Archive for January, 2007
January 14, 2007 at 11:55 pm · Filed under Internet, Tech News
Online payment service PayPal is preparing to offer its users a new security weapon to help ward off data thieves and phishing scams with a password-generated key fob.
Aimed at protecting consumers and members from fraud, the two-factor authentication tool will display a new one-time password in the form of a six-digit code every 30 seconds. Users will enter their password along with their usual credentials when signing on.
This type of security is already common in many financial firms for high net worth clients throughout the United States.
Using VeriSign technology, the device will be free for eBay customers with a business account, but will cost approximately $5 for personal PayPal account holders. If the key is lost or unavailable, users will still be able to login, but only once they have verified their account.
Another Layer of Protection
PayPal spokesperson Sara Bettencourt explains that the added security measure will help enhance user protection. For example, “if fraudulent parties got hold of a person’s username and password, they still wouldn’t have access to the account because they would not have the six-digit code.”
Bettencourt adds, “This is by no means a silver bullet that is going to stop fraud. This is just another layer of protection.”
The introduction of the new security system by PayPal highlights the growing concern about data-phishing scams that have surfaced as a problem for both eBay and PayPal users. According to eBay, bogus web sites are set up by thieves who spam unsuspecting users in order to steal their personal information.
Fraudulent emails that appear as if they were sent by eBay and PayPal prompt users of those online services to enter their personal details on phony sites. All too often, users reveal their personal or banking information to total strangers without realizing they’ve been scammed.
Consumer Awareness
Research on Internet hacking has revealed that eBay and PayPal are the most targeted sites for potential scams and data thieves. This research was confirmed recently when Internet giant Google uncovered a list of blacklisted phishing sites, which found that almost half of all attacks target eBay and PayPal. The Google blacklist is now used in Google’s Toolbar for Firefox and the Firefox 2.0 browser.
However, efforts made to thwart phishers have already been met with skepticism. Last year, a group of Russian scammers implemented a Citibank phishing site that requested the key fob and password, allowing them to connect to the real Citibank site. Unless online companies begin to promote more consumer safety and awareness, it is likely that advanced scammers will be able to use similar techniques on the site’s account holders.
According to PayPal, the system is currently being beta tested by the company’s employees before expanding to the public within the next two months. The security tool will be made available first in the United States, Germany, and Australia and will then be rolled out across the UK over the next few months.
Founded in 1998, PayPal is used as a popular online payment service for individuals and businesses to transact payments quickly online. The company indicates it has more than 100 million account members in 103 markets worldwide. Along with eBay, Hewlett Packard and Dell’s online stores as well as the iTunes music store use PayPal as a payment option for their online customers.
Source: newsfactor.com
January 14, 2007 at 11:52 pm · Filed under Digital Video, Gadget, Tech News
In a city built on wagering, the smart money is staying on the sidelines when it comes to the battle between two high-definition DVD formats.
The first shots between Blu-ray, backed by a Sony-led consortium, and HD DVD, whose group is led by Toshiba Corp., were fired last year when the formats made their splashy debuts at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
Analysts and executives thought that by this year’s show, there would be a clear winner, especially after Sony in November released its Playstation 3 video game console, which comes standard with a Blu-ray disc drive.
Instead, both sides have hunkered down for what could be a long fight and some are even conceding that both formats may be here to stay.
“In an optimal world you would have one format,” Kevin Tsujihara, president of the Warner Bros. home entertainment group said this week. “But there are many industries where multiple formats have existed and flourished.”
Tsujihara noted that in video gaming, three incompatible formats — Playstation, the Microsoft
XBox and consoles from Nintendo, including the recently released Wii — have existed for years.
At this year’s CES, Warner Bros. showed off a double-sided disc that holds movies in both formats. Tsujihara said the “Total Hi Def” disc should spur the purchase of more high-definition DVD players.
“THD inspires consumer confidence by eliminating confusion and fear of choosing the wrong format,” he said.
Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc., releases its films in both formats, as does Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.
