Story first appeared on the Associated Press.
It looks almost exactly like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company's logo chat with customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang on the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words "Apple Store" - one of the few clues that the whole thing is a fake.
China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone - fake Apple stores.
An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said Thursday that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city a few days ago. She took photos and posted them on her blog.
The 27-year-old blogger, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the setup of the stores was so convincing that the employees themselves seemed to believe they worked for Apple.
It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue T-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks, but some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn't been painted properly. Apple never writes “Apple Store” on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.
A worker at the fake Apple store on Zhengyi Road in Kunming, which most of the photos of the blog show, said that they are an "Apple store" before hanging up.
But the three stores are not among the authorized resellers listed on Apple Inc.'s website. The maker of the iPhone and other hit gadgets has four company stores in China - two in Beijing and two in Shanghai - and various official resellers.
Amy Bessette, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino, California-based company, said it had no comment on the Chinese stores, but pointed to a Web page on Apple's Chinese site that lists its authorized resellers.
The manager of an authorized reseller in Kunming, who gave only his surname, Zhang, said most customers have no idea the stores are fake.
Some of the staff in the stores can't even operate computers properly or tell you all the functions of the mobile phone.
There are more and more of these fake stores in Kunming. Although they may sell real Apple products, some of those products were not imported through legal means.
The proliferation of the fake stores underlines the slow progress that China's government is making in countering a culture of rampant piracy and widespread production of bogus goods that is a major irritant in relations with trading partners.
China's Commerce Minister promised American executives earlier this year that the latest of several crackdowns on product piracy would deliver lasting results.
China's official Xinhua News Agency reported this month that police arrested more than 9,000 suspects in a nine-month anti-piracy campaign as it shut down more than 12,000 factories that produced counterfeit goods. China's supreme court said this spring that the nation's judicial system rendered verdicts last year in more than 40,000 intellectual property cases involving property with a combined value of almost 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion).
Fake Apple stores are a particularly egregious example of brand piracy, but their emergence is not surprising given the amount of product counterfeiting faced by corporations such as Apple, said Ted Dean, president of BDA China Ltd., a telecommunications market research company. He said he once saw a fake Apple phone in China that had an apple logo - but with no bite taken out of it.
Apple said this week that China was very key to its record earnings and revenue in the quarter that ended in June.
Revenue was up more than six times from a year earlier to $3.8 billion in the area comprising China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Apple's Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook said in a conference call on Tuesday.
The company plans to open two more Apple stores in greater China - one in Shanghai and another in Hong Kong - by the end of the year.
Trade groups say illegal Chinese copying of music, designer clothing and other goods costs legitimate producers billions of dollars a year in lost potential sales. The American Chamber of Commerce in China says 70 percent of its member companies consider Beijing's enforcement of patents, trademarks and copyrights ineffective.
Piracy is especially sensitive at a time when Washington and other Western governments are trying to create jobs by boosting exports. In 2009, the World Trade Organization upheld a U.S. complaint that Beijing was violating trade commitments by failing to root out the problem.
Rampant copying also has hampered Beijing's efforts to attract technology industries because businesspeople say companies are reluctant to do high-level research in China or bring in advanced designs for fear of theft.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
TABLETS REPLACE TEXTBOOKS
Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
Outside the classroom a hot summer day beckons, but fourth-grade teacher Yeon Eun-jung's students are glued to their tablet PCs as they watch an animated boy and a girl squabble about whether water becomes heavier when frozen.
The small scene in this rural town is part of something big: South Korea is taking a $2 billion gamble that its students are ready to ditch paper textbooks in favor of tablet PCs as part of a vast digital scholastic network.
France, Singapore, Japan and others are racing to create classrooms where touch-screens provide instant access to millions of pieces of information. But South Korea — Asia's fourth-largest economy — believes it enjoys an advantage over these countries, with kids who are considered the world's savviest navigators of the digital universe.
A 2009 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-headquartered grouping of wealthy nations, found 15-year-olds in South Korea scored highest in their ability to absorb information from digital devices, beating runners-up New Zealand and Australia by a large margin.
