they tag photos on Facebook, and other group members can add additional friends.
"Sometimes you don't want to post something to all of your friends, not because you don't want them to know, but because you don't want to annoy them," Zuckerberg at a press gathering at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. "The naive solution is to do something like friend lists. Almost no one wants to make lists."
Users can manually create friends' list subsets on Facebook today, but Zuckerberg said that fewer than 5% of the site's users have done that.
Instead, Facebook's new Groups approach will mimic its photo system.
"The majority of Facebook users do not upload photos -- but 95% have a photo of them that they've let users tag," Zuckerberg said.
Another new Facebook application, called "Download Your Information," allows Facebook's 500 million users to export all of the personal information that they upload to Facebook to a file on their computer. The app lets Facebook users port their information to another social network or simply browse everything that has been uploaded to their online profiles, including photos, status updates and wall posts.
"Philosophically, that's a core thing that people want from Facebook," Zuckerberg said. "People want to be able to easily take their information to another service and do that in safe way."
Facebook also introduced "Dashboard," which gives users the ability to see all of the apps that they use on one page. Dashboard can help users to monitor and manage all of their Facebook tools, including adjusting the privacy settings and deleting unwanted apps.
Both new features are very similar to privacy functions that Google added in 2009.
The new features will begin rolling out Wednesday, and Zuckerberg said more product updates will be released soon. Facebook employees have been in "lockdown mode" for the last two months, cranking out a blizzard of across-the-board enhancements.

"We just wanted to double down," Zuckerberg said. "We had a really productive summer improving the quality of a lot of things we've been working on."  

Why itunes songs samples still only 30 seconds

Apple's plan to extend the length of song samples doesn't appear to be dead.

"We are in active negotiations with Apple," about the length of song samples, said Hanna Pantle, a spokeswoman for Broadcast Music Inc., (BMI) one of the performing-rights organizations that collects royalties on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. She declined to provide any details.

"We are in active negotiations with Apple,"

--Hanna Pantle, BMI spokeswomanAt BMI's rival, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a spokesman declined to comment. A source close to the company, however, said Apple has a license with ASCAP that doesn't appear to put any time limits on song samples. Apple also has agreements with the four major record companies to allow iTunes to boost the length of song samples from 30 seconds to 90 seconds, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the deal.

So what went wrong? Why didn't Apple CEO Steve Jobs roll out the longer samples, as expected during his company's media event last Wednesday?

Turns out that even with all the labels on board, Apple didn't have all the licenses iTunes needed. Leaders at the National Music Publishers Association, the largest trade trade group representing music publishers, informed Apple that it couldn't offer extended samples until reaching an agreement with them. But that's not the whole story. Some from the music sector say Apple simply tried to rush a deal through and misjudged its ability to get it done without agreements from all the necessary parties. Apple has made it clear that the company doesn't want to pay to license song samples, insiders say, and even they acknowledge that Apple also wants to avoid the nightmare that other music services have gone through when trying to acquire publishing rights. It typically involves tracking down untold numbers of rights holders.

Ping isn't enough

What all this means is that Apple has more work to do--possibly much more--before it can offer longer samples. Meanwhile, Google is paying close attention to Apple's efforts, according to the music industry sources. The search engine plans to launch a music service perhaps as early as this fall, the sources said. How the recording sector responds to longer song samples could give Apple and Google insight into how many hoops they may have to jump through to license cloud music services.

Both companies have talked to the major labels about storing copies of their users' music libraries on the companies' servers so that they can be accessed from any Web-enabled device, sources have told CNET. One source said because these kinds of cloud services are unprecedented for the music sector, the licensing process could prove complex.

When it comes to lengthening song samples, Apple is breaking ground. For years, the music industry has defined a sample as 30 seconds. But Apple has plenty of reasons to provide bigger samples. When it comes to helping users discover new music, the iTunes Store has not kept pace with services such as YouTube and Vevo, which offer a smorgasbord of music videos. Clicking on these, and a music buyer gets to hear free, full-length songs.

Apple's iTunes may be the No. 1 music retailer, but it is apparently not where the music-buying process begins for many iTunes users. Apple obviously recognizes the problem and tried to address it on Wednesday by adding to iTunes a music-focused social-networking service called Ping. This feature, however, has been met with a wave of criticism. Complaints range from the amount of spam found there to Ping's inability to integrate Facebook.

We don't know exactly why Apple pulled the song samples from Wednesday's presentation. But Jay Rosenthal, the NMPA's general counsel, said last week that he and David Israelite, the NMPA's chief executive, read on Monday on CNET that Apple had struck deals with the major labels to boost the length of song sales and wondered why Apple had not come to them about a deal.

On either Monday or Tuesday, Israelite sought an outside legal opinion and was told that Apple couldn't legally offer longer samples without permission from the music publishers. On the day before Apple's event, Israelite informed Apple of the NMPA's position.

"We believe that a license is necessary, and conversations must occur before song samples are extended," Rosenthal told CNET last Wednesday. NMPA representatives declined to comment for this story.

