maryseallard.com

Contactless payment systems use near field communication (NFC), an extension of the ISO 14443 proximity-card standard that allows mobile devices to use short-range high-frequency wireless communication between devices. A consumer might, for example,LONGINES Watches, hold an NFC-enabled mobile device near an NFC-enabled point of sale (POS) to wirelessly debit a person’s bank account to complete a sales transaction. Or a person might hold an NFC-enabled mobile device near a smart tag embedded in a poster to gain additional information about a product or a service.

SAN FRANCISCO–The media are responsible, in part, for the lack of greater adoption of mobile payment systems in the United States, a panel of payment leaders said here Thursday at the fall 2008
CTIA.

James Anderson, a vice president at MasterCard Worldwide, said his company had surveyed consumers on this topic for a few years and found that the security of the new contactless cards was not an issue with consumers in part because of the brand associated with the card, what he called the “brand promise.” Anderson said any controversy around security is just “our good friends in the media needing things to write about.”

Spencer White, director of Mobile Financial Services for AT&T, argued that NFC was more secure than magnetic stripe cards. He said handling the physical credit card can expose the account number, but mobile NFC exchanges can be secured with one-time token exchanges or PIN codes. “We believe that we can demonstrate, that we can communicate quite effectively that mobile is a more secure solution in general,” White said.

White cited two recent test cases in which AT&T equipped customers with NFC-payment-system-enabled mobile phones, and after a short expose they tended to feel more secure by using it. “Mobile has a great story to tell around security, but it’s a story that has to be told. It’s not intuitive,Hermes Watches,” White said.

In SouthEast Asia and Europe, mobile devices are already being used as electronic wallets. Adoption of mobile payments in the United States has so far been hampered, other members of panel agreed, by a lack of retail adoption. They did, however, cite increasing use with public transit systems and within Quick Service Restaurants.

Howard Gefen, director of External Payment Services for Amazon.com, agreed. “There’s a lot of uncertainty around a new payment system. Customers don’t always know what’s going to happen so they focus on the unknown, and security is an easy one to go wrong,” he said. Gefen said that Amazon’s mobile service includes the ability to get callbacks as confirmation, but that after a few purchases, most consumers were confident enough to start turning off that feature.

The panelists agreed that the brand promise would be the primary driving force. For example, knowing that MasterCard, AT&T, and Amazon all guaranteed the user’s purchase would be secure tended to win over reluctant customers in the end.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily about people being concerned about security as it is understanding just exactly what it is, how it works, and the security that is present there,” McCarthy said. “(Security is) an excuse that a merchant might throw out” not to adopt contactless POS equipment today.

“I think the media, because they don’t understand the technology, and consumers, because they don’t understand the technology, have created a hysteria around this,Cartier Watches,” said Barry McCarthy, president of Mobile Solutions for First Data. “I think it’s entirely unfounded.”

Maxwell Blecher, an antitrust expert with the Los Angeles firm of Blecher & Collins, agreed that Apple could face legal challenges for bundling if other music vendors are indeed prevented from distributing songs to such a gadget. “Apple is going to argue that they compete with lots of other similar devices,” Blecher said. “You have to look at whether there are exclusionary aspects or conduct. In that debate lays the outcome of any lawsuit.”

In France, a consumer group has alleged that Apple has violated that country’s consumer laws by failing to mention that the iPod is “allegedly not compatible with music from online music services other than the iTunes store” records show.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.

“It smells like classic Sherman Antitrust Act to me,” Pakman said. “I only know what I’ve read but the plan sounds very similar to the tying practices Microsoft used with Windows/Explorer. And Microsoft is still paying the penalties for that one.”

“When Apple came out with the iPod, only Apple could deliver music to it,” Blecher said. “They accused Apple of exclusion. When they did the
iPhone, it was impossible to shift to other carriers. They said that was exclusionary…any time you have high market share and restrict competition in any way, you’re going to raise antitrust concerns.”

But just because smaller players in the market may have similar deals may not be enough to prevent Apple’s deal from being challenged, said Blecher.

Apple is in for a fierce legal fight should it ever release a device that offers all-you-can-eat music, according to David Pakman, CEO of rival digital music service eMusic.

The parallel is that Apple is forcing people who buy this device with preloaded music to buy its music, Pakman argues.

What’s the difference between a device that bundles music and the relationship between iTunes and iPod? Weren’t they tied together?

The talks are preliminary and no agreements have been reached, the source said. That hasn’t stopped some of Apple’s competitors and antitrust lawyers from sounding alarms.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Apple is in talks with the four largest record labels about offering a device with access to the entire iTunes music library. A source close to the negotiations confirmed the report in an interview with CNET News.com and said the offering would be free initially but device owners would later be charged subscription fees.

