CTIA 2009 preview

As spring goes into full swing and April Fool's Day nears, the last event of the busy trade season is upon us. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association show (CTIA) is the nation's largest event dedicated to new cell phones, accessories, and services. This year it runs from April 1 through April 3 in Las vegas.

Of course, a large CNET crew will be on-hand to bring you all the news from the show floor. On the review side, I'll be in Vegas with Bonnie Cha and Nicole Lee. We'll bring you details on all the new handsets, and offer you lots of eye candy with photos and video . Nicole will also give you the dish on new bloetoeth headsets . Jessica Dolcourt of download.com will scout out services, software, and applications, while Tom Krazit and Maggie Reardon of CNET News will bring you the latest news from the business side.

Though we're expecting a full show, we're also expecting that CTIA 2009 will be a little quieter than in past years. That has certainly been the case at the trade shows we've attended so far in 2009. At both CES and the GSMA World Congress, only a handful of new phones appeared on the show floor.

But don't worry, because if CTIA is anything like CES or GSMA, there will be plenty of cool gadgets on display. After all, CES gave us the Palm Pre and GSMA saw the birth of the Sony Ericsson Idou. In Las Vegas, the Palm Pre will be on display again, even if we're not expecting Sprint to announce a release date and pricing. And while Sony Ericsson will not be unveiling any new models, we will see new models from Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Kyocera, and HTC.

Most eyes at CTIA, however, will be on Android. Rumors persist that HTC will deliver a second Android device for T-Mobile. Neither HTC nor T-Mobile are saying anything, but just three days ago the Federal Communications Commission approved a version of the HTC Magic that supports T-Mobile's 3G network. Without a doubt, a new Android device would satisfy anxious Android fans who have been waiting for an alternative to the T-Mobile G1. We thought that GSMA would offer a gallery of Android devices, but a Magic bound for Vodafone was the only such device to make an appearance in Barcelona.

Whatever happens, the CNET team will be on-hand in Las Vegas to bring you the latest news and the hottest devices from CTIA. Just don't expect any iPhone news, please. Sure, we may see some iPhone apps, but Apple is always a no-show at CTIA. We land in Sin City on Tuesday, March 31 and will be reporting through the end of the week. Check back often for the latest updates.

source:http://reviews.cnet.com

Inside Microsoft's new mobile browser

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft still isn't quite ready to release its new mobile browser, but I did get an advance look at Internet Explorer 6 for Windows Mobile at a Microsoft event Wednesday night.

The biggest benefit will be the fact that it is the full IE 6 rendering engine, meaning that any page that renders properly in IE 6 on the PC should do just fine on Windows Mobile. Tim McDonough, a senior director in Microsoft's Windows Mobile unit, showed me the browser running the standard MSN home page.

I saw the browser running on Windows Mobile Standard--meaning on a non-touch-screen device. The browser makes good use of a D-pad controller to go from link to link, but it's still not as elegant as on a touch screen. I'll be interested to see how the browser works on a touch-based Windows Mobile device, but am still not expecting navigation to be up to the iPhone level.

Navigation may be better on the iPhone, but IE 6 will have some advantages, such as full Flash support.

"The market today is really at 'Can I see a page?' Very quickly we're getting to 'Can I do something?'" he said. "That's where we will really shine."

Another interesting option on IE 6 is the ability to quickly shift from a site's mobile page to its standard desktop version. Just because IE 6 can show the full site, doesn't mean that's always what people want. It's particularly true in Europe where even so-called "unlimited" data plans typically have data caps that can easily be reached by loading a lot of standard Web pages. IE 6 toggles between mobile and standard Web pages by sending a different user agent, depending on which page type a user wants to see.

McDonough didn't offer much of an update on timing for IE 6, except to say that "it's still this year."

That's left Windows Mobile device makers scrambling to try to better compete against Apple's browsing experience. To fill the gap, many are turning to Opera's Windows Mobile browsing, which offers better navigation and rendering than the current mobile Internet Explorer.

Time Capsule

March 30, 2009 (Macworld) The 2009 version of Apple's Time Capsule combines the mundane tasks of networking, file sharing, and backups into one device, and it includes some cool new features to boot. Time Capsule, basically an Airport Extreme base station with a 500GB or 1TB internal hard drive, is designed to be a wireless Time Machine target for one or more Macs as well as a NAS (network attached storage) device.

Time Capsule's marquee feature is its ability to back up your Macs running Leopard using Time Machine over the network. Apple recommends that you connect your Mac directly to the Time Capsule for the first backup, which makes a copy of all files on your Mac; backing up that much data takes a long time over the network. I backed up my MacBook Pro's 120GB of data to each Time Capsule connected via Gigabit Ethernet and it took a little over nine hours to complete the first backup.

