Does the Netbook Have a Life?

The continued growth in cloud adoption may radically change netbook adoption rates. "As more organizations explore a virtualized desktop and cloud-based productivity options, the netbook could be an interesting conduit to a world featuring 'Everything as a Service' -- providing traditional I/O to enable productivity tasks, but at a lower-cost, more portable profile," explained Deloitte analyst William Briggs.
Trends have always come and gone, but when it comes to all-things-tech, the speed of change is faster than an Internet minute. It isn't that tech users are all that fickle; it's that the environment around them is constantly changing. Take the "smartphones vs. laptops war" for example. It isn't that either won; rather, the war left the battlefield.
No one bothers to rant for one side or the other any more. By the time netbooks and tablets made a debut on the mobile scene, no one thought to ask which of all these devices would be the winner-take-all king of the WiFi hill. That's because this is clearly not a strictly hardware contest anymore.
"The most important effect we have seen is that content matters more than screen size," Brian Levine, president and cofounder of Innerscope Research, told TechNewsWorld. "A simple thought experiment would be this: Which is more engaging, CSPAN on a 3D IMAX, or "Avatar" on a mobile phone? Obviously, unless you are a political junky and don't like the color blue, Avatar wins."
Considering content is king and netbooks lack both the power of laptops for content creation and the appeal of tablets for content consumption, will they now disappear into oblivion?
The Story Told in Numbers
Intel reports that all leading PC makers -- including Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, MSI and Toshiba -- offer Intel-based netbooks, with more than 100 designs in market.
"Currently, there are about 40 million netbooks shipped in 2010, which is roughly three to four times more than tablets," Intel spokesperson Suzy Ramirez told TechNewsWorld. "Since its launch, Intel Atom processors for netbooks alone have shipped more than 80 million chips with 100s of millions expected in the future. In fact, netbooks are one of the fastest-ramping consumer products ever."
If one were to judge the popularity of netbooks and tablets according to media mentions alone, Intel's reported numbers would appear suspicious. But no, independent sources do confirm that netbooks are outselling tablets four to one. To be precise, just over 11 million media tablets and 43 million netbooks will ship worldwide this year, according to ABI Research.
"Apple has sold a few million iPads in its first quarter, which is great for creating a new market," said ABI Research Principal Analyst Jeff Orr, "but early adoption of media tablets is not outpacing netbooks."
Indeed, tablet costs are a bit pricey for the average recession-battered consumer. "The iPad average selling price above US$650 isn't driving mass adoption," said Orr. "Competition, especially on price, is needed." And so it is that netbook sales continue to climb, albeit at a slower pace than was predicted just a year ago.
"Nonetheless, 43 million netbook shipments are good growth -- just not the meteoric pace of the past couple of years," said Orr.
The Cloud as a Netbook Ally
Most of the criticism of netbooks is centered on its shallow performance compared to a full-sized laptop. But this drawback may disappear as the cloud grows larger. That could potentially mean that laptops, rather than netbooks, may fall by the wayside.
"Netbooks remain an interesting play for productivity tasks at a lower price point," Deloitte Consulting director William Briggs told TechNewsWorld. "But full-featured laptops will continue to persist -- basically until the cloud vision is fully realized, which is a number of years away."
Enterprises have been lukewarm toward netbook adoption. Interest doesn't appear to be growing despite the escalation in cloud adoption and desktop virtualization -- two developments one would think would favor netbook use, as they leverage its lighter weight and cost while fortifying its processing and storage weaknesses.
"What we are seeing with enterprise customers using netbooks at the moment is primarily as test pilots and proof of concept demos," Lawrence Imeish, principal consultant of Dimension Data's North America converged communications group, told TechNewsWorld.
Indeed, tablets are running into the same situation -- slow adoption on the enterprise front. The tablets' use-case is "almost entirely consumer-based," reports ABI, and the enterprise market for tablets as a real replacement for laptops and smartphones is "virtually nonexistent."
The continued growth in cloud adoption may radically change the adoption rates of both netbooks and tablets, although netbooks have a decided advantage in that regard.
"As more organizations explore a virtualized desktop and cloud-based productivity options, the netbook could be an interesting conduit to a world featuring 'Everything as a Service' -- providing traditional I/O (keyboard, touchpad) to enable productivity tasks, but at a lower-cost, more portable profile," explained Deloitte's Briggs.
However, the cloud is unlikely to be an advantage of netbooks over laptops.
"As traditional productivity and enterprise technology suites persist, so will the full-featured laptop," Briggs added.
Indeed, the cloud may not be a sufficient edge for netbooks, as the cloud will most likely power all devices more or less equally.
"In the coming years, I see netbook marketing being squeezed between ever more powerful tablets and smaller, lighter, faster, cheaper laptops," predicted Dimension Data's Imeish.
Netbook manufacturers, however, are not just sitting idly by to find out.
Between Tolerated and Banned
"Netbooks continue to see great momentum, and Intel expects this to continue with new hybrid and convertible designs planned for CES and throughout 2011, with examples such as the Dell Inspiron duo," noted Intel's Ramirez.
HP also recently released a line of "business" netbooks in an attempt to break through enterprise resistance in time to sync with cloud momentum. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is pushing its new Macbook Air, which runs a full OS rather than a glorified smartphone OS, into the fold -- even though it loses the price advantage of a traditional netbook in the process.
Enterprises meanwhile, are pushing back some on the commercialization of IT and blocking adoption on some of the newer mobile toys.
"Most organizations have created lists of blessed, tolerated and banned devices to help control the sprawl," said Deloitte's Briggs. "Netbooks today typically find themselves between 'tolerated' and 'banned' categories."
How does such a classification bode for the future of netbooks in the enterprise? Turns out, it likely has no bearing at all.
"Consumer demand will drive the level and pace of netbook adoption," said Briggs. "As tablet support has increased exponentially, based on the iPad's sales, netbooks could achieve more strategic dispositions if stakeholders demanded it."