Here come publishers

It's clear that the NMPA isn't pleased about being left out of the negotiations between Apple and the major labels. There's some history here: The top four labels own the largest publishing companies and have much to say about publishing deals, as well as agreements over recording rights. But not the final say.

Here's how these things often work: Many by now have heard the version of the song "Creep" used in the trailer for the upcoming film about Facebook, "The Social Network." The song in the trailer is a cover version sung by a women's choir. To include the song, the filmmakers likely had to obtain the rights to the song's lyrics and music composition from the song's publishers.

Had the filmmakers wanted to use the version recorded by Radiohead, the band that made "Creep" famous, they would have presumably needed to acquire the recorded-music rights from EMI, Radiohead's former record label. They would still be required to pay for the publishing rights as well. When the movie appears on TV or cable, the filmmakers will need to pay a public performance feel (take a deep breath).

It's important to note that publishers get a taste in practically every situation. That's partly why some in the music business guess that Israelite, from the NMPA, jumped into the middle of Apple's song sample deal and why he's asserting himself, according to two music sector sources. For years, the publishers were treated as an afterthought, while the major labels drove most of the important deals. Israelite did not respond to interview requests for this story.

When it comes to song samples, Israelite told CNET last week that the NMPA "has not raised any substantive objection to the concept of longer song samples." That may be, but some powerful members of his organization have said publicly that they want Apple to pay for the right to offer song samples.

"In the U.S., while we do get paid a mechanical (licensing fee) from iTunes, we are not getting any performance income from Apple yet," David Renzer, chairman of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in an interview last year with entertainment industry publication Encore. "[On iTunes], you can stream radio, and you can preview [tracks], things that we should be getting paid performance income for."

So some publishers want Apple to pay for samples, and Apple has refused to make such an agreement, arguing that a 30-second sample is promotional. What Apple and the publishers have to determine is, what happens when a song sample is 60 seconds or 90 seconds long?

It's going to be interesting to see if Apple gets the longer song samples. That may tell us a lot about whether iTunes still has the weight to dictate terms to the music sector. As the executive from the music-publishing arena said, Apple is the only game in town. Unlike the film studios, which have multiple Internet outlets from which to sell, including Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu, the music industry--after all these years--really only has Apple.

Jailbreaking your iPhone? Change your passwords

Since the U.S. Copyright Office declared last month that it's legal to jailbreak your iPhone, lots of iPhone users have been doing just that -- nearly 9 percent of them as of late July.

But jailbreaking your iPhone -- tweaking it to run applications not approved by Apple -- is serious business. That's not just because jailbreaking can void your Apple warranty, but because it can put you at risk of data theft, malware or other significant problems.

In November, TUAW reported that a Dutch hacker proved this point by using port scanning -- using software to probe a network host for open ports -- to find jailbroken phones. From there, he sent unsuspecting users a message that read, 'Your iPhone's been hacked because it's really insecure! Right now, I can access all your files.' "

He then directed his victims to PayPal and requested €5 (about $10) in exchange for instructions to remove his hack.

At least he let his victims know they'd been hacked. Your iPhone won't notify you about that on its own.

If you jailbreak your iPhone, one crucial way to protect yourself is to change the phone's default passwords. But be forewarned: It's not a simple process.

In the latest episode of the Boulder Open Podcast, hosts Dave Taylor and Michael Sitarzewski discussed this concern. Recently both of them jailbroke their iPhone 4s.

"I've gotta say, this was not a compelling experience. It was complicated as heck to figure out how to jailbreak the phone and then change the default passwords," said Taylor, a longtime tech expert.

"Once you jailbreak your phone, it's accessible via laptops. Someone can log into your phone and monkey with it. The process for changing the passwords is really quite a production. Like a lot of the open-source technology I've used in past 30 years, this is not something you want to get involved with unless you're willing to spend the time to learn how to do this safely."

A "root password" is a fundamental part of the geeky Unix back-end of the iPhone's slick operating system. It's something that non-jailbroken users never have to worry about because Apple's walled-garden iPhone experience prevents this particular kind of incursion.

Sitarzewski explained, "Every Unix system on the planet has a root account, and the default password for that account is the same on every iPhone on the planet ('alpine').

"When you jailbreak your phone, sometimes one of the requirements for an app is secure shell (SSH). That's the only way you're opening yourself up to this particular vulnerability. So you don't absolutely have to change your root password if you don't install SSH protocols -- but it's a good idea anyway."

Taylor added: "Not only is the default root password the same on every iPhone, but the default mobile user account password also is the same on every iPhone ('dottie'). So you should change them both."

If you venture beyond Apple's iPhone garden walls, you can follow these instructions to change your default passwords from the Just Another iPhone Blog.

Alternatively, TiPb offers instructions on using the JailbreakMe mobile site to simplify the jailbreaking process.

They note that as of early August, some jailbroken iPhone users running iOS4 reported problems with the terminal (a command-line interface that lets you access system-level functions), and pointed to a TiPb discussion forum for instructions on fixing that problem.

How to create a 'super password'

Say goodbye to those wimpy, eight-letter passwords.


