Sandeep Venugopal’s Weblog

May 15, 2008

Google starts to blur faces in StreetView Maps!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:29 pm
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After privacy complaints, Google Inc. is beginning to automatically blur faces of people captured in the street photos taken for its Internet map program. Rolling it out will take several months, however. Although Google’s Street View service was not the first to augment online maps with photos, the detail and breadth of images on the site surprised and unsettled many users when it launched last year. As specially equipped Google vehicles cruised city streets snapping panoramic images of homes and businesses, the resulting photos revealed people falling off bikes, exiting strip joints, crossing the street, sunbathing — everyday, in-public things but nonetheless, things they might not have wanted preserved for posterity.

Some privacy advocates, including the influential Electronic Frontier Foundation, suggested that Google blur the images of people. That move, the critics pointed out, would not inhibit Street View’s goal of helping people become familiar with the look and feel of a location before they travel there. This week, Google revealed it had indeed begun deploying a facial-recognition algorithm that scans photos for mugs to blur. The changes are happening first in scenes in New York, before slowly expanding to the other 40 cities in Street View. Google spokesman Larry Yu said the company is still tweaking the system. For now it tends to err on the side of blurring too many things — things a computer erroneously interprets as faces — but that is better than leaving too many faces unblurred, Yu said.

Source: AP, Martin

10 million units sold and counting - XboX 360! Niceee…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:27 pm
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Despite frequent news of Wii’s global sales domination, the Xbox 360 has managed to hit the 10 million sales mark in the US ahead of its competition, according to Microsoft. Reaching the milestone before both the Wii and PS3 in the States should secure the long-term current-gen victory for the 360, MS senior vice president, Don Mattrick, told Reuters. “History has shown us that the first company to reach ten million in console sales wins the generation battle,” stated Mattrick in a statement yesterday. Interesting fact there trivia fans. NPD figures currently puts Wii on 8.8 million sales (and closing) in the US, while PS3 is sits on 4.1 million.

Wii of course leads in the overall global race, something MS didn’t take into account when doing its sums. “Xbox 360 has the largest global install base of any current gen. high definition gaming console, Wii excluded,” the company clarified to ShackNews when asked how Xbox 360 could lead worldwide with 19 million when the Wii has sold 24.45 million. Xbox 360 has sold over 16 platinum titles that have sold through 1 million units or more, Microsoft unveiled, including “Grand Theft Auto IV,” “Halo 3,” “Madden NFL 08,” “Gears of War,” “Guitar Hero II” and “Guitar Hero III.”

Source: CVG, Martin

HBO to sell TV shows on iTunes!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:24 pm
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Time Warner Inc’s HBO cable network is expected to start selling shows on Apple iTunes digital entertainment service, with flexible pricing, sources familiar with the discussions said on Monday. Episodes of some HBO shows are likely to be sold at the standard price of $1.99 per episode or higher, these sources said, marking the first time Apple has agreed to selling television shows at different prices in the United States. The deal could be announced as early as Tuesday, one of the sources said. Although some global iTunes stores, including Japan, already sell songs at different prices, Apple has resisted offering music or television shows at different prices for the sake of simplicity for consumers.

But studio and music company executives have pushed for variable pricing, such as the ability to sell some content at lower prices and new releases at higher prices, which they believe would improve sales from its older catalogs. Apple’s pricing structure also was part of the reason why NBC Universal decided last year to pull its shows from iTunes. Since then, NBC has made some shows available for streaming on Apple’s iPhone as well made some available for sale on iTunes’s U.K. store. For HBO — home to hit series like “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” — the move marks the first time it has made its shows available for sale in electronic form. It is currently testing a broadband service for subscribers in Wisconsin, which streams episodes of shows shortly after their first airing.

