Tablets, Tablets Everywhere, Headless Chooks and the iPad mini reviewed.

Tablets Tablets Everywhere. Whether it's one of a huge choice of Android units, a New Windows RT, a soon to be Windows Surface Pro, or the new iPad Mini there seems to be Manufacturers running about like headless chooks trying to get mind and money share in the Tablet space. Lets face it Tablets are in no way new but the old ones pre the original iPad really sucked. They just where computer OS's stuffed into a touch interface and it came out clunky in both hardware and OS design and use. Well thats obviously changed a lot and consumers have a lot more choice these days and the clunkiness of tablets has dropped drastically though that not completely gone away… yet. SO whats new?




The iPad mini has arrived — and so has our review. Just last week, Apple introduced the world to the newest member of its wildly successful tablet line, an adorable, diminutive slate with a 7.9-inch display. It even had an adorable ad to show along with it: an iPad mini joining in with a full-sized iPad to play "Heart and Soul" on the piano.
But to think of the iPad mini as a companion to the 3rd or 4th generation iPad — some kind of secondary player to the bigger version — would probably be a mistake. With a price tag starting at $329 and heading all the way up to $659 (with LTE and 64GB of storage), this isn't really a step down from the existing iPad (well, the iPad 2 at least) as much as it is a step to the side. At least, that's the impression I get. Want a big iPad that isn't too expensive? Get the 2nd gen one. Want one that you can throw in a bag or keep on the nightstand? Get the iPad mini. You fly business class and work in photography? Let me point you in the direction of the new 4th generation model.
But regardless of market positioning, the iPad mini has to be viewed in a world with a $199 Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD — two strong performers that are a far cry, at least in price, from the iPad mini. Even though Apple might want consumers to see these as separate product categories, consumers may only see that $129 gulf.
On the other hand, Apple has a lot to fill that gulf, including the absolute best software ecosystem for tablets on the planet right now. But is the iPad mini worth the stretch, or would you be smarter to save the cash and saddle up to another device?
Moments after I held the iPad mini at Apple's event in San Jose, I hurriedly wrote that it made other tablets in this class feel like toys. Perhaps I was a bit hard on the competition in the heat of the moment, but I will say that there isn't a single product in the 7-inch tablet market that comes close to the look, feel, or build quality of the new iPad. It is absolutely gorgeous to see, and in your hand has the reassuring solidness of a product that's built to last.
If the iPhone 5 is reminiscent of jewelry, the iPad mini is like a solidly made watch.
In fact, the iPhone 5 and the mini have a lot in common. They both share a metal housing (in silver or black) that's lean and smooth, with that reflective, chamfered edge that runs around the border of the display. The iPad mini's paint job is similar to the iPhone's, but smoother, and on the black version I tested has a glint of blue and purple to it in certain light. It looks dangerous, and it feels great.
It looks dangerous, and it feels great


The iPad mini's design stands above the competition
All of the standard iPad button and switch placement is intact here, save for the move of the speaker grille to the bottom of the device (it's been around back for iPads previous to this version), along with the new Lightning port. And that's a good-sounding set of stereo speakers, by the way. You'll find separate volume buttons on the right side beneath the mute / rotation lock toggle, and the power / sleep button on the top, just as expected. The front of the device is all glass, save for an HD camera in the center of the top bezel (as you hold it in portrait) and the home button on the bottom. There's also a 5-megapixel camera on the back.
Though the iPad mini sports a slightly larger display than other devices in this class, its profile feels extremely lean. Sometimes too lean. The device weighs just 0.68 pounds, and it's only 0.28 inches thick (noticeably thinner than the Nexus 7's 0.41 inches or Fire HD's 0.4 inches). I actually had a little trouble holding onto the device when I wasn't using the Smart Cover due to the back being as smooth as it is, and the frame being so thin. Maybe it's just my big hands, but I wanted a little more to grab onto. In that regard, I prefer the feel of the Nexus 7.
That problem was exacerbated by how wide the device feels in your hand, as well as the lack of a significant bezel around the left and right of the screen in portrait. Maybe it's just old habit, but I didn't feel completely comfortable putting my thumb over the screen itself. Apple has apparently included some new palm rejection logic in the iPad mini's version of iOS which wards off unwanted touches, and it did seem to work. It may have caused other issues, however, which I'll touch on in the software section.
Minor quibbles aside, the iPad mini stands head and shoulders above the competition in terms of design, the caliber of its components, and the solidness of how it's been built. But it also has another quality, one that's nearly as important: the device has personality. I've started to think of it as a constant companion — small enough to throw in a bag or carry around the house. There's something endearing about the mini that makes you want to keep it on-hand and use it often. It's a feeling the larger iPad never elicited in me.
Specs and cameras

Inside the mini, you'll find specs essentially identical to the iPad 2, save for a few alterations. The system is built atop the two-generations-old A5 CPU, appears to sport a dangerously tiny 512MB of RAM, and ships in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB storage capacities (I tested the 64GB, Wi-Fi-only version). All the requisite radios are here too: Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n, 2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, and eventually you'll be able to buy a version with CDMA, GSM, and LTE cellular options. As you would expect, a light sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope are here as well. It really is a mini version of the iPad 2, except for the cameras, which are significantly improved.
As you may know, I'm not a fan of people taking photos with tablets. Just as with previous models I've tested, I find the act to be not only awkward, but embarrassing as well. The slightly more diminutive size of the iPad mini does make the experience slightly better, and its 5 megapixel backside camera is actually not terrible for general shots. In fact, its color tone and low light performance was better than what I've seen on many newer smartphones. It was sometimes difficult to get a clean image due to shakiness, but that has more to do with the odd physicality of taking a photo with a tablet than it does with the actual camera.
The front-facing FaceTime HD camera is fine for video chatting (and I think is a lot more comfortable than chatting with the full size iPad), but won't be useful for anything more than that.
Display
There's no question that the screen does look lower-r
Much has been made about the display on the iPad mini. The IPS screen measures 7.9 inches diagonally, and is 1024 x 768 in resolution. For those keeping count, it's the same resolution as the original iPad. That makes for a pixel density of 163 ppi, which as you might guess doesn't seem too terrific next to devices like the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD (each 216 ppi), Nook Color HD (243 ppi), or the big daddy 4th generation iPad (264 ppi). It's also much lower in pixel density than pretty much any smartphone on the market right now.
But how does it look? Well for starters, it's a really good looking display in general terms. Apple is using the same treatment here as it does on the iPhone 5 and iPad, and it makes for a crystal-clear screen that seems to hover just a tiny bit beneath glass. Colors are vibrant and blacks are deep, and games, photos, and video look terrific.
That's only half the story, however. There's no question that to the naked eye this screen does look lower in resolution than its nearest competition. Pixels are noticeable, especially in webpages, books, and when viewing email — and that can be distracting sometimes. Since Apple is the company that's gotten our eyes used to the hey-look-no-pixels trick of the Retina display, it's hard to take a step back and not notice. I don't think the lower resolution is a deal-breaker in this product, but it is a compromise you have to be aware of. It simply doesn't look as clear as other products on the market.

