Pc Clean often updates its blog of IT related news that has caught our attention. The blogs are not my thoughts, but of thoughts of people who study the finer sectors of the IT Circle
Facing a wave of criticism for not offering a secured browsing option, Facebook has finally added a new feature to browse the popular social network on a secure connection (https).
However, the https:// browsing is not turned on by default and must be manually activated from an “Account Settings” page on Facebook.
If you’ve ever done your shopping or banking online, you may have noticed a small “lock” icon appear in your address bar, or that the address bar has turned green. This indicates that your browser is using a secure connection (”HTTPS”) to communicate with the website and ensure that the information you send remains private. Facebook currently uses HTTPS whenever your password is sent to us, but today we’re expanding its usage in order to help keep your data even more secure.
Starting today we’ll provide you with the ability to experience Facebook entirely over HTTPS. You should consider enabling this option if you frequently use Facebook from public Internet access points found at coffee shops, airports, libraries or schools.
Facebook offers peek at incoming malware attacks
However, instead of being on by default (as it is with GMail, for example), Facebook is urging users to activate secure browsing via the ”Account Security” section of the Account Settings page.
The new feature will effectively kill tools like Firesheep which were created to highlight the weaknesses of Web sites that don’t offer a secure browsing option. Firesheep, released as a Firefox plug-in, offered a point-and-click interface to fully compromise Facebook browsing sessions. Keep linked to www.pcclean.ie for more news like this.
Facebook says the new feature may slow down surfing on the site because encrypted sessions typically take longer to load. In addition, some Facebook features, including many third-party applications, are not currently supported in HTTPS, which will cause problems.
The company says it hopes to offer HTTPS as a default setting “sometime in the future.”
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British engineers are planning to put a mobile phone in space.
The team at SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford want to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known.
The mobile will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.
It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.
Although mobile phones have been flown on high altitude balloons before, this would likely be the first time such a device has gone into orbit several hundred kilometres above the planet.
"Modern smartphones are pretty amazing," said Shaun Kenyon, the project manager at SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Limited).
"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite."
High Street product
The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.
The mission is known as STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration).
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible”
End Quote Doug Liddle Head of science, SSTL.
It involves both the company and researchers from the University of Surrey's space centre (SSC).
Much of the development work has been done in team-members' spare time.
The mobile model being used will be a standard, sub-£300 ($450), smartphone available in High Street stores.
"We're not taking it apart; we're not gutting it; we're not taking out the printed circuit boards and re-soldering them into our satellite - we're flying it as is," Mr Kenyon explained.
"And, in fact, we're going to have another camera on the satellite so we can take a picture of the phone because we want to operate the screen and have some good images of that as well."
Eye on Earth
Critical to the whole endeavour is the phone's operating system.
Android is open source software which means the engineers can modify it to adapt the phone's functions.
Google sent Nexus S smartphones to an altitude of 18km (60,000ft) on balloons last year
The great swings in temperature and the harsh radiation found in space require the phone be placed inside the satellite casing to give it some protection.
A hole will have to be cut in the side of the casing therefore to allow the phone's camera lens to see out.
The phone itself will not "call home"; messages and pictures will come back via the satellite's radio link.
For the first part of the mission, the mobile will act as the back-up to the main computer on the spacecraft.
After a period of time, however, the phone will be put in charge.
"We're trying to use as much of the capability of the phone as possible," said Doug Liddle, head of science at SSTL.
"Ideally, the phone can take control and do the thinking."
Busy months
To precisely point and manoeuvre, the satellite will be incorporating advanced guidance, navigation and control systems including miniature reaction wheels, and a GPS receiver, as well as innovative pulse plasma thrusters to propel it through space.
The latest smartphones pack enormous capability into a very small space
The intention is that the phone be given the chance to oversee all these subsystems.
"The open source nature of the software is very exciting because you can see how further down the line, once we've got the phone working in orbit, we could get people to develop apps for it," Mr Liddle added.
Chris Bridges from the Surrey Space Centre commented: "If a smartphone can be proved to work in space, it opens up lots of new technologies to a multitude of people and companies for space who usually can't afford it. It's a real game-changer for the industry."
SSTL has earned a worldwide reputation for its small satellites. The company has managed to reduce the cost of its systems by incorporating components that were originally developed for consumer products such as laptops.
The coming months will see the company launch Earth observation spacecraft for Nigerian, Russian and Canadian customers.
It is also about to start building the spacecraft that will form the initial constellation of Galileo, Europe's multi-billion-euro answer to America's GPS network.
Mozilla yesterday blocked a Skype add-on for Firefox, saying it caused more then 40,000 crashes of the browser last week and seriously slowed page loading.
One Mozilla manager called Skype a "repeat offender" when recommending that the company blacklist the add-on.
