Computer worm targeting Iranian

April 16, 2011, Saturday where a computer worm targeting Iranian nuclear facilities could have caused accidents in Iran. A computer worm, Stuxnet, was first appear in September which sends centrifuges-used in nuclear fuel production which spins out of control.

The code was suspiciously came from the laptop of an employee of the said nuclear plant. Gholam Reza Jalali, head of military unit who is in-charge of combatting sabotage,said Iranian experts have determined that the US and Israel were behind Stuxnet.

Jalali said Iranian experts have traced the Stuxnet virus back to the U.S. state of Texas and Israel, IRNA reported. Western experts say only a number of powerful countries could have developed Stuxnet.

Jalali also blamed the German engineering conglomerate Siemens, whose equipment and software is used at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, where technical issues have halted its planned startup.

"Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the codes of the SCADA software for a cyber attack against us."

Courtesy of xfinity.

iPhone 5 Features

The iPhone 5 quickly approaching this June, the typical launch window for next-generation iPhones. Will the iPhone 5 have a completely new design or just be a slightly modified version of the iPhone 4 with enhanced parts and various tweaks? Is it in lower-cost iPhone?All is unknown.

The next iPhone’s specs and features

The most recent assumption is that because Apple’s camera supplier, OmniVision, has just released a new 12.6 megapixel sensor with full HD video recording capabilities that we’ll see this built-in to the iPhone 5. However, Sony’s CEO is quoted to have said that his company will be supplying an 8 megapixel sensor. So, maybe we’ll have an 8 megapixel iPhone 5, and next year’s model could be the 12 megapixel model.

It’s widely assumed that the dual-core custom A5 processor found in the iPad 2 will make its way to the iPhone. This is probably the only rumor that can be taken as guaranteed. Last year the iPad’s A4 made its way across, and so I expect the A5 to do the same. The phone will be faster, and will offer even better gaming experience.

Storage could be available in 3 flavors: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB to match the iPad range. A leaked video showed up not long ago of a prototype iPhone 4 with a 64GB storage capacity. Not only could we expect a higher storage, but a boosted memory to go with it. I still wouldn’t complain if it kept the same 512MB of RAM found in the current model.

This year could also be the year we see Apple stray from its usual 3.5″ screen. Back when the first iPhone was launched this was plenty of real estate, but compared to its main rivals it’s starting to look a little insignificant. Expect a minimum 3.7″ possibly 4″ edge-to-edge display on the next model. A “source” at Foxconn apparently spotted the iPhone 4 and claimed it had a 4″ screen, no photos have been leaked to add any weight to this alleged spotting.

thank's to TiP.

How true Amazon steals Android from Google?

I have been watching Amazon's recent moves involving Android with great fascination. Two weeks ago, it launched the Amazon Appstore that focuses on Android apps, and last week it announced a cloud-based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has its own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing a more structured store to Android with room for users comments and reviews—a key step to vetting the apps it carries.

This is a very strategic move by Amazon, and it could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google's approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that the OEMs who license Android are increasingly frustrated with Google's lack of discipline in laying out a consistent roadmap for Android that they can follow.

At first, Google said it would have one version of Android for smartphones and another for tablets. Now it says that it will merge both versions into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TVs in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices with up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7 inches but less then 11 inches.

Part of the problem with Google's Android strategy is that it thinks Android needs to be open source. This means that Google creates the core source code and then vendors who use it can customize it to deliver various forms of differentiation. While that is great in concept, what it has led to is various levels of fragmentation within Android devices, apps, and even services. Interestingly, Google's main goal with Android is to get it on as many devices as possible and to use it as a medium to deliver Google search and advertisments to millions of users around the world. As I understand it, it has an annual goal to bring in $10.00 of ARPU (average revenue per unit) annually by the end of 2012. If it could get Android on 1 billion smartphones, tablets, TVs, car navigation systems, etc, that could mean as much as $10 billion annually to its bottom line sometime in the future (if it achieves this level of success).

But since Google is an engineering driven company, the focus has always been about delivering an OS that meets the goals I mentioned, not necessarily to create a structured OS with strict guidelines and enforce rigid practices to deliver a constant user experience between devices. It has pushed this open source model for Android from the beginning, and now it's coming back to bite Google in the form of serious fragmentation, as well as causing continual frustration and angry feedback from the licensees.

There are reasons why Apple and Microsoft's OSs are extremely successful and why Linux has struggled to gain any market share beyond its use in servers and controllers. Apple has total control of its OS, UI, and, in its case, standardization of certain connectors that are part of its IP. That means that all hardware and software developers must subscribe to Apple's strict rules and SDK structure in order for their products to work on Mac OS X and iOS. This control makes sure users' experiences on Apple products are consistent.

By Tim Bajarin

Courtesy of PC-MAG