Software, battery
Software, performance, battery
Its app selection is an embarrassment of riches


The biggest change in the software on the iPad mini that you need to be aware of is... everything is smaller. 99 out of 100 times while using it, this wasn't an issue, but it did take some getting used to in places. For instance, because the screen real estate is so much larger than an iPhone but icons are now roughly iPhone size, apps with lots of navigational elements can be a little less intuitive to navigate. Furthermore, the keyboard size feels altered — most notably in portrait — and the keys don't seem tall enough for my fingers. On the other hand, the mini makes landscape typing a lot easier.
Supposedly, the software on the mini has been tweaked to reject unwanted touches on the sides of the display, and during my testing it did seem to keep my thumb from making accidental moves in apps. The flip side to that, however, is that it sometimes seems to overcompensate and reject touches you intended — meaning that sometimes apps don't respond the way you want. It wasn't a huge problem, but it could be annoying at times, so I hope that Apple makes some effort to fine-tune this in future updates.
Other than that, iOS on the iPad mini is exactly the same as the software on a regular iPad. That's it. The end. Fin.
I'm not going to go into great detail about iOS 6 since we've already seen it on other products (and in fact have a review of it right here). What I will say is that the fact that is for all intents and purposes a regular iPad makes it easily the most attractive tablet in this size range when it comes to software.
It's easy to become used to how vast and impressive the library is for the iPad, but using the mini reminded me of just how right Apple got this part of their ecosystem. Compared to the Nexus 7 or the Fire HD... well, there is no comparison. The iPad's app selection is an embarrassment of riches, and using apps like the powerful Paper or GarageBand, or playing games like the incredibly fun PunchQuest or Letterpress really makes a tremendous case for why a consumer might spend that extra $129.
Performance on the device was expectedly snappy. I didn't see any weirdness, stuttering, or lag that would cause alarm, though some heavier apps and games took noticeably longer to load up than they do on the new 4th generation (or even 3rd generation) iPad. I think for the time being, the mini can handle what developers are throwing at it just fine — but I do have my concerns about the shelf life of this product considering how much older its internals are. Given Apple's habit of rapid-fire obsolescing of products, your timeline for the mini may be shorter than you expect.
Battery life was — not surprisingly — everything Apple claimed it would be. On the tablets more than on any other product the company makes, it seems to be hitting its targets on longevity. I spent some pretty heavy days in mixed use (intermittent sessions of email, web browsing, Twitter, IRC, game playing, music, and video playback), and didn't have to worry about charging until the about the middle or evening the next day. Overall, I was more than satisfied with the iPad mini's battery performance.
I didn't have to worry about charging

GOOD STUFF
Fantastic design and build quality
Software selection second to none
Great battery life
BAD STUFF
Screen is lower resolution than the competition
Can sometimes be a little awkward to hold
Expensive
APPLE RAISES THE BAR YET AGAIN

The iPad mini is an excellent tablet — but it's not a very cheap one. Whether that's by design, or due to market forces beyond Apple's control, I can't say for sure. I can't think of another company that cares as much about how its products are designed and built — or one that knows how to maximize a supply chain as skillfully — so something tells me it's no accident that this tablet isn't selling for $200. It doesn't feel like Apple is racing to some lowest-price bottom — rather it seems to be trying to raise the floor.
And it does raise the floor here. There's no tablet in this size range that's as beautifully constructed, works as flawlessly, or has such an incredible software selection. Would I prefer a higher-res display? Certainly. Would I trade it for the app selection or hardware design? For the consistency and smoothness of its software, or reliability of its battery? Absolutely not. And as someone who's been living with (and loving) Google's Nexus 7 tablet for a few months, I don't say that lightly.
The iPad mini hasn't wrapped up the "cheapest tablet" market by any stretch of the imagination. But the "best small tablet" market? Consider it captured.

Google Nexus 4 Launches Without LTE.

Google launched the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 and seemed to leave something out: Google Nexus 4—a flagship device—doesn't support LTE.
From The Verge, Google seems to have their reasons, but like Matthew at TNW, I don't really buy them. I get the whole interoperability thing. I get making sure you can make one great phone for the world. However, it just seems like unless Google wants to play in the handset backwater, they need to step up their game—and investment.
For Google, Nexus is a flagship brand that represents the best of Android, with Google leading by example to show other hardware manufacturers what Android can be. And though partners build the hardware, Google wants direct control of the software on Nexus devices with no carrier intervention. That alone means Google can't sell an LTE device, as there's simply no access to LTE networks without working with carriers in one way or another: Verizon and Sprint's LTE networks still require compatibility with their 3G CDMA systems, and there's essentially no such thing as an unlocked CDMA device. AT&T's fledgling LTE network runs on different frequencies than other LTE networks around the world, so Google would have to build a custom phone for just 77 markets in the US. Doing that without AT&T's financial assistance makes little sense.
If Samsung and Apple can do it—and are fighting each other for the title of best handsets—why can't Google? Is Google really just fighting for the bottom? Apple included LTE—after being chided for its absence in the iPhone 4S—in the iPhone 5. Lots of other handsets have LTE and work around the world, so why couldn't Google do the same?
I can't claim—yet—to be an expert in all things handsets in the world, but I just don't think that Google is making the right play, and their reasoning seems like "oh you caught us, so we'll say something", when pushing for faster connections makes for better mobile experience.
Everyone else has the battery life issues fixed (maybe not entirely). Samsung and Apple have handsets all over the world. Yes, LTE isn't available everywhere, but it's one phone Apple is selling. Maybe Google's real reason is that they want to show people how to make a great handset that can be made widely available. Maybe Google wants to see if leaving out LTE can work for a smartphone.
I'm not sure what is going on with Google and the Nexus 4, but even this review from betanews is pretty harsh on Google, so maybe we're not all crazy.

Windows Phone 8 Launched And I Find Myself Very Ho Hum

Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8 today with a big event in San Francisco. I was hoping for some cool interesting hidden fanfare and after watching the broadcast found it very repetitive and on the face of it, to the public at least, nothing more than a point upgrade. Ok there is probably plenty under the hood but lets face it as nice as it is in some respects the only way Microsoft is going to this thing rolling is the strategy it's trying to employ,and thats put the phone interface it's Windows PC and new tablets and hope people get to like it and choose the phone option. Don't get me wrong, I love tech and was hoping for. I'm reading that people like the UI and the features like Kids Corner (being able to hand your phone to someone and only a few apps are available), more oomph in the OS and IE, Hub Rooms ala Google plus, and a small but decent selection of apps are winners. YEs there is 120,000 apps but if the quality is anything like the apps on Windows 8 they seem like toys to me. Lack in depth and are overly simplistic. Wheres the power?
Time will tell, but Microsoft has not managed to gain the mindshare required of the public but maybe with Windows 8 and a new large selections of Windows Phone 8 handsets they will finally get some traction. It still doesn't grab me but I'm sure it will many others

Apple's Scott Forstall Gone.

Scott Forstall and retail VP John Browett, will be leaving Apple. . The management team will get more streamlined as Forstall’s responsibilities are redistributed to other VPs, while the retail team will report directly to Tim Cook until a replacement is found.
The move came as a surprise. With the nation’s media focused on Hurricane Sandy (and the New York Stock Exchange closed down ahead of the storm), Apple issued a quiet press release announcing the shakeup — and just hours after major product announcements from competitors Google and Microsoft.
Forstall has been with Apple since 1997 and began his post-graduate career with Steve Jobs at NeXT. He eventually came to manage what became Mac OS X and then, later, Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS. In the Apple v. Samsung proceedings in San Jose, California, Forstall said that he had about 1,000 people reporting directly to him.
“He’s clearly a highly visible senior leader on the Apple team, having driven the success of iOS,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told Wired. Still, there were signs that something like this might be coming. Forstall sold off 95 percent of his stocks for a cool $38.7 million back in May. And though he has appeared onstage at nearly every Apple media event in recent years to demo iOS features, he did not present at last week’s iPad mini event.
Apple announced a broad redistribution of Forstall’s duties. Craig Federighi, current head of Mac software engineering, will now head up both iOS and OS X. And design chief Jony Ive will now be in charge of both human interface and industrial design across the company. Eddy Cue will take over responsibilities of Siri and Maps, in addition to his role as senior VP of Internet Software and Services (which includes the iTunes Store and iCloud). Bob Mansfield will lead a new group called Technologies, which will foster innovation at a higher level and control Apple’s semiconductor teams, “who have ambitious plans for the future.”
Apple has come under fire for problems with iOS 6′s Maps feature and the less-than-stellar performance of Siri in iOS 5.
The move to oust Browett may be less surprising. Browett reportedly cut a number of retail staff positions in Apple Stores in order to cut costs, a move that was later deemed a mistake and quickly reversed. However, the double axing — the details of which are still murky — is very unusual.
“One thing we generally don’t see from Apple’s management is a lack of stability, a frequent turnover of responsibility,” Golvin said. “Now we’ve seen them lose the leaders of the retail organization twice in the last 16 months.” Retail chief Ron Johnson left Apple Nov. 1 last year.

