McAfee Releases Security Option For VMware

McAfee has released anti-virus software that improves the effectiveness of keeping AV signatures up to date on VMware virtual environments.

The AV option, introduced Wednesday, integrates with the VMware vShield Endpoint product, which makes it possible to run the virus detector on a separate virtual machine. The architecture avoids having to delay updating signatures when VMs are down. Software-running VMs are often taken offline to save computer resources when applications are not in use.

The VMware option does not need an agent on a VM to protect an application, Rishi Bhargava, senior director of product management, for Intel-owned McAfee, said. Instead, the AV software takes a snapshot of the application and then watches for any changes to the original that would indicate malware.

McAfee's AV options for other virtual environments, such as those from Citrix Systems and Microsoft, require the use of a more resource-intensive agent, Bhargava said. Unlike the other vendors, VMware has released technology to support an agent-less AV product.

The latest AV software is managed through McAfee's software console, called ePolicy Orchestrator, which can support multiple virtual environments at the same time. "We have made sure that it is a very, very seamless deployment option," Bhargava said of the new software.

McAfee AV applications are called the Management Optimized Virtual Environment AntiVirus for virtual desktops and servers. The product is available through channel partners.

LG Mobile: Our 'thinking' phone will outsmart the competition

For LG, the key to mobile dominance has nothing to do with nice-looking devices, and everything to do with future-thinking ideas.

Speaking today to Korea's iNews24, LG Mobile Managing Director Kwon Bong-suk said that his company is currently in the preparation phase of developing a "thinking smartphone" that LG believes could put the company over the top and cause apparently dumb devices to lose out.

The mobile chief didn't provide too many details on how the device would act, but did say that it could, for example, adjust its built-in alarm clock based on external factors. So if a person has the alarm clock set for 6 a.m., but the thinking phone realizes there's heavy traffic on the route to work, it might wake the person up at 5:30 a.m. instead.

Whether customers would actually want a thinking smartphone, however, is not immediately apparent. On one hand, a thinking device might make lives easier. But what if the user doesn't mind waking up at 6 a.m. and being a little late? Perhaps more importantly, how can the thinking function be modified to react to the user's desire? It also should be interesting to see if LG will allow the device to learn from users over time.

Regardless, LG's desire to make a mark in the mobile space is becoming increasingly apparent. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the company mad a major mark, unveiling a host of smartphones -- including additions to its somewhat popular Optimus line -- that it plans to pit against Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line.

A key ingredient in taking on other Android vendors is getting access to Google's "Nexus" branding. At Mobile World Congress, LG's smartphone division head, Ramchan Woo, told CNET that his company is currently "having discussions" with the search company to be a Nexus vendor.

Kwon didn't say when LG's thinking smartphone might launch. But considering the company is still considering its options, don't expect it anytime soon.

(Via The Verge)

Google's Android tablet won't arrive until July, report says

Add another one to the growing list of rumors surrounding a Google-branded tablet.

The Verge today is reporting, citing sources, that Google has decided to delay the launch of its tablet until July "at the earliest." The Verge's sources say that the device was slated to launch in May, but the search company decided to push it back to improve its design. Google also wants to try to lower the tablet's current price point of $249.

Google has been rumored to be working on a tablet for months now. According to The Verge, the device will, in fact, be a co-branded offering coming from both Google and Asus. Upon launch, consumers will find the long-rumored 7-inch display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and Wi-Fi connectivity, according to the blog's sources.

Those claims from The Verge's sources are the latest in a long line of reports surrounding the Google tablet. Last month, Androidenthusiast site Android and Me reported thatthe tablet was a "done deal," and would retail for between $149 and $199. Just a couple of weeks later, the Wall Street Journal said that the tablet would be sold exclusively through Google's online stores.

Regardless of when it launches and how, it's clear that the tablet -- if it ever hits the market -- is designed to take on Amazon's Kindle Fire. That tablet, which retails for just $199, comes with the same 7-inch display and Wi-Fi-only connectivity. And according to some reports that have pegged its fourth-quarter sales at 5 million units, it has proven quite successful.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.

