Derek Lomas, an American graduate student, has recruited Apple II enthusiasts at this month’s MIT International Development Design Summit “to give Third World schools Apple II computer labs like the ones I grew up with.”
Lomas, Jesse Austin-Breneman and other designers want to create a computer that Third World residents can buy for much less than the ones currently being developed by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte, who has been working since 2005 to provide $100 laptops to Third World kids. “We see this as a model that could increase economic opportunities for people in developing countries,” sas Lomas. “If you just know how to type, that can be the difference between earning $1 an hour instead of $1 a day.”
Lomas discovered kids using a cheap keyboard and Nintendo-like console hooked up to home TVs running simple games during an internship in India last summer and hit on the idea of upgrading the devices’ 1980s-era technology. He and others at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology symposium hope to get buy-in from programmers to help upgrade the systems - which are based on old Apple II computers - with rudimentary Web access and more.
The six member team at MIT is working on writing improved programs and connecting to the Web through cell phones. The group also wants to add memory chips - which the devices currently lack - to allow users to write and store their own programs. “We think we can develop a really good educational tool that could give kids exposure to keyboards, typing and mouse usage at an early age,” said Austin-Breneman, a 25-year-old MIT graduate and a mechanical engineer.
Via The Boston Herald
Written by Lonnie Lazar on August 5th, 2008 with no comments.
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Amid growing criticism of a lassiez-faire approach to security issues, Apple has canceled participation in a public discussion of its security practices at the Black Hat security conference scheduled this week in Las Vegas. Black Hat Director Jeff Moss told reporters in an interview Friday that unnamed members of Apple’s engineering team had agreed in early July to participate in a panel discussion on computer security issues, which would have been a first for the notoriously secretive company. “It was [going to be] them talking about security engineering and how they take security seriously,” Moss said, but “marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval.”
In a separate security-related development, reports indicate the DNS security patch released by Apple on Friday may fail to fix the exploit flaw it was intended to repair.
Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc. and Swa Frantzen of the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center both detailed research indicating systems running the client version of Mac OS X were still incrementing ports, not randomizing them, as should have been the case if the fix had addressed the flaw. “Apple might have fixed some of the more important parts for servers, but is far from done yet, as all the clients linked against a DNS client library still need to get the work-around for the protocol weakness,” Frantzen said.
While Dan Kaminsky, the researcher who uncovered the DNS flaw in February and helped coordinate a multivendor patch effort indicated “if there was a huge population of people behind DNS servers running OS X, I’d be more worried,” Rich Mogull, an independent security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst said, “It may be a low priority in the scheme of the DNS vulnerability, but if all my servers are OS X, it matters. Within the Mac audience, it matters.”
Via Computerworld
Written by Lonnie Lazar on August 4th, 2008 with no comments.
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Apple has posted a job opportunity for a position it calls “iPhone Security Engineer.” An “exceptional individual” will get the chance to “have a major impact on Apple’s embedded operating system products,” according to the job posting.
Job requirements and useful experience include “passion for developing “proof of concept attacks, industry exposure to and knowledge of OS security and UNIX internals” and “involvement in reverse engineering and security communities.”
The company appears to be taking seriously recent criticisms of its nonchalance toward patching iPhone security holes and its less-than-full-embrace by the enterprise community.
Who says crime doesn’t pay?
Via Ars Technica
Written by Lonnie Lazar on July 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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Microsoft is taking a leaf from Apple’s playbook and re-organizing its major online services division to create a tighter link between hardware and software.
Microsoft has reorganized it’s Platforms and Services Division, responsible for products like online search and Internet Explorer, to more closely follow Apple’s “whole widget” approach of closely tying hardware to software and online services.
In a memo to employees, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains:
“In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones—providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.”
It sounds like Microsoft is going to try and replicate what it’s done with the XBox and the Zune — exert more control over hardware, software and cloud services.
For decades, Microsoft has thrived by selling its software to third-party vendors who build with commodity components and compete fiercly on price. This model works well when selling to businesses, whichare concerned with price and interopability, but increasingly, ordinary consumers are the grwoth market for the PC industry, and consumers care more about ease-of-use, reliability and good design. These of course, are Apple’s strengths.
Ballmer doesn’t seem to be suggesting that Microsoft bring hardware in-house, but rather initiate a tighter pairing between Microsoft’s software and the company’s third-party hardware partners. Examples of this kind of hardware/software alliance include Real Networks and Sandisk, which have teamed to make MP3 players; and Netflix and LG, which are collaborating on an online movie service integrated into LG’s TVs.
Ballmer specifically mentions phones, which are increasingly becoming mobile computing devices that could threaten Microsoft. Microsoft is rumored to be working on a Zune phone to rival the iPhone (and soon, Google’s Android).
Written by Lonnie Lazar on July 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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The Computer Science Department at Stanford University will offer a course in iPhone programming in the Fall Semester, according to its latest course schedule.
It is unclear at this point whether Apple will object to the course offering under the terms of its SDK confidentiality agreement.
Via TUAW
Written by Lonnie Lazar on July 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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