JVC NX-PN7: His-and-hers iPod speaker
(Credit: JVC)Back in January, JVC unveiled the NX-PN7, an iPod speaker system with not one but two iPod docks. The company sent out a press release today to announce that the NX-PN7 is officially available. Otherwise, it looks like nothing's changed since the unit's coming-out party six months ago. Despite doubling down on the music players, the unit is just 13 inches wide. In addition to being able to toggle between "iPod A" and "iPod B," the NX-PN7 features a clock, an auxiliary line-in, and a horizontal light beneath each iPod dock that can be set to any one of nine colors. It has a sleep timer, but apparently no alarm. The list price is $150, but it looks like Amazon is already selling it for closer to $130.
If you think the JVC NX-PN7's dual iPod capacity is overkill, remember that Griffin offers PowerDock chargers that can juice up iPods and iPhones two or even four at a time. So, what do you think: are these multi-iPod accessories a good idea, or just more proof that some people have far too many iPods in their home?
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View the latest prices for JVC NX-PN7 iPod/iPhone audio system
In what Russian officials say was a coordinated effort, hackers knocked Web sites for nuclear power plants offline temporarily last week amid false reports of an accident at a plant, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Several Internet forums had false reports of radioactive emissions from the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant near St. Petersburg at the same time as some official Web sites that provide real-time information about radiation incidents were attacked, said a spokesman for the Rosatom state nuclear corporation.
"This was a planned action by hackers, which has brought down almost all sites providing access to the Automatic Radiation Environment Control System (ASKRO), including the Leningrad NPP site, the rosatom.ru site, and others," he said.
Last year, several dozen people believing similar false reports of an accident at the Volgodonsk nuclear plant fell ill after poisoning themselves with iodine believing that ingesting it would offset radiation damage.
(Thanks to Paul Ferguson of Trend Micro.)
We can all live with outages at Yahoo Mail, Twitter, and CNN.com. But what about when there's an outage that affects our electrical power, heating systems, and gas supplies?
Boston-based security firm Core Security has discovered a serious hole in the Suitelink software that is used to automate operations at power stations, oil refineries and production lines, according to a report in New Scientist.
Attackers exploiting the vulnerability could crash the software by transmitting an outsize packet data to a certain port on the computer running Suitelink, the article says.
Fortunately, Wonderware, the company that makes Suitelink, has issued a software patch for the vulnerability. Now it's up to the plants to update their software.
Even without finding security holes in the SCADA control software, it's possible to break into power plants by downloading malware to employee computers through a socially engineered e-mail that directs them to a malicious server, a security expert said at RSA 2008.
Updated at 10:58 a.m. PDT to add comment from the broadband-over-power lines industry.
Updated at 5:22 p.m. PDT to correct the number of broadband-over-power lines subscribers.
In a potential setback for fans of broadband over power lines, a federal appeals court has sided in part with amateur radio operators who challenged rules designed to speed the nascent Internet service's rollout.
When setting rules for BPL operators nearly two years ago, the Federal Communications Commission said it was trying to encourage deployment of a "third pipe" to compete with cable and DSL services, while establishing limits aimed at protecting public safety, maritime, radio-astronomy, aeronautical navigation, and amateur radio operators from harmful interference. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which represents amateur and ham radio operators, however, promptly sued the agency, contending that the FCC's approach was insufficient to ward off interference with its radios and inconsistent with its previous rules.
On Friday, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia on Friday issued a ruling (PDF) that took issue with the way the FCC arrived at its rules.
During its rulemaking process, the FCC relied on five scientific studies that measured BPL devices' radio emissions, in an attempt to determine interference risks with other users of the spectrum. Although the agency released those studies during a public comment process required by federal law, it redacted portions of them, arguing they were just "internal" communications that didn't influence its deliberations. But after reviewing the unredacted studies in private, the majority of the judges agreed with the ARRL that it was against federal administrative procedure law to keep those portions under wraps, particularly since they could called the FCC's rules into question.
"It is one thing for the Commission to give notice and make available for comment the studies on which it relied in formulating the rule while explaining its non-reliance on certain parts," D.C. Circuit Judge Judith Rogers wrote. "It is quite another thing to provide notice and an opportunity for comment on only those parts of the studies that the Commission likes best."
The court also said the FCC had not offered a "reasoned explanation" for why it rejected ARRL-submitted data that could have influenced its interference estimates and potentially reshaped its rules. The judges opted to send the rules back to the FCC with instructions to clarify those points and publicize its studies more fully, although they did not overturn the rules themselves.
The court did not side entirely with the ARRL on other key points related to the substance of the rules.
