Windows 8 gets dramatic smartphone makeover

Radical upgrade but some unhappy

Whatever Microsoft ends up calling Windows 8, a press event at the Computex Show in Taiwan confirms that the company has already given the next version of the world’s most ubiquitous

operating system a bold new smartphone interface.

In the first of a series of videos released to the media, Microsoft’s director of Windows User Experience team Jensen Harris, has underlined the extent to which the new OS will look like and probably integrate with Windows 7 Phone. Microsoft also offered further details in its Computex press event.

Gone is the ‘Start’ button and menu in favour of a mosaic composed of tiled applications and service icons lifted wholesale from the smartphone world. Because Windows 8 will feature a touch interface, swiping to the right one or more times brings up successive screens full of the same icons.

As with a smartphone or tablet, clicking on an app makes it fullscreen while swiping on the left side of the screen brings up other apps that are running, one by one. Each application can be resized on the screen in a variety fo ways.

As well as including a touch keyboard, Microsoft is also experimenting with a ‘thumb’ keypad, which the keyboard into a two thumb-accessible blocks at the left and right hand side of the screen.
As with much of the new user interface, this is clearly aimed at tablet computers, a sector Microsoft clearly sees as at least as important as the laptops and desktop computers that turned previous versions of Windows into the world’s biggest OS.

Under the hood, the new OS will still run conventional Windows applications controlled through the mouse rather than touch, complete with the NTFS and FAT32 file systems. Interestingly, Microsoft clearly sees these as ‘legacy’ beside an as-yet unknown volume of new Windows apps that will run and behave much as they would on a smartphone.

Question marks remains. Can Microsoft serve the needs of users with one OS across so many different types of device?

Its rivals offer a clear break with desktop computing, and are less constricted by the need to convert new users from an established platform. It’s also unclear whether with a growing number of mobile, tablet and smartphone-oriented operating systems available free, users will see the need to write a hefty cheque to Microsoft simply to run an operating system.

Microsoft could offer it free of charge and hope to levy a tax on the apps that run on it, but that would represent a huge change in business model. With so many devices able to access a basic suite of applications without charge, it’s also unclear whether suites such as Office have a future as cloud services away outside the business sector.

It's also less than clear what sort of processing grunt will be needed to run both new-fangled smartphone apps beside older ones. Even slimmed from Windows Vista's bloat, its predecessor Windows 7 still needs more power than most tablets can offer.

What Microsoft does gains by offering people visuals on the new OS, not due for at least a year, is a critical window of feedback and the chance to adjust the design of Windows 8. That alone is a huge change from the inward-looking run-up to previous Windows releases.

The development cycle for Windows 8 is already proving controversial, especially the reported insistence that chip vendors and hardware vendors work together in a way that suits Microsoft's ambitions. Companies such as Acer have expressed unhappiness at being corralled in this way.

US government may consider cyber attack an act of war

Pentagon wants to respond to virtual attack with armed force
By Ed Oswald

This is a sign of the increasingly digital world we live in: the Pentagon is set to make it official US policy to consider cyber attacks "acts of war," and respond to them with real world force, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The strategy, which becomes public next month, is intended to both provide guidance to the country's armed forces and make a statement to potential enemies. Cyber terrorism is becoming a big issue for officials, as increasing portions of the country's infrastructure are "online."

This announcement comes just a few days after Lockheed Martin, a major US defence contractor, was the subject of a "significant and tenacious attack." The company has stressed that no sensitive information was exposed during the attack.

According to The Journal, military officials are still in disagreement about how cyber attacks should be handled, specifically when and when not a real life military response is warranted. The Journal says officials seem to be settling on the "eye for an eye" concept, which means that the military would be able to respond to a cyber attack that causes physical damage, injury or death.

Very few virtual attacks are capable of causing this kind of harm, however. If this position is used, many cyber attacks will not constitute brute force retaliation. That's not to say military-employed hackers won't have the right to go in and take down an enemy's computer system in response, though.

Regardless of official strategy, how best to respond to cyber terrorism is something experts and officials have been debating for years since 9/11. Terrorism experts often warn that the next terrorist attacks could be virtual, although so far all cyber attacks have been minor in scope.

3G phones less harmful, researcher says

Smartphones in general may be less cancer-causing

The latest 3G mobile devices like iPhones and other smartphones may deliver a lower dose of radiowaves to the brain than earlier models but frequent use could still cause cancer, a health expert says.

A report released by the World Health Organisation's cancer research wing says radio frequency electromagnetic fields generated by such devices are "possibly carcinogenic to humans".

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said heavy usage could lead to an increased incidence of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer.

However, an Australian researcher who worked on the report with 30 other experts says more research is needed before any real link can be made between mobile phone use and cancer.

"Really, what it's saying is there is an observed association between using a mobile phone and a higher risk of brain cancer," Professor Bruce Armstrong from the University of Sydney told ABC on Wednesday morning.
"But it's also saying that there are perhaps biases in the study or ... other factors that could explain that association."