Owncloud Takes Open Source Storage Sharing to the Enterprise

The open source ownCloud file sync and sharing project is moving into the commercial space with the release of new Business and Enterprise editions this week. The Business and Enterprise Editions build on the ownCloud 3.0 release that debuted in February.

The new editions provide additional management capabilities and commercial support. What ownCloud is essentially doing is providing an open source alternative to Dropbox that is now more integrated with enterprise systems.

"Dropbox created a market for something we didn't really know that we needed, but now that it's out there, it's hard to be without it," Markus Rex, CEO of ownCloud told InternetNews.com. "We want to make sure that everyone has the same ability while still being able to maintain their own requirements and corporate needs."

The ownCloud business edition is intended for use for up to 50 users while ownCloud Enterprise can handle up to 250 users and be rebranded by OEMs. Both editions will be delivering new management capabilities over the open source version in incremental stages. The initial commercial release includes new clients for end users. A new management interface is set to be released six weeks from now that will provide a full GUI for managing ownCloud deployments.

Security is key concern when it comes to storage. Rex noted that ownCloud now has full logging capabilities and a log analyzer. The upcoming management panel will expand the logging with additional visualization capabilities. Full integration with LDAP and ActiveDirectory is another key component of the commercial release.

"There is not a single conversation we have where security does not come up," Rex said. "Since ownCloud sits in your own data center, it is protected at the same level as your data center as a whole."

For those using the community edition of ownCloud, Rex emphasized that migration to the commercial release isn't hard. He explained that fundamentally, the commercial release is an update to the community edition. As such, all an enterprise must do is install the update and then the commercial edition just runs.

The ownCloud community and commercial releases will remain linked together with updates to the commercial packages within two months of a new community release. The next major ownCloud release is set for the end of April. It will have full versioning capabilities for file sync and sharing.

HP Chairman Lane Says HP Will Look More Often to Startups for Innovation

In a rare personal appearance before an outside-Hewlett-Packard audience, Executive Chairman Ray Lane on April 3 addressed a conference consisting of several-dozen entrepreneurs, analysts and journalists about the current state of the company, among other topics.

Lane, 64, a former president of Oracle and executive at IBM, offered some perspectives on several topics, including new CEO Meg Whitman, former CEO Leo Apotheker and high-level strategies the company will take in the future.

Lane spoke at AlwaysOn Network's OnDemand 2012, which was held at HP's soon-to-be-demolished Executive Business Center (EBC). This was one of the last events to be held at the EBC before new property owner Apple tears down the 1960s-era campus and builds its new dream headquarters starting this fall.

When queried by conference host and AO Network CEO Tony Perkins, Lane(pictured) opted not to go into detail about the short but controversial 11-month tenure of CEO Leo Apotheker, who was replaced last September by former eBay CEO and 2010 California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who was already on the HP board of directors.

Calls Apotheker 'A Great Leader'

"I'd rather not comment on that. I respect Leo. I've known him for 20 years. I think he's a great leader. But Silicon Valley is a fast-moving environment, and it just wasn't a fit," Lane said.

Apotheker, who came to HP from German enterprise software maker SAP with great fanfare in September 2010, was fired because of "his poor execution and a lack of leadership," a source told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

On Apotheker's watch, HP announced it was going to either shutter, sell or spin off its $40 billion-per-year Personal Systems Group that makes laptops, desktop and mobile computers; kill its webOS hardware division that made smartphones and tablets; and cut back the webOS software group drastically. The PSG decision has since been rescinded.

Lane, who came to HP's board shortly after Apotheker arrived in 2010, was a key factor in bringing Whitman to the board in January 2011, two months after she lost the election for California governor to former Gov. Jerry Brown.

"I provoked her [Whitman] into doing this [CEO job], and I'm so glad we did. She's a great leader," Lane said. "When she came in, she said, 'Would you help me?' I said, 'What does that mean? I am here to help you.' She said, 'No, I need you to take a slice of time and help me, because you know a lot about software and services. You know the enterprise better than I know the enterprise. It seems like it could be a good team.'

"I talked to my partners [at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers] and they didn't like the idea, but I said, 'You know what, this is a really good idea. I will do whatever will support Meg.' Whether it's 10 percent or 30 percent of my time—I gave her a cap. I said I'll do anything you ask me to do, but I'll also provide some advice you didn't ask for as well. And I think it's worked out well."