Skype Toolbar, a Firefox extension bundled with the popular phone calling application, has been added to Mozilla's list of banned add-ons, said Mozilla in a blog post Thursday.
"The current shipping version of the Skype Toolbar is one of the top crashers of Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13, and was involved in almost 40,000 crashes of Firefox last week," said Mozilla. "Additionally, depending on the version of the Skype Toolbar you're using, the methods it uses to detect and re-render phone numbers can ... drastically affect the page rendering times of a large percentage of Web content."
Firefox users can still use the Skype Toolbar, as Mozilla has only "soft-blocked" it, meaning that although it has disabled the add-on, users can re-enable the extension after clicking through a warning message.
Mozilla, however, is considering "hard blocking" the add-on, according to a message on Bugzilla, the company's bug- and change-tracking database. That move would completely bar the Toolbar.
The Skype Toolbar detects phone numbers embedded in Web pages, then makes those numbers clickable so users can more easily dial with the Skype desktop program. The Firefox add-on is installed by default when the desktop version of the voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software is installed or updated.
Mozilla said it had trouble reaching Skype's extension developers, one of the reasons it cited for blocking the add-on.
"Over the past two weeks we've doubled our efforts to contact the Skype extension team and several people at Skype have told us they pinged the extension team for us," said Justin Scott, Mozilla's add-ons product manager, in a comment on Bugzilla Wednesday. "We did not receive a response from them until this afternoon."
Skype declined to comment on the communications problem that Scott and others described on Bugzilla.
"Given the volume of crashes, the extent of the performance impact, the fact that users don't actually choose to install this add-on, and the extension team's lack of response during the weeks we were giving them to solve these issues, we should continue as planned to soft-block all versions of Skype in all versions of Firefox immediately," Scott said two days ago.
The Skype Toolbar has given Firefox users fits before. In 2008, a Bugzilla entry accused the add-on of causing the browser to hang, repeatedly reload pages and break links to PDF documents. After investigating, Mozilla added an older version of the extension to the Firefox blocklist.
In the 2008 Bugzilla thread, a Skype product manager first claimed that the problems had been fixed, then promised to address the flaws. "We will start looking into the problem and we promise to fix it asap," said Peter Kalmstroem of Skype.
Today, Skype again said that the newest version of its software would install a bug-free version of the toolbar. "Based on our initial investigation, we know that downloading the new client will fix any compatibility issues for most users," said a Skype spokesman.
"We are working with Mozilla to ensure that there are no other compatibility issues and to optimize the Skype Toolbar for Firefox," the spokesman continued. "We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused our users."
Mozilla has used the Firefox blocklist before to disable rogue or malware-infected add-ons, most recently in June 2010 when it barred a password-stealing extension that had slipped through its quality checks and made it into the browser's library.
The blocking of Skype Toolbar, however, appears to be the first time that Mozilla has blacklisted all versions of a legitimate add-on.
One Firefox developer defended the move by arguing that the toolbar's performance problem "undoes years of work that we've put in."
Kev Needham, Mozilla's distribution channel manager, used stronger words. "We've had past problems, and I think it's fair to say Skype qualifies as a repeat offender," Needham said in a Bugzilla entry last month.
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Apple has been notoriously antagonistic towards do-it-yourselfers, preferring their customers have their equipment serviced through the company's official channels. The Cupertino company may have found another way to foil these handy folks: using rare, hard-to-find screws.
Called "pentabular" screws, their pattern looks similar to a Torx screw, yet different. The best way to describe it probably is flower-shaped. Drivers for these screws aren't readily available -- making it more difficult to perform DIY repairs.
Pentalobe screws are nothing new for Apple: they first appeared on 2009 MacBook Pros to secure the battery, and are currently used to attach the case to the chassis of the MacBook Air. Kyle Wiens at iFixIt, who was first to publicize this issue, accuses Apple of doing this "because [the screw] was new, guaranteeing repair tools would be both rare and expensive. Shame on them."
He says the screwhead is new, and up until recently the only company with the right tools to remove them was Apple itself. Which would mean you'd be visiting Apple for any repair, no matter what it is. Cracked screen? No more saving money by getting the parts from a third party.
In true capitalist style, iFixit has used their post to sell an "iPhone Liberation Kit," which includes a pentalobe screwdriver and two Phillips head screws to replace their harder-to-remove cousins. It costs $9.99.
Is Apple within its rights to keep do-it-yourselfers out of its devices?
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Moving beyond stats and graphs, a new set of gadgets, games, and apps add community and entertainment to exercise.
Like a lot of people, Kenny Thompson had trouble balancing a full-time job job with a fitness regime.