For instance, the ARRL had argued that the FCC was departing from longstanding agency precedent by refusing to require that BPL operations found to cause "harmful interference" be shut down immediately--the so-called "cease-operations" rule. The court wasn't persuaded by that argument, saying the FCC had explained adequately that there isn't ample evidence that "harmful interference" is a real risk.
Still, the court's decision could be significant if it ultimately prompts revisions to the FCC's rules, which could in turn force some BPL operators to change the way they operate or create new legal uncertainty for their operations. The FCC declined to comment on the decision Monday.
The ARRL was quick to applaud the ruling.
"It is obvious that the FCC was overzealous in its advocacy of BPL, and that resulted in a rather blatant cover-up of the technical facts surrounding its interference potential," ARRL general counsel Christopher Imlay said in a statement. "Both BPL and Amateur Radio would be better off had the FCC dealt with the interference potential in an honest and forthright manner at the outset."
The United Power Line Council, which represents the BPL industry, downplayed the significance of the ruling, saying it was largely procedural and noting that the current rules remain in effect.
"We're a little surprised that the court took issue with those two issues that it did send back, but I expect the FCC will work quickly on those and come to a conclusion soon," said Brett Kilbourne, the group's director of regulatory affairs.
According to the UPLC, there were approximately 35 BPL deployments around the United States as of last year. As of the middle of last year, there were about 5,000 U.S. BPL subscribers, according to the FCC's latest data (PDF).
The preset power schemes in Windows XP and Vista are too generic to match your unique computing style. Creating your own custom scheme can reduce your energy bill without cutting into your work time.
All those little light-emitting diodes glowing green, blue, yellow, and every other color of the rainbow after you've shut down for the day indicate a tiny amount of power flowing down the drain. Turn off the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or surge suppressor you've got your equipment plugged into AFTER you shut the devices down normally. When you're ready to get started the next day, turn the power protectors back on, then restart your PC and peripherals. (The same goes for all those other always-on chargers in your home and office, whether for your cell phone, power drill, or electric razor: Unplug the devices once the gadgets are fully charged.)
To tweak the power settings in XP, click Start > Run, type powercfg.cpl, and press Enter to open the Power Options Control Panel applet. The options you'll find here vary from system to system: Notebooks will likely have more settings than desktops, for example, and your PC vendor may have installed custom power schemes.
Most Windows XP systems support the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) standard for power management. To see if yours does, click Start > Run, type devmgmt.msc, press Enter, click the plus sign to the left of System devices, and look for an entry named Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System. If it's not there, your PC may support the older Intel-Microsoft Advanced Power Management (APM) API, in which case you'll have an APM tab in your Power Options Properties dialog box.
Verify that your XP system supports ACPI power management by looking for this entry under System devices in Device Manager.
(Credit: Microsoft)Back in December I described the power-scheme options you can choose from. To create your own power scheme, simply select one, make your desired changes, click Save As, and give it a name. For example, if you know you'll be spending the day working on such low-impact activities as word processing and Web browsing, you can set the monitor to go dark at the same interval, but keep your hard disk active. Or conversely, create a scheme that shuts off the hard drive or enters hibernate quickly if you'll be working on videos, high-resolution images, or other power-hungry applications.
To switch quickly between power schemes, click the Advanced tab in Power Options Properties, check "Always show icon on the taskbar," and click OK. This adds a plug icon to desktops, and a battery icon to notebooks (though the battery icon is probably active by default on notebooks). Click the icon to view your power schemes, and select one to switch to it. Double-click the icon to open the Power Options Properties dialog box.
Add your custom power scheme to the taskbar, and switch between schemes by clicking the power icon in the system tray.
(Credit: Microsoft)
Maximize Vista's power options
The three power plans built into Vista--Balanced, Power Saver, and High Performance--can be tweaked to suit your needs, or you can create your own plan. (Note that you may have more options, or the options may be labeled differently, depending on the type of computer and the vendor.) To access the Power Options applet, press the Windows key, type powercfg.cpl, and press Enter. To edit one of the existing plans, click "Change plan settings" underneath its entry. To create a new plan, click "Create a power plan" in the left pane to open the Create a power plan wizard. Give the plan a name and click Next.
Edit one of Vista's prebuilt power plans, or create your own by clicking that option in the left pane of the Power Options applet.
(Credit: Microsoft)You don't get many options to choose from with either approach at first. If you're editing an existing plan, click "Change advanced power settings" to expand your choices. If you're making a plan from scratch, choose an idle time for the monitor-off and system-sleep options to kick in, and click Create. Then click Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings.
