Monday, October 10, 2011

5 Reasons the Amazon Kindle Beats the iPad

Gadgets - SCITECH

Published October 09, 2011

| FoxNews.com

The Kindle Fire is burning up the charts.

Purported pre-sales of the newly announced Kindle Fire by Amazon suggest the tablet is on track to outsell the iPad in first-month sales. If accurate, that’s big -- really big. So far, competing brands have done nothing to rival Apple’s splash nor dominance of the growing tablet market. The Fire is the first real competitor.

Apple iPad sales are as brisk as ever, of course, but there’s plenty of reason for the excitement surrounding the all-new, color screen, touch-enabled Kindle Fire. To borrow an Apple word, it’s different. But it’s also similar enough to the iPad that a lot of consumers might view it as a worthy alternative -- indeed, something better.

1. Eye-popping affordability. At $199, the Kindle Fire sells for less than half the price of the iPad, which starts at $500. So for every entry-level iPad bought and sold, you could buy two and a half Fires. That alone is turning heads, especially since the previously released and uninspired iPad clones have tried to charge as much as Apple for a much less desired product.

2. A lot more content. Content is king. And iPad may be king of the apps, but Kindle Fire bests it considerably by volume of content. The Fire will have immediate access to the 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books already available on Amazon’s easy-to-browse virtual shelves.

Apple doesn't cite how many TV shows or songs are available, but the number appears to be far less in annecdotal searches.

Want to rent instead of buy? There’s an app ... er, a solution for that, too: 10,000 movies and TV shows can be streamed instantly. Those numbers are huge, and growing everyday.

3. Free storage. If you want to take all your content with you, the entry-level iPad and its puny 16 gig storage drive leaves a lot to be desired. You can buy more, but it’ll cost you. Which is why the Fire’s sales pitch -- free cloud storage for all your Amazon content -- is so enticing, especially since Amazon is already the no. 1 digital bookstore, the no. 2 mp3 store (behind Apple), and high on the list in other categories.

For content you don't buy from Amazon, there are about 6 gigs of free space on the Fire to do with as you please.

4. Democratized apps. One of the biggest knocks on the Apple AppStore is that it’s a closed system—if Apple doesn’t like your stuff, no app for you. One of the biggest knocks on the Google Android software powering nearly every other tablet out there is that it's too open—you’re required to sift through a lot of junk to get to the goods.

The Kindle Fire hopes to bridge that gap with the Amazon Appstore, which remains open like Android, but only makes available the very best and most popular apps from the open market. The result: More free apps without the hassle, the best of both worlds approach.

5. Easier to hold. The 10-inch iPad is a lot of fun, but hard to handle with one hand due to its weight and size. The 6-inch Kindle reader, on the other hand, is a lot easier to hold. With only one hand, you can hold it for several hours without fatigue. The new 7-inch Kindle Fire promises the same: capable of being held with one hand, lighter than the iPad, and a lot more portable.

All of those pros don’t come without sacrifices, however. The Fire’s screen is 3” smaller than the iPad, which might not make it as ideal a device for watching movies or playing HD games (that’s to be seen, though). Furthermore, the Fire lacks a lens and microphone, so it won’t be able to snap photos, shoot video, or accept video calls.

But for $300 less, those are things I bet a lot of people can live without.

The Kindle Fire goes on sale Nov. 15 for $199.

About the author: Blake Snow is a freelance writer, media consultant, and proud owner of both the iPad and 3G Kindle. He lives in Utah with his family. Contact information and clippings can be found on his website: blakesnow.com

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Honoring Steve Jobs

Artists Mourn Steve Jobs

To artists, Steve Jobs was more than an icon; he was an enabler. Here we check out nine of our favorite tributes from artists around the world

By Sara Yin PCMag.com

Steve Jobs may have been an icon, mentor, and inspiration to those in the tech industry, but for living artists and designers, he was a god.

Say what you will about Jobs, but it's hard to argue that he not only inspired fellow designers but enabled them. From Apple's bitmap-based MacPaint in 1984 to Final Cut Pro 10.0.1 in 2011, Jobs changed their lives, kickstarted budding careers, and forever changed how artists work and perceive their work today.

"First Apple memory: Macpaint on a mac classic at a computer store w/ my dad. drew an oval w/ a brick pattern fill. i'm still doing that. =)," tweeted Boston Globe designer Martin Gee.

"Every creative person on this planet has used Steve Jobs #Apple products to inspire or create. True Visionary. Artist. #RealityWeaver," tweeted director Randall Thorne.

It's no surprise, then, that shortly after news of his death broke late Wednesday, we saw an outpouring of artistic tributes to the inventor who left us far too early.