Regarding a high-level view of HP's strategy, Lane said the future direction of any company should be laid out by its CEO.

"Meg has done that in bits and pieces. At the [recent] shareholder meeting, she laid out quite a comprehensive plan at a very high level, and during 2012, she will do more of this," Lane said. "She basically will be taking this to the right communities—the shareholders, the analysts.  She should be doing this; I don't think I should be doing it.

"I'm not going to front-run her; that would be a poor thing to do for a partner."

Why HP Will Look More to Outside for Innovation

Regarding future product and services innovation, Lane said that the company would be looking more often to the entrepreneurial community for ideas and guidance in 2012 and in the years to come.

"Big companies, by and large, don't keep their ear to the ground as well as they should," Lane said. "They think they do. This happens in all industries. Innovation doesn't happen at GM, for instance. They're not listening to all the innovation in the supply chain; that's where it all happens. They're thinking about the car of the future without talking to the suppliers who know how to build the car of the future.

"There is a big community of startups here in the valley that want to talk to HP. They want to have a dialog, and they aren't afraid of HP stealing its IP. The marriage of great technology that's protected by IP and the velocity at which a startup moves, combined with the scale that HP can provide, is something that we are trying to be better at."

In the past, conversations and possible partnerships like these tended to get lost in the bureaucracy of HP, Lane said. "You can't take away the scale of HP. It's 320,000 employees and $130 billion in revenue," Lane said. Not to mention more than 100,000 contractors and business partners.

"A year from now, I'd like some feedback. We'll never be the company that, if you hit the ball at us, we'll hit it right back at you. We're too big. But we should be responsive, we should determine if new technology fits, and is it synergistic with what we're trying to do," Lane said.

"One thing I will tell you: We're not going to try and do everything. We're not going to try and cover the landscape. We're going to work through younger companies, smaller companies. [That] is going to be a better way of operating."

A Few Notes on the HP Campus Move

Apple bought HP's 98-acre Cupertino campus in November 2010 for about $300 million. It is located directly north of the current 35-acre Apple campus; the two sites are divided by State Highway 280 and are only a few miles west of San Jose, Calif.

HP, which is building a new EBC on its original Palo Alto campus about 8 miles away, will vacate the Cupertino location, which has housed not only the EBC but also part of the company's personal computer division and other research and development groups. 

Samsung's new microSD cards to offer fast speeds for LTE devices

Samsung is mass-producing a new series of microSD cards that it says are four times faster than the current generation.

Available in a 16GB version, the new UHS-1 microSD card will offer a maximum read speed of 80MB per second, according to Samsung's internal testings. That will provide a significant bump over today's advanced microSD cards with speeds of around 21MB per second.

In tech terms, the cards are made up of Samsung's 20 nanometer-class 64 gigabit toggle DDR 2.0 devices and use a Samsung controller that supports the ultra fast UHS-1 interface.

"MicroSD cards with a UHS-1 interface offer users an extremely high level of performance on their LTE smartphones and for other advanced mobile applications," Wanhoon Hong, Samsung's executive vice president for memory sales and marketing, said in a statement. "This allows consumers to enjoy high-quality images and video playback directly from the memory cards, which fully support the advanced performance features of diverse digital gadgets."

The new SD cards went into production late last month. Samsung did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment on pricing and release dates.

The company is already aiming to produce future UHS-1 microSD cards with capacities higher than 16GB.

ARM Joint Venture Aims at Mobile Security, Will Rival Intel-McAfee Efforts

ARM Holdings, whose chip designs power almost all smartphones and tablets on the market, is teaming up with two European security companies to create a joint venture to create a common security standard for such mobile devices.

ARM officials announced April 3 that they are teaming up with Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient to create a standard for everything from smartphones and tablets to games consoles and smart televisions. The goal is to bring security closer to the hardware, making the devices more secure and fueling greater innovation around products and services, according to ARM.