By Pam Baker
TechNewsWorld

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LG iPhone Looks Fat and Dull

Leaked photos of an LG Android smartphone supposedly called the "B" reveal what could be the slimmest smartphone yet -- even skinnier than the iPhone 4. The screen also appears to be extremely bright. "Everybody's searching for ways, however big or small, to one-up the iPhone, which is supposed to be the slimmest device," Laura DiDio, principal at ITIC, told LinuxInsider.
Hot on the heels of its announcement of the Optimus 2X smartphone this week, LG is reported to be working on yet another Android mobile phone. The new, ulta-thin phone will be known as the "B," according to Phandroid. LG itself has been somewhat coy regarding the smartphone. After Phandroid's story broke, LG posted a message on Twitter via an account dubbed "LGmobileCES11" inviting attendees of the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to see the LG B at the conference in person. Later, that tweet was apparently removed and replaced with a message and a link directing the account's followers to check out an article about the LG B on UnwiredView.com -- which sources its information from the original Phandroid news item.
LG did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Alphabet Soup The B, according to Phandroid's report, appears slimmer than the iPhone 4. A photograph posted in the story also shows a device presumed to be the B providing much greater luminosity than either the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S smartphone from LG's Korean archrival, Samsung.
However, some of the specs put up on Phandroid's page are confusing, as they refer to three devices, the B, the S and the R. The B and R have IPS LCD screens, while the S has an AMOLED screen.
The B has the brightest screen, followed by the R, while the S is less than half as bright as the B, according to the specs.Whether or not there is such a smartphone as the B is open to question. However, if it does exist, its slimness could be its most attractive feature."The device looks interesting, but I haven't heard of it," Chris Hazelton, a research director at the 451 Group, told LinuxInsider. "If it does exist, LG's focused on the thinness of the device, which is interesting." If the B does exist, its slimness may be one way LG's targeting the iPhone. "Everybody's searching for ways, however big or small, to one-up the iPhone, which is supposed to be the slimmest device," Laura DiDio, principal at ITIC, told LinuxInsider. However, she hasn't really heard anything about the B. However, the brightness of the device's screen may be "the big differentiator in terms of the features that we've seen so far," DiDio said. "Assuming we can believe what we're reading and hearing, the brightness could be a real differentiator because there's a lot of people who might be looking at these things in dim light or in the dark," DiDio explained. Changing the Market
If claims about its slimness and the brightness of its screen are true, the B could shape the smartphone industry. "I'd expect that the iPhone, the BlackBerry and the Droid would have to follow suit, if the reports about the slimness and screen brightness are correct," DiDio said. The B might be what LG needs to fight off Samsung, which has a big lead over it in the smartphone market. "If the reports abut the B we're seeing are true and this thing is out there, it fits what LG needs to do," Will Stofega, a program director at IDC, told LinuxInsider. LG is lagging behind Samsung, and it reorganized its mobile division a few weeks ago, Stofega pointed out. "If the B is there, it would fit in with LG's strategy of trying to ramp up its smartphone business," Stofega added. Gartner's (NYSE: IT) report on Q3 2010 worldwide mobile deice sales figures shows LG in third place behind Samsung and market leader Nokia (NYSE: NOK).
LG's market share dropped from 10.3 percent in Q3 2009 to 6.6 percent, while Samsung's share fell from 19.6 percent to 17.2 percent. LG is strong in stylish, mid-tier devices, but mature markets are moving toward smartphones, which is impacting its market share, Gartner said. LG lacks a flagship smartphone.
However, making smartphones slimmer than they already are is a technical challenge, Stofega pointed out. "There are physical limitations, and we'll have to see and hear a little more about the B than what's been reported so far," he stated.