At Sosu Elementary School in Goesan, principal Jo Yong-deuk speaks of a future in which his students interact in virtual reality with Ludwig van Beethoven and Abraham Lincoln. In the classroom, the children scribble answers in their tablet PCs with touchscreen pens as they watch the video clip explaining the scientific properties of frozen water.
More than 60 primary, middle and high schools are now using digital textbooks as part of their curriculum, according to the state-run Korea Education and Research Information Service, which provides technical support for the program. Seoul believes it can finish the $2.1 billion program to build a single computer network packed with high-quality digital content by 2015. Replacing textbooks with tablet PCs will account for a quarter of that budget.
According to South Korean officials, France is handing out tablets in the Correze region and is pushing to expand digital material, while Japan began distributing tablet PCs in a primary school last year under a pilot program. Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore said on its website that Singapore began adopting tablet PCs in 2004.
But Kim Doo-yeon, a South Korean official leading the project, said his country will have no trouble competing.
South Korea is one of the most wired places on earth. More than 80 percent of South Korean households have broadband access to the Internet, according to the statistical office here. U.S. Web hosting company Akamai said earlier this year that South Korea enjoys the fastest Internet connection in the world. South Korea also ranks first in wireless broadband subscriptions, according to an OECD release last month.
Lee Sang-hyeob, a student at Sosu Elementary School, spends a lot of time at home playing online games and chatting with schoolmates. Another Sosu student, Jang Woo-dam, often surfs her school's website to see messages from friends.
The 2009 OECD study says there's a positive relationship between students' use of computers at home for leisure and their digital navigation skills. Proficient digital readers tend to know how to navigate effectively and efficiently.
The study said students who read online more frequently also read a greater variety of print material and report higher enjoyment of reading itself.
Another telling example of the influence of the Internet on this nation of 50 million is the number of so-called PC rooms, or Internet cafes, which stood at 15,000 as of December last year, according to the PC room business association.
PC rooms, which usually operate around the clock, have long been the breeding ground for South Korea's so-called professional e-gamers, whose popularity has given birth to an industry dedicated to airing their matches and promoting high-tech gadgets through them.
Enchanted with games, Jeong Yu-jin, 16, has been teaching himself programming since he was a child and is now developing a game that warns of the consequences of global warming as a player clears stages filled with challenges like angry polar bears and crumbling glaciers.
Kim, the South Korean official leading the tablet PC project, said the country envisions a digital scholastic network for students to go beyond digital textbooks and national boundaries. In the future, all their students will be connected to a single computer network that allows them to also learn from teachers in other countries.
Loaded with video, animation, photos, voices, songs and Web documents created by experts and by teachers and students, digital textbooks allow students to enjoy a custom-made learning experience, Kim said. Kids who fall behind in a regular curriculum can start from levels they feel comfortable with.
Young North Korean defectors struggling to adapt to South Korea could also benefit from having tablet PCs. More than 21,000 North Koreans, including children, have come to South Korea since the two countries' 1950-53 war. Many choose to study in special schools to catch up before they attend regular ones.
Those who study digital technology and education have been generally positive about introducing digital textbooks, but there have also been warnings that Internet addiction may deepen among South Korea's teenagers.
The number of students addicted to the Internet amounted to 782,000, or 12% of the total student population, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said last year. The government, worried by the problem, plans to increase the number of counselors dealing with Internet addiction to 5,500 next year.
Outside the classroom a hot summer day beckons, but fourth-grade teacher Yeon Eun-jung's students are glued to their tablet PCs as they watch an animated boy and a girl squabble about whether water becomes heavier when frozen.
The small scene in this rural town is part of something big: South Korea is taking a $2 billion gamble that its students are ready to ditch paper textbooks in favor of tablet PCs as part of a vast digital scholastic network.
France, Singapore, Japan and others are racing to create classrooms where touch-screens provide instant access to millions of pieces of information. But South Korea — Asia's fourth-largest economy — believes it enjoys an advantage over these countries, with kids who are considered the world's savviest navigators of the digital universe.
A 2009 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-headquartered grouping of wealthy nations, found 15-year-olds in South Korea scored highest in their ability to absorb information from digital devices, beating runners-up New Zealand and Australia by a large margin.