Source: NY Times, Martin

Powerset introduces clever search engine!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:21 pm
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In a newly-opened online showcase, search engine specialist Powerset is now previewing a contextual search engine seen by some as a possible threat to Google, Yahoo and other major players through its support for “conversational phrasing.” Although right now, Powerset queries Wikipedia only, rumors are circulating that investment bank Allen & Co. is shopping the emerging natural language search engine to potential buyers that might even include Microsoft, which decided to drop its recent attempt to take over Yahoo. Unlike the search engines of Web sites like Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com, for example, Powerset does not rely on keyword searches.

Instead, users submit their queries as questions that don’t necessarily need to include keywords. Like traditional search engines the results are returned as URL links, often accompanied by pieces of text from the linked pages. With the Powerset search engine, however, the answer is often included directly within the search results. Users can expand the result to see the full text with pertinent sentences highlighted. Indexing the web is expensive, though, and Powerset’s way of doing it requires even more time and computing power dedicated to a web page. That’s why they say they aren’t indexing the entire web yet - the company has raised just $12.5 million. Powerset is has taken a lot of criticism for their goal of trying to redefine how people search the web ( including from us). But their lofty goals are what makes Silicon Valley so great - succeed or fail, Powerset is trying to do something pretty spectacular.

Source: Betanews, Washington Post, Martin

FBI discovers fake Chinese hardware in US gov!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:19 pm
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The FBI announced Friday that an investigation into counterfeit network components made in China and sold to the U.S. government has recovered about 3,500 fake devices with a value of $3.5 million. The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, was prompted by concerns that counterfeit network components could give hackers access to government databases. But one U.S. official told Reuters that the components discovered by the FBI are not believed to have made government computer systems more vulnerable. The existence of the probe came to light after an unclassified FBI PowerPoint presentation in January on the agency’s efforts to counter the production and distribution of counterfeit network hardware showed up on Abovetopsecret.com.

“This unclassified briefing was never intended for broad distribution or posting to the Internet,” James Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement. Operation Cisco Raider involved 15 investigations at nine FBI field offices and the execution of 39 search warrants, the bureau said. The FBI release did not mention if any arrests had been made. Components included pirated versions of Cisco Systems routers as well as switches, interface converters and wide area network interface cards, Reuters reported. The People’s Republic of China has not been accused of orchestrating the counterfeit sales, but for several years, U.S. officials have been investigating a wave of government computer breaches thought to have originated in China.

Source: ABC, Cnet, Martin

AMD moves to 12-core server processors! Sweet…!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:16 pm
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Advanced Micro Devices plans to release processors with 12 cores, which changes its product road map and kills earlier plans to release 8-core chips. The 12-core processor, code-named Magny-Cours, will be targeted at servers and is due for release in the first half of 2010, according to the company’s updated road map announced Wednesday. The chip will include 12M bytes of L3 cache and support DDR3 RAM, according to the road map. AMD is jumping from a 6-core chip code-named Istanbul, due for release in the second half of 2009, straight to a 12-core chip the following year, an AMD spokesman said. Until last month, AMD officials repeated plans to ship the 8-core server chip, code-named Barcelona, in 2009.

Montreal has now been replaced by Istanbul, followed by a 12-core product in 2010, the spokesman said. AMD is also planning to release a 6-core chip code-named Sao Paulo in 2010. The chip will include 6M bytes of L3 cache and support for DDR3 RAM. Sao Paulo chips could meet the need of systems that don’t require 12 cores, Allen said. The new chips will be more power efficient as they will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, an upgrade from the 65-nm process currently used to manufacture Barcelona. Even with AMD’s altered road map, Intel will remain formidable. Intel shipped 78.5 percent of chips in the first quarter of 2008, while AMD held a 20.6 percent market share, a slight gain from the 18.7 percent market share it held in the first quarter of 2007.

Source: NY Times, Martin

MySpace adds user data sharing!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:14 pm
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MySpace has launched a data-sharing project in which the social networking site will open up its code to partner sites Photobucket, Twitter, eBay and Yahoo. The MySpace Data Availability Initiative will involve the creation of a new section of the site which will manage the data sharing. Users will access the system and share data on an ‘opt-in’ basis, meaning that only information which the user has chosen to share will be viewable by others. The information will then be available for use on other sites, allowing users to display MySpace profile information along with photos and video files on other participating sites.