By Richard Adhikari
LinuxInsider
Part of the ECT News Network

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UK Plan to Filter Porn

UK Communications Minister Ed Vaizey plans to ask for ISPs' help in keeping pornographic content on the Internet out of reach of minors. However, his plans, which could involve requiring users to opt in if they want access to the Web's adult side, have been questioned on technical grounds. Critics see a wide array of shortcomings, from defining pornography to imperfect automatic tools for weeding it out.
The British government has joined China, Iran and Australia in seeking to actively restrict access to certain portions of the Internet.
Communications officials have revealed plans to ask Internet service providers in the UK to restrict access to pornographic websites, especially for minors.
However, ISPs have given that idea the thumbs-down on the grounds that it's up to parents and caregivers to deal with the issue.
It will be difficult to restrict access to online porn, say the plan's critics, and it's almost impossible to detect and prevent minors from doing so once they get on the Internet.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service?
Ed Vaizey, the communications minister for the U.K., told the Sunday Times that he planned to meet with the country's major broadband providers to discuss blocking access to online porn at the source.
That would mean adults would have to request their ISPs let them access certain restricted sites.
ISPs would have to come up with solutions to protect children from online porn sites, Vaizey reportedly said.
He warned that if a solution wasn't forthcoming, the government might come up with a new communications bill in the next couple of years.
According to the report, Vaizey wants to set up an age verification scheme to control access to online porn sites.
Talk to Mom and Dad, ISPs say
The U.K. Internet Service Providers' Association responded by saying it's the responsibility of parents and caregivers to manage Internet access. It also warned that restrictions on access might have unintended consequences. Mainstream sites like Flickr, for instance, carry some material officials might deem pornographic.
"The proliferation of adult content makes it nearly impossible to filter them out completely," Ben Butler, director of network abuse at GoDaddy.com, told TechNewsWorld.
Age verification systems are also limited because there's no way for an ISP to verify the real age of someone on a PC, Butler pointed out.
"Kids don't tell the truth about their age and can likely get around most age-based restrictions," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, stated. "These kinds of provisions generally are more tied to making a government look like it's doing something than actually accomplishing anything," he told TechNewsWorld.
Sometimes Technology Is Only Technology
Blocking or filtering access to websites is easier said than done.
"There are some technical means, such as the 'looks like skin' filter that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) uses in its image search; and you could require registration through email, sometimes with credit cards, for sites that might house adult content," Jonathan Eunice, principal IT analyst at Illuminata, told TechNewsWorld.
"But even putting all these together it's extremely porous protection at best," Eunice pointed out. Further, there's no way to identify adult content with full certainty, and often adult content slips through while terms that might be adult in context, such as the words 'breast,' 'suck' or 'rape,' might be blocked even if the context in which the user is searching is non-sexual.
Further, "millions" of non-commercial sources of Internet pornography are available. "Amazon and Tumblr, for example, host a huge number of images and videos, many of them sexual" Eunice pointed out.
"ISPs do see all the traffic that flows through their networks," Leon Rishniw, vice president of engineering at CloudMark, told TechNewsWorld. "The challenge at ISP level is finding what technology you can implement and whether it scales up to the volume of data you're processing."
Further, the technologies currently available to detect adult content on local PCs are slow, which is a deterrent to ISPs, Rishniw pointed out. Finally, the cost of building infrastructure for detecting adult content into an ISP's network "are prohibitive, especially when you consider that there's no value add to the ISP," Rishniw remarked.
The best solution will likely consist of a combination of technology and supervision by parents, caregivers and the kids themselves, GoDaddy.com's Butler suggested.
"In order for any technological solution to have the greatest chance of success, it needs to be used in conjunction with increased education for parents, caregivers and children," Butler stated.

By Richard Adhikari
TechNewsWorld

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Microsoft launches a new online multiplayer game