The 34-year-old retail manager used to work out regularly when he was younger, but over the past couple of years he had become more inactive. Recently that all changed, thanks to his Xbox 360 Kinect add-on and a game called Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
An avid gamer who realised the need for a lifestyle change, Thompson entered Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved Bootcamp contest for a chance to be among the first to play the game. Since then the game has become part of a regular commitment to diet and exercise, and Thompson has lost more than 15 pounds. His favourite feature in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is cardio kickboxing, but he can also try one of the many programs designed by experts from Men's Health and Women's Health magazines. Through Kinect's motion sensors, which track more than 50,000 points on his body, the game gives him feedback on how he's moving through the exercises.
"Boom! There's a personal trainer in my living room ready to walk me though a routine," says Thompson.
The game appeals to Thompson's competitive personality. The Xbox 360's multiplayer capabilities give him a support group of friends with whom he can compare scores and calories burned. "It's extremely motivating," says Thompson. "Working out with other people is better than working out by yourself."
Fitness technology started with tools that tracked and graphed calories burned, steps taken, and reps performed. The category gained a bit of fun when Nintendo released Wii Fit and when mobile apps let you share your accomplishments with online compatriots. Now the latest crop of fitness technology - pumped up with gaming and social networking features - adds a deeper level of fun to the sweat and burn.
Kinect with your sporty side
Take a class in cardio kickboxing using the Kinect and Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
When Microsoft released the Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 in November 2010, developers released a slew of fitness games along with it. Unlike the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Move add-on for the PlayStation 3, the Kinect responds to body motion without the need of a controller. Kinect's motion sensor, facial recognition, and body scanning can analyse your movements to ensure that you are doing the exercises correctly.
The Your Shape: Fitness Evolved game "coaches you through the whole process," says Thompson.
Another Kinect fitness title that marries entertainment with exercise is THQ's The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout, a spin-off from the fitness reality TV show of the same name. (The game is also available as The Biggest Loser Challenge for Nintendo Wii.) The Biggest Loser trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, from the US version of the show, guide users through ten routines in four environments: the ranch, the gym, a yoga studio and a boxing ring. You can incorporate a stability ball, free weights, and resistance bands into your workout, as well as record progress in a video diary. And in true Xbox 360 style, you can work out with three other players online.
Work out with Bob Harper (shown here) and Jillian Michaels from the US version of 'The Biggest Loser.
Geocaching
People who prefer trails to gyms can grab hiking boots and a GPS device and participate in a high-tech treasure hunt called geocaching. Geocachers put toys and trinkets into boxes (called caches), leave them in parks and neighbourhoods, upload their GPS coordinates, and allow other people to hunt and find them. GPS coordinates let players get close - but beyond that, hints and old-fashioned hide-and-seek are involved in finding the cache. Players can take the goodies out of the box so long as they leave something else of equal value.
Websites such as Geocaching.com let players post and find hikes and caches in their area, log their experiences, and even compete in teams. According to Groundspeak, which hosts Geocaching.com, about four million people worldwide have found about 1.4 million caches. The activity is popular in the UK as well as the US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Not surprisingly GPS maker Garmin has gotten in on the geocaching action, having recently launched its own geocaching website called OpenCaching in December 2010. Garmin also released in October 2010 the Garmin Chirp, a small wireless beacon that lets geocachers upload coordinates and hints for caches. This durable device lives in the cache and can count the number of people who find it.
Canadian entrepreneur Martin Pedersen says that geocaching has helped him lose 35 pounds. On his website FamilyNavigation.com, he has pledged to lose 100 pounds, walk 2,500 kilometers, and find 1,000 caches in a year. (He and his family have found 999 caches so far!) He started geocaching in July 2009 after his wife introduced him to the activity.
Pedersen says that he's not 'a gym rat', so he was looking for an exercise option that was inexpensive yet interesting. He likes to hike, but found that it could get mundane. The incentive of hidden treasure keeps him walking. "Some of the caches are on trails that are not easy hikes, but there's a cache at the end of the trail, so you're going for it," he says.
Pedersen's geocaching kit consists of a notebook (for thinking and writing), water, spare batteries, hiking gear, a bag of items to trade, and of course a GPS device. Pedersen uses a Garmin Oregon 200.
Garmin GPS devices aren't the only ones designed for geocaching. Magellan's waterproof Explorist 510 (£330), 610 (£410), and 710 (£500) are built for rugged hiking. Each comes with a 3.2Mp camera and a microphone for sharing geolocated images and notes on geocaching sites. You can also view names, descriptions, logs, and other information about caches right on the device. The 610 and 710 come with a compass, altimeter, and topographic maps. The 710 includes city maps, too.
Apps gone social
There is no shortage of fitness-focused mobile phone and iPad apps. Many people enthusiastically download them when they first decide to get healthy, but eventually the apps become unused memorials to broken diets and lapsed training programs. Several apps, however, are employing social-networking mainstays, such as badges, to provide motivation against quitting when the going gets tough--or at least when it gets just plain boring.
