Filed under: OS Updates, Hardware, Google
Yes, our source tells us that Google is building a Chrome OS tablet. It's real, and it's being built by HTC. No surprise there, since HTC churned out the Nexus One for Google.
Yes, they plan to offer it in conjunction with Verizon -- which probably doesn't come as a shock to anybody at this point. The two recently tag-teamed that Net Neutrality proposal and they've had plenty of discussions in the past about cooperating in some capacity.
As for the launch date of November 26th, well, that's all kinds of brilliant. It's Black Friday 2010 and the busiest shopping day of the year in the U.S. -- so what better day to have a shiny new tablet in the cabinet at Verizon kiosks and stores all over the country? You can bet Google's Chrome OS tablet will be heavily subsidized, and I'd go so far as to say it will be substantially cheaper than the iPad -- if not totally free -- with a Verizon data contract.
So what will the Google tablet pack for hardware? While our source didn't provide any specifics, my guess is that the device could be based on NVidia's Tegra 2 platform and sport a 1280x720 multitouch display, 2GB of RAM, minimum 32GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/LTE connectivity, GPS, webcam, and possibly expandable storage via a multi-card reader. Again, these were not given to us by our source, but expect it to be every bit as geek-tastic as the Nexus One -- Google won't want to disappoint its early adopters.
Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26 originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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- found and shared from: Download Squad
In one week, Google's Buzz social network has moved through a splashy launch, a quick fix, a major clean-up, and now, an apology. Buzz's product manager says his team is "very, very sorry," and that (more) fixes are coming this week.
Todd Jackson, Buzz product manager, tells BBC News that Buzz was tested internally by 20,000 Google employees and affiliates, but that wider public testing should have been solicited before launching. The BBC post offers a decent summation of the problems users and privacy advocates have pointed out, like the public sharing of followers and followees (which has since been tweaked).
Yada, yada, so what's going to happen now? Jackson says "transparency and control" improvements would be going live "this week."
Other possible changes include a better "preferences menu" that will allow users to better tailor what appears in their inbox, and a more prominent "mute" option to switch the service off.
Another idea, said Mr Jackson, was to create a separate service that was not part of Gmail.
"We think that integration with Gmail was absolutely the right way to go - we wanted to make Buzz easily accessible to people," he said. "We also want to give people who don't use Gmail the ability to use Buzz, so we're exploring the idea of offering a separate destination site."
The most recently announced changes would go live "this week", he added.
Better still, Jackson says the changes and features are being bug tested and translated into 53 languages, so a full-fledged overhaul should come for everyone very soon.
It's reassuring to see Google acknowledge its flaws and move quickly to address its users' issues. Then again, their trial-and-error is being staged with users' address books. What else would you want to see Buzz fix, as long as they've got the scalpel and sutures out?
- found and shared from: Lifehacker
Well, now that I’ve switched the site over to full-on flash, I need to make sure the google can still craw the html version of the site. I’m fairly certain it will, but this post will be the test. I’m going to type a unique phrase that will only exist on this site. Then, hopefully, when the google bot gets here, it logs it and I’ll be able to search for it and find the site. I think the phrase will be:
Gonka Floompa Tibi Moof.
Then in the next few days, we should see a result for this google search.
Also, I’ve added the toggle flash page and cookie checker at http://www.wackedusa.com/toggleFlash.html. This adds or removes a cookie to toggle the flash on or off (if the cookie doesn’t exist, flash is ON.)
VeriSign's iDefense security lab has published a report with technical details about the recent cyberattack that hit Google and over 30 other companies. The iDefense researchers traced the attack back to its origin and also identified the command-and-control servers that were used to manage the malware.
The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents, but the company declined to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator.
Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.
"The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," the report says.
The researchers have determined that there are significant similarities between the recent attack and a seemingly related one that was carried out in July against a large number of US companies. Both attacks were apparently managed through the same command-and-control servers.
"The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other," the report says. "Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July."
If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies.
Update: Adobe disputes iDefense's claim that PDFs were used to deploy the malware. In a statement issued today, Adobe says that they have found no evidence that their technology was used as an attack vector in this recent incident. This is supported by independent research conducted by security firm McAfee, which has found evidence that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer—but not Acrobat Reader—was exploited in the attack.
- found and shared from: arstechnica.com
