The New Nation - Internet Edition

Windows XP gets another lifeline

Although the largest PC makers can't sell XP anymore (except for ultra-low-cost machines), they can sell Vista Ultimate and Vista Business machines with XP discs in the box, or even Vista machines that are "factory downgraded" to Windows XP.

That option was supposed to go away early next year, as Microsoft was going to stop supplying Windows XP media after January 31. However, the company now says it will offer the discs through July 31, giving the option a six-month extension. (Update: PC makers will also be able to sell the factory downgraded machines online as well.)

In a statement provided to CNET News, Microsoft tried to put the best face on the move. "As more customers make the move to Windows Vista, we want to make sure that they are making that transition with confidence and that it is as smooth as possible," Microsoft said.

"Providing downgrade media for a few more months is part of that commitment, as is the Windows Vista Small Business Assurance program, which provides one-on-one, customized support for our small-business customers."

CEO Steve Ballmer said on Thursday in France that 180 million copies of Vista have been sold, but he noted that businesses continue to move at their own pace. When asked about whether companies should move to Vista or wait for Windows 7, even Ballmer said it depends on the business.

"So, my point isn't to encourage you to do it immediately; of course, we'd love you to do it immediately," Ballmer said. "My real advice is to do it in the natural rhythm of your PC upgrade cycletMost of you will not upgrade the software on existing hardware. Some will. Most of you will actually choose to buy new machines when you move forward, and so we should work with you in that context."

The less major computer makers, known as system builders in Microsoft parlance, are still able to sell XP machines without having to do the Vista downgrade thing. That option is set to end Jan. 31 and Microsoft says that date isn't being extended.

Microsoft stopped selling Windows XP on June 30, though it continues to be available as retail supplies last. It has been a top seller on Amazon for some time, and several versions of XP are still among the retailer's top 25 best-selling software titles. The six-month extension for XP discs was noted earlier by The Register, a tech news site.

Source: news.cnet.com

T-Mobile loses personal data of 17 million customers

T-Mobile Germany has admitted to losing the personal data belonging to its 17 million customers. The theft, which has only just been revealed, occurred back in early 2006, and involved telephone numbers, dates of birth, addresses and email addresses.

In a statement, the company said that the records do not contain bank details, credit card numbers or call data, and that it has no evidence to confirm that the records have led to harassment of users in 2006 or subsequent years, or that they have otherwise been misused by unauthorized parties.

As soon as the theft was detected in spring 2006, T-Mobile's parent company - Deutsche Telekom reported the theft to the public prosecutors' office. Within the scope of their investigations, the public prosecutors' office was able to recover storage media.

Extensive research conducted over several months on the Internet and in data trading places could not reveal any clues indicating that the data had been offered or disseminated on the black market. Owing to this, Deutsche Telekom assumed that there would be no dissemination of the data.

However, the German newspaper, Der Spiegel was apparently able to buy the data in question via third parties.

"We are very concerned by the fact that the incident from 2006 is relevant once again. Until now, we were under the assumption that the data in question had been recovered completely as part of the investigations of the public prosecutors' office and were safe," said Philipp Humm, Managing Director at T-Mobile Deutschland. "Notwithstanding the fact that the culprits have been at work with a tremendous criminal potential, we earnestly regret to say that we have not been able to protect our customer data in line with our standards."

Following the data theft in 2006, T-Mobile says that it has intensified their security measures. -Internet

Asia-Pacific CDMA growth slows to an all-time low

GSM continues to increase its dominance of the Asia Pacific market. Of the 99m new connections made in the quarter, only 13m chose any other standard and of those, 11.3m went for the GSM-enhancement, W-CDMA. Nearly 80% of all customers in the region now use GSM - 1.232bn out of 1.545bn - with CDMA the only other real contender. At the end of June, there were 191.3m customers connected to the various forms of this standard slightly up on the 189.4m at the end of March.

The writing is clearly on the wall as far as CDMA's future is concerned. This is perhaps best seen when we consider the fate of its 3G variant CDMA 1x EV-DO. During the quarter, just 0.21m new EV-DO connections were made, a small fraction of the 11.3m who chose W-CDMA.

According to its supporters, EV-DO has advantages over W-CDMA, but it has lost the commercial battle at least as comprehensively as another better standard from some years ago, Sony's ill-starred Betamax. To be fair, the 0.21m number is slightly misleading, as it masks an interesting change taking place in the market. Two of the largest CDMA operators are seeing continuing growth in their EV-DO bases (KDDI in Japan and LG in South Korea) which added 778k and 329k EV-DO connections respectively, but most of the good work here was undone by the two other Korean operators SK and KTF, which are both moving to W-CDMA and disconnected 532k and 340k customers respectively. The two businesses were material contributors to W-CDMA growth adding 1.81m and 1.84m respectively.

NTT DoCoMo is another major supporter of W-CDMA and this now accounts for 45.2m of its 53.6m total base. The balance is made up of 2G PDC customers. This technology is now in terminal decline as Softbank Mobile, the only other company to use PDC, is making the same changes as DoCoMo, adding 1.1m W-CDMA customers in the quarter while disconnecting another 580k from the PDC net.

Two other technologies are in use in the region, AMPS and its digital variant, TDMA. There are now just 0.4m subscribers to these systems and soon, there will be none.

Source: www.cellular-news.com

Nokia shows off its TouchScreen Phone

Nokia has shown off its long anticipated touch screen phone - the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which is also its first handset to support the Comes With Music, Nokia's service which offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue."With the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, we set out to connect people through the one thing we all feel a universal connection to - music," said Jo Harlow, Vice President, Nokia. "The way in which people enjoy music is different around the world. With that in mind, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic gives people the freedom to experience music they love in the way they prefer."

Taking advantage of touch screen technology, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic introduces the 'Media Bar', a handy drop down menu that provides direct access to music and entertainment, including favourite tracks, videos and photos. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the web and to online sharing.

In a slight dig at the Apple iPhone, Nokia touted the fact that the phone supported Flash web services - which are currently not available on iPhones.In addition, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials, including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks and support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack.

"As Nokia's first mass-market device with a touch screen, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic turns a 'user interface' into a 'human interface' by truly putting people first. For example, we've introduced the Nokia Contacts Bar, which is like a digital RSS feed on your life," said Harlow.

Co-founder of Facebook to leave

Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of social-networking start-up Facebook Inc., said he would leave the company in about a month.

Mr. Moskovitz founded the social-networking Web site with Mark Zuckerberg, who is now Facebook's chief executive, while they were both students at Harvard University several years ago.

Justin Rosenstein, a Facebook engineering manager, will also leave the company to join Mr. Moskovitz in starting a new software business. In a message left on Mr. Moskovitz's Facebook page, the two said they have been working on software for business users and wanted to incorporate the software into Facebook.

"But at some point it became clear that doing so wouldn't be good for Facebook or for us," he wrote. Mr. Moskovitz wrote that he sees the new venture as complementary to Facebook.

Source: techjunkeez.com