In the Advanced settings dialog box you can put a finer point on all of your power plans by selecting them one by one in the top drop-down menu, and then adjusting the categories in the window below. For example, you may want to save processor cycles by selecting the plus signs to the left of Search and Indexing > Power Savings Mode, clicking the current setting to activate the drop-down menu, and selecting Power Saver. When you've finished adjusting the various plan categories, click OK > Save Changes, and exit the Power Options applet.
Customize your power plans via Vista's Advanced Power Options dialog box.
(Credit: Microsoft)Unfortunately, you can't add a power icon to Vista's system tray as you can in XP, although Vista notebooks have a battery icon in the system tray by default. Clicking the icon displays options for opening the Power Options applet, the Windows Mobility Center, or a help page on conserving power. On Vista desktops you have to open the Power Options applet manually to switch between plans.
Tomorrow: tweak your browser's security settings.
It already makes Office. Now, Microsoft wants a hand in controlling your office.
Like IBM, Microsoft has launched an effort to make itself a major player in the rapidly growing energy-efficiency market. The company is recruiting developers and is eyeing opportunities to produce software itself for building control systems, traffic management systems, or even the software that gets used by water quality management districts.
It's a strategy driven by opportunity and need. Climate change and rising power prices are forcing corporations and individuals to seek out ways to curb energy consumption. Besides costing more, energy is highly inefficiently used. Some studies note that about half of the electricity produced does not get used for a productive purpose. Carbon taxes, or cap-and-trade systems, are likely inevitable: all three U.S. presidential candidates support them.
On the other hand, building management and water control systems aren't exactly perched on the cutting edge. Many companies still sell closed, proprietary systems for controlling heating, lighting, etc. Two of the biggest clean-tech IPOs last year were for companies--Comverge and EnerNoc--that have devised systems for automatically curbing electricity consumption. IBM, meanwhile, is in the midst of conducting trials with utilities to control thermostats and appliances remotely.
"The whole transportation sector has huge inefficiencies that can be reduced by software," said Rob Bernard, Microsoft's chief environmental strategist, in a phone interview. When I asked him how big the need is for modern software for building management, he laughed. Years ago, he worked in commercial real estate.
"I am highly familiar with the massive opportunity for software and intelligence to optimize energy control systems," he said. "I think that buildings account for something like 37 percent of greenhouse gases around the globe. If you look at the big sectors--transportation, buildings and building management, deforestation, electrical grid, and utilities--in every one of those we are looking at how software can enable innovation."
As in other markets, Microsoft will rely heavily on third-party developers. The developers will come up with the applications, and these will run on MSFT platforms.
"We will build some applications ourselves and we will try to accelerate the entire market to address this problem," he said.
In December, it kicked off a program, called Ingenuity Point, in which developers submit applications or ideas for applications. Microsoft then gives awards each quarter to the best ideas and tries to promote the most promising in the marketplace.
One of the winners, OSIsoft, for instance, has devised business intelligence applications for tracking how much water gets lost from the reservoir until it finally hits the tap. The company is also involved in a desalination project in Australia. The country is currently wrestling with a prolonged, severe drought. Another company in France has come up with a traffic management and monitoring application: this can help delivery companies avoid clogs and thus save gas.
Stay tuned for my upcoming, related article: Microsoft's plan to make more efficient products and curb energy in its own operations.
On Monday, Cryptography Research Inc. (CRI) opened a three-day workshop in San Francisco on the security of embedded system cryptography. The workshop is intended for developers and architects of secure embedded systems. Participants will be given smart cards and challenged to crack passwords using various demonstrated techniques.
"These are not theoretical attacks," Benjamin Jun, vice president of technology at CRI, noting that his company published the first white paper on monitoring attacks during the 1990s.
The workshop's primary focus will be on attacks to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), a cryptographic algorithm that is now used to protect electronic passports, mobile communications, and even MP3 players. Jun said there are many ways for an attacker to monitor leakage. In the workshop, he said they will look specifically at Simple Power Analysis (SPA) and Differential Power Analysis (DPA).
"Almost every smart card you buy today is going to have countermeasures to Simple Power Analysis and Differential Power Analysis," said Jun, however some newer implementations of ECC "do in fact leak information." In particular he cited devices such as MP3 players and cell phones. These are devices that have not had 10 years of development, said Jun, and so some exhibit weaknesses found in early smart cards. The purpose of the workshop was to help developers avoid some common flaws.
Under SPA, an attacker can determine the passwords from simple patterns in the power consumption.
(Credit: CRI)To an observer, a power analysis looks something like an EKG. As the device processes the encryption algorithm, peaks and valleys display on the monitor; these ultimately correspond to 1s and 0s in a password. Thus, an attacker could look at the power consumption fluctuations emitted from a device and, based on the specific pattern of peaks and valleys, figure out whether the device used RSA, DES, or ECC for encryption. Knowing what algorithm was used, the attacker could then begin to figure out the password.