ARM’s partnership with Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient mirrors what Intel is looking to do through its $7.68 billion acquisition of security software maker McAfee last year. In announcing the McAfee deal, Intel officials said that traditional security software approaches could not adequately address the billions of new network-connected devices—including PCs, mobile devices, TVs, cars, appliances and medical devices—that were coming onto the market. They argued that such devices needed to bring security closer to the hardware to make it more reliable.

In addition, security increasingly was becoming a key issue among computer users, right up there with energy-efficient performance and connectivity, Intel officials said.

ARM CEO Warren East echoed those sentiments.

"The integration of the hardware, software and services necessary for system-wide security has been slow,” East said in a statement. "I am confident that this new joint venture will accelerate the adoption of a common security standard, enabling a vibrant ecosystem of secure service providers to emerge. This will be a significant step in terms of improved consumer trust in secure transactions on connected devices."

Products from the joint venture will be based on solutions from the three companies and will give manufacturers technology they can use to better secure their devices, according to ARM officials. 

Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient, both of which have been ARM partners, offer security solutions to governments as well as the financial and mobile industries, the companies said. All three will bring technologies, people, equipment and money to the project, with ARM owning 40 percent of it and the other two companies owning 30 percent each.

Ben Cade, vice president and general manager of ARM’s Secure Services Division, will be the CEO of the joint venture. The initiative is subject to regulatory approval, according to the companies.

The new company will create what officials are calling a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) based on ARM’s TrustZone security product. The TEE will use both hardware security technology and industry-standard software interfaces, including interfaces from the GlobalPlatform industry association, the officials said. Devices with a TEE will offer consumers a device that will give them greater sense of security when performing transactions on the Internet, such as making mobile payments, banking and running work applications, they said.

"ARM integrates its TrustZone architecture into every ARM Cortex-A family processor to help our silicon partners deliver the deepest level of security in their hardware,” ARM’s Cade said in a statement. “The new venture will combine the security operations from three leading organizations. This will provide a trusted software environment capable of utilizing security from the hardware level up, in a consistent, open and accessible manner.”

The joint venture is only the latest proof point of the pending competition between Intel and ARM, as each looks to expand their reach into markets now dominated by the other. Intel is looking to become a significant player in the booming mobile computing space, while ARM and its manufacturing partners intend to bring their high-performance, low-power chip technology into PCs andlow-power servers.

Security continues to be a key issue for mobile device users. During the Intel Developer Forum in September 2011, Intel and McAfee introduced DeepSAFE, a hardware-software platform aimed at preventing security and data breaches, block intrusions and stop malicious software from being installed on a device.

With DeepSAFE, the McAfee Endpoint Protection software hooks onto a chip’s security features, providing a deeper security footprint and allowing the software to gain visibility into malware that operates before the operating system, according to Intel. Some of this malware can be difficult to detect.

DeepSAFE was the first indication of how Intel officials plan to incorporate McAfee security capabilities into their processors. In October 2011, McAfee introduced two products based on DeepSAFE: Deep Defender to protect endpoints and Deep Command, an addition to McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator platform that gives security administrators secure remote access to devices.

HP may re-enter tablet market

Hewlett-Packard on Thursday indicated its possible re-entry into the tablet market.

Mr Vinay Chandra Awasthi, Senior Director (Product and Marketing), toldBusiness Line, “We continue to study the tablet market, when we are close to something, we will definitely share the information.”

HP launched its first WebOS powered tablet touchpad on July 1, 2011. Citing disappointing sales, HP announced discontinuation of the TouchPad tablet on August 18, just seven weeks after it hit the market.

On Thursday, HP launched Z1- a 27-inch all-in-one workstation. Priced at Rs 1 lakh, the device comes with a 3-year warranty.

“With this device we are creating a new category space for workstation targeting professionals in media and entertainment industry, architecture, engineering, construction, oil and gas and geographic information system,” said Mr Anurag Gupta, Category Head (Mobility PSG), HP.

The company claims a 53 per cent market share in the workstation space. “It is an approximately 70,000 unit annual market, of which we claim 53 per cent share,” added Mr Gupta.

HP also showcased its new line up of Z workstations – Z820, Z620 and Z420 starting at Rs 50, 000.

Microsoft acquires 20 new Windows security ideas for $13,400 each

Microsoft has received 20 submissions in the $268,000 contest it hopes will result in new security technologies being baked into Windows, a company security strategist said Tuesday.

