India Wants Full Blackberry Access…. Or Else!

Here’s a shock. India isn’t happy with what RIM has been saying recently. So they’ve started with their threats again:

Home (Interior) Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told a news conference the government still wanted access to e-mails.

“I think a decision will be taken today by the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs),” Mr. Chidambaram added. RIM’s India-based spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Okay. So I guess this is zero hour seeing as the deadline is today. Will RIM cave? Will India Cave? Or will one side make some sort of decisive move to end this? If I ran RIM, it’s basically say to India “Screw You!” But that’s me. I’m sure that RIM isn’t going to walk away from one of the bigger smartphone markets in the world. But they should as the Indian demands are completely unacceptable.

Intel Find Flaw In New Chips… Oh Noes!!!

This is going to get expensive. Intel let the world know that there is a problem with their brand new “Sandy Bridge” chipsets and has stopped shipments as a result:

“In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives.”

That’s not a minor problem. To compare it to a car, it’s like starting out on six cylinders and losing a cylinder every week or two until your car doesn’t move. Not cool. But it’s actually worse than that:

Beside the obvious inconvenience and bad PR, this little slip-up will cost Intel quite a bit of money, too. The firm expects to see a $300-million dent in first-quarter revenue (since full volume production of 6-series chipsets won’t resume until April), not to mention $700 million in total repair and replacement costs.

Ouch. This isn’t good news if you’re an Intel shareholder. Sandy Bridge is the successor to the Nehalem chipsets. It uses less power and is more efficient which means nerds like me should have been running out to upgrade their computers. Now I think I’ll wait a few months until this blows over. So should you.

Industry Minister Looking At Usage Based Billing [UPDATED]

I’m not sure if this is reason to be hopeful, but Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement is apparently looking at the recent craptastic decision made by the CRTC to implement usage based billing:

“I can assure that, as with any ruling, this decision will be studied carefully to ensure that competition, innovation and consumers were all fairly considered,” Mr. Clement said in a statement obtained by The Globe and Mail.

I for one hope that he makes a similar decision like the one he made in regards to Wind Mobile where he let them into the Canadian marketplace even though the CRTC said no. Remember, Internet users in Canada are watching you Mr. Clement. Given that this could be an election year in Canada, I’m sure they’ll have very long memories when they go to the ballot box.

UPDATE: Here’s the full statement from Tony Clement’s website.

The Never Ending Saga Of RIM vs India Just Won’t End

I really wish this RIM vs India soap opera would end as I think we’re getting sick of this stalemate. RIM today reiterated that they cannot give India access to e-mail… Again:

There is no possibility of us providing any kind of a solution,” RIM vice president Robert Crow told reporters. “There is no solution, there are no keys to be handed.”

So India apparently will have to live with having access to Blackberry Messenger messages. Or do something about it.

I can tell you what’s going to happen next. India is going to demand access to e-mail, then threaten to ban Blackberry devices if they don’t. Then RIM will say they can’t do it for the millionth time, and we’ll be back to this stalemate yet again. Then the merry dance starts anew. Really, either India needs to ban these devices, RIM needs to cave, or RIM needs to pull up stakes and get out of the country. What’s happening right now is not in anybody’s interests. Not RIM’s, and not India’s.

Sony Announces Next Generation Playstation Portable…. Is This The Future Of Gaming?

I’m guessing that Sony is sick of seeing the portable gaming market go to Nintendo, not to mention Apple with the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android phones. I say that because they announced their next generation Playstation Portable today. Codenamed “NGP” it looks like it will kick a** and take names…. At least on paper. Here’s what it has under the hood:

• A quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor
• 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution
• Dual analog sticks
• 3G
• WiFi
• GPS
• Rear-mounted touchpad
• The same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the PlayStation Move
• Electronic compass
• Cameras on both the front and back
• Games shipping on “new media” as opposed to UMD discs…. I’m not sure WTF “new media” means, but whatever.

Oh yeah, the really big news is that all of this will allegedly be available this holiday season. If all of that is true and they can deliver this on time, then a lot of people in the portable gaming industry have reason to be scared. Very scared.

Skype 5.0 Released For Mac…. It’s Now The Same As The Windows Version

Mac users are often the forgotten users of the computer universe when it comes to software. Often when a piece of software is available for Mac and PC, the Mac version lags behind the PC version. Skype was such an application, until today. The latest version of Skype for Mac is now on the streets according to this blog post. It now has group video calling (Which after a free seven-day trial, will cost you $4.99 for a day pass or $8.99 a month for a subscription. Though you can get 33 percent off if you sign up before February 28th), and a new user interface. So if you’re a Mac user and you use Skype, download away.

 

Facebook Improves Security…. Coincidentally Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Profile Gets Hacked

Yesterday, Facebook announced improvements to their security in the interest of keeping their users safe. Two of these new security measures stand out:

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.