Microsoft has kicked off an open beta of a new multiplayer game called Neosaurs, which it is attempting to propogate virally via Twitter and Facebook.The open beta commenced on December 9, according to the Web site for the game.
“Neosaurs is a new massively multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) adventure that you can play, right here in your browser for free! No downloads, no wait times. Click ‘Play Now’ to jump in the game and start playing right away with your existing Facebook or Windows Live account,” according to the Web page.I asked Microsoft about Neosaurs and received the following statement from a spokesperson:
“Neosaurs is a new game under development at Microsoft Game Studios in partnership with Camelot Media Investments (CMI), a global leader in the casual MMO space. The game is actively under development and currently in beta. We will have more to announce soon.”
Camelot Media Investments is part of the Al Ahli Gaming Division, “now in final launch stages with one of the top gaming studios and Internet engine partners in Korea,” according to a quick Web search.
“Al Ahli Gaming has invested directly with the launching of Camelot Media Investments and will have first look opportunities to the line-up of coming games about to be released. Industry experts have classified these new games as ‘the new face of gaming,’ according to Al Ahli’s site.Neosaurs is interesting on a couple of fronts. For one, it is evidence of Microsoft’s growing interest in the casual gaming/social gaming space.Microsoft quietly purchased the assets (though not not the people) associated with Vivaty, a 3D virtual world gaming vendor, earlier in 2010. And there’ve been rumors that Microsoft wanted more leverage in the virtual-world and/or social gaming space and that the company was making overtures to various companies in order to get a foot in the door.

By Mary Jo Foley - ZDNet

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Dell precision workstation

Usually tucked under the desk in a tiny cubicle, the humble workstation gets no love when it comes to industrial design. But the last bastion of the beige box may be getting a rather nice face lift, courtesy of Dell, if some images found on the Internet and supplied to Engadget are the real deal.
As the above image shows, Dell has designed a workstation that looks like it borrowed some touches from sister company Alienware’s gaming PCs — a healthy dollop of red accents and some streamlined styling. It may not qualify as looking full-out “sexy,” but for a corporate machine, it’s about as close as it gets.
The image are apparently updates to Dell’s Precision family, which are its line of performance-oriented workstations. Engadget speculates that the presumed T3600, T5600, and T7600 refreshes would be prime candidates for Intel’s forthcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs, but there’s no word from Dell about specs or designs or anything related to new Precisions. However, the potential new look would go along with the company’s conversion to sleek design evidenced by its Streak and Venue Pro mobile devices.

By Sean Portnoy - ZDNet

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Google and its Chrome OS users

Google isn’t telling me any secrets about its plans for Chrome OS. Indeed, I’m not even one of the 60,000 or so people that Google has given a Cr-48 Chromebook prototype to play with. Even so, unlike my good friend Mary Jo Foley, I think I know exactly who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS Linux desktop system.
I see Google as targeting two different, very different, audiences with Chrome OS. The first group are office workers. The other is those hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion plus, users who really don’t know the first thing about to use a computer safely even as they use them every day.
In this set-up, a company would pay Google a fee, just as some do now for Google Apps for Business. In return, the company gets the 21st century version of a thin-client desktop.This is an idea that goes all the way back to terminals to mainframe computers. While PCs put this idea into a niche market for decades now, some CIOs and administrators still yearn for it. The reasons for this are quite simple: It puts IT back in charge of the office desktop.The security is set-up from a central control, the management decides what applications users will run and so on. This idea comes back over and over and… well you get the idea. If you’ve been in IT for a while, you’ve seen this notion from Oracle as network computers; and from who knows how many vendors as the diskless workstation or as thin-clients.In the past, it’s never taken off for several reasons. From an IT standpoint, one of the big problems has always been that the server proved to be a single point-of-failure. Google will try to get around this by using its cloud services in place of a server.Users, of course, given a choice between a PC, where they get to set up the wall-paper just so, add their favorite application and a smart-terminal where they have no control over the system always went for PCs. Chrome OS will give users more control over their environment than some earlier thin-client approaches. Whether that will be enough to make users happy is another matter.The other audience is Jason Perlow’s grandpa. There are hundreds of millions of users just like him and not all of them are old. They have no more clue about to use a computer safely than I know how to land a 747. If you read ZDNet regularly, you may not realize just how many people there are like that who think that their computer is a magic box. Forget about knowing the difference between Windows and Linux, they can’t tell the difference between the Web browser and the operating system. That’s where Google Chrome OS comes in.
With Chrome OS the operating system and the browser really are one. If they can use a Web browser, and almost anyone can do that these days, they’ll be able to use Chrome OS.More to the point, as Perlow pointed out, Chrome OS is “totally maintenance free, all the apps and the data are cloud driven, and you can’t break the OS even if you try.” Well actually you can but it’s beyond the ability of most tech illiterates. Chrome OS also uses a sandbox security system that goes a long way towards making sure that no matter what an idiot user clicks on he or she can’t install malware or otherwise get into trouble.Put it all together and you have a Linux-based operating system that’s ideal for either office-workers or people who need a computer but don’t know the first thing about how to use one safely. Is that you? Probably not. It’s certainly not me. But, it does describe hundreds-of-millions of users. For them, Chrome may be all the operating system they’ll ever need.
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - ZDNet

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Hacks and the Linux-Free PS3