The "BlueHat Prize" contest, which debuted in August 2011, offers $200,000 as a first prize, $50,000 for second, and a subscription to Microsoft's developer network for third place. The three winners will be flown to Las Vegas this July, when Microsoft will announce the results at the Black Hat security conference.

Microsoft collected 20 entries before the April 1 deadline, said Katie Moussouris, a senior security strategist lead at Microsoft, on a company blog yesterday.

Between now and Black Hat -- which runs July 21-24 -- Microsoft will evaluate the submissions and pick winners, Moussouris said.

BlueHat Prize was not a bug bounty system, where vulnerability experts are rewarded for uncovering specific flaws in software -- but instead was designed to prod researchers to invent novel technologies that would protect Windows from entire classes of memory bugs.

When Microsoft rolled out BlueHat Prize last year, some experts assumed that the company was after a technology or technique to defeat or at least deflect exploits of "return-oriented programming," or ROP vulnerabilities.

ROP bugs can be used by attackers to sidestep current Windows anti-exploit technologies like ASLR, or address space layout randomization.

All submitters -- not just the winners -- will retain intellectual property rights to their work, but must license their technologies to Microsoft on a royalty-free basis. Entries had to provide a prototype 2MB or smaller that ran on Windows and was developed using the Windows SDK (software developer kit).

The licensing provision makes BlueHat Prize an economical way for Microsoft to acquire new security ideas. Even if half of the entries are duplicates or simply not up to snuff, Microsoft could procure 10 technologies or techniques for under $27,000 each, or less than a quarter what Google paid two researchers last month for vulnerabilities and associated exploits in its Chrome browser.

"It's a cheap way to pay someone else to innovate," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, in an interview today.

"Google and others pay for vulnerabilities," added Storms. "Microsoft has never done that. Instead they're pay for innovation. So instead of paying someone to break their stuff, they are paying someone to make it better."

A panel of Microsoft employees from the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), the Windows group and Microsoft's research arm will judge the entries.

In another blog last week, Moussouris said that the quantity and quality of the entries -- up to at that point only 10 -- had "exceeded our expectations."

She did not name the participants, but did say that they included security researchers "with great track records," individuals or teams from academia, and others.

From her account, most contributors worked close to the April 1 deadline: Half of the 20 total submissions were filed in the last nine days of the contest, and one squeezed in under the wire with just nine minutes to spare last Saturday.

In fact, Microsoft rejected a submission that missed the deadline by just eight minutes. Moussouris cited "fairness to the others" as well as Washington State contest rules as the reasons why the company wouldn't bend.

Although there's virtually no chance that anything Microsoft receives from BlueHat Prize could make it into Windows 8 -- this year's upgrade will likely reach the "release to manufacturing" milestone just weeks after the contest winners are revealed -- the company could roll some of the technologies into a Windows 8 service pack next year, Storms said in a 2011 interview when BlueHat Prize debuted.

Microsoft has done something similar in the past: In mid-2004, it revamped Windows XP's security with Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Google patches Chrome for second time in eight days

Google on Thursday patched 12 Chrome vulnerabilities, the second time in eight days that the search company has updated its browser.

Most of the vulnerabilities -- eight of the dozen -- were identified as "use-after-free" bugs, a common type of memory vulnerability that researchers have found in large numbers within Chrome using Google's own Address Sanitizer detection tool.

Seven of the 12 bugs were rated "high," the second-most-serious ranking in Google's scoring system. Four were marked "medium" and one was labeled "low."

Google paid $6,000 in bounties to three researchers for reporting seven of the vulnerabilities. The others were unearthed by Google's own security team or were ineligible for a finder's fee.

One of the latter had been forwarded to Google by HP TippingPoint, which operates the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) bug bounty program. Google does not pay bounties for vulnerabilities submitted to ZDI -- it only rewards researchers who have not been otherwise compensated -- a decision that has created friction between Google and ZDI in the past.

Among those who received checks were Arthur Gerkis and someone who goes by the nickname "miaubiz," two of three researchers who were awarded special $10,000 bonuses a month ago for what Google called "sustained, extraordinary" contributions.