Ableton Push: The MPC of the Future Is Here

Ableton Live isn't the only music making software out there, but it's the weapon of choice for legions of producers because it's so damn intuitive. Today, Ableton spilled the details on a new version, Live 9, and just as important, a homegrown hardware controller for the software, called Ableton Push.


There are already some 30 controllers designed specifically to work with Live, but Push is the first piece of hardware wholly designed by Ableton. If the company really nailed the integration between the hardware and software, the tool could be a game changer. And don't worry about the build quality or engineering, because Ableton turned that part over to Akai, the company that created the original MPC, along with the Ableton-friendly APC40.
Push is designed to be an all-in-one music production solution, which allows you to play and sequence your beats from start to finish. Playing and sequencing centers around 64 RGB-colored, velocity and pressure sensitive pads. You can then use the controller's other tools to fine-tune the paramaters of your sounds.


So far, this probably sounds familiar to people who've used controllers before. But Push has some additional features you won't find anywhere else. We're particularly excited about the special simplified workflow that's designed for improvising with song structure. More than just a controller, Ableton built Push to be an instrument as well. Using some clever design trickery, Ableton managed to "fold" the 88 keys of of a keyboard onto Push's 64 pads so that you can play chords and melodies. Push weighs just 6.6 pounds so it's light enough to throw in a backpack.
As for Live 9 it adds some granular editing features that will satisfy even the nerdiest beatsmiths. First up is more sophisticated MIDI tools. For example, Live 9 will now be able to transform audio clips into editable midi tracks. The new package also includes an improved graphic equalizer, as well as 3500 new sounds to build beats out of, because why the hell not? There are a ton of features here—check out Create Digital Music's overview for more details, if you're interested.
Ableton Live 9 will start beta testing next week, and it'll be available in Intro, Standard, and Suite versions for $100/$450/$750 when it's done. Ableton Push will be bundled with the Live 9 Intro for $600. All of the products will be released in early 2013, and we just can't wait.

Microsoft Surface RT Review.

We hadn't looked forward to something this much in a long, long time. Now it's here. And it's been just as long a time since a gadget has been so disappointing. Surface is good, but Surface RT sure isn't the future. Not yet.
x
Using it
Surface is Microsoft's attempt to out-Apple Apple. This means a lot of attention to detail—attention that sounds silly until you actually hear it—like the kickstand with an extra, custom-designed hinge to guarantee a satisfying chkkk every time it's snapped shut. Is that superficial? Only if you consider something you're going to potentially hear and touch multiple times every single day superficial. Otherwise, it's just damn thoughtful.
And most of the time, Surface is a thoughtful computer. It's a beautiful computer, in your hand or on a tabletop, its shifting angles clean and secure like a Danish prison. It's a little too heavy—slightly heftier than the iPad 3—but otherwise comfortable to hold, with an angled bezel that melts into your hand. There's a convenient USB port that, unlike other tablets, doesn't look like a gaping open sore on the delicately chamfered side. The screen doesn't hold up against the crispness of the iPad's retina resolution, but still manages a lovely colorful pop to suit the colorful, poppy Windows 8. All over the Surface, these little details reflect the meeting of large brains.

But more importantly, Surface is handsome. That ineffable Hey, this thing feels good quality is lacquered all over Surface. You'll appreciate it every time you pick it up and turn it on. It's a simple, joyful experience. Open the Touch Cover keyboard/trackpad hybrid, snap out the kickstand, and lay the thing on your desk like a laptop. Start writing an essay. Flip the cover all the way around, hide the keyboard, and give yourself something substantial to grip like a tablet. Start swiping the web. Or prop the kickstand against the folded-back cover to create a stable base while you watch Netflix on a coffee table. Switching configurations is a cinch, and it's entirely intuitive. The Touch Cover feels as integral to the Surface as the binding of a book to the sandwiched pages. There's every reason to believe most computers will look and feel something
Like
The Surface is instantly more charming than any Windows device that's come before it. It's nearly the perfect size, and the form is almost beyond reproach. If you want a tablet, use it like a tablet. If you want a laptop, use it like a laptop. Both modes seem right, like a genuine seachange step forward. The Next Kind of Computer can be slipped in a bag, power up a bright display nearly instantly, run an operating system that loves being touched, and equally importantly, have a keyboard you can use to actually get work done.

Tablets aren't for work. That's the old refrain. But if they're going to be more than great toys someday, tablets have to become every bit as viable as a desktop tower as a way to write (and edit) long emails, presentations, and poems. Surface RT is the first evidence we have that this is possible, because you'll use it like you've never used any computer before. Your brain starts to rewire itself, and it's delightful.
Flip out the keyboard. Hit power. Swipe up to unlock. Type in your password. A dozen super-colorful tiles give you a snappy report of what's new: Who's tweeted at you, what's arrived in your inbox, news headlines, photos of your beautiful face, and incoming Facebook IMs, as they drop. You'll touch one thing, scroll to the next, swipe another, then begin typing, merging habits you've picked up since your parents first let you set hands on something that ran off batteries. Surface presents you the Internet all at once.

Browsing in Internet Explorer is just as easy a flopping into a couch-cushion Netflix marathon, or working in the full Microsoft Office suite. It all feels seamless, natural, a culmination of useful things. This ease, the effortless transfer between watching stuff and making stuff, reading and writing, listening and talking, it permeates Surface with the mark of The New Computer. This is what netbooks were supposed to be, before we realized they were all completely horrible: small, powerful, flexible, skinny computers that can do a ton of things easily.
You can thank Windows 8's radicalism for that. Traditional Windows would be absolute hell to use on this—or hey, so would OS X. But Metro is the best foundation for The Next Computer I can imagine, and if you can get over UI squeamishness, you'll love it. It'll make you more powerful the more you rub your hands on it. It is that good. Or at least it could be, at some point.
No Like
Simply put, it is undercooked. For all Microsoft's claims to hardware perfection and software revolution, Surface RT is undone by too many little annoyances, cracks, and flaws. After the initial delight of an evolved tablet wears off, you'll groan—because Surface brings the appearance of unity, but it's really just the worst of both worlds. Instead of trading in your laptop and tablet for Surface, a cocktail of compromises that fracture the whole endeavor, you'll miss them both urgently.
Want to use Surface RT as a laptop? Sorry, the Touch Cover is a letdown. It's a phenomenal engineering effort, and the most terrifically-integrated mobile keyboard ever. It doesn't compare to the junky Bluetooth options you can slap against your iPad. Microsoft's keyboard cover is perfectly integrated with the device, and touch typing on it is actually possible. You can't say the same for the iPad's glass.
But it only approximates a real keyboard—the buttons are pressure activated, barely buttons at all, and spaced in such a way that typos are inevitable and constant. Unlike the first time you pinched an iPhone or gazed at E-ink, there's zero that's instantly intuitive about the Touch Cover. And in order for this to be a brave new computer, Touch Cover had to be instantly intuitive, an immediately responsive thing to touch and work with. But rather than feeling like you've instantly grown an extra brain lobe just by using it, Surface's mega-hyped keyboard cover feels like it requires one. You'll feel clumsy. You'll write slowly. I tried writing this review on the Surface, but I would've missed my deadline by a week. You'll get better—it will probably take weeks to hit a stride—but this thing was supposed to be a breakthrough. A perfect interface. Instead, it's just a half-broken death march up the learning curve. The trackpad, sludge-like and jerky, is even worse—particularly galling compared to the super-smooth touchscreen—and unlike the keyboard, will never get better with practice.
The Touch Cover also approximates, dismally, the sturdiness of a laptop: thanks to the cloth-like floppiness of the thing that's necessary for making it easy to open and close, it can't support itself on anything but a flat, rigid (apologies) surface. You can't type on your lap, like laptop. It's hard to imagine what a design solution out of this would have been, but that's Microsoft's job, not ours.
Perhaps most galling is the Touch Cover's $100 addition to the Surface's already pricy $400 base MSRP—akin to selling your windshield wipers separate from the car. Microsoft also offers a Type Cover, that promises actual physical keys instead of the flattened solution, but that will add critical bulk to your Surface experience—along with an extra $130. Another letdown—and a pretty outrageous one.
But it's Windows on Surface RT that's the greatest letdown of all, the lethal letdown, because it's not Windows 8, but Windows RT. You can't tell the difference by looking at them, but you certainly will once you use it. Windows RT is underpowered (everything opens and syncs slightly too slowly), under-functional (you cannot install a single app that's not available through the Windows RT app store, which offers a paltry selection), and under-planned (the built-in apps can't feel like Lite versions of something better). You'd be right to note that many of those limitations apply to the iPad as well, but no one could mistake iOS for OS X the way RT apes Windows 8. And even if it's a plight common to tablets, Microsoft—for better or worse—has hyped Surface RT as being so much more.