It's not clear why Linux fans would even want to run it on a PS3, "when a console is NOTHING but 'DRM... in a box'" says Slashdot blogger hairyfeet. "Even when [Sony] allowed Linux you didn't get access to the full machine -- no GPU access -- which left it an underpowered POWER based PC."
"Never get between a geek and a processor" would be an excellent maxim for tech companies to live by, but it's one that gets ignored again and again.
Take Sony's (NYSE: SNE) latest misguided move. Not only is it what inspired Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack to utter those sage words, but it's also what has now prompted George Hotz -- author of the original hack into the PS3 -- to vow he'll craft yet another hack to get around its latest firmware update.
"A note to people interested in the exploit and retaining OtherOS support, DO NOT UPDATE," Hotz wrote in a follow-up post last week. "I will look into a safe way of updating to retain OtherOS support, perhaps something like Hellcat's Recovery Flasher."
Apparently addressing Sony, Hotz added, "I never intended to touch CFW, but if that's how you want to play... "
In the meantime, "my investigation into 3.21 has begun," he wrote.
'This Has Me Seeing Red'
Indeed, the more-or-less forced Thursday update has sparked an ire whose equal has not been seen in a long, long time.
"This really has me seeing red," wrote Anonymous Coward among the 700-plus comments on Slashdot, for example. "I realize Sony is a business and they are simply trying to protect their rights. But this is removing functionality I paid for and own.
"They are taking away something that belongs to me," Anonymous Coward added. "I am really pissed that they couldn't figure out a better way to thwart hackers."
Similar sentiments could be heard all over Linux Devices, as well as on Digg, on SlashGear and on LXer, among many others.
Determined to dig deeper, Linux Girl conducted a small poll at the blogosphere's once-thriving Other OS Saloon.
'Sure to Attract the Ire of All'
"I've been following this story with some interest, as Sony is one of my favorite companies to hate," Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza began. "Since the CD rootkit debacle, Sony has been on every hacker's mind."
With the Linux install option, "Sony successfully increased the cachet of the PS3 among the geek set," Espinoza noted. "Its removal is sure to attract the ire of all.
"Even cluster managers will in some cases be sorry to see this come to pass," he added. "Though they do not need firmware updates for game support, those same firmware updates have ramifications for system stability."
It's not even clear the move is a legal one, Espinoza told LinuxInsider.
"Eliminating functionality of the online service would be one thing, but altering the console itself eliminates functionality that may have swayed the purchaser's decision," he pointed out.
'It Was Always Running in a Hypervisor'
The move is disappointing, Slashdot blogger David Masover agreed. "Then again, it was always running in a hypervisor, always deliberately crippled to some extent in the name of preventing piracy -- or independent game manufacturers who don't want to pay Sony's licensing fees.
"I took one look at the PS3, read 'hypervisor,' and decided not to buy one," Masover recalled.
In fact, "I don't know that anyone who bought such a tightly controlled device in the first place deserves anything other than a hearty 'I told you so,'" Masover concluded. "Same goes for anyone with an iPhone, by the way."
'DRM in a Box'
"What did everybody expect?" Slashdot blogger hairyfeet agreed.
"While I have avoided Sony products since the rootkit fiasco, in this case I can understand their position," he told LinuxInsider. "They allow a way to run Linux on the PS3 and what happens? Some script kiddie hacker cooks up a way to compromise the hypervisor by using Linux."
It's also not clear why Linux fans would even want to run the OS on a console, "when a console is NOTHING but 'DRM... in a box'" hairyfeet pointed out. "Even when they allowed Linux you didn't get access to the full machine -- no GPU access -- which left it an underpowered POWER based PC."
It's possible Sony only implemented the Linux install option "to keep hobbyists from wanting to break their DRM," Mack suggested. "Now that the option is gone, expect more holes to be punched in their DRM."
'Off-Target Since Day One'
The situation "reminds me of the old adage, 'The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away'," said Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site.
"The big print was, 'Price Cut on PS3'; the fine print was, 'and so were the features,'" she explained.
The marketing of the PS3 has been "off-target since day one," Hudson told LinuxInsider.
"Hugely overpriced at the beginning, Sony was always playing catch-up," she said. "Paying a (US)$100 premium so you can get a game console that also doubles as a noisy, heat-generating Blu-ray player doesn't cut it now that quieter, much more energy-efficient Blu-ray players are hitting the $100 price point."
Cutting features, then, "is the last thing they should want to do," she added. "Then again, it's not the first such move -- they also removed PS1 and PS2 compatibility, presumably not just to cut chip counts and cost, but to force consumers to buy new games."
'Penalizing Loyalty'
The real issue, of course, is whether the move will affect sales, Hudson pointed out.
"When I went shopping for a game console, it was a toss between a PS3 or a Wii," she recounted. "After trying my daughter's Wii, there was no way I was going to buy a PS3. Sony needs to focus on planning to make their next-generation product more attractive to everyone, or they'll never catch up."
Toward that end, there are a few lessons the company could learn from Nintendo, Hudson suggested:
1. "Lose the hard drive."
2. "Cut the energy bill. The PS3 uses 180 watts to play a Blu-Ray movie, while standalone players use less than 20 watts."
3. "Don't toss out backwards compatibility -- you're penalizing loyalty."
4. "Better controllers."
5. "Lose the 'hard-core-gamer, boyz-in-basements' sexist image."
In the meantime? "If you want to use GNU/Linux on some gadget, buy it from someone else," blogger Robert Pogson recommended. "That will make Sony and you both happy."