UPDATED 2:55 p.m.
(To include legal challenges to alleged anticompetitive relationship between
iPod and iTunes.)

Critics say that Apple, which sells 70 percent of all digital music devices, could use its overwhelming market share to wall out competitors. No other music services–download or subscription–could sell songs to such a device. Music listeners wouldn’t need to get their music anywhere else. Competition among digital music retailers would suffer, said Pakman.

Universal Music Group has already signed a deal with Nokia to enable buyers of some of its devices to gain access to all of Universal Music’s library. The music industry source said that UMG is in talks with several other handheld manufacturers as well. But no handheld maker has struck a deal with all four of the top music companies. Apple could be the first.

Such a plan “would produce a long and drawn out fight in both the U.S. and European courts,” Pakman said.

The answer is yes and they have been challenged in U.S. and European courts. A year ago, two separate lawsuits, which have now been consolidated, accused Apple of unfair competition, maintenance of a monopoly power and “unlawful tying.” That case and a similar one, Black vs. Apple, are pending, according to documents Apple filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pakman says Apple is following Microsoft’s lead. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing Microsoft of monopolistic practices by bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system. The case was settled in 2001. In that case Microsoft had monopolistic position in operating systems with Windows, the government charged. The company achieved dominance in browsers by forcing Windows buyers to use Microsoft Explorer.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

Agreed.

Keep it simple.
Don’t make assumptions.
And never, ever trust tech more than you really have to.

Frank Hayes, writing in Computerworld, does a great job recounting how an Excel to PDF conversion resulted in Barclays Capital making a multi-million dollar mistake in their offering to buy part of Lehman Brothers. In and of itself, it’s an interesting story, but Hayes concludes with this advice for using technology:

Torrent Freak offered a translation of the comments made by the director, Harald Zwart, to the Nettavisen.no:

Then while eating lunch, a colleague pointed out this commentary by Mike Masnick at TechDirt and I laughed so hard I nearly passed a cheese sandwich through my nostrils:

Ah, now that’s more like it. Though back in the real world, I very much doubt most directors would be sanguine to learn that a goofball had ripped off their latest film. Unfortunately, creative people are unfairly paying for the sins of their corporate masters.

A director from Norway, whose movie credits include the critically acclaimed Agent Cody Banks as well as the unforgettable, One Night at McCool’s is thrilled someone thought so highly of his latest work as to pirate his latest oeuvre, Long Flat Balls 2. (Unfortunately, I missed the classic which preceded it.)

“A Norwegian master of B moviemaking is thrilled someone would actually invest the time and effort to rip off one of his schlock extravaganzas so that the Porky’s crowd won’t have to do without this spring…and so on and so forth.”

So far the recording moguls have made nearly all the wrong moves. Maybe their cross-town neighbors will have better luck.

They're not long and flat, but they're balls.

As TechDirt is wont to say, that is straight from the, “exception-which-proves-the rule department.” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon would have loved that business model. Since it’s so uncool to be proprietary anymore, I’m sure the blog’s everythingshouldbefree-meister won’t mind a mild rewrite of that terribly tendentious lede. To wit:

There is a history to overcome. The movie and recording industries have been so willfully stupid about coexisting with new technology for so long that you knew this was coming. Truth be told, it’s hard to feel sorry about the extent of the popular blowback, even when it reaches such silly extremes. What’s more, Schumpeter was right about capitalism’s creatively destructive tendencies and Hollywood will have to figure out how to survive in a new era where technology can be its best friend or worst enemy.

“While the folks back in Hollywood have acting (sic) as though people with camcorders were a huge threat to the movie business, it appears that some folks outside of the Hollywood machine recognize that it’s not such a bad thing at all…In fact, it appears his only real problem is that the quality of recording isn’t so great, though he notes that hopefully this will drive more people to the theater to see a better quality version. It’s nice to see more folks in the movie business recognizing that unauthorized copies aren’t the end of the world.

OK, whatever. To each his own, I say. And I’m obviously having sport at Zwart’s expense. He’s not going to be confused with Bergmann or Felini but he is signed up to do a Pink Panther sequel in 2009.

(Credit: Lizjones112 on Flickr)

“I think it’s perfectly fine that some people choose to post the movie online. It shows that people are interested in it. In the IT society of today it’s naive to think that this wouldn’t happen. We consider it a huge compliment. After all, what has happened is that someone has smuggled a camera into a theater and then recorded the whole movie.”