In the end though, this is nothing more than Microsoft's tablet. And a buggy, at times broken one, at that, whose "ecosystem" feels more like a tundra. There's no Twitter or Facebook app, and the most popular 3rd party client breaks often. The Kindle app is completely unusable. There's no image editing software. A People app is supposed to give you all the social media access you'd ever need, but It's impossible to write on someone's Facebook wall through the People app, Surface's social hub; the only workaround is to load Internet Explorer. Blech. Something as simple as loading a video requires a jumbled process of USB importing, dipping in and out of the stripped-down desktop mode, opening a Video app, importing, going back into the Video app, and then playing. What.
The app selection, overall, is worse than the already pathetic Windows Phone app fare, looking like the software equivalent to a barren Soviet grocery store. The difference is that Windows Phone, used in quick, informative bursts, skates by on the strength of its excellent with integrated features. At the moment, there's just not that much to do with Microsoft's über-tablet. Surface is weak because Windows RT is weak; a tepid tablet OS pretending to be a computer's.
You can do work, yes. But productivity is limited to a "preview" (beta) version of Microsoft Office. It also hurts that Office requires plunging into Windows RT's Desktop mode, where users of actual Windows 8 are able to install a decade's worth of legacy software. Normally, this would compensate. But RT users can't install any of this older software. None of it. Desktop mode is entirely worthless in RT, a cruel tease of non-functionality. It'll only remind you of how much you can't do with your Surface, and is going to confuse the living hell out of most people who buy one—especially when Surface Pro, built on x86 architecture and perfectly compatible with all of those legacy programs, steps in a few months from now.
I pity Microsoft's retail staff.

Should you buy it?
No. The Surface, with an obligatory Touch Cover, is $600. That's a lot of money. Especially given that it's no laptop replacement, no matter how it looks or what Microsoft says. It's a tablet-plus, priced right alongside the iPad and in most ways inferior.
That could change. Maybe there will be a new Touch Cover that retains the original's terrific physical qualities while actually allowing good typing. Maybe the quasi-vaporware Surface Pro, which eschews Windows RT in favor of the real-deal Win 8, will make all the difference, opening itself up to the open seas of PC software (for several hundred dollars more). Maybe the app store will look different in a month, or a year, and have anything to offer. Maybe. But remember that Windows Phone—which has swelled from mere hundreds, to tens of thousands, to over a hundred thousand app offerings over the past two years—is still a wasteland compared to iOS and Android. Poor precedent. Maybe Windows RT will be different. Maybe.

Apples New iPad Mini Hands-On

It's been a crazy busy day with Apple announce a huge selection of new releases. Some totally unexpected. One thing we all expected though was the brand new iPad Mini and it's pretty much everything we expected but how is it, like, in real life? Apple just let the tech world go hands on with the iPad Mini and most agree: it's not as miniature as you'd think! Which is a good thing.

We have aggregated a bunch of comments from some leading Tech sites and here's what they are saying.

Pocket-Lint
First impressions are that it is indeed light. At just over 308g, it's considerably lighter than a conventional iPad, mainly thanks to using much less glass in its construction and that means you are going to be able to enjoy reading books on it a lot better too. It's also extremely thin, only 7.2mm.
However, the most surprising aspect is that it isn't just a smaller iPad, the bezel is thinner so the whole device fits nicely in the palm even though it features a screen that's almost 8-inches.

Engadget
Just as the bigger iPad, this one feels delightful in the hand. If you've held an iPad, you know where we're coming from. Yes, it's lighter and more nimble, making it feel as if Apple concocted its own version of the 7-inch tablet. And indeed, that's precisely what has happened here. It's still not "small," though. While a fully outstretched adult hand can generally grasp it without help from the other, you'll still want both for typing and using apps. It's still too big for your average pocket, and it's not going to save you a heck of a lot of room in your knapsack compared to the 9.7-incher.

CNET
An A5 processor means it'll be similar to the fifth-gen Touch. The important part of this iPad is it feels as light as a Kindle, even if it's not as tiny in width and height.
Thumb access on the sides is definitely easier, too. One thumb operation is theoretically possible, and I found I could do it for basic scrolling and page turning.

The Verge
Like most Apple products, the build of the smaller tablet is excellent, easily surpassing the competition on the market. By comparison, the Nexus 7 and Fire HD feel like toys. Other manufacturers are going to have to up their game with this product in town. It's just a striking difference in materials and solidness.
The thinness and sleekness of the casing cannot be overstated. It feels as high-end as the new iPhone, but even sharper in the hand - like a slice of solid aluminum. The display looks incredibly sharp, and even though the resolution is lower than new the iPad 4th generation, it doesn't immediately seem like a 1024 x 768 display.

SlashGear
The resolution may be the "old" 1024 x 768 of the original iPad and iPad 2, but it's squeezed into a smaller screen, so individual pixels aren't so noticeable. Viewing angles are as broad as we've come to expect from an IPS panel, and iOS 6 doesn't look too cramped, either. Steve Jobs may have been scathing about "tweeners" in the past, but – perhaps unsurprisngly, given iOS is also used on the far smaller iPhone and iPod touch – it works just fine on the iPad mini.

TechCrunch
The finish of the device is matte on the back, making for a very nice feeling in the hand. The weight is really the most impressive part, though – as with the iPhone 5, but to an even greater degree, the iPad mini feels almost weightless when compared to its predecessors. It's so thin and light as to feel almost like a prop, rather than a functional device.
But functional it is. The 1024×768 display looks great, and seems larger than its 7.9 inches thanks to the narrower bezels on either side of the screen itself. And while it's slightly trickier to hold as a result of that thinner strip, the screen seems to have a certain amount of false touch detection built-in, so that you won't accidentally open apps or page through things while simply holding it.

Apples New 13-Inch Retina Display MacBook Pro. A Beautiful Screen In a Lighter Laptop

The newly updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with its new Retina Display Is a thing of true loveliness, and beauty. The body is lighter, the screen is crisp—now all we need is more software to take advantage of that gorgeous display and that is coming for sure.
Again we have accumulated the core comments from leading Tech sites and heres what they have to say:
Engadget
For starters, it's wildly thin. No, not manilla envelope thin, but thin enough to slip into most briefcases and backpacks without the consumer even noticing. Outside of that, it's mostly a shrunken version of the 15-incher let loose over the summer. The unibody design is as tight as ever, with the fit and finish continuing to impress.
Compared to the 1,280 x 800 resolution of the non-Retina 13-inch MBP, the new display is particularly stunning. Text has never looked more crisp, and colors are stupendously vibrant. Of course, apps, websites and graphics that haven't been optimized for Retina still look like utter rubbish, and as more Apple machines transition to these panels, the outcry is going to get even louder.