The 12-character era of online security is upon us, according to a report published this week by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The researchers used clusters of graphics cards to crack eight-character passwords in less than two hours.

But when the researchers applied that same processing power to 12-character passwords, they found it would take 17,134 years to make them snap.

"The length of your password in some cases can dictate the vulnerability," said Joshua Davis, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

It's hard to say what will happen in the future, but for now, 12-character passwords should be the standard, said Richard Boyd, a senior research scientist who also worked on the project.

The researchers recommend 12-character passwords -- as opposed to those with 11 or, say, 13 characters -- because that number strikes a balance between "convenience and security."

They assumed a sophisticated hacker might be able to try 1 trillion password combinations per second. In that scenario, it takes 180 years to crack an 11-character password, but there's a big jump when you add just one more character -- 17,134 years.

Passwords have gotten longer over time, and security experts are already recommending that people use full sentences as passwords.

Here's one suggested password-sentence from Carnegie Mellon University:

No, the capital of Wisconsin isn't Cheeseopolis!"

Or maybe something that's easier to remember, like this:

"I have two kids: Jack and Jill."

Even though advances in cheap computing power are making long, complicated passwords a necessity, not all websites will accommodate them, Boyd said.

It's best to use the longest and most complex password a site will allow, he said. For example, if a website will let you create a password with non-letter characters -- like "@y;}v%W$\5\" -- then you should do so.

There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, but there are 95 letters and symbols on a standard keyboard. More characters means more permutations, and it soon becomes more difficult for a computer to generate the correct password just by guessing.

Some websites allow for super-long passwords. The longest one Boyd has seen is at Fidelity.com, a financial site that lets users create 32-character passwords.

On a Microsoft website devoted to password security, the tech giant tells the password-creating public not to use real words or logical combinations of letters. That keeps you safer from a "dictionary attack," which uses a database of words and common character sequences to try to guess the code.

The Georgia Tech researchers carried out a "brute force" attack when they determined that passwords should be at least 12 characters long.

To do so, they deployed computer graphics cards, which are cheap and can be programmed to do basic computations very quickly.

The processors in those cards run simultaneously, trying to guess all of the possible password combinations. The more characters in a password, the more guesses are required.

But if your password has to be really long in order to keep up with this computational power -- and if you're supposed to have a new password for each website you frequent -- then how are you supposed to remember everything?

That's a real problem, the Georgia Tech researchers said.

There are a few solutions, however.

A website called Password Safe will store a list of passwords for you, but Boyd and Davis said it may still be possible for a hacker to obtain that list.

Other companies sell tokens that people carry around with them. These keychain-sized devices generate random numbers several times a minute, and users must enter those numbers and a shorter password to log in.

Some sites -- Facebook for example -- are marketing their log-ins and user names as a way to access sites all over the Web.

That's good for the user but is potentially dangerous because if hackers figure out a single password, they can access multiple banks of information, the researchers said.

The reason passwords have to keep getting longer is that computers and graphics cards are getting faster, the Georgia Tech researchers said.

"These things are really inexpensive -- just a few hundred dollars -- and they have a performance that's comparable to supercomputers of only just a few years ago," Boyd said of fast-processing graphics cards.

Maybe our brains will have to get bigger and faster, too. We'll need some way to remember these tome-like character strings.

Reports: Google considering iTunes-like music service

Apple may get a nasty surprise this holiday season; rumors are swirling that Google's Andy Rubin is planning on a holiday-season launch for the search behemoth's new music download service.


According to a Reuters report, Rubin, the Google VP Engineering who oversees Android development, has been deep in talks with record labels and "hopes to have the service up and running by Christmas."

Google's service would be an iTunes challenger that would be deeply connected to the Android mobile operating system. As we reported over the summer, it seems the company plans to first launch a music download service and progress to an online subscription service by next year.

Ultimately, "Google Music" would be a cloud-based subscription service with the ability to stream directly to Android mobile devices.

An anonymous record label exec confirmed to the newswire that Google was, indeed, in talks with labels about launching such a service and that labels aren't at all upset about the prospect.

"Finally here's an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform. What you'll have is a very powerful player in the market that's good for the music business," the source said.

Right now, the ever-more-popular swarm of Android phones have an integration with Amazon's MP3 store, but it's not the best-integrated solution.

If Google can perfect a music downloading system and include some of the mobile-desktop syncing features we saw at Google I/O, they just might have a killer app on their hands -- one that would continue to allow Android to successfully challenge Apple's iPhone in the mobile market, too.

Google began its work in the music space last year with the launch of a music search feature. When users searched Google for any kind of music, among search results would be streaming audio previews and music discovery features from music-centric companies including Pandora and Rhapsody.

With the recent launch of iTunes 10 and built-in music social network Ping, Apple is aiming for a major revitalization of its music offering. But so far, users' reactions to the new software has been lukewarm at best.

Do you think Google could emerge in just a couple months with a winning approach to music downloading? How do you think this move might ? or might not -- affect Apple's bottom line? Let us know your opinions in the comments.