By Katherine Noyes
LinuxInsider
Part of the ECT News Network

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PO'ed PS3 User Sues Sony for Nixing Linux

When the PlayStation 3 originally went to market more than three years ago, users had the option of installing an alternate OS, like Linux, if they so chose. Lately, however, Sony decided to dump that feature on grounds that it enabled piracy. Now Anthony Ventura, a user from California, has launched a proposed class-action suit against Sony alleging deceptive business practices.
Less than a month after Sony (NYSE: SNE) dropped Linux support from its PlayStation 3  gaming console, a disgruntled customer has filed a lawsuit, charging that the move was a deceptive business practice. He's seeking class-action status.
Sony Computer Entertainment America's disablement of the "Install Other OS" feature was "not only a breach of the sales contract between Sony and its customers and a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing," but also "an unfair and deceptive business practice perpetrated on millions of unsuspecting customers," according to the suit, filed Tuesday by Anthony Ventura of California.
Filed on behalf of users nationwide in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit seeks damages of more than US$5 million, including compensatory damages, restitution, injunctive relief, attorneys' fees and the cost of the suit.
'An Inferior Product'
When the PlayStation3 was launched in North America in late 2006, Sony used the "Install Other OS" feature to distinguish the relatively expensive device from competitors, the suit charges, citing numerous statements by company executives and on the PlayStation website to that effect.
The feature, which was eliminated in newer PS3 "slim" models, allowed users to install Linux or other compatible operating systems on the console, effectively transforming it into a PC.
Ventura himself "chose to purchase a PS3, as opposed to an Xbox or a Wii, because it offered the Other OS feature," the filings note.
While Sony said security concerns prompted its move, Ventura disputes that assertion. Rather, the filings charge, it "reflected Sony's concerns that the Other OS feature might be used by 'hackers' to copy and/or steal gaming or other content."
In short, "Sony is effectively downgrading PS3s already sold," the suit asserts. "After April 1, it is an inferior product."
BBB, FTC Complaints
Ventura also filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission; the BBB has since forwarded the case to Sony for response.
Sony, for its part, declined to provide comment at this point.
"We do not discuss pending litigation," Julie Han, a spokesperson for Sony Computer Entertainment America, told LinuxInsider.
Refunds and Workarounds
Shortly after Sony disabled the Other OS feature, reports emerged that Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) gave at least one European consumer a 20 percent refund on a PS3 without requiring that the device be returned.
Not long afterwards, however, Sony said it would not sanction such refunds.
Notable hacker George Hotz, meanwhile -- blamed by many for Sony's decision to disable the feature in the first place -- has promised to develop custom firmware that gets around the problem.
Sony's EULA
"We all knew that a class-action suit was going to happen," Pietro Macchiarella, a research analyst with Parks Associates, told LinuxInsider. "I am sure that Sony knew as well, and I think that they took it into account when removing Linux."
In fact, "the cost of litigation and, potentially, damage compensation might still be lower than the cost of increased piracy, allegedly made possible by Linux functionalities," Macchiarella suggested. "I guess that the net benefit will depend on how effective removing Linux is in fighting piracy on the PS3. Some people have expressed doubts that this will stop hackers from finding their way into the PS3."
Sony's end-user license agreement (EULA) does state that "'(...) automatic updates or upgrades (...) may change your current operating system, cause a loss of data or content or cause a loss of functionalities or utilities,'" he pointed out. "I guess that removing Linux would count as a loss of functionality. On the other hand, I wonder how strong a EULA is from a legal point of view, since it is accepted by users only after purchase."
Potentially Widespread Consequences
Either way, "it will be interesting to see who prevails in this lawsuit," Macchiarella concluded.
Considering the growing numbers of connected devices in homes today, "this lawsuit might have consequences beyond this specific case," he added. "Blu-ray players, TVs, etc., will increasingly have regular firmware upgrades over the Internet. Cases like this might happen again for other types of devices."
Gamers as a group "don't like their mojo interrupted, especially gamers that love open source," Raymond Van Dyke, a technology lawyer in Washington, D.C., told LinuxInsider. "Sony's great PS3 system, having considerable horsepower, also has a lot of bells and whistles to accommodate their tech-savvy customer base."
'Questions of Damages and Actual Harm'
Still, "protection of the underlying code is a grave concern to a high-end gaming company, and walling off an avenue of intruder entry seems a logical course of action," Van Dyke noted. "Companies are allowed to update their products and work to prevent harm to consumers, as well as the company's good name."
They do, however, also "need to be mindful that some customers will become irate if desired product functionalities are removed from their purchased system," he added.
Looking ahead, "it is unclear if the class action will be instituted," Van Dyke concluded. "Questions of damages and actual harm will predominate at the court arguments to come."