The Verge
It's not quite as thin as the Air, but Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is still quite svelte - and the display is as gorgeous as you'd expect. The resolution settings for the display are just like the larger MacBook Pro - but the maximum allowed resolution is 1680 x 1050, unlike the 1920 x 1080 setting offered on the 15-inch model. Still, 1680 x 1050 is a tremendous option on a display of this size, though at the "best for Retina" setting the screen offers an effective 1280 x 800. If you've been using a 15-inch MacBook Pro for the screen size, the 13-inch just got a ton more attractive.

SlashGear
The screen size may be smaller – and lower resolution, too, at 2560 x 1600, though for an overall higher pixel density of 227ppi – but actually the 13-inch model is slightly thicker, at 0.75-inches. In contrast, the 15-inch Retina version is 0.71-inches thick. You don't really notice the difference, however, and the advantage in weight, with near a full pound dropped, more than makes up for it.

TechCrunch
As for how it performed, it was very much like using the 15-inch rMBP, which is my main machine currently. In the hand, however, it feels significantly lighter, at about a pound lighter than the bigger model. That's a big difference for a machine you carry around with you all day, and alone might sway some users, price considerations aside.
The reduced glare did seem to have an effect vs. previous versions of the screen, which definitely photographed better. And changing up the display resolution really gives you a ton of screen real estate at maximum settings for what is a very, very portable computer. So long as you've got good eyes, this could be a great solution for people looking for a work machine when they're away from their dual-monitor setups.

Apple’s New iMacs Are Incredibly slim.

Apple’s New iMacs Are Crazy Thin


Apple has defied that assumption that the desktop is on the outs and dropped refreshed super-thin iMacs at its event today.
They were expected this summer at WWDC, but the wait might have been worthwhile—this refresh is far more significant than we thought. The new models are 80 percent thinner (just 5mm) and about eight pounds lighter than their predecessors. We didn't anticipate a redesign, but they're incredibly beautiful from what we can see. Apple will offer iMacs in 21.5-inch and 27-inch versions, the latter of which has a resolution of 2560 by 1440.
The screen has 75 percent less reflection, and a few other features like an HD camera, dual microphones, and a stereo sound system that's supposed to be much better than the previous generation. Specs got a bump too—the new machines have quad-core i5 processors (configurable up to i7), up to 32GB of RAM, and as much as 768GB of flash storage. RAM is accessible in the 27-inch iMac, but not the smaller one. Both of these guys have four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt, which is very nice. On top of that, there's an SD card, gigabit ethernet, and a now, a fusion drive—that's 128GB of flash storage plus 1 or 3 TB of hard drive combined into one hard drive. Doesn't sound half bad, although customization might be a bit more difficult with such a big update.
The smaller model starts at $1300 and ships in November, and the 27-incher starts at $1800 and ships in December.

Apple's New Fusion Drive.

While introducing the new ridiculously thin iMac, Apple also revealed its new Fusion Drive. What is it? It's a new storage system that supposedly combines the best of SSD and HDD. Basically, the speed of a SSD with the storage space of a big spinning HDD.
The Fusion Drive is made of a 128GB SSD and a 1TB or 3TB HDD that's fused into a single volume through software. How does it work? Apple says it can figure out which apps and stuff you use the most and shift those apps onto the SSD while keeping other less frequently used apps on the HDD. Basically, the OS and your core apps are zippy fast on the SSD while documents are on the HDD.
During the keynote, Apple demonstrated how Fusion Drive would work if you're a heavy Aperture user. Aperture would be moved to the SSD storage side and would perform nearly 3.5x faster (over the old spinning disk of HDD) and nearly matches traditional, SSD-only storage.
Of course, hybrid drives and smart caching and things like that aren't exactly brand new. Fusion Drive is just Apple branding something that already exists.

Apples New Mac Mini

A new tiny iPad isn't the only little-big news out of today's Apple extravaganza. Here's a the brand new set of upgraded Mac Minis that'll be delivering that Apple love at sub-$1000 prices—Now with upgraded Intel Ivy Bridge processors. They're available for purchase now.
Apple claims the new Ivy Bridge Mac Minis are two times faster than the last batch. We'll see about that, but one thing's for sure; They're just as tiny and cute as ever. The new Mac Minis are 7.7-inch squares of aluminum just 1.4 inches thick.
The baseline $600 Mac Mini comes with a 2.3GHz dual-core i5 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. You can exand the RAM up to 8GB and the hard drive up to 750GB.
The $800 Mac Mini configuration packs a 2.5 GHz quad-core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Add on all the extras and juice your Mac Mini with a 2.7GHz i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid state drive for $1500 all together.
As before, you'll be able to buy the Mac Mini in a server configuration, this time with 2.3GHz quad-core i7, 4GB of RAM two 1 TB hard drives for $100.
We knew this was coming—inventories of the Mac Mini have been depleted across the country for weeks, and the diminutive Mac hadn't been refreshed since July 2011, when it was outfitted with a the then newish Thunderbolt I/O and upgraded Sandy Bridge processors. Last year's baseline $600 model had a 2.3GHZ processor with 2GB of memory and 500GB hard drive, The more expensive $800 Mac Mini came with 2.5GHz processor, 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. When more important computers like the MacBook Pro line get a boost, the Mac Minis, which are aimed at budget conscious and corporate customers, generally follow suit several months later.
The cheapest Mac Minis seem like a solid, budget-friendly alternative for people who don't want to shell out for more expensive iMacs, but once you start piling on the extras, these little tigers aren't really worth it anymore—Unless for some reason you need a monitorless computer you can throw in your briefcase.

Apple sneaks out significant update to Final Cut Pro X

Not content with the barrage of new goodies unleashed on the public at Tuesday’s media event, Apple has also released new updates to its professional suite of filmmaking applications: Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor.
Version 10.0.6 is Final Cut Pro X's most significant update yet: The program now supports the RED camera line, adding both native Redcode Raw editing and transcoding to Apple’s ProRes format. The update also adds new multichannel audio editing tools to the timeline, dual viewers (allowing editors to compare shots on the fly), support for MXF plug-ins, a unified import window for both file-based camera systems and folders, and support for chapter markers.
Additionally, the new version lets editors keep Connected Clips in place while slipping, sliding, or moving clips, add freeze-frames more easily, copy and paste attributes with a new Paste window, use new audio controls for Multicam clips, create multiple range selections for a single clip, and export projects and range selections more easily via a redesigned Share interface. FCP’s XML has also been updated to version 1.2, allowing editors to import and export metadata to third-party apps.
Compressor and Motion also get a few updates to call their own. Apple has improved the cluster setup for Compressor, along with eliminating the re-authentication process for additional encoding clusters and addressing an issue related to third-party QuickTime components. Motion receives improved anti-aliasing for text, the ability to open multiple projects simultaneously, and faster project loading times.
The updates are free for current users; new users can pick up the apps for $300 (Final Cut Pro X) and $50 each (Motion or Compressor).

Paid iBookstore Content Going Live in New Zealand and 17 Latin American Countries

Paid books are now on sale in Apple's iBookstore in New Zealand. While the titles are not yet accessible through the main Books section of the iTunes Store, searches for various others and titles are yielding a number of book results.

Blog do iPhone is also now reporting that paid books are going live in Brazil, and we've confirmed that paid titles are now available in 16 other Latin American countries as well.

Paid iBookstore titles in Brazilian iTunes Store

The full list of new markets we've spotted so far includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.

Evidence of new markets for paid iBookstore content comes amid rumors of an iBooks 3.0 launch alongside the "iPad mini" at tomorrow's media event. Apple is expected to make education one of the key themes of the introduction, and with the smaller iPad more closely competing with smaller tablets focused on reading, an expansion of iBookstore content seems to be a logical step.

Massive Encryption Faults in Android Apps Used by 185 Million Users exposing Bank Details etc.