At Sosu Elementary School in Goesan, principal Jo Yong-deuk speaks of a future in which his students interact in virtual reality with Ludwig van Beethoven and Abraham Lincoln. In the classroom, the children scribble answers in their tablet PCs with touchscreen pens as they watch the video clip explaining the scientific properties of frozen water.
More than 60 primary, middle and high schools are now using digital textbooks as part of their curriculum, according to the state-run Korea Education and Research Information Service, which provides technical support for the program. Seoul believes it can finish the $2.1 billion program to build a single computer network packed with high-quality digital content by 2015. Replacing textbooks with tablet PCs will account for a quarter of that budget.
According to South Korean officials, France is handing out tablets in the Correze region and is pushing to expand digital material, while Japan began distributing tablet PCs in a primary school last year under a pilot program. Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore said on its website that Singapore began adopting tablet PCs in 2004.
But Kim Doo-yeon, a South Korean official leading the project, said his country will have no trouble competing.
South Korea is one of the most wired places on earth. More than 80 percent of South Korean households have broadband access to the Internet, according to the statistical office here. U.S. Web hosting company Akamai said earlier this year that South Korea enjoys the fastest Internet connection in the world. South Korea also ranks first in wireless broadband subscriptions, according to an OECD release last month.
Lee Sang-hyeob, a student at Sosu Elementary School, spends a lot of time at home playing online games and chatting with schoolmates. Another Sosu student, Jang Woo-dam, often surfs her school's website to see messages from friends.
The 2009 OECD study says there's a positive relationship between students' use of computers at home for leisure and their digital navigation skills. Proficient digital readers tend to know how to navigate effectively and efficiently.
The study said students who read online more frequently also read a greater variety of print material and report higher enjoyment of reading itself.
Another telling example of the influence of the Internet on this nation of 50 million is the number of so-called PC rooms, or Internet cafes, which stood at 15,000 as of December last year, according to the PC room business association.
PC rooms, which usually operate around the clock, have long been the breeding ground for South Korea's so-called professional e-gamers, whose popularity has given birth to an industry dedicated to airing their matches and promoting high-tech gadgets through them.
Enchanted with games, Jeong Yu-jin, 16, has been teaching himself programming since he was a child and is now developing a game that warns of the consequences of global warming as a player clears stages filled with challenges like angry polar bears and crumbling glaciers.
Kim, the South Korean official leading the tablet PC project, said the country envisions a digital scholastic network for students to go beyond digital textbooks and national boundaries. In the future, all their students will be connected to a single computer network that allows them to also learn from teachers in other countries.
Loaded with video, animation, photos, voices, songs and Web documents created by experts and by teachers and students, digital textbooks allow students to enjoy a custom-made learning experience, Kim said. Kids who fall behind in a regular curriculum can start from levels they feel comfortable with.
Young North Korean defectors struggling to adapt to South Korea could also benefit from having tablet PCs. More than 21,000 North Koreans, including children, have come to South Korea since the two countries' 1950-53 war. Many choose to study in special schools to catch up before they attend regular ones.
Those who study digital technology and education have been generally positive about introducing digital textbooks, but there have also been warnings that Internet addiction may deepen among South Korea's teenagers.
The number of students addicted to the Internet amounted to 782,000, or 12% of the total student population, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said last year. The government, worried by the problem, plans to increase the number of counselors dealing with Internet addiction to 5,500 next year.
Verizon Business Rises With New iPhone Subscribers
Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
Verizon is seeing a big boost from the iPhone, adding more new subscribers on contracts in the second quarter than it has in two and half years.
Yet AT&T, which was been the exclusive seller of Apple's iconic phone in the U.S. until February, still activates three iPhones for every two Verizon does.
When posting a profit for the second quarter on Friday, Verizon also said Chief Operating Officer Lowell McAdam will take over from long-time CEO Ivan Seidenberg, 64, on Aug. 1. The company has signaled the succession for the past year. McAdam, 57, is the former head of Verizon Wireless.
Seidenberg will remain chairman of the company. He became the CEO of Bell Atlantic in 1998. It changed its named to Verizon in 2000 after a major acquisition.
Verizon added 1.26 million wireless subscribers under contract in the April to June period, a result that flies in the face of the slowdown in new subscribers across the industry in the last two years. Since nearly everyone already has a cellphone, gaining new subscribers is chiefly a matter of luring them over from other carriers. A year ago, Verizon added just 665,000 subscribers under contract.