Miaubiz took home $4,500 for his work.

Sergey Glazunov, one of those who pocketed $60,000 at the Pwnium hacking challenge Google sponsored last month, reported two of the 12 vulnerabilities. Neither was significant enough to rate a bounty payment, however.

Google has paid more than $216,000 in bug bounties this year, including $120,000 it distributed during Pwnium.

Thursday's update to Chrome 18 also included a new version of Adobe Flash Player that patched two critical memory corruption vulnerabilities in the Chrome interface. The pair, unique to the Flash Player bundled with the browser, were reported by a Google securityengineer and a team from IBM's X-Force Research group.

According to the advisory that accompanied Thursday's update, Google also fixed several non-security issues, including some related to hardware acceleration, a feature the company switched on in Chrome when version 18 debuted March 28.

Chrome accounted for 18.6% of the browsers used worldwide last month, a decrease of about a third of a percentage point from February, said Internet measurement vendor Net Applications earlier this week. Chrome's usage share has declined three months running, and is down about 3% since the start of the year.

The patched version of Chrome 18 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linuxfrom Google's website. Already installed copies of the browser will be updated automatically by Chrome's silent service.

MacBook-Air style MacBook Pro to launch in April

Apple is said to be ramping up production of a MacBook Air-style MacBook Pro, with a new thinner and lighter 15in model set to launch by mid April.

The new laptops are likely to be powered by the new Intel Ivy Bridgeprocessors, also due for release this month. The launch of the new Apple laptops may have been postponed due to Intel delaying the shipment of its new Ivy Bridge chips.

It is thought that the new 15in MacBook Pro will borrow its styling from the MacBook Air, and as a result the optical drive will be removed and the traditional hard disk drives will be scrapped in favour of SSDs. Switching to an SSD drive, while offering speed increases, may be problematic if customers want more storage space. The SSD on the current flagship MacBook Air is 256GB, while currently the largest hard drive on a 15in MacBook Pro is 750GB.

There may be yet another new MacBook Air-style MacBook in the works. Sources in Apple's supply chain have claimed that Apple is considering a14in MacBook Air. The 14in form factor is apparently popular in the Asian market.

Apple is also said to be working on an update to the 13in MacBook Pro, with a launch date in June expected.

DigiTimes predicts that monthly sales of this new, slimmer, 15in MacBook Pro will hit 200,000 units, while the new 13in MacBook Pro will see sales of 300,000 - 400,000 a month.

Over the past few months there have been many reports from Apple's supply chain that the MacBook would get a refresh this year, with analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray predicting that new MacBook Airs would launch in March (a prediction made prior to the delays in Intel's shipments of the Ivy Bridge processors.)

The MacBook Pro line last received an update last October, with Apple quietly upgrading the processor, graphics and HDDs of several of the MacBook Pro models while keeping the prices the same.

Google Tablet Partnerships Could Take a Bite Out of Apple

Aiming to boost sluggish sales of Android-based tablet devices in the face of Apple’s iPad juggernaut (the latest version sold 3 million units its first weekend), Google may be planning to partner with hardware manufacturers to produce co-branded tablets that would be sold through a special online store, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The company’s recent $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility—approved by the U.S. Justice Department in February, paves the way for Google to start building that technology into its own tablets; however, the article quotes sources saying Google would partner with manufacturers like Samsung and Asus rather than build the tablet itself. Google said the Motorola deal was designed to "super-charge" its Android operating system ecosystem, and the DOJ's ruling concluded the Motorola acquisition and patent purchases would not lessen competition in the mobile market. 

While Apple remains the clear winner in the tablet wars—the company sold 11.1 million iPads in the September quarter, accounting for about three-quarters of all tablets sold to consumers, according to Canaccord Genuity—a recent report from research firm IDC found Android tablets overall made significant gains in the space, expanding its market share from 32.3 percent to 44.6 percent between the third and fourth quarters.

Extending their reach into a co-branded and self-manufactured tablet device running the current version of Android 4.0 (or Ice Cream Sandwich) or the upcoming operating system (code-named Jelly Bean) could give Google traction on those gains.