That’s a good feature that’s long overdue. Here’s the second:

Instead of showing you a traditional captcha on Facebook, one of the ways we may help verify your identity is through social authentication. We will show you a few pictures of your friends and ask you to name the person in those photos. Hackers halfway across the world might know your password, but they don’t know who your friends are.

Okay. That’s pretty revolutionary. As far as I am aware, nobody else is doing something similar. It might be actually very effective at keeping their users safe. Of course they might have gotten much more mileage out of it if Mark Zuckerburg’s Facebook profile wasn’t hacked the day before:

Last night Zuckerberg’s fan page on the website was attacked by hackers, who took over his page and posted the following message, pretending to be him: “Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011.”

Shortly after the message was published, it was ‘liked’ more than 1,800 times and had attracted nearly 500 comments.

Clearly, Zuckerburg needs to implement some of these new security measures on his own profile as he clearly left himself wide open to being pwned as the hackers would say.

The CRTC Proves Once Again That They’re Out Of Touch With Canadian Internet Users

The Canadian government body that I (along with most Canadians) love to hate is at it again. The CRTC reaffirmed their earlier usage based billing decision today which spells the end of an Internet that is affordable and usable by Canadians:

Larger telecom providers, such as Telus Corp. and BCE’s Bell are mandated to lease network space to smaller providers across the country. Many smaller providers often offer popular unlimited packages that allow users to download as much content as they want, whereas the larger providers often have download “caps,” with strict extra charges for going over the limits.

The decision, small providers say, effectively destroys their ability to offer such unlimited packages in the future. Large providers, however, argue it’s necessary in an era when some consumers download lots of TV shows and movies that they say clogs their networks. The regulator, as it usually does, has attempted to find middle ground. While the CRTC is allowing large providers to charge usage-based billing to smaller, “wholesale” Internet firms, it has mandated larger providers give them bandwidth for 15 per cent less than their own retail customers.

This is proof positive that the CRTC needs to die. Why? This decision pretty much kills services like Netflix, Youtube, or any other media rich service. So Canadians will have to put up with whatever Rogers, Bell, Telus choose to give Canadians. The other thing that needs to happen is that the Canadian telco market has to be opened to foreign competition. I guarantee that those three telcos would make themselves way more competitive if someone like a Deutsche Telekom came in here, set up their own network and offered unlimited telco services for way less than the “big three.” Fortunately, Canadians have a government that seems to be partial to that. Hopefully they do the right thing and make the Canadian telco market much better for Canadians. Until then, Canadians better bend over and lube up as they’re going to get screwed by Bell, Rogers, and Telus, and the CRTC is going to stand by and do nothing.

Kodak Loses Patent Suit Against RIM And Apple

You might remember that Kodak sued RIM and Apple over the fact that they claimed to have invented the digital camera back in 1975 and they weren’t getting paid for it. Today, they got the news that their patent was found to be invalid by a U.S. International Trade Commission administrative law judge. But somehow, Kodak had a positive spin on the situation:

“The ALJ’s recommendation in this case represents a preliminary step in a process that we are extremely confident will conclude in Kodak’s favor,” the company said in its press release. Kodak pointed out that another judge had upheld the patent claim in a separate suit against Samsung and LG Electronics. After that preliminary ruling, Kodak and Samsung agreed last January to a cross-licensing deal. Kodak also lists LG as a licensee of its imaging patents.

Kodak also said the ITC’s Office of Unfair Import Investigations had agreed with its interpretation of the patent.

Sure. Whatever. Kodak, please stop trying to sue companies in order to stay afloat now that you don’t make film anymore. Work on making better products. Create some kick ass photo printers or something. Don’t become a patent troll. It really doesn’t make you look good.

RIM Wants Blackberry Users To Have A Balance In Their Lives

You didn’t read the title wrong. The makers of that addictive e-mail device want it’s users to have a balance between work and life. So they’re coming out with application to help their users with that called Balance. Here’s the details:

Many corporations are now allowing employees to use their own smartphones at work, forcing IT departments to manage confidential information on the iPhone and devices running on Google’s Android operating system.

But those devices are not equipped with the security and system features that have long given the BlackBerry an edge among corporations and other organizations that put a high value on confidentiality and control.

“There are two fundamental use cases on the smartphone – enterprise and personal. The problem is that they are conflicting,” said Jeff McDowell, RIM’s senior vice-president for business and platform marketing.

RIM’s solution is software called BlackBerry Balance, which will allow corporate IT departments to retain control over data such as business-related email sent via a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or BES, while keeping the Web browser and an employee’s social networking and photographs separate.

It’s an interesting idea as it can help them fight the iPhone and Android juggernaut. Expect it to be appearing in a couple of months on your Blackberry. Playbook users can expect to see a version on their device too.