Verizon activated 2.3 million iPhones, well below the 3.6 million AT&T reported for the same period. Verizon sells only the iPhone 4, starting at $200, while AT&T also sells the older iPhone 3GS for $49.
McAdam said iPhone sales haven't quite been as good as the company expected, chiefly because it believed a new iPhone model would arrive this summer, as it usually does. Apple hasn't said why there's no new phone yet.
Even with relatively slow iPhone sales, Verizon is handily outdoing AT&T, which recruited only 331,000 new contract subscribers in the quarter. The iPhone is AT&T's chief draw, while Verizon has other advantages on its side, like a broader "3G" data network and new, ultra-fast "4G" network in many cities. In the quarter, Verizon sold 1.2 million devices that use the 4G network, including laptop modems and the HTC Thunderbolt smartphone.
Verizon ended the quarter with 106.3 million devices connected to its wireless network, making it the largest carrier in the country. No. 2 and chief rival AT&T is trying to leapfrog Verizon in size by buying No. 4 T-Mobile USA for $39 billion.
Verizon said its net income was $1.61 billion, or 57 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30. A year ago, it posted a loss of $1.19 billion, or 42 cents per share.
Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings for 55 cents per share, on average.
Revenue rose 2.8% to $27.5 billion, in line with analysts' expectations.
Excluding the sale of phone lines in 14 states at the end of last year's second quarter, Verizon's revenue grew 6.3% on the back of its thriving wireless operations.
However, only 55% of Verizon Wireless' profits flow to Verizon Communication's bottom line, because British carrier Vodafone owns 45% of the cellular carrier.
Verizon shares fell $1.02, or 2.7%, to $36.55 in morning trading.
Verizon is seeing a big boost from the iPhone, adding more new subscribers on contracts in the second quarter than it has in two and half years.
Yet AT&T, which was been the exclusive seller of Apple's iconic phone in the U.S. until February, still activates three iPhones for every two Verizon does.
When posting a profit for the second quarter on Friday, Verizon also said Chief Operating Officer Lowell McAdam will take over from long-time CEO Ivan Seidenberg, 64, on Aug. 1. The company has signaled the succession for the past year. McAdam, 57, is the former head of Verizon Wireless.
Seidenberg will remain chairman of the company. He became the CEO of Bell Atlantic in 1998. It changed its named to Verizon in 2000 after a major acquisition.
Verizon added 1.26 million wireless subscribers under contract in the April to June period, a result that flies in the face of the slowdown in new subscribers across the industry in the last two years. Since nearly everyone already has a cellphone, gaining new subscribers is chiefly a matter of luring them over from other carriers. A year ago, Verizon added just 665,000 subscribers under contract.
Verizon activated 2.3 million iPhones, well below the 3.6 million AT&T reported for the same period. Verizon sells only the iPhone 4, starting at $200, while AT&T also sells the older iPhone 3GS for $49.
McAdam said iPhone sales haven't quite been as good as the company expected, chiefly because it believed a new iPhone model would arrive this summer, as it usually does. Apple hasn't said why there's no new phone yet.
Even with relatively slow iPhone sales, Verizon is handily outdoing AT&T, which recruited only 331,000 new contract subscribers in the quarter. The iPhone is AT&T's chief draw, while Verizon has other advantages on its side, like a broader "3G" data network and new, ultra-fast "4G" network in many cities. In the quarter, Verizon sold 1.2 million devices that use the 4G network, including laptop modems and the HTC Thunderbolt smartphone.
Verizon ended the quarter with 106.3 million devices connected to its wireless network, making it the largest carrier in the country. No. 2 and chief rival AT&T is trying to leapfrog Verizon in size by buying No. 4 T-Mobile USA for $39 billion.
Verizon said its net income was $1.61 billion, or 57 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30. A year ago, it posted a loss of $1.19 billion, or 42 cents per share.
Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings for 55 cents per share, on average.
Revenue rose 2.8% to $27.5 billion, in line with analysts' expectations.
Excluding the sale of phone lines in 14 states at the end of last year's second quarter, Verizon's revenue grew 6.3% on the back of its thriving wireless operations.