Computer science researchers have found that Android apps used by upwards of 185 million people can expose online banking and social network credentials, as well as emails and IM content.
The researchers, from Germany's Leibniz University of Hannover and Philipps University of Marburg, have identified 41 apps available on the Play store which leak sensitive information as it travels between phones and servers. The team recreated real-life app use on a local area network and then used existing security exploits to garner confidential information, reports Ars Technica. The researchers write:
"We could gather bank account information, payment credentials for PayPal, American Express and others. Furthermore, Facebook, email and cloud storage credentials and messages were leaked, access to IP cameras was gained and control channels for apps and remote servers could be subverted."
The researchers haven't identified which apps are at fault, though they do note that some of them have been downloaded up to 185 million times. They do hint at the kind of software they found was insecure, though, detailing examples of the vulnerabilities they found. Ars Technica gives a round-up:

• An anti-virus app that accepted invalid certificates when validating the connection supplying new malware signatures. By exploiting that trust, the researchers were able to feed the app their own malicious signature.
• An app with an install base of 1 million to 5 million users that was billed as a "simple and secure" way to upload and download cloud-based data that exposed login credentials. The leakage was the result of a "broken SSL channel."
• A client app for a popular Web 2.0 site with up to 1 million users, which appears to be offered by a third-party developer. It leaked Facebook and Google credentials when logging in to those sites.
• A "very popular cross-platform messaging service" with an install base of 10 million to 50 million users exposed telephone numbers from the address book.

Big problems, then, but the descriptions—using language like "generic online banking app"—seem to suggest that these are third-party apps, not official software from the websites they connect to. The researchers have recommended a number of ways that the issues can be fixed. Let's just hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Would you buy the New Windows 8 Surface Tablet hardware From Microsoft when their Xbox 360 Failure Rate is 54% ?

If you are considering buying Microsofts soon to be released Windows Surface RT and Windows 8 Surface hardware it's not a bad idea to check out Microsofts record in the hardware market.
You can look at smaller items like their mice and keyboards and come away with a very positive, confident outlook. When you look at the xbox 360 though things start to look extremely negative. With currently a 54% failure rate you are shaking in your boots. On top of that, of those 54% who had their systems repaired over 42% failed a second time! Thats a shocking statistic.

The 360 was released in November 22, 2005, so thats nearly 7 years ago. If Microsoft can't or won't or can't be bothered to to fix these issues and has had 7 years to come up with a fix for it then why the heck would anyone in their right mind even consider a major hardware purchase like a surface from Microsoft. They have proved that they don't give a damn about their hardware and customers. I mean when a system is repaired they should update it with some better cooling and whatever else is needed so there is no more system meltdowns. But as you can plainly see they haven't even tried. A company that is serious about their hardware and customer satisfaction would have pulled these units within a very short period of time and done the decent thing and fixed the issues.

So I hope you can see why I think anyone that buys any serious piece of Hardware like their soon to be released Surface windows 8 line of products should wait a very long time and see if Microsoft has changed and got it right . I feel very sorry for other owners of Microsofts hardware products like the Xbox 360. So my advice is steer well clear and tread very softly because if their is an issue it might take 7 years for them to fix it. Oh wait a minute!!… 7 years AND counting …. Good luck on that one ….

Windows RT Runs NO, yes NO Windows programs not even One. It's not Windows in anyway , shape or form.

Yes thats right. Microsoft is confusing the heck out of users so lets just say this once and for all. Windows RT is not and will never be Windows as you know it.
Lets list the facts:

Windows RT is a totally new platform.
Windows RT is not in anyway Windows.
Windows RT Cannot install or run even one Windows application.
Windows RT cannot run or install any Windows Phone Apps, No not even one.

So there you go. Don't think if you buy a Windows RT Tablet that you'll be able to install anything but whats in the Windows RT app store which frankly is next to nothing, You can't even install an existing Windows phone app. This is totally crazy and it is very misleading.

So lets say it again Windows RT is NOT Windows and should be called something completely different.
Remove the word Windows completely maybe just called it Microsoft RT.

Megaupload Is Reborn and called Mega.

Megaupload Is Reborn and called Mega. So whats different? A unique tool that will solve the liability problems faced by cloud storage services, enhance the privacy rights of internet users, and provide themselves with a simple new business. Meanwhile, critics fear that Mega is simply a revamped version of Megaupload, cleverly designed to skirt the old business’s legal issues
(Dotcom and three of his partners remain in New Zealand, where they were arrested in January 2012. They face extradition to the U.S. on charges of “engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement,” according to the Department of Justice.)
What Mega and Megaupload do have in common is that they are both one-click, subscriber-based cloud platforms that allow customers to upload, store, access, and share large files. Dotcom, and his Mega partner Mathias Ortmann say the difference is that now those files will first be one-click-encrypted right in a client’s browser, using the so-called Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm. The user is then provided with a second unique key for that file’s decryption.
It will be up to users, and third-party app developers, to control access to any given uploaded file, be it a song, movie, videogame, book, or simple text document. Internet libertarians will surely embrace this new capability.
And because the decryption key is not stored with Mega, the company would have no means to view the uploaded file on its server. It would, Ortmann explains, be impossible for Mega to know, or be responsible for, its users’ uploaded content — a state of affairs engineered to create an ironclad “safe harbor” from liability for Mega, and added piece of mind for the user.
“If servers are lost, if the government comes into a data center and rapes it, if someone hacks the server or steals it, it would give him nothing,” Dotcom explains. “Whatever is uploaded to the site, it is going to be remain closed and private without the key.”
Dotcom’s belief is that even the broad interpretation of internet law that brought down Megaupload would be insufficient to thwart the new Mega, because what users share, how they share it, and how many people they share it with will be their responsibility and under their control, not Mega’s.
Dotcom says that according to his legal experts, the only way to stop such a service from existing is to make encryption itself illegal. “And according to the U.N. Charter for Human Rights, privacy is a basic human right,” Dotcom explains. “You have the right to protect your private information and communication against spying.”
Dotcom says that the new Mega will be an attractive product for anyone concerned about the state of online security. And to address the concerns about data loss of the sort that affected Megaupload customers whose files were seized by the FBI, Mega will store all data on two sets of redundant servers, located in two different countries.
“So, even if one country decides to go completely berserk from a legal perspective and freeze all servers, for example — which we don’t expect, because we’ve fully complied with all the laws of the countries we place servers in — or if a natural disaster happens, there’s still another location where all the files are available,” Ortmann says. “This way, it’s impossible to be subjected to the kind of abuse that we’ve had in the U.S.”
Ultimately, Dotcom envisions a network hosted by thousands of different entities with thousands of different servers, in countries all over the world.
“We’re creating a system where any host in the world — from the $2,000 garage operation to the largest online host — can connect their own servers to this network,” Dotcom says. “We can work with anybody, because the hosts themselves cannot see what’s on the servers.”
One of the more unique wrinkles of the new service may come from Mega’s decision not to deploy so-called de-duplication on its servers, meaning that if a user decides to upload the same copyright-infringing file 100 times, it would result in 100 different files and 100 distinct decryption keys. Removing them would require 100 takedown notices of the type typically sent by rights holders like movie studios and record companies.
While Mega is adamant that this is not the point of their technology, others fear the service may atomize the piracy problem, turning internet policing into an even more elaborate game of Wack-a-Mole. “As we learned from the first iteration of Megaupload, how it describes itself and how it really operates can be two very distinct things,” says one industry spokesman who asked not to be named. “We’d rather not wade in here until we can see the thing with our own eyes.”
Julie Samuels, a staff attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation, says that while the new Mega may present an interesting development for internet users, it doesn’t answer the issues raised by the unique and, by her lights, questionable interpretation of Internet law used in the case against Megaupload. “It’s likely to change the cat-and-mouse game that goes on in terms of this issue on the Internet,” Samuels says. “But it’s still a cat-and-mouse game.”
Samuels says that the technology may affect how easy or difficult it is for rights holders or law enforcement to determine exactly what kind of files are being shared. “But there are still some fundamental questions that need to be answered. At this point, it’s not technology but the courts which need to address them.”
Dotcom insists that Mega is not “a giant middle finger to Hollywood and the DoJ,” or a relaunch of Megaupload. And Ortmann points out that if users choose to violate copyright with the new technology, there are already rules in place to address it. “If the copyright holder finds publicly posted links and decryption keys and verifies that the file is an infringement of their copyright, they can send a DMCA takedown notice to have that file removed, just like before,” he says.
As with Megaupload, Ortmann says, Mega will also grant direct access to their servers for entities such as film studios, allowing them to remove copyright-infringing material themselves. “But this time, if they want to use that tool, they’ll have to accept, prior to getting access, that they’re not going to sue us or hold us accountable for the actions of our users,” Dotcom says.
In any event, the Mega team believes that a government takedown of their new service is extremely improbable. “Unless our legal team tells us that the DoJ is likely to go berserk again,” Ortmann explains. “But in my view, they can’t pull off this stunt a second time.”