Under DPA, the attacker first guesses and then compares the guess against the actual result.
(Credit: CRI)Counter measures, said Jun, include increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. For example, if you want to have a private conversation, you could go to a large football stadium during a game, making it hard for someone trying to listen to separate our conversation from the surrounding noise. That's amplitudinal noise.
The other kind of noise, said Jun, is temporal, which, to a computer, means stuttering the information over longer spaces. For example, if the data value was 8, the code might be expressed as 2 plus 6. More defense can be achieved by randomness, changing the way you express the data value of 8; maybe the next reference you say 12 minus 4, then 5 plus 3, and so on.
The workshop concludes Wednesday. For an overview of the concepts involved in a monitored attack, CRI provides a Flash tutorial on its Web site.
Recently an associate whose PC lacked Adobe Acrobat sent me a Word file via e-mail, asking if I could convert it to PDF and e-mail it back to her. Since the process took all of about 30 seconds, I was delighted to help. Then the next day she sent two more files in need of conversion to PDF, and a couple of days after than another. After her fourth request of the week I felt compelled to tell her about two ways she could have converted the files herself for free: Adobe's own Create Adobe PDF Online free trial, and Arco Software's great CutePDF Writer freebie.
If you use Office 2007 you can download Microsoft's free Save as PDF or XPS utility, which adds the ability to convert files to PDF or Microsoft's competing XML Paper Specification to all eight applications in the suite. The great thing about CutePDF Writer is that it works with programs other than Office 2007. See below for more.
Slow and limited, but readily available: Create Adobe PDF Online
I've used Adobe's free PDF-conversion service for years, and while the $10-a-month service ($100 for one year) used to allow you to create 10 PDF files for free, that number has been reduced to five free conversions, which is sufficient for people who rarely have the need to make a PDF. (If you need more than five files converted, sign up for a new free e-mail account and re-register with that address.)
The downside to Adobe's free trial is that you have to register, and you have to wait for your PDF to be delivered. Otherwise using the service is straightforward. After you sign up, click Convert a file (you can also choose Convert a Web page), enter the path to the file/page you want to convert, or click Browse and navigate to the file.
Enter the path to the file you want to convert to PDF, and click Continue.
Click Continue to open the Conversion Settings window. Here you select the type of output you want to optimize the file for (Web, Print, etc.), password-protect and otherwise limit use of the file, and select a delivery method.
Optimize your PDF for print or viewing on the Web via these options.
The default delivery method is to have a link to the PDF e-mailed to you, but you can also choose to have the file sent to you as an e-mail attachment, wait for the file to open in your browser, or download the file from your account's Conversion History page.
Choose the delivery method for your PDF file: e-mail link, e-mail attachment, open in browser, or download from server.
After you click the Create PDF button, you receive a confirmation of the conversion that tells you how long you'll have to wait for the file to be available. When I tested the service, I had to wait a little less than 25 minutes for the file to be delivered, which seems like a long time to me. You're also informed that you have 72 hours to retrieve the file.
The confirmation screen lets you know how long you'll have to wait for your PDF file.
Fast and full-featured: CutePDF Writer
If you have more than the occasional need to convert a file to PDF, downloading and installing CutePDF Writer is a faster and simpler approach. The program installs in just a few seconds, though it requires a second program, which it downloads automatically--after you grant it permission--as part of the installation process. Once it's in place, simply open the file you need to convert in the application of your choice, choose File > Print, and select CutePDF Writer in the drop-down list of available printers. The utility opens a Save As dialog box, where you can rename the file and choose where to store it. What could be simpler?
Which makes me wonder why anybody would choose Adobe's clunky and limited online PDF-conversion service over a free utility such as CutePDF Writer. Perhaps they have an aversion to downloads, though this one lacks ads, spyware, or other unwanted companions. Or they may be using a PC other than their own and need a one-time conversion that doesn't entail a download. Still, downloading, installing, and using CutePDF Writer is faster and simpler than using Adobe's service even after you've completed the initial sign-up. I guess this is one of those computing areas where the online version can't match the desktop approach.
Monday: disk management and optimization made simple.
An artist's rendering of the company's wave system
(Credit: Orecon)Right now, wave power is in the early experimental stages, but venture capitalists are lining up to be on the ground floor.
Orecon has lined up $24 million in funding from Advent Ventures, Venrock, Wellington Partners and Northzone Ventures to build a full scale prototype of its wave power machine and, if the results are positive, move toward commercial deployment.