By Katherine Noyes
LinuxInsider
Part of the ECT News Network

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Switching from PC to Mac and back

We live in a cross-platform world. Windows-powered PCs still dominate in the workplace, but Macs have captured substantial market share and even greater mind share among the affluent and well connected.
As I explained two weeks ago, I’m running a PC and a Mac side by side as part of a long-term commitment to developing more expertise in Apple’s platform and, along the way, helping my readers bridge the Mac-PC gap more smoothly.
So far, it’s been a mostly delightful, if occasionally challenging experience. Although I’ve owned a Mac for several years, I’ve probably used this one more in the past two weeks than I have in the past six months combined. In this post, I’ll share three of the lessons I’ve learned from switching between platforms, including insights about old habits, new hardware, and the joys of cross-platform software and services.
The software that has made this setup possible for me is an open-source package called Synergy, which allows two or more computers (running Windows, OS X, or Linux) to share a single keyboard and mouse. I finally broke down and spent some quality RTFM time with the program’s documentation, a process that gave me a series of small headaches but solved a few bigger ones.
The Synergy software has an unfortunate interaction with Internet Explorer. When Synergy is running, it causes the New Tab button in Internet Explorer to stop working in some circumstances and can even temporarily freeze IE. I first encountered these symptoms a week or so ago and I assumed it was a bug in Internet Explorer 9, but the problems persisted even after I uninstalled the IE9 beta and went back to IE8 on Windows 7.

After much troubleshooting, including resetting IE to its default configuration and uninstalling every add-on, I finally concluded that the Synergy software was to blame. This Stack Overflow thread confirmed that I’m not the only person experiencing this issue, and it also offered what appears so far to be an effective workaround—running Synergy as a standard user rather than as a system service.
I’ve made a conscious effort to spend roughly half my time in each OS over the past two weeks, a task made easier now that Office 2011 for Mac is finally released and available through TechNet.
Overall, I find more similarities than differences between PCs and Macs these days. Both Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard are mature, highly usable operating systems with an ample selection of quality third-party software and hardware to choose from. Aside from a few PC-only features like Blu-ray playback and built-in support for TV tuner hardware, I haven’t found any task that I can’t accomplish on either platform. The difference is the degree of difficulty, which varies depending on your experience and personal preferences.
I suspect a lot of my readers can relate to what I’m trying to do here. If you use Windows at the office and a Mac at home, you know what I’m talking about. If you have a desktop PC running Windows 7 and a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air running OS X, you’ve probably run into some of the same issues I have.
On the next three pages, I call out the three biggest lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Page 2: The keyboard is the biggest pain point. Nagging inconsistencies in basic keyboard operation have been, without question, my greatest source of frustration as I’ve switched between PCs and Macs. It’s a little like learning a new language.
Page 3: Cross-platform tools and services are a blessing. It helps immensely to have some tools that look and act the same in both places. Here are some of the tools I’ve found indispensable so far.
Page 4: Hardware matters. There’s no question that a Mac is easier to maintain than an equivalent PC. But a lot of that simplicity comes as a direct result of a lack of choices. Here’s how I’m resolving those trade-offs.

By Ed Bott

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Could Wikileaks cause World War III