Pictured above is perhaps the most recognized piece of Steve Jobs tribute art, which spread like wildfire late Wednesday. The logo was designed by 19-year-old Jonathan Mack from Hong Kong, a design student who tweeted later that the design had even landed him a job offer.

Click on the slideshow to see nine more of our favorites. For more on Jobs, see PCMag's reflection on his life and career and our tribute page, where you can leave your thoughts about the iconic Apple leader.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Hands On With the Apple iPhone 4S

By Dan Costa
October 5, 2011 08:00am EST PCMAG.com

The Apple iPhone 4S won't be available until Oct. 14, but PCMag got some hands-on time with it shortly after it was announced Tuesday. Cosmetically, the iPhone 4S looks exactly like last year's iPhone 4, but as Tim Cook boasted, "Inside it is all new."

Apple's new smartphone has a dual-core A5 CPU, an 8-megapixel still camera, a 1080p video camera, and of course, iOS 5. What does all this mean to the average user? We will have to get it into PC Labs before we issue a judgment, but in the short time I spent with the iPhone 4S, it seems like an improved version of an already very solid smartphone.

Hold the iPhone 4S in your hand and it is impossible to tell it apart from the iPhone 4. Apple would not let me shoot still photos or video of the device, so you'll have to take my word on this. I asked five different Apple representatives and none of them could point out a single difference between the phones. That isn't a bad thing; I rather like the iPhone 4's industrial, almost steampunk design.

I point it out only to explain that if you want to show off the fact you have an iPhone 4S, you'll have to do it verbally or keep the phone the box it came in. The models are identical, at least on the outside.

In my short time with the iPhone 4S, I tried to tax the new A5 CPU, the same processor that is used in the iPad 2 tablet. The stunning Infinity Blade 2 game that was shown in the demonstration wasn't loaded on my unit, but it did have Real Racing 2. The game was fluid and had richly detailed backgrounds, but to be honest, there is only so much detail you can fit on a 3.5-inch screen. I'd really like to see what it looks like when you use AirPlay to stream the game on a WiFi-connected HDTV. Then we'll see what the iPhone 4S can really do. Even so, it is more than a match for the average Android phone and should continue to give Sony and Nintendo nightmares.

View Slideshow See all (23) slides

If I said that I had tested the new iPhone's camera in any meaningful way, PCMag Camera Analyst Jim Fisher would embarrass me for my arrogance and then promptly quit. Let's just say I tried the camera and it was pretty impressive to my eyes. Although it looks exactly the same as the camera on the iPhone 4, it has six separate lenses. Those lenses are probably more important than the sensor bump from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels, but the extra pixels don't hurt either. Perhaps most significantly, the camera's maximum aperture is now f2.4, which is enough to let in a serious amount of light. Suffice to say, when I looked at iPhone 4S photos side-by-side with those taken with the iPhone 4, I could see the difference in quality.

The iPhone 4S camera is also a lot speedier than many of the phone cameras I have used. First, Apple tweaked the OS so you can open the camera in just two clicks and be ready to shoot in seconds. After that first shot, I was able to shoot multiple photos in such quick succession that it made my Galaxy S feel like a Polaroid.

Likewise, shooting video at 1080p is a huge deal. You can't judge the quality by playing it back on a tiny smartphone screen, but if the iPhone is going to replace both the compact camera and the video camera, it has to be able to shoot video that will look good on an HDTV. We will know for sure when we get the iPhone 4S into the lab and connect to an HDTV, but the video I shot looked great.

The most notable difference with the iPhone 4S is that it runs iOS 5. We have a lot of stories on iOS 5, so I won't go into too many details on the next version of Apple's mobile operating system. In addition to a host of small improvements, the breakthrough feature here is really the inclusion of Siri. We first reviewed Siri's voice recognition assistant in 2010, before it was snapped up by Apple. Now Siri is so integrated into iOS 5 that it doesn't even have a separate icon, it is poised to be the primary navigation tool for the device.

The idea behind Siri is very simple. Tell your phone what you want using your natural voice in everyday language. Siri will understand you and complete the task. When I asked, "What's the weather like today?" Siri gave me the day's forecast and read it aloud to me. It used the GPS to determine my location. When I asked, "What are the great Italian restaurants near me?" Siri delivered a list of five of them ranked by their ratings on Yelp. With your contacts and calendar loaded in the phone, Siri can call contacts and make appointments. To be fair, Siri doesn't always work. When I asked, "What's the distance between here and New York City?" Siri gave me gibberish. Even so, the software does a lot. In my short time with it, it was pretty impressive.

All and all, the iPhone 4S struck me as a solid upgrade, although arguably an incremental improvement over the previous version. As part of the presentation, Apple executives explained that they would be able to do real-time hand-offs between the two antennas that would improve call quality and double downloads speeds. Double?!? No doubt these were efforts to make up for the fact that the iPhone 4S does not support 4G, at least not by most definitions.