Armstrong said researchers studied radiowave activity on those who used phones the heaviest and for the longest period, and health risks for average users was "really quite small".

"In the general population, particularly in the younger population, there is just no evidence ... that brain tumours are increasing in a way that would suggest that they are related to the greater amount of radio-frequency energy in our environment," he said.

The 3G technology used by iPhones, Blackberry and other mobile phones also appeared to emit less harmful radiowaves, he said.

But research on these new technologies was still in its infancy.

"A very important observation, really, just based on the technology, is that the 3G phones in fact give a much lower dose to the brain than the previous generations," Armstrong said.
"Whether, for example, the 3G levels are sufficient to cause brain tumours, we don't know at this stage, because most of the research at this stage was done ... on the generation before."

The IARC had previously stated that there was no real health risks associated with long-term mobile phone use.

Armstrong said while health agencies tended to err on the side of caution it was still important people avoided heavy mobile-phone use.

"I think that's a very common principal of public health, that in the face of uncertainty ... it's good to take precautions," he said.

"I would say that the main message out of this study is to avoid exposing your brain to radiowaves from mobile phones."

He said using hands-free devices, texting or using a landline whenever possible would reduce any of the potentially negative health risks for phone users.

More research was needed across the board before any real conclusions could be drawn, he said.

The IARC report that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields generated by such devices are "possibly carcinogenic to humans" has resulted in a Group 2B classification.

The classification will now be assessed by the WHO, which can be expected to provide further advice in due course.

Intel developing new hibernation features for PC processors

Rapid Start cuts time to return from suspend state

Intel is adding a pair of new features to chips used in notebooks and netbooks, one of which will allow the devices to turn on within five to six seconds after being put in hibernation mode.

Intel demonstrated the new features on Tuesday at the Computex trade show. Intel's Rapid Start Technology allows for faster turn-on by writing the PC's application state to a dedicated flash drive. By doing this, the PC can quickly reload to its that state without rebooting, even if the battery is removed and then reinserted.

The other feature, Intel's Smart Connect Technology, updates content continuously on the PC while it's in standby mode. The PC will periodically "wake up" and check for email and other information like Twitter posts, and then fall back to standby mode.

The new features will be incorporated into the company's Sandy Bridge chip, the second generation of its Intel Core processor family, by the end of this year. The chip maker will also be adding the features to its Cedar Trail microprocessor, which is designed for netbooks. Intel has previously said Cedar Trail will ship next year.

Standby and hibernate are two modes on Microsoft Windows that allow users to power down their PCs. Standby mode runs on very low power, but is quicker to reload once brought back on. In contrast, hibernate offers greater power savings, but is slower to reload to its previous state since the mode shuts down the computer.

Intel's Executive Vice President Sean Maloney introduced the features during a speech at Computex, and said they were in response to tablet devices. "One of the things we've learned from tablets is the vital importance of system response time. Users simply do not want to wait for a device to boot up," he said.

Tablets represent a market that Intel has been late to establish a presence in. Currently, most tablets, along with smartphones, use processors by Intel's rival ARM Holdings because they are considered more power efficient.

UK game publisher Codemasters hacked

Company says no customer data compromised

Following recent attacks on Sony and Square Enix, it seems that Codemasters, the UK-based publisher of the DiRT series, has been hit by hackers. The company told Gamesindustry.biz that it "responded swiftly" when it discovered there had been an attempt to gain administrative access to the Codemasters website.
"We responded swiftly with a full investigation to isolate the issue, bringing down Codemasters.com for a few hours to ensure no access would be possible, and returned the website after a security hole was closed," a representative from the company said. "While some staff admin names were obtained, passwords were all encrypted."
It doesn't sound as if any customer data was compromised during the attack, but as always in these situations, it's a good idea to change your login details if you use the Codemasters website at all.

 

Google shuts down offline Gmail access before HTML5 upgrade

Access still open to outdated Firefox builds

Google this week told Chrome users to switch to outdated versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox if they want to access Gmail when they're not connected to the web.
Gmail has now dropped offline support for Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), Firefox 4, Safari and Opera.
The company had announced Gmail's offline shut-off two months ago when it said it was shifting the web mail service's offline support from Gears, its now obsolete plugin, to HTML5. At the time, Google said it would drop Gear from Chrome as of version 12.
The current "stable" build of Chrome is version 11. Even so, that edition doesn't run Gmail in offline mode.
"Beginning on Tuesday, May 24, 2011, users will no longer be able to use Chrome with Google Gears-based Gmail Offline," the company said.

Until Google restores offline support to Gmail with HTML5 this summer, Google recommended that users switch to IE8 or Firefox 3.6, versions that have been supplanted by IE9 and Firefox 4, respectively.
Google plans to provide offline support to Gmail using HTML5 this summer.
"We realize that there will be a temporary gap in Gmail offline access via Chrome," said Google, "and we are working hard to deliver offline capabilities through a new Gmail Offline Chrome Web app as quickly as possible".