After that initial backup, Time Machine will back up to the Time Capsule every hour (unless the Mac has been powered down or the previous backup took longer than an hour). These hourly backups are incremental--that is, they back up only files that have changed, or have been added since the last backup. Such backups take less time and are generally handily accomplished over a wireless connection. One thing to remember is that Time Machine backs up at the file level. So, if you use a program that frequently makes changes to a large central file (like Entourage, which stores e-mail in one large database file), Time Machine will back up that entire file, even if only one item in the file has changed. This can impact wireless backup performance, depending on how large those files are. You can also use one or more external USB drives attached to the Time Capsule's USB port as a Time Machine target.

The backup functionality hasn't changed with this new version of Time Capsule, so the same basic problems still exist: you can't swap out the internal drive, and even with the 1TB model, you may run out of disk space if you're backing up multiple Macs as well as using the internal drive for file sharing. (Theoretically, you should not run out of space, because Time Machine culls older backups; but users have reported that they have run out of room on the disk. Apple says that before OS X 10.5.5, Time Machine sometimes reported the Time Capsule drive as full when it was not. Also, Apple says that a rare problem with Time Machine backup image corruption on Time Capsule was corrected with base station 7.4.1 firmware and Mac OS X 10.5.6.) Speaking of file sharing, when we last reviewed the Time Capsule, file transfer speeds weren't exactly zippy. I transferred a 1GB video file to both Time Capsules, as well as to a Mac via AFP. Transferring the same file to either Time Capsule took about 33 percent longer than it did to transfer to the Mac. This is fine for occasional file sharing, but if you're doing a lot of file sharing, you might want to check into a dedicated NAS or Mac file server.

Apps to dominate CTIA Wireless 2009

We've barely unpacked our bags from GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, and we're on the road again to Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless, the U.S. tradeshow and conference held every spring where the biggest and most influential players in the U.S. mobile market gather.

While there will be some cell phones announced at this year's show, most of the excitement will center on software applications and the virtual store fronts that are popping up to distribute these new applications. Since the success of Apple's App Store, which provides easy access to third party applications for iPhones, other companies have jumped on the bandwagon announcing their own application stores.

Everyone from Google to Microsoft to Nokia to Research In Motion has announced plans for a new application store. And at this year's CTIA, some of these new app stores will come to life. RIM is expected to announce that its BlackBerry AppWorld is open for business and Microsoft will start showing off its Marketplace for the first time.

But application markets aren't the only thing that will be talked about. Carriers, like Verizon and Clearwire will also be touting faster broadband wireless networks that will help make these applications a reality. And of course handset makers will be showing off new products, some of which have already been announced, such as the Palm Pre.

But this year's spring CTIA Wireless show will likely be smaller than in years past. The economic downturn has taken its toll on the mobile market. Even Nokia, the world's largest and strongest maker of cell phones, has slashed expectations for 2009. And the company has already begun laying off employees and closing facilities to cut costs.

Still, mobile is hot. And most experts agree that even though the overall cell phone market won't grow as quickly as it has in years past, it is one of the brightest spots on the technology landscape for the future. And the new technologies and services developed and shown off today will pave the way toward recovery in the future.

To keep you informed of all the breaking news and trends at this year's CTIA, CNET will have full coverage of the show with reporters and editors from CNET News, CNET Reviews and CNET Downloads. So check out our coverage all week on the special CTIA CNET Reviews page.

Here's a snapshot of what we expect to see:

Applications galore
The biggest news of the week will likely come from Research in Motion. The company, which makes the popular BlackBerry smartphone, is expected to introduce both an applications storefront and a mobile video-download service for its newer BlackBerry devices. RIM, the preferred smartphone of the suit-and-tie crowd, has increasingly courted consumers over the past year with new phones like the Pearl and the Storm. But throwing the BlackBerry wide-open to consumer-oriented developers could help enhance its standing against Apple's iPhone.

Microsoft is also expected to show off its Windows Marketplace for Mobile, its version of the mobile computing application store. Microsoft announced the new mobile application store at Mobile World Congress in February. And now it plans to show off the product at the show with a special demonstration during a keynote address on Thursday.

Last year, the company unveiled Windows Mobile 6.1 in Las Vegas, and it announced tweaks to the software at MWC earlier this year with Windows Mobile 6.5. But the broader overhaul of the software promised in Windows Mobile 7 still appears pretty far off in the distance.

Even though Apple won't be at CTIA, there will be plenty of iPhone applications announced and demonstrated at the show. Skype has already taken the wraps off its new Skype for iPhone app. And other apps are sure to be highlighted and demonstrated, such as MobiTV's new iPhone application.