All user data will remain hosted on MySpace, allowing the information to be updated as users change their profile information. “The walls around the garden are coming down, and the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic internet,” said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive and co-founder of MySpace. The move is designed to complement Yahoo’s open strategy initiative, in which the company offered to open its own applications to outside developers. The two sites are also working together as part of the OpenSocial project. “Yahoo believes in an open internet that gives users the flexibility to make their web experiences as relevant, social and personalised as they can,” said Ash Patel, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo. I’m looking forward to first lawsuits where people complain about their personal data being shared all over the internet…

Source: Vnunet, Martin

MS Zune to block copyrighted videos! Grrrr…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:12 pm
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If you like to download the latest episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows from BitTorrent, maybe you shouldn’t buy a Microsoft Zune to watch them on. A future update of the software for Microsoft’s portable media player may well include a feature that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it. Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it would start selling video programming for the Zune, mainly TV shows. These include programs from NBC Universal, which has pulled its shows off Apple’s iTunes Store. Late Tuesday afternoon I reached J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, to ask why NBC found Microsoft’s video store more appealing than Apple’s.

He explained that NBC, like most studios, would like the broadest distribution possible for its programming. But it has two disputes with Apple. First, Apple insists that all TV shows have an identical wholesale price so that it can sell all of them at $1.99. NBC wants to sell its programs for whatever price it chooses. Second, Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos. Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright “cop” to be installed on its devices. More info at NY Times - and official reply from Microsoft.

Microsoft Zune adds filesharing and videos! Niceee…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:09 pm
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Microsoft Corp., trailing Apple Inc. badly in the market for portable music and video players, is introducing a new technology that will let users of its Zune portable devices legally share portions of their song libraries with other Zune users. The Redmond, Wash., company on Tuesday also plans to announce it has started selling downloads of television shows that will play on Zunes, including “South Park” and “Heroes,” through relationships with Comedy Central, NBC, MTV and other broadcasters. The company says it will have about 800 episodes available for purchase at $1.99 each on its Zune online store, compared with thousands of episodes from 600 different shows on Apple’s iTunes Store.

The music-sharing function for Zunes underscores how Microsoft is seeking to set itself apart from Apple, which dominates the portable-music and movie-player market. Microsoft has failed to take any meaningful share from Apple since it entered the business with Zune in late 2006. According to market-research firm NPD Group Inc., Apple had 71% of the U.S. portable-music-player market in the first quarter, compared with 4% for Microsoft. Microsoft has for some time allowed users to view the titles of the latest songs that friends are listening to and to hear clips through the Zune Web site. A new feature will allow users access their friends nine most recently played songs, as well as nine other songs flagged as favorites, and copy them onto their own Zunes. To play back the tracks, users will need a $14.99-a-month subscription to Microsoft’s Zune Pass service, which offers unlimited access to a library of millions of tracks.

Source: WSJ, Martin

McAfee launches Yahoo secure search!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sandeep @ 7:07 pm
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McAfee has unveiled a secure search service and a security certification programme for retail sites in an attempt to make web surfing safer. McAfee Secure Search will be accessible through a toolbar in the firm’s Site Adviser offering, and will filter sites that use browser exploits or push suspicious downloads. Search results will be displayed with a red, yellow or green icon to indicate the level of risk. The service is due for launch later this summer. “The rise of malicious sites has caused internet users to be wary of searching and shopping online, especially when those activities require personal information,” said Tim Dowling, vice president of McAfee’s web security group.

“Bad sites strive to look harmless to users, so it is very difficult to identify which results are safe to visit. Sites that are safe today may turn bad tomorrow.” The second release is a security certification service for retailers known as McAfee Secure for Web Sites. Among the features is a Trust Mark image which is hosted on McAfee’s site. The image will be displayed only if a site can pass a daily security scan. The company will also offer a compliance-management service and a vulnerability scanning service as part of the Secure for Web Sites package.

Source: Vnunet, Martin

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