RunKeeper is a free GPS-enabled app for iPhone and Android that lets you track the distance, time, pace, route, and even elevation of your runs. Its partnership with Foursquare lets you earn badges when you have completed 5Ks, marathon runs, and distances in between. Your badges appear not only on your Foursquare account but also in your RunKeeper feed so you can impress your running buddies. WorkSmart Labs CardioTrainer, one of the first Android fitness apps, uses a smartphone's GPS capabilities to track your participation in outdoor sports such as running, biking, and even cross-country skiing. You can record how far you went, as well as how many calories you've burned. It's smart enough to stop recording when you're waiting at a traffic light. The latest update even helps you out with New Year's resolutions by placing a humanitarian wager on them: Pick a resolution (such as 'I will exercise twice a week for the next two months') and then select a cause (such as 'donate $20 to the Red Cross'). If you don't make good on the resolution, your cause gets its money. If you stick to it, your money is refunded.
CardioTrainer motivates you to stick to your resolutions by putting a donation to a charity at stake
Mashable is reporting that Nike will be revamping its NikeWomen Training Club iPhone app this month, replacing its current cartoon style with a sleek photographic look. The revised version will include 60 audio-guided workouts at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels and at 15-, 30-, and 45-minute durations. You'll unlock different badges with kudos from sports celebrities as you continue to use the app.
When it comes to getting fit and losing weight, no technology can eliminate the effort required to exercise regularly, cut calories, and eat healthy - but today's hardware and software can make the commitment a little more entertaining.
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Online shoopers frustrated this Christmas. A recent survey carried out on a popular PC magazine website shows that1,622 visitors to the site, 30.9 percent of respondents said they were not satisfied by their online Christmas shopping experience, because the deliveries were late.
A separate poll of UK consumers by Econsultancy, however, found that only 26.2% of online shoppers received their deliveries late. The slightly higher figure in our poll may reflect the fact that dissatisfied customers are more inclined to have their say than the happy and silent majority.
Responding to the question 'Have you been satisfied with your Christmas shopping online?', just over half (51.8 percent) ticked the answer 'Yes, everything arrived on time'.
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Mobile Office apps. Microsoft produces an excellent productivity suite in the form of Microsoft Office. With Windows Phone 7, a mini version of that suite has made its way to mobile devices, and it looks really good. The operating system also provides access to SharePoint-based documents.
Carrier choice. Although Windows Phone 7 has yet to release to the CDMA-based carriers ), the device still enjoys wider support than the iPhone when it comes to choosing a carrier. On the other hand, Android handily beats Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone in this case, since various vendors support all of the major wireless vendors in some way.
Cons
Limited ActiveSync support. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t support the full range of Exchange ActiveSync policies. Check out Microsoft’s fantastic Exchange ActiveSync Client Comparison Table to see which ActiveSync features are supported by Windows Phone 7. (The table also features a number of mobile device platforms, including Windows Mobile 6.5, iOS 4.2, Android, Web OS, and more.) Also look at Microsoft’s Wiki entitled Exchange ActiveSync Considerations When Using Windows Phone 7 Clients, which provides more information about Windows 7 as it relates to ActiveSync.
OS is consumer focused. Microsoft stated that Windows Phone 7 started life as a consumer product and that’s what was released as an initial version of the product. From an enterprise perspective, that’s not a good thing. I believe one reason why the iPhone and Android-based devices skyrocketed in popularity is because those devices can meet the needs of consumers and enterprises. The trend is to bring your own device to work, so I understand why Microsoft chose to focus on consumer features first, but they’ll need to make enterprise features a serious focus pretty soon.
No on-device encryption. (Note: This won’t be a “con” for everyone.) From a security perspective, on-device encryption is pretty important and can make or break a device. If you require encryption, you’re out of luck with the current release of Windows Phone 7, as the system does not support data encryption yet, nor does it support removable storage. Lack of support for removable storage can actually be a security feature for some, though.
Neutral
Multiple Exchange mailboxes. The ability to connect a mobile device to multiple Exchange mailboxes has become almost ubiquitous with recent releases of iOS and Android. Windows Phone 7 provides this ability, so it’s not really a pro or a con when compared to other platforms, but for organizations considering Windows Phone 7, it doesn’t hurt. Although the product supports multiple Exchange mailboxes, they are not presented as a unified inbox, but I can’t see where this would be either good or bad.
Conclusion
If Microsoft focuses more on enterprise features for Windows Phone 7, it will be interesting to see what happens in the mobile space. The consumer focus could work in Microsoft’s favor if the company can generate enough buzz over time and figure out a way to jump on the bring your own device bandwagon.
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Called "pentabular" screws, their pattern looks similar to a Torx screw, yet different. The best way to describe it probably is flower-shaped. Drivers for these screws aren't readily available -- making it 
Take a class in cardio kickboxing using the Kinect and Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