However, only 55% of Verizon Wireless' profits flow to Verizon Communication's bottom line, because British carrier Vodafone owns 45% of the cellular carrier.
Verizon shares fell $1.02, or 2.7%, to $36.55 in morning trading.
SMARTPHONE SALES SHIFT
Story first appeared in Bloomberg News.
Samsung Electronics Co., maker of the Galaxy mobile phone, may have surpassed Nokia Oyj and Apple Inc. in smartphone sales for the first time on demand for devices that run on Android software, a research company said.
Samsung is estimated to have sold between 18 million and 21 million smartphones globally in the April-June quarter, compared with 16.7 million for Nokia and 20.3 million iPhones, Neil Mawston, a London- based analyst at Strategy Analytics, a research company based in Boston, said in an e-mailed response to questions on July 22. The data exclude tablet-computer sales.
The estimates show Google Inc.’s Android is gaining ground on Apple in smartphones as Nokia, which is turning to Microsoft Corp. for software support, struggles to keep up with the pace. Samsung, which also produces low-end phones that aren’t capable of downloading applications, has said it aims to more than double sales of high-end devices this year.
Samsung’s Android portfolio is selling strongly in most regions. Samsung stands a reasonable chance of capturing the top spot on a quarterly basis if it can continue expanding its Android portfolio across high-growth markets like China and Brazil. Samsung and Apple will be at similar levels in smartphones by the end of the year.
Catching Nokia
Including basic phones, Samsung will probably have a 20 percent share this year, compared with Nokia’s 26 percent, closing the gap between the world’s two largest handset makers to the narrowest ever, he said.
Samsung wasn’t immediately able to verify the figures, said Nam Ki Yung, a Seoul-based spokesman for the Suwon, South Korea- based company. Steve Park, a Seoul-based spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.
Cherry Gong, a Nokia spokeswoman in China, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Samsung fell 0.4 percent to 847,000 won at the 3:00 p.m. close in Seoul, while South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index lost 1 percent. The shares have declined 11 percent this year.
Samsung’s global smartphone sales had lagged behind Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion Ltd. in the first quarter, according to researcher International Data Corp.
The South Korean company’s sales are accelerating after it began selling the Galaxy S II, a successor to its best-selling Android device introduced last year to counter Apple.
New Galaxy
Samsung planned to roll out the model in 120 countries through 140 operators from May, the company said in April. The latest Galaxy handset went on sale last week in five cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai, as the company seeks to make a push into the world’s largest market for mobile phones.
The latest 4.27-inch Galaxy phone, unveiled in February, helped Samsung more than double operating profit at its mobile phone business in the second quarter, according to five analysts polled by Bloomberg News.
Apple reported net income that beat estimates on July 19, lifted by record sales of iPhones and iPads. In contrast, Nokia reported its first quarterly loss since 2009 as the Finnish company struggles to sell handsets based on its 10-year-old Symbian software.
Cupertino, California-based Apple plans to introduce a new iPhone in September that boasts a stronger chip for processing data and a more advanced camera, two people familiar with the product said last month.
Lawsuits
Apple sued Samsung in April, claiming the Galaxy products “slavishly” copied technologies and designs used in the iPad and iPhone. The suit against Samsung added to its patent fights with Android-device makers including Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and HTC Corp., with the Google software gaining market share.
Android’s share will rise to 44 percent by 2015 from 39 percent this year, according to a forecast by IDC. Global sales of smartphones will soar 55 percent to 472 million units this year, according to the researcher.
Samsung is also tapping consumers looking for lower-priced models with devices using its own Bada software. It plans to introduce a new model based on the system in the second half, J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile-phone division, said July 20.
The debut of a new iPhone may slow the momentum for Samsung, Mawston said.
Samsung will need to work hard to hold off that competitive threat.
Samsung Electronics Co., maker of the Galaxy mobile phone, may have surpassed Nokia Oyj and Apple Inc. in smartphone sales for the first time on demand for devices that run on Android software, a research company said.
Samsung is estimated to have sold between 18 million and 21 million smartphones globally in the April-June quarter, compared with 16.7 million for Nokia and 20.3 million iPhones, Neil Mawston, a London- based analyst at Strategy Analytics, a research company based in Boston, said in an e-mailed response to questions on July 22. The data exclude tablet-computer sales.