The Windy31 Wireless Broadband router supports the 802.11g standard and can work in one of three modes: as a router (by default), an access point, or as a regular USB Wireless adapter. The best part is it costs about the same as a regular USB wireless adapter. At only $60, you can’t go wrong with it. Check back on CNET’s Web site for a review of the product once I am done putting it through our performance tests. Normally, starting in 2008, only routers supporting the Draft N or later standard are reviewed by CNET, but I’ll make an exception this time. That’s how cool this little device is.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo)

Even when there’s no need for the Internet, the Windy31 allows for creating a wireless LANs instantly on the go. There is so much you can do with a network, including playing games between friends and sharing documents.

Personally, I really like the idea. Even when I travel alone, I always have other devices that could use Internet access: PDAs, VoIP phones, smartphones, portable game consoles, etc. The Windy31 allows for customizing the connection so that it works with any of these devices, especially my Vonage portable IP phone because it doesn’t support Wi-Fi services that require logging in via a Web browser.

The Windy31 hooks up to a Windows PC’s USB port and can create a wireless network by sharing the computer’s existing Internet connection with up to 32 other wireless users. There’s virtually no set-up involved. The little router, which is about the size of a regular thumbdrive, also has a small built-in storage that contains all the software necessary for it to work. The software launches itself when inserted into a USB port and does the entire configuration process. You then can choose to customize it further, adding encryption, changing the SSID, etc.

The Windy31 is about the size of a USB thumbdrive and can be plugged directly into a computer’s USB port.

Windy31 configuration application allows for customizing a variety of wireless networking options

The Windy31 also comes with a USB docking cradle.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo)

(Credit:
Dong Ngo)

You are sitting at the airport and hooked up to the Internet via T-Mobile’s Hotspot service that you’ve been paying $39.99/month for. It’s great, and you can afford it. Well, good for you! What about your traveling companions though? You know, the ones who can’t afford an extra Internet service and just sit there trying to make conversation with you while you surf through the latest stories at TMZ? Now there’s a solution to the guilt of not talking to your companions, and it comes in a tiny package called the Windy31 Wireless Broadband router.

India and other countries that voted against Open XML last September attended a Ballot Resolution Meeting last month in Geneva to address technical issues that were raised. Now, countries have until March 29 to change their votes to “yes.”

By next Saturday, March 29, national standards organizations need to submit their judgment on whether Open XML should be an ISO standard through its accelerated process.

The Bureau of Indian Standards has decided to vote against recommending Office Open XML as an ISO standard.

“While we are disappointed with the decision of the BIS LITD 15 committee, we are encouraged by the support of IT industry players like Nasscom, TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, who voted in favor of Open XML becoming an ISO standard,” Microsoft India said in a statement.

IBM blogger Ed Brill responded to Capossela’s letter reiterating IBM’s opposition to Open XML because it is not truly open, too complex, and technically flawed.

Lobbying on both sides of the debate is picking up, with only one week to go before votes are recast.

India’s vote against Open XML standardization is consistent with its decision from last year. And the country has heavily promoted standards software–Indian states, including Delhi, Kerala, and others, have already adopted the standard OpenDocument (ODF), according to the Business Standard.

The United States has already indicated that he will recommend Open XML to be a standard.

According to local reports, India’s national standards-making body will not change its position in regards to Open XML, the document formats Microsoft and other companies have sought to standardize at the ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

Microsoft’s senior vice president of Office, Chris Capossela published an open letter on Sunday outlining the software giant’s rationale for standardizing Open XML. He cited a number of customers, including the U.S. Library of Congress and The British Library, which have contributed to the specification.

Microsoft representatives told the Economic Times of India that the company is disappointed with the decision and that it goes against the wishes of many companies in the IT industry.

The company says that CloudStatus will report on service availability, latency, and data throughput.

But when things break, it isn’t always easy to know why: Is the problem in the application or in the cloud?

CloudStatus works with Amazon Web Services now. Hyperic plans to support additional cloud service providers later this year.

Hyperic, a San Francisco-based company specializing in Web management tools, has one answer. It’s launching a new service, called CloudStatus, that reports on the health and performance of Amazon Web Services.

Click here to see more stories on cloud computing.

Cloud computing is growing in popularity, thanks in large part to the availability of Web-based services that take some of the pain out of IT.

The free service, in beta testing now, works with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, SimpleDB, Simple Queue Service, and Flexible Payment Service.

Hyperic says it plans to add the capability to monitor other cloud computing services later this summer.

A week after some users of Vista Media Centers were prevented from recording two NBC Universal shows, the network acknowledged Monday that it inadvertently blocked some people from recording the shows.

“We made an inadvertent mistake,” an NBC spokeswoman said in an interview with CNET News.com. “We’re not aware of any other complaints, and we believe we have addressed the problem.”