Networks: The faster, the better
Even though carriers are still finding ways to monetize their newly built 3G wireless networks, they're already looking toward the future. Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg will take the stage on Wednesday, and he's expected to tout the company's impending 4G wireless network and the billions of dollars it's invested in its fiber optic landline network. Verizon's CTO Dick Lynch dished some of the details on the new 4G network, which is expected to launch in 2010, in Barcelona last month.

Benjamin Wolff, co-chairman of Clearwire is also taking the stage this week at CTIA. Clearwire, which is using wireless assets from Sprint Nextel, to build a 4G nationwide network using WiMax technology is also expected to talk more about the its plans to provide wireless broadband coverage to 120 million people by the end of 2010.

Robert Dotson, CEO of T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the four major cell phone operators, will also be delivering a keynote speech on Wednesday that is likely to provide an update on the company's roll out of its 3G network. And AT&T's head of wireless Ralph De La Vega will meet with reporters on Thursday. While it's not yet known what he will talk about, there could be an update on the company's technology upgrade to a faster network. Last year, De La Vega said AT&T would be offering network speeds of 20 Mbps over its current network infrastructure as it upgrades to newer versions of HSPA.

Handsets revisited
Rumors are building that Google's Android group might try to steal a little of the CTIA thunder, in partnership with HTC. HTC built the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, and has committed to releasing additional phones. One of those might be arriving soon, especially now that the HTC Magic has passed the FCC's certification tests, and could be announced this week. HTC announced the Magic for European markets at Mobile World Congress in February. Perhaps a new Android phone will be announced by T-Mobile's Dotson on Wednesday during his keynote speech.

Smartphone maker Palm is not attending CTIA, but the company's hotly anticipated phone the Palm Pre, which was announced in Las Vegas at CES in January, will be at Sprint Nextel's special "lounge," where the carrier will be showing off the device to press and a few other special guests.

Details on pricing and availability aren't expected at the show, but Palm fans are crossing their fingers for some news. The company could have something to say on Wednesday, when Palm's Michael Abbott will make an appearance at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

AT&T will also be showing off six new handsets for its network that are geared toward data centric consumers. These devices offer an array of devices with full keypads and touch screens. These phones include models from LG and three from Samsung, such as the Propel Pro. AT&T is also going to be offering Nokia's ultra-thin E71x, which is very popular in Europe. This is one of the first high-end Nokia devices available in the U.S. market and could help Nokia build a bigger toe-hold in the U.S. market.

source:http://reviews.cnet.com

Massive computer spy network uncovered

Massive computer spy network uncovered; Google downplays Google Docs security concerns; and Intel to release faster low-power laptop chips.

A 10-month cyberespionage investigation has found that 1,295 computers in 103 countries and belonging to international institutions have been spied on, with some circumstantial evidence suggesting China may be to blame. The 53-page report, released on Sunday, provides some of the most compelling evidence and detail of the efforts of politically-motivated hackers while raising questions about their ties with government-sanctioned cyberspying operations. It describes a network which researchers have called GhostNet, which primarily uses a malicious software program called gh0st RAT to steal sensitive documents, control Web cams and completely control infected computers. The analysts did say, however, they have no confirmation if the information obtained has ended up being valuable to the hackers or whether it has been commercially sold or passed on as intelligence.

Google Docs users shouldn't lose sleep over the security concerns a security analyst has raised about the hosted suite of office productivity applications, Google said late Friday. In an official blog posting, Jonathan Rochelle, Google Docs' product manager, details why the company has determined that the issues included in the analyst's report are far from critical. Google's conclusions aren't a surprise. Hours after Ade Barkah published his report last Thursday, Google responded with a preliminary statement saying it was investigating the matter but that it didn't believe there were significant security issues with Docs. Nonetheless, Google evidently sees some merit in Barkah's report. Google has added information regarding Barkah's observations to its Docs "help" pages about creating drawings and about adding viewers and collaborators to documents.

Intel is expected to refresh its line of laptop chips Monday with new ultra-low-voltage processors that should make ultraportable laptops operate faster without sacrificing battery life. Intel currently offers ultra-low-voltage processors for fully functional thin and light laptops, such as Apple's expensive MacBook Air and Lenovo's ThinkPad X300. These chips fit into small spaces and draw less power than conventional laptop chips. The chips are about the size of a dime, or 60 percent smaller than mainstream laptop chips. The chips will run at clock speeds of up to 1.6GHz, a speed bump from earlier chips that ran at up to 1.40GHz.

The U.S. Library of Congress has begun uploading its audio archives to iTunes, and it will soon begin to post videos on YouTube, in an effort to make its materials easier for the public to access. The library already offers the materials at its own Web site but the expansion to YouTube and Apple's iTunes is part of the library's efforts to make its 15.3 million digital items more accessible. The decision to post audio and video on iTunes and YouTube follows a successful launch early last year of a library photo archive on Flickr. Since January 2008, the library's photos on Flickr have been viewed about 15.7 million times

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.