It’s a simple, one syllable word. If you think about it, trust is all that stands between us and terrible circumstance, whether that’s the breakup of a family or total, nuclear Armageddon.
Trust is vitally important to the operations of nations and governments, as well. Not everyone, for example, is entrusted with America’s nuclear codes. Not everyone is entrusted with the command of virtually independent nuclear ballistic missile submarines. And not everyone is entrusted with secret government documents.
For many things, trust has to be selective. It’s not a good idea, as an example, to put controlling nuclear weapons on the honor system. My friends worry enough when I get around a good fireworks store or wax poetic about plasma torches — they wouldn’t feel comfortable if I had nukes.
Yet, we have to trust some people. It’s not possible to do everything yourself. Working parents must trust someone to watch their newborn. Bosses who can’t do everything themselves, or be in multiple places at once must put some trust in their employees.
Because the United States is a large nation with many interests all over the world, our military and diplomatic leadership must put some trust into the lower-level men and women who move and analyze tremendous amounts of information the world over. Even if they’re only 22.
And so it came to be that the great nation of the United States of America entrusted Bradley Manning — a young Private First Class of the U.S. 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, a former school dropout and pizza greeter — with handling message traffic considered confidential and not for foreign eyes.
While most American soldiers are more than worthy of our trust, respect, and thanks, young Bradley was not. Manning, without any formal training or education in geopolitical affairs, without the ability to see all the national security ramifications, and without the ability to understand (or possibly even care) about the lives that would inevitably be lost, took it upon himself to betray the sacred trust granted him by the United States military.
There are always people willing to take advantage of naive young people in positions of trust.  So it came to pass that Manning’s betrayal had an outlet, in the person of an ambitious foreign narcissist named Julian Assange, a man so amoral he tried to blackmail Amnesty International.
But naivety and audience can’t act alone.
There must also be opportunity.  Beyond the need to entrust our diplomatic security to 22-year-old dropouts — we have another serious security flaw. We allow removable media, iPods, smartphones, and thumb drives behind the firewall.
I have been banging on this drum for years now. Over and over, I have told politicians, military leaders, homeland security professionals*, and the American people that these tiny handheld devices pose a tremendous security risk.
For a while, it seemed like the Pentagon, at least, was going to take some action. They put a ban on USB drives in the military. But then, after only a year, they substantially reduced the ban’s effectiveness.
I’m telling you this because, according to The Guardian, Manning stole more than 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables (all of 1.6 gigabytes of data) by smuggling a thumb drive and a re-writable CD labeled “Lady Gaga” into work, filled them, and then forwarded them to a waiting Assange.
While it’s not clear whether or not Manning’s betrayal could have been prevented by better security procedures, it certainly could have been made more difficult. Even so, now we’re left with the fallout.
I’m not going to recount the sordid details of what was contained in those not-for-foreign-eyes diplomatic cables. First, I don’t believe they should be public and, second, many other publications, including The New York Times, are publishing the leaks.
I’m also not going to tell you that nothing contained in those cables was disturbing. Instead, I’ll tell you why we (and every other nation) keep some information to ourselves, or release information only in carefully controlled circumstances.
International diplomacy is a precise dance.
Although some nations are vastly larger and vastly wealthier than others, it is a facade of diplomatic protocol that all nations and all leaders are treated as equals — at least in public. Many nations (and the U.S., in particular) maintain protocol offices to make sure that every diplomatic interaction goes according to plan, stays on message, and doesn’t offend (unless, of course, it’s time to not be nice).
Internal national politics, on the other hand, is a gutter fight.
Nations must communicate with other nations according to an established protocol, but the leaders who make that national policy must always answer to their constituents. If the leaders can’t seem to maintain an upper hand, can’t demand respect, and aren’t seen to be getting things done, those leaders are usually replaced.
The challenge is that diplomacy is always a give-and-take sort of thing. When nations bargain with other nations, sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes there’s horse-trading, and sometimes there’s pressure to be applied. Whenever two leaders negotiate, each wants to come back to his or her country and brag about how he won the negotiation. Neither wants to lose face.
As we all know, people will do incredibly idiotic things to protect their honor. So will leaders.
I’ve written previously about how the documents leaked by Wikileaks could cause people to die. Wikileaks hasn’t redacted the information about confidential informants, and it’s likely that these informants — in large numbers — will be executed by their factions over the coming weeks and months.
That’s bad enough. But many national leaders would prefer to project bravado, send people to war, and engage in years-long conflicts with other nations rather than lose face or admit a mistake.
Here is where the Wikileaks risk is extreme. Manning and Assange “outed” confidential negotiations (and, yes, pressure) about nuclear defense issues. They “outed” defensive tactics America was taking against cyberwarfare advances by certain other nations. They “outed” the procedures we’re going through to find “homes” for Guantanamo prisoners. They “outed” discussions about protecting Americans from terrorists.
Each of these disclosures will likely cause leaders to do damage control. Because diplomacy always involves more than one player, the damage control will be different from nation to nation. Nations that were in some level of agreement (whether coerced or not) will now find that, for political reasons, they must agree to not agree.
For some nations, the fact that this information is now public will prevent them from being able to compromise. For some nations, the fact that this information is now public will prevent them from being able to trust.
If you think about it, trust can be all that stands between us and terrible circumstance, whether that’s the breakup of a family or total, nuclear Armageddon.

By David Gewirtz

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