The owners of
Windows Vista Media Centers were prevented from recording American Gladiators and Medium last Monday. At the message board The Green Button, Vista users gathered to complain about receiving a prompt that informed them that the broadcaster had “prohibited recording of this program.”

“The success of the entire distribution chain is dependent on all involved maintaining the necessary checks and quality control so that coding is correctly applied,” a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to News.com.

The courts ruled that the FCC was out of bounds, but there is nothing to stop Microsoft or other electronics makers from choosing to adhere to flags.

The NBC spokeswoman said the network had no intention of blocking the show but declined to specify how the error was made. Flags that have been issued accidentally aren’t uncommon, some industry insiders say. While acknowledging that it “fully adheres to flags used by broadcasters,” Microsoft said that it was working with content owners to reduce the number of false flags.

For a week, fans of digital video recorders wondered if Hollywood was trying to force DVR (digital video recorder) owners to watch commercials. Historically, TV and cable networks have resented DVRs for enabling viewers to jump past ads. The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules that would require electronics manufacturers to set up their technologies to block recording at the request of TV networks.

Meanwhile, the larger issue for some is that Microsoft and possibly other hardware and software makers will honor broadcast flags.

“Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment,” said Danny O’Brien, a staffer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users.

The EFF says it’s important for consumers to know whether their DVRs can be controlled by entertainment companies.

As with all Woot deals, when this one’s gone, it’s gone–so don’t wait if you’re in the market for a remote to control all that hot Media Center action.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Know how I’m always going on and on about TV tuners and Windows Media Center? One ingredient that’s almost always missing from the equation is a remote. Enter the Pinnacle Remote Kit, which lets you operate Windows Media Center from afar (or from the couch, anyway). Woot Sellout has the remote on sale for $14.99 (plus $5 shipping), a decent savings over the $29.99 list price.

(Credit:
Woot)

To use the kit, you need
Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate. (Rumor has it there’s a hack that’ll allow it to work with the XP version of Media Center; try Google.) A TV tuner is optional, though definitely recommended if you want to make the most of Media Center. The IR transceiver, which plugs into a USB port, includes a suction cup so you can mount it in an out-of-the-way location.

Once the official SDK is released in June, it will be interesting to watch how unofficial iPhone development progresses. Apple’s restrictions have some carrots attached, such as a powerful distribution vehicle in iTunes and the App Store, which will definitely attract those trying to make a living off the iPhone.

(Credit:
O'Reilly)

But those who are trying to circumvent Apple’s restrictions by developing unlocking software, music players, or applications unlikely to sit well with Apple, will need a handbook.

There’s a group of developers, of an uncertain size, who feel that Apple’s SDK restricts their freedom to develop creative applications for the iPhone. Those folks will likely be all over this book. The book itself appears to be a summation of a lot of the iPhone jailbreaking and development techniques that are easy to find online, but condensed into one handy reference guide.

That's not a Tiger or a Leopard, but it will show the way to unofficial iPhone applications.

Zdziarski was among the first hackers to take aim at the iPhone last year in light of Apple’s Web-only application policy, and his book is essentially a how-to guide for using the “unofficial” iPhone SDK to create applications. Apple, of course, has started to outline its own vision of how applications should be created for the iPhone, giving developers two options for their projects.

O’Reilly, one of the most well-known publishers of technology primers for professionals, has released a book on developing applications for a jailbroken iPhone. iPhone Open Application Development, written by Jonathan Zdziarski, was spotted by dozens of iPhone aficionados Tuesday. Chapter 1? “Breaking Into and Setting Up the iPhone.”

If you were wondering whether the
iPhone software development kit would end the unofficial third-party development craze, stop wondering.

So you love Rock Band 2, but somehow when you’re playing, the reality that you’re a normal person with a normal job and not a rich rock star is still able to annoyingly creep in.

(Credit:
PDP)

While a smoke and light machine is cool, I think I’d prefer a peripheral that allowed for a mini foam Stonehenge to be lowered from my ceiling, but that’s just me, I guess.

Now, you could go out and learn how to play a real musical instrument and start your own band. However, it would probably fail to gather any of that widespread popularity you’re yearning for, eventually leading to your untimely, but not surprising drug-induced death. Fret not, though, because there is an alternative.

Stage Kit from Performance Designed Products (PDP), attempts to enhance the immersion of Rock Band and Rock Band 2 for the
Xbox 360 by creating a light and smoke effect that is supposedly synchronized to the music.

Stage Kit will be available this month for $99. Watch the video below to see it in action. Please excuse the wince-inducing lameness of the video, though. My guess is that the groupies are not included.