The estimates show Google Inc.’s Android is gaining ground on Apple in smartphones as Nokia, which is turning to Microsoft Corp. for software support, struggles to keep up with the pace. Samsung, which also produces low-end phones that aren’t capable of downloading applications, has said it aims to more than double sales of high-end devices this year.
Samsung’s Android portfolio is selling strongly in most regions. Samsung stands a reasonable chance of capturing the top spot on a quarterly basis if it can continue expanding its Android portfolio across high-growth markets like China and Brazil. Samsung and Apple will be at similar levels in smartphones by the end of the year.
Catching Nokia
Including basic phones, Samsung will probably have a 20 percent share this year, compared with Nokia’s 26 percent, closing the gap between the world’s two largest handset makers to the narrowest ever, he said.
Samsung wasn’t immediately able to verify the figures, said Nam Ki Yung, a Seoul-based spokesman for the Suwon, South Korea- based company. Steve Park, a Seoul-based spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.
Cherry Gong, a Nokia spokeswoman in China, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Samsung fell 0.4 percent to 847,000 won at the 3:00 p.m. close in Seoul, while South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index lost 1 percent. The shares have declined 11 percent this year.
Samsung’s global smartphone sales had lagged behind Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion Ltd. in the first quarter, according to researcher International Data Corp.
The South Korean company’s sales are accelerating after it began selling the Galaxy S II, a successor to its best-selling Android device introduced last year to counter Apple.
New Galaxy
Samsung planned to roll out the model in 120 countries through 140 operators from May, the company said in April. The latest Galaxy handset went on sale last week in five cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai, as the company seeks to make a push into the world’s largest market for mobile phones.
The latest 4.27-inch Galaxy phone, unveiled in February, helped Samsung more than double operating profit at its mobile phone business in the second quarter, according to five analysts polled by Bloomberg News.
Apple reported net income that beat estimates on July 19, lifted by record sales of iPhones and iPads. In contrast, Nokia reported its first quarterly loss since 2009 as the Finnish company struggles to sell handsets based on its 10-year-old Symbian software.
Cupertino, California-based Apple plans to introduce a new iPhone in September that boasts a stronger chip for processing data and a more advanced camera, two people familiar with the product said last month.
Lawsuits
Apple sued Samsung in April, claiming the Galaxy products “slavishly” copied technologies and designs used in the iPad and iPhone. The suit against Samsung added to its patent fights with Android-device makers including Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and HTC Corp., with the Google software gaining market share.
Android’s share will rise to 44 percent by 2015 from 39 percent this year, according to a forecast by IDC. Global sales of smartphones will soar 55 percent to 472 million units this year, according to the researcher.
Samsung is also tapping consumers looking for lower-priced models with devices using its own Bada software. It plans to introduce a new model based on the system in the second half, J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile-phone division, said July 20.
The debut of a new iPhone may slow the momentum for Samsung, Mawston said.
Samsung will need to work hard to hold off that competitive threat.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
PHONES HACKING FOR PERSONAL INFORMATION
A new security hole has opened up in Apple Inc.'s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, raising alarms about the susceptibility of some of the world's hottest tech gadgets to hacker attacks.
Flaws in the software running those devices came to light after a German security agency warned that criminals could use them to steal confidential data off the devices. Apple, the world's largest technology company by market value, said Thursday that it is working on a fix that will be distributed in an upcoming software upgrade. This has increased the sales of Aruba Access Points.
With the security hole, an attacker can get malicious software onto a device by tricking its owner into clicking an infected PDF file. Germany's Federal Office for Information Security called the flaws critical weaknesses in Apple's iOS operating system.
Internet-connected mobile devices are still subject to fewer attacks than personal computer, but they could eventually prove a juicy target for hackers because they are warehouses of confidential banking, e-mail, calendar, contact and other data.
Software vulnerabilities are discovered all the time. What makes the latest discovery alarming is that the weaknesses are already being actively exploited — albeit in a consensual way.
The latest concerns were prompted by the emergence of a new version of a program to allow Apple devices to run any software and circumvent the restrictions that Apple notoriously retains over software distributed through its online store. There are security risks of doing so, but many people find it liberating to install their own software.