“The sheer number of vendors shipping low-priced, Android-based tablets means that Google’s OS will overtake Apple’s in terms of worldwide market share by 2015,” Tom Mainelli, IDC’s research director for mobile connected devices, wrote in a March 13 note.

Google’s last major attempt at co-branding a mobile device, the HTC Nexus One, debuted to mixed results in 2010. Google began selling the Nexus One solely online through a Webstore, eschewing the classic phone retail model where carriers invite consumers into their stores to buy handsets. The device, which Google itself designed from top to bottom to stand for what the company wanted in a high-end smartphone, cost $529 unlocked or $179 subsidized by a two-year deal from T-Mobile.

Android creator Andy Rubin, who serves as senior vice president of mobile and digital content for Google, acknowledged at this year’s Mobile World Congress that while there are more than 300 million smartphones running the open-source operating system, only 12 million tablets run Android to date. Rubin also said that Google would "double down" on Android tablets in 2012, which led many analysts to posit he was talking about a potential Nexus tablet.

Whichever way the rumored tablet is eventually sold (if at all), The Wall Street Journal report suggested that brick-and-mortar retail stores like Best Buy are also likely to welcome any competition to Apple. “Some retailers that sell iPads have chafed under Apple's rules that require stores to promote its products more prominently, these people said, and the retailers generate less revenue per sale of Apple products versus other electronic devices,” the article noted.

Google Announces Augmented Reality Glasses Project

Glasses that display information at your request, takes photos and even gives you turn-by-turn navigation. Sounds like something from a science-fiction movie? Yes, and Google is attempting to turn that concept into a reality.

Codenamed Project Glass, the project is handled by the Google[x] group, which is also responsible for other technological concepts such as self-driven cars. The augmented reality glasses are still in the conceptual phase, with the company dedicating a Google+ page and seeking input from users to improve and tweak the idea.

On the same Google+ page, design photos were also shown, giving you an idea of how the wraparound shades might look like. Google also created a mock-up video, demonstrating how the glasses might function through the perspective of an actual user.

Google's development of Project Glass is not without reason. With Apple's latest iPhone 4S incorporating Siri, an intelligent voice assistant that understands and performs contextual requests, Google's augmented reality glasses could serve as a strong complement to its pool of Android devices. The question is, how soon will this concept bear fruit in the form of an actual product?

According to a Google insider who spoke to Reuters, the commercial availability of the glasses is still uncertain at this point in time. However, the same source noted that Google is known to develop technologies that can be used in the immediate future, rather than one that requires future technology to be available before it can be implemented.

The augmented reality glasses will be under development over the next two years, with members of the Google[x] team testing it in public, says the Google insider.

(Source: www.hardwarezone.com)

Google Highlights Search Changes From March

While being hammered by the government and advocacy groups over its privacy settings, Google continues to update its search and other tools with tweaks that speak to privacy.

The company Tuesday released the latest highlights of its “search quality improvements,” which are algorithmic and other changes to improve the functionality of its search engine.

Included in the 50 highlighted updates was the inclusion of alterations to the handling of password changes.

Now when a user changes their password, they will be signed out of their accounts on all machines.

“This change ensures that changing your password more consistently signs your account out of Search, everywhere,” Johanna Wright, director of product management, wrote on Google’s Inside Search blog.

While this might not directly address concerns from lawmakers and advocacy groups as to what Google is doing with information on the back-end it certainly ensures users that vulnerabilities won’t be left exposed when changing their sign-on credentials.

In February, Google faced a firestorm of protests and courtroom dramas aimed at delaying changes to its new privacy policies, which went live March 1. The furor has died down, but the overall privacy debate is in full swing.

Just last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its report entitled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change.” The report included best-practice recommendations for commercial entities that collect or use consumer data.

Google responded by saying it will add a “Do Not Track” button to its Chrome browser by the end of the year. Google had previously resisted such a move.

Internet Explorer 9, Firefox and Safari all have the technology in their browsers, although there are varying critiques on how easy it is to activate the technology.

Google is already required to file reports with the FTC on how it’s improving privacy for users. The  requirement is part of a consent order the company signed with the FTC in October. The order is part of a settlement with the agency over privacy violations related to the roll out of Google Buzz in 2010.