The U.K.-based Orecon has devised a large-scale buoy for harvesting power from waves. In a nutshell, waves striking the device create pressure in a chamber, which is used to turn a turbine and create electricity. A single device will be capable of producing up to 1.5 megawatts of power. Orecon's system in part is based around the engineering devised to build offshore oil rigs. The system will produce power for a minimum of 25 years, the company says.
That's similar to the buoy being built by Ireland's WaveBob. WaveBob has a 1/4 scale prototype in the waters off Galway now and hopes to insert a full-scale device, which will produce over one megawatt of power, in the water in the next few years.
Most wave systems produce far less power--maybe 250 kilowatts. Although smaller devices are cheaper to make, larger devices have certain advantages. For one thing, because they are large, they can survive rugged seas better. Each device also produces more power, which means fewer devices and potentially less maintenance.
Both the UK and Ireland want to build local wave industries and harvest energy from the sea. Both countries bear the brunt of strong waves that cross the Atlantic. WaveBob CEO Andrew Parish also pointed out in a recent interview that this section of the Atlantic is awash in maritime engineering know-how.
Still, wave energy, like tidal energy, remains mostly in the potential stage because of the environmental challenges and the costs. Over the next two to three years, expect to see larger prototypes and more testing. Commercially produced wave power may begin to start crossing the grid sometime between 2010 and 2015.
It is interesting to see Venrock in the deal. The firm mostly concentrates on more exotic technologies that could go commercial. Recently, it has put money into fusion and clean diesel.
The new moniker "Atom" sets in marketing stone the Intel brand for small devices. I'll skip the banalities about Atom silicon being crucial for Intel's future and just pose a question: Can Intel spur innovation in ultrasmall devices the way it has in the PC and server industry?
I won't hazard any rash predictions but will make a few observations about the current landscape.
Intel Atom processor
(Credit: Intel Corp.)First, a little recent history. The ultramobile PC (UMPC) based on Intel's first-generation processor (the A110) for small devices has not exactly been the market sensation that the iPhone has. The Samsung Q1 and the Asus R2H are two examples of products that never really took off. As if to recognize this mistake (and confuse people in the process), Intel has stopped referring to this category of gadgets as UMPC and now calls it the Mobile Internet Device or MID.
This underscores the pitfalls and potential for Intel. The pitfalls: consumers will forever unfavorably compare the UMPC and MID to the more feature-rich notebook PC or, conversely, to the smaller, cheaper cell phone. The potential: a new category of computers spearheaded by a device with an iPhone-like following.
Enter the Atom-branded low-cost platform for ultraportable devices. Asus's popular Intel-based Eee PC is already demonstrating the potential here. So much so that a Sony vice president recently cited the Eee PC as a threat. (He depicted it as causing "a race to the bottom" because of its low price.) The XO laptop offered by the One Laptop Per Child organization is another example. (It uses an AMD Geode processor.) Both are priced around $300 and both are Internet-centric devices that offer the same wireless capabilities of more expensive laptops.
For smaller MID-like devices, such as the iPhone and Nokia N810, success is less certain. Many of the scores of pocket-sized gadgets on the market use processors based on the tried-and-true ARM design. Intel won't displace ARM anytime soon. But these devices are proprietary, which may leave Intel an opening. Because Intel's Atom processor is compatible with the Core 2 Duo instruction set, developers of small devices have a common platform to target.
"This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors," Intel Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sean Maloney said in a statement. "This is...a fundamental new shift in design. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."
This is probably true. But Intel has a long way to go in a crowded market that bears little if any resemblance to the PC industry, where the chipmaker competes relatively comfortably with only one other company (AMD). There's also a long wait for Intel's Moorestown, the next generation of small chips for small devices due in 2009 or 2010. The great expectations for Moorestown almost overshadow the current Atom technology. Moorestown will not only be more power efficient but more highly integrated: a system-on-chip (SOC) design combining the CPU, graphics, and memory controller onto a single chip.
Update: Atom brand segmentation:
One segment will be pocket-sized gadgets, dubbed MIDs. The maximum screen size for MIDs will be 7.5 inches diagonal. In order to get the "Centrino Atom" sticker, the MID must use the Poulsbo chipset, which includes integrated graphics. (Correction: wireless--both Wi-Fi and Wimax--are on a separate chip.) The Atom processor targeted at this market was previously code-named "Silverthorne."
The second segment will be ultra-low-cost notebooks and desktops. Intel calls the notebook segment Netbook. The desktop, Nettop. The Atom chip addressing this segment was previously known as "Diamondville."
Atom processors are expected to ship this spring.