Of course, if Apple can deliver a phone with eight hours of talk time, a host of cutting-edge features, and download speeds that are similar to 4G, if not technically 4G, this phone's prospects are pretty good. For answers to those questions, of course, we will need to do a full review.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Battle of the iPhones: iPhone 4S vs. 4 vs. 3GS

By Alex Colon
pcmag.com October 4, 2011 04:58pm EST

Apple today finally announced the long-awaited iPhone 4S. Looking identical to the previous iPhone 4, it certainly isn't the radically redesigned iPhone 5 many people were expecting.

"Don't be fooled. Inside it is all new," Apple's Phil Schiller said during the phone's unveiling. Indeed, while the iPhone 4S looks strikingly similar to the iPhone 4, it's packing some seriously upgraded hardware and promising new software.

We've stacked up the specs for the new iPhone 4S side by side against the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS in the chart below to help you determine which smartphone is right for you.

The iPhone 4S is powered by Apple's new dual-core A5 chip, which Apple claims can deliver up to two times more power and seven times faster graphics performance than the iPhone 4. In addition, the iPhone 4S will be available on Sprint, along with AT&T and Verizon Wireless. It is a world phone, meaning it will support both CDMA and GSM networks.

Schiller said users will get eight hours of 3G talk time with the iPhone 4S, which is an improvement over the iPhone 4's seven hours. He also said the device will "intelligently switch between two antennas to improve call quality" and double download speeds. It will support HSPA+ 14.4, which can deliver speeds up to 14.4 Mbps.

Improvements have also been made to the phone's camera, which can now take 8-megapixel photos and record video at 1080p. The phone will be available in 16GB and 32GB capacities, along with a new 64GB option.

In addition to these improvements, the iPhone 4S will feature advanced support for voice-recognition and control through Siri. At the phone's unveiling, Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone Software at Apple, demonstrated Siri by asking for the weather, the time in Paris, restaurant recommendations for Palo Alto, and the status of the NASDAQ.

Despite these improvements, many things remain the same. The physical design, for instance, has remained untouched, and the phone has the same 3.5-inch display found on the iPhone 4.

But with the introduction of the iPhone 4S comes a price drop for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. An 8GB iPhone 4 can now be had for just $99 on AT&T or Verizon, while the iPhone 3GS will be available for free with a two-year service agreement on AT&T.

So is the new iPhone 4S worth it? You'll have to check back for our review before we can make that call, but right now, it looks like if you're willing to drop at least $200, the iPhone 4S will offer some significant upgrades over the previous generations of iPhones.

But if you're looking for a new, entry-level smartphone, and don't want to spend a lot of money, it's hard to beat a free iPhone 3GS.

The only deal I'm not sure about is the iPhone 4. Sure, $99 is a great price, but that's for an 8GB model. A 16GB iPhone 4S starts at $199.99. It seems like it may be worth it to spring the extra hundred bucks for the 4S, given its higher storage capacity, improved hardware, and new features.

For more from today's Apple event, see the slideshow below.

Monday, October 3, 2011

What eReader should I buy? NookColor vs. Kindle 3

We compare the price, size and features of two ebooks: the Amazon Kindle and NookColor

Chris Jager (PC World Australia (online))

NookColor vs. Kindle 3

If you pride yourself on being a bit of a bookworm, you need to buy an e-reader – end of story. While basic, no-frills E-Ink models continue to be produced, the category has morphed to include all manner of fancy tools and features: from inbuilt WiFi to full colour LCD displays. Indeed, some ebook readers are so feature-packed, they share more in common with the likes of the Apple iPad.

Before you buy an Amazon Kindle, NookColor or Apple iPad check out our eBook buying guide to find out which features you should compare.

Two of the most feature-packed e-readers on the market are the Amazon Kindle 3 (3G Wi-Fi) and Barnes & Noble's Nook Color.

Related Coverage

Story Tools

NookColor

NookColor: Size matters

As its name implies, the Nook Color incorporates a full-colour 7in LCD touch screen that is capable of displaying up to 16 million colours. This naturally opens up a new world of reading possibilities, including comics, children's stories, magazines and university text books. Other handy features found on the NookColor include MP4 video playback, full colour Web browsing and a MicroSD slot for additional storage.

Kindle 3 (3G Wi-Fi edition)

Kindle 3: thinner than a pencil

The Kindle 3 (3G Wi-Fi), meanwhile, sticks to a greyscale E-Ink display, but with vastly improved contrast. While it lacks some of the Nook Color's multimedia features, the Amazone Kindle is