Although this program is something people would seek out, the weaknesses that its authors discovered could easily be used for malice, security experts say who use Dell memory Modules.
There is an irony in the controversy: The site distributing the program offers a fix for the problem, but to get the fix, a user has to first install the program in question. So a user must defy Apple's restrictions to get the protection until Apple comes up with a fix of its own.
A prominent hacker of Apple products, said it likely took months to develop the program to break Apple's restrictions, but a criminal might need only a day or two to modify it for nefarious purposes.
Apple Inc. spokeswoman said Thursday the company is aware of this reported issue and developing a fix. She would not say when the update will be available.
One reason for gadget owners to take heart: Attacks on smartphones and other Internet gadgets are still relatively rare. One reason is PC-based attacks are still highly lucrative. Still, vulnerabilities such as the ones Apple is confronting show that consumers should take care of securing their mobile devices as they would their home computer with HP Memory Upgrades.
People need to realize that phones are computers — they're just small, portable computers that happen to have a phone tacked onto them.
Flaws in the software running those devices came to light after a German security agency warned that criminals could use them to steal confidential data off the devices. Apple, the world's largest technology company by market value, said Thursday that it is working on a fix that will be distributed in an upcoming software upgrade. This has increased the sales of Aruba Access Points.
With the security hole, an attacker can get malicious software onto a device by tricking its owner into clicking an infected PDF file. Germany's Federal Office for Information Security called the flaws critical weaknesses in Apple's iOS operating system.
Internet-connected mobile devices are still subject to fewer attacks than personal computer, but they could eventually prove a juicy target for hackers because they are warehouses of confidential banking, e-mail, calendar, contact and other data.
Software vulnerabilities are discovered all the time. What makes the latest discovery alarming is that the weaknesses are already being actively exploited — albeit in a consensual way.
The latest concerns were prompted by the emergence of a new version of a program to allow Apple devices to run any software and circumvent the restrictions that Apple notoriously retains over software distributed through its online store. There are security risks of doing so, but many people find it liberating to install their own software.
Although this program is something people would seek out, the weaknesses that its authors discovered could easily be used for malice, security experts say who use Dell memory Modules.
There is an irony in the controversy: The site distributing the program offers a fix for the problem, but to get the fix, a user has to first install the program in question. So a user must defy Apple's restrictions to get the protection until Apple comes up with a fix of its own.
A prominent hacker of Apple products, said it likely took months to develop the program to break Apple's restrictions, but a criminal might need only a day or two to modify it for nefarious purposes.
Apple Inc. spokeswoman said Thursday the company is aware of this reported issue and developing a fix. She would not say when the update will be available.
One reason for gadget owners to take heart: Attacks on smartphones and other Internet gadgets are still relatively rare. One reason is PC-based attacks are still highly lucrative. Still, vulnerabilities such as the ones Apple is confronting show that consumers should take care of securing their mobile devices as they would their home computer with HP Memory Upgrades.
People need to realize that phones are computers — they're just small, portable computers that happen to have a phone tacked onto them.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
OBAMA'S DEATH IS REPORTED ON FOX NEWS
Hackers broke into Fox's political Twitter account early Monday, posting updates saying President Barack Obama had been assassinated. Some are saying this came from someone using an IBM as400 Server.
A series of six tweets coming from the Fox News Politics account reported that Obama had been shot to death in Iowa and the shooter was unknown.
In a statement posted on its website later Monday morning, Fox News called the tweets malicious and false. It said the hacking is being investigated.
Obama plans to spend the July Fourth holiday at a barbecue at the White House with military families and administration staffers.
Secret Service spokesman says the agency wouldn't comment on the tweets.
Fox's political Twitter account has more than 34,000 followers.
A series of six tweets coming from the Fox News Politics account reported that Obama had been shot to death in Iowa and the shooter was unknown.
In a statement posted on its website later Monday morning, Fox News called the tweets malicious and false. It said the hacking is being investigated.
Obama plans to spend the July Fourth holiday at a barbecue at the White House with military families and administration staffers.
Secret Service spokesman says the agency wouldn't comment on the tweets.
Fox's political Twitter account has more than 34,000 followers.
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