Warner said it would start releasing content in Total HD format only sometime in the second half of the year. It also said the dual-format discs will cost slightly more.
Warner Bros. hopes other studios will adopt the solution. But most remain stubbornly in one camp or the other and show no signs of budging.
In fact, the three studios that release only in Blu-ray — The Walt Disney Co., News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures — this week boldly predicted total victory for their format.
“The format war’s in its final phase,” Mike Dunn, president of 20th Century Fox home entertainment said at a Blu-ray press conference.
Universal Studios, a division of General Electric Co., is the only studio to support HD DVD exclusively.
Sony revealed at CES that it met its goal of shipping 1 million Playstation 3 consoles to North America in 2006. The company said a survey showed that 80 percent of buyers said they will purchase Blu-ray DVDs to play on their machines.
Still, there were other signs of compromise at CES 2007.
LG Electronics, a member of the Blu-ray camp, announced a new player that will accommodate both formats. The model BH100, dubbed “Super Multi Blue,” will sell for $1,199 when it becomes available next month.
But some observers say announcements like those from LG and Warner Bros., aren’t necessarily helpful.
“Consumers are aware there are two formats and they think ‘VHS versus Betamax,” said Phillip Swann, president of the technology-oriented Web site TVpredictions.com.
The competing videocassette technologies squared off in the 1980s with consumers eventually picking VHS as the winner.
“Consequently one of the formats has to go away, either via the marketplace or a negotiated truce.”
Swann also believes the price of players has to come down to $299 or below before consumers embrace one format. Toshiba makes an HD DVD model for $499, while most Blu-ray players sell in the $1,000 range.
One huge incentive for studios to resolve their differences may be a slowdown in the growth of the overall DVD market. Sales for 2006 are expected to be flat, despite huge numbers for some titles such as Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
Expect electronics companies to follow LG’s lead and introduce dual-format players this year, says James McQuivey, a former Forrester Research analyst who is now a Boston University professor specializing in technology and communications.
“It’s a logjam breaker,” he said. “It could influence the studios to release their films in both formats.
“If that happens, it will allow some momentum to be generated. Right now, there isn’t any,” he said.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
January 9, 2007 at 7:24 pm · Filed under Digital Music, Gadget, Games
Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod has conquered the portable music market, is making inroads in video, and may turn out to be a video game player as well, game maker Electronic Arts Inc. is betting.
Many potential gamers already carry iPods, easily the most popular portable music players sold. Now they can listen to music while also playing EA iPod titles that include “Tetris,” “Mahjong” or “Sudoku.”
“Consumers have an appetite for a diversionary-type game experience — a snack where they can play for five minutes,” Mitch Lasky, who leads EA’s mobile gaming initiatives, told Reuters in a recent interview.
EA, the world’s largest video game maker, and other companies have built a stable of 11 iPod games since September that are available for $4.99 each on Apple’s iTunes online store. Five of the games are from EA.
Lasky joined Redwood City, California-based EA when it bought Jamdat Mobile Inc. for $684 million last year in a bid to boost its status in the mobile market and expand beyond its core console gaming business.
Mobile gaming is growing, and the iPod fits into those plans. “It’s very much a cousin to our existing mobile business,” he said.
Mobile gaming accounted for 14 percent of EA’s revenue in the fiscal year ended March 2006, or $393 million.
Research firm IDC said that U.S. mobile game revenue hit $722 million in 2006.
Lasky declined to reveal iPod-related revenue or unit sales but said “Tetris” remains its top mobile title.
Other available iPod games include Namco Bandai Holdings Inc.’s (7832.T) arcade classic “Pac-Man” and “Bejeweled,” a popular puzzle game, from Pop Cap Games. Apple itself offers a brick-bashing game called “Vortex” as well the card game “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
CLOSE TO HAND
The iPod may not be the best device for playing games, but it already is carried around by millions of people, giving it a certain edge, said Forrester analyst Paul Jackson.
It is the one “you are most likely to be carrying when you end up waiting for a flight, sitting in a dentist’s waiting room, etc.,” he said.
The iPod’s weaknesses are similar to those that hobble mobile phones, he added.
For example, the device’s click wheel “keypad” does not provide the same speed and variety delivered by a traditional video game console controller, Jackson said. The iPod’s graphics horsepower also lags that of handheld game machines like Sony Corp.’s (6758.T) (NYSE:SNE - news) PlayStation Portable or Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s (7974.OS) DS.
But Apple’s captive audience is accustomed to paying for digital downloads like music and games.
Apple has sold more than 70 million iPods since their introduction in 2001. The iPod commands more than a 70 percent share of the U.S. market for MP3 players, according to NPD.
Apple, which does not break out sales of its individual iPod products, introduced the video iPod in 2005.
EASY FOR PROGRAMMERS
Lasky noted that iPods have a consistent design, unlike mobile phones which require game makers to design a unique game for each individual handset model.
Mobile game makers say that one of their biggest challenges is users finding their games on the on-screen menus of mobile phones. These so-called “carrier decks” are often confusing, space constrained and hard to navigate.
Apple has said that consumers have made more than 1.5 billion purchases through its iTunes store, which is well-organized and easy to use.
According to research firm IDC, the audience of mobile game purchasers in the United States will grow more than 16 percent annually to reach nearly 50 million by 2010, substantially increasing total mobile gaming revenue by the end of the decade.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
January 9, 2007 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Digital Music, MP3
Most MP3 gear suppliers in Greater China plan to lower prices this year as the cost of flash memory falls, a China-focused media company said on Tuesday citing a survey of 54 manufacturers.
Also this year, manufacturers expected global demand for MP3 digital music players to rise 20 percent versus 2006, Global Sources said.
The survey showed that 83 percent of the manufacturers polled planned to cut prices — 53 percent by up to a tenth, 19 percent by up to a fifth, and 11 percent by more than a fifth.
Greater China accounted for 52 percent of global MP3 Player production in 2006, the survey said.
“The price of flash memory has steadily decreased, with the trend expected to continue for several years. This has reduced the production costs of flash-based MP3 players, which account for 66 percent of players globally,” Mark Saunderson, publisher of the Global Sources report, was quoted as saying.
Among the most popular licensors, the group said, was Microsoft . Korean firms Hynix Semiconductor (000660.KS) and Samsung (005930.KS) were the major suppliers of flash memory to most of the manufacturers profiled.
Manufacturers order hard drives from Hitachi (6501.T), Toshiba (6502.T), Fujitsu (6702.T), Seagate (NYSE:STX - news) and Samsung, according to the report.
January 8, 2007 at 4:02 pm · Filed under Gadget
Japan’s Sony Corp. said on Sunday it would enable most of its new televisions, including high-definition flat screens, to play video from the Internet.
Sony, which unveiled the plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said the drive to marry Internet and other digital video with traditional devices was part of a bid to showcase its four strategic growth areas: video gaming, digital imaging, high definition and mobile products.
Starting early this year, Sony will equip its TVs with an attachable module that can stream broadband high-definition and other Internet video content such as programs from Time Warner Inc.’s AOL and Yahoo with the push of a remote control button.
Sony also introduced an icon-based user interface, called Xross Media Bar, that is similar to a system already found on its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable gaming devices.
Several major consumer electronics makers are expected to use this week’s electronics show to launch products or services that give consumers greater control over pictures, music and video originating from multiple sources, such as their own personal libraries or the Web.
At Sony’s press conference at CES, the company said it was committed to personalization and portability in products that allow consumers to access a variety of entertainment, communication and information without boundaries.
Other news from the event included the introduction of a new VAIO personal computer, which Sony says weighs about 1 pound (0.5 kilograms) and makes it the smallest-sized, full-functioning notebook computer. The company also said a variety of Ford vehicles sold this year in the United States and Europe would feature Sony-branded car stereo equipment.
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