Pirate Bay Is Now Cloud Based and Raid-Proof.

The Pirate Bay has made an important change to its infrastructure. The world’s most famous BitTorrent site has switched its entire operation to the cloud. From now on The Pirate Bay will serve its users from several cloud hosting providers scattered around the world. The move will cut costs, ensure better uptime, and make the site virtually invulnerable to police raids — all while keeping user data secure.

The Pirate Bay is loved by millions of file-sharers but is also a thorn in the side of the entertainment industries.
The latter group continues to push authorities to take action against the site. The Pirate Bay was raided back in 2006 and there are rumors that the police might try again in the near future.
The Pirate Bay is not oblivious to this looming threat. They have backups in place and are shielding the true location of their servers. Nevertheless, should the site lose all its servers it might take a while to get back online.
This is one of the reasons why The Pirate Bay decided to move the site into the cloud yesterday. The switch resulted in five minutes downtime and was hardly noticed by the public, but it’s a big change for the infamous BitTorrent site.
Hosting in the cloud also makes the site easier to scale, it reduces downtime, and is also cheaper.
“Moving to the cloud lets TPB move from country to country, crossing borders seamlessly without downtime. All the servers don’t even have to be hosted with the same provider, or even on the same continent,” The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak.
The Pirate Bay is currently hosted at cloud hosting companies in two countries where they run several Virtual Machine (VM) instances.
“Running on VMs cuts down operation costs and complexity. For example, we never need anyone to do hands-on work like earlier this month when we were down for two days because someone had to fix a broken power distribution unit,” The Pirate Bay says.

The setup also makes it possible for the BitTorrent site to take their business elsewhere without too much hassle.
“If one cloud-provider cuts us off, goes offline or goes bankrupt, we can just buy new virtual servers from the next provider. Then we only have to upload the VM-images and reconfigure the load-balancer to get the site up and running again.”
While most of Pirate Bay’s former servers are now obsolete, not everything was moved to the cloud.
The load balancer and transit-routers are still owned and operated by The Pirate Bay, which allows the site to hide the location of the cloud provider. It also helps to secure the privacy of the site’s users.
The hosting providers have no idea that they’re hosting The Pirate Bay, and even in the event they found out it would be impossible for them to gather data on the users.
“All communication with users goes through TPB’s load balancer, which is a disk-less server with all the configuration in RAM. The load balancer is not in the same country as the transit-router or the cloud servers,” The Pirate Bay told us.
“The communication between the load balancer and the virtual servers is encrypted. So even if a cloud provider found out they’re running TPB, they can’t look at the content of user traffic or user’s IP-addresses.”
In addition The Pirate Bay now believes it’s more raid proof.
The worst case scenario is that The Pirate Bay loses both its transit router and its load balancer. All the important data is backed up externally on VMs that can be re-installed at cloud hosting providers anywhere in the world.
“If the police decide to raid us again there are no servers to take, just a transit router. If they follow the trail to the next country and find the load balancer, there is just a disk-less server there. In case they find out where the cloud provider is, all they can get are encrypted disk-images,” The Pirate Bay says.
“They have to be quick about it too, if the servers have been out of communication with the load balancer for 8 hours they automatically shut down. When the servers are booted up, access is only granted to those who have the encryption password,” they add.
For Pirate Bay users the move to the cloud doesn’t change much though. If anything, they will notice significantly less downtime.

Viruses Rampant on Medical Equipment in Hospitals

Computerised hospital equipment is increasingly vulnerable to malware infections, according to participants in a recent government panel. These infections can clog patient-monitoring equipment and other software systems, at times rendering the devices temporarily inoperable.
While no injuries have been reported, the malware problem at hospitals is clearly rising nationwide, says Kevin Fu, a leading expert on medical-device security and a computer scientist at the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who took part in the panel discussion.
Software-controlled medical equipment has become increasingly interconnected in recent years, and many systems run on variants of Windows, a common target for hackers elsewhere. The devices are usually connected to an internal network that is itself connected to the Internet, and they are also vulnerable to infections from laptops or other device brought into hospitals. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that manufacturers often will not allow their equipment to be modified, even to add security features.






In a typical example, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, 664 pieces of medical equipment are running on older Windows operating systems that manufactures will not modify or allow the hospital to change—even to add antivirus software—because of disagreements over whether modifications could run afoul of U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory reviews, Fu says.
As a result, these computers are frequently infected with malware, and one or two have to be taken offline each week for cleaning, says Mark Olson, chief information security officer at Beth Israel.
"I find this mind-boggling," Fu says. "Conventional malware is rampant in hospitals because of medical devices using unpatched operating systems. There's little recourse for hospitals when a manufacturer refuses to allow OS updates or security patches."
The worries over possible consequences for patients were described last Thursday at a meeting of a medical-device panel at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Security & Privacy Advisory Board, of which Fu is a member, in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, Olson described how malware at one point slowed down fetal monitors used on women with high-risk pregnancies being treated in intensive-care wards.
"It's not unusual for those devices, for reasons we don't fully understand, to become compromised to the point where they can't record and track the data," Olson said during the meeting, referring to high-risk pregnancy monitors. "Fortunately, we have a fallback model because they are high-risk [patients]. They are in an IC unit—there's someone physically there to watch. But if they are stepping away to another patient, there is a window of time for things to go in the wrong direction."
The computer systems at fault in the monitors were replaced several months ago by the manufacturer, Philips; the new systems, based on Windows XP, have better protections and the problem has been solved, Olson said in a subsequent interview.
At the meeting, Olson also said similar problems threatened a wide variety of devices, ranging from compounders, which prepare intravenous drugs and intravenous nutrition, to picture-archiving systems associated with diagnostic equipment, including massive $500,000 magnetic resonance imaging devices.
Olson told the panel that infections have stricken many kinds of equipment, raising fears that someday a patient could be harmed. "We also worry about situations where blood gas analyzers, compounders, radiology equipment, nuclear-medical delivery systems, could become compromised to where they can't be used, or they become compromised to the point where their values are adjusted without the software knowing," he said. He explained that when a machine becomes clogged with malware, it could in theory "miss a couple of readings off of a sensor [and] erroneously report a value, which now can cause harm."
Often the malware is associated with botnets, Olson said, and once it lodges inside a computer, it attempts to contact command-and-control servers for instructions. Botnets, or collections of compromised computers, commonly send spam but can also wage attacks on other computer systems or do other tasks assigned by the organizations that control them (see "Moore's Outlaws").
In September, the Government Accountability Office issued a report warning that computerized medical devices could be vulnerable to hacking, posing a safety threat, and asked the FDA to address the issue. The GAO report focused mostly on the threat to two kinds of wireless implanted devices: implanted defibrillators and insulin pumps. The vulnerability of these devices has received widespread press attention (see "Personal Security" and "Keeping Pacemakers Safe from Hackers"), but no actual attacks on them have been reported.
Fu, who is a leader in researching the risks described in the GAO report, said those two classes of device are "a drop in the bucket": thousands of other network-connected devices used for patient care are also vulnerable to infection. "These are life-saving devices. Patients are overwhelmingly safer with them than without them. But cracks are showing," he said. (Fu was Technology Review's Innovator of the Year in 2009.)
Malware problems on hospital devices are rarely reported to state or federal regulators, both Olson and Fu said. This is partly because hospitals believe they have little recourse. Despite FDA guidance issued in 2009 to hospitals and manufacturers—encouraging them to work together and stressing that eliminating security risks does not always require regulatory review—many manufacturers interpret the fine print in other ways and don't offer updates, Fu says. And such reporting is not required unless a patient is harmed. "Maybe that's a failing on our part, that we aren't trying to raise the visibility of the threat," Olson said. "But I think we all feel the threat gets higher and higher."
Speaking at the meeting, Brian Fitzgerald, an FDA deputy director, said that in visiting hospitals around the nation, he has found Beth Israel's problems to be widely shared. "This is a very common profile," he said. The FDA is now reviewing its regulatory stance on software, Fitzgerald told the panel. "This will have to be a gradual process, because it involves changing the culture, changing the technology, bringing in new staff, and making a systematic approach to this," he said.
In an interview Monday, Tam Woodrum, a software executive at the device maker GE Healthcare, said manufacturers are in a tough spot, and the problems are amplified as hospitals expect more and more interconnectedness. He added that despite the FDA's 2009 guidance, regulations make system changes difficult to accomplish: "In order to go back and update the OS, with updated software to run on the next version, it's an onerous regulatory process."
Olson said that in his experience, GE Healthcare does offer software patches and guidance on keeping devices secure, but that not all manufacturers have the same posture. He added that the least-protected devices have been placed behind firewalls. But to do that with all a hospital's software-controlled equipment would require more than 200 firewalls—an unworkable prospect, he said.
John Halamka, Beth Israel's CIO and a Harvard Medical School professor, said he began asking manufacturers for help in isolating their devices from the networks after trouble arose in 2009: the Conficker worm caused problems with a Philips obstetrical care workstation, a GE radiology workstation, and nuclear medical applications that "could not be patched due to [regulatory] restrictions." He said, "No one was harmed, but we had to shut down the systems, clean them, and then isolate them from the Internet/local network."
He added: "Many CTOs are not aware of how to protect their own products with restrictive firewalls. All said they are working to improve security but have not yet produced the necessary enhancements."
Fu says that medical devices need to stop using insecure, unsupported operating systems. "More hospitals and manufacturers need to speak up about the importance of medical-device security," he said after the meeting. "Executives at a few leading manufacturers are beginning to commit engineering resources to get security right, but there are thousands of software-based medical devices out there."

Microsoft sees company becoming more like Apple.

Steve Ballmer, Microsofts CEO comments in his annual letter to shareholders published on Tuesday suggested that Microsoft may eventually make its own phones to build on its forthcoming own-brand Surface tablet PC and market-leading Xbox gaming console.
"There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface," wrote Ballmer.
The new approach mimics Apple Inc, whose massively successful iPhone and iPad demonstrated tight integration of high-quality software and hardware and made Windows devices feel clunky in comparison. Microsoft has followed Apples lead and opened their own stores which look and feel a lot like Apples (Samsung has also done this)



Ballmer, who took over as CEO from co-founder Bill Gates in 2000, said the company would continue to work with its traditional hardware partners, such as Dell Inc, Samsung and HTC, but he made it clear that Microsoft's role in the so-called 'ecosystem' was changing.
"It impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses," he wrote.
Microsoft already makes money from providing services online, such as access to servers to enable 'cloud computing', or Web versions of its Office applications, but Ballmer's new emphasis suggests an acceleration away from its traditional business model of selling installed software.
"This is a significant shift, both in what we do and how we see ourselves — as a devices and services company," he added.

Alongside the shareholders' letter, Microsoft's annual proxy filing, which deals with the shareholders' meeting and other governance issues, showed that Ballmer, 56, got a lower bonus than he did last year, partly for flat sales of Windows and his failure to ensure that the company provided a choice of browser to some European customers.
It is the third year in a row that Ballmer has not earned his maximum bonus, set at twice his salary.
Microsoft's recent financial year was scarred by a $6.2 billion write-down for a failed acquisition and lower profit from its flagship Windows system as computer sales stood still.
In the company's filing, Microsoft's compensation committee said it took into account a 3 percent decline in Windows sales over the year, as well as "the Windows division failure to provide a browser choice screen on certain Windows PCs in Europe as required by its 2009 commitment with the European Commission."
Microsoft's failure to provide a browser choice in Europe was an embarrassing setback for the company, which has been embroiled in disputes with European regulators for more than a decade and paid more than $1 billion in fines for including its own Internet Explorer browser on Windows. It now faces further fines from a new investigation.

Motorola's broken promise over ICS Update outrages customers

Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside is under fire for an abandoned pledge to update three 2011 phones to Ice Cream Sandwich.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET )
Doran Else bought his Photon 4G last October, lured by the fast dual-core processor and by the close relationship between Motorola and its new owner, Google. Motorola had recently joined the Android Upgrade Alliance, promising to release operating system updates to all its phones for 18 months following their release.
But for Else and thousands of others, those operating system updates turned out to be a mirage. Last Friday, buried in a Motorola forum, the company quietly abandoned its update pledge, killing off plans to ever update the Photon 4G. The Electrify, a re-branded Photon available on the US Cellular network, and the Atrix 4G, a flagship phone that debuted on AT&T in the United States, got the axe as well.
"Just seems they were happy to join the alliance when it helped them sell handsets," Else said in an e-mail. "Now that it's time to do the work, they're all dropping devices. This latest announcement from Moto is just ridiculous."

The result is that Else and thousands of people in the middle of two-year carrier contracts will have to use Android 2.3, known as Gingerbread, for the foreseeable future. Motorola had promised owners of the Photon, Electrify, and Atrix an upgrade to to Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, which would bring a host of new features and security updates. Instead they are stuck on Gingerbread, an operating system that was already a year old when Else bought his phone.

There was no word on why the company had twice said upgrades were coming -- first in the third quarter of this year, then the fourth quarter -- or why it had bothered joining the Android Upgrade Alliance, if it couldn't meet its requirements.

The Photon 4G is among the phones Motorola won't upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET )
Same old song
Every few months, it seems, we hear a new version of an old story: the maker of an expensive smartphone announces it won't be upgraded to the latest version of Android, and consumers cry foul.
But this one is different. First, Motorola told customers they would upgrade the phones for 18 months after they came out, a statement that drove sales of the devices. Second, Google owns both Android and Motorola, making it all the more puzzling why the business units didn't work together to make an upgrade happen.

Finally, there are signs that for some Android devotees, Motorola's abandonment of its year-old phones is the last straw.

We asked Motorola smartphone owners how they were feeling about the company -- and Android -- these days. Jacob Depenbusch, a Photon owner, offered a typical account. He researched a variety of Android phones and settled on the Photon after learning it was on the upgrade path.

"My family and myself all bought the Photon because it met the specifications of being upgraded to ICS," Depenbusch said. "Had they not promised an update, the phone would've been out of the question. And then they reneged on the promise. They benefited financially from lying to us, and these phones certainly aren't cheap. This is an appalling business practice."

Several owners said they had filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau over their treatment by Motorola. Others said they had purchased a Motorola for the last time. That's despite the fact that Motorola is offering a $100 credit to anyone willing to purchase a new phone from the company.

"The fact they are offering $100 to swap to another Motorola phone is laughable," said Danny Brewer, who owns an Atrix. "I will not be touching it or another Motorola phone with a barge pole. I don't want a new phone -- I want my current phone, that I have to keep for another year, as that's how long my contract is for.

"There are very few companies that I have felt I needed to boycott," he added. "But Motorola has just earned that honor."

The really unfortunate part of this? Most of the people who we interviewed love their phones. They find them fast, reliable, and fun to play with. They want to keep using them well into the future. They'd just like to do it on Ice Cream Sandwich -- an operating system that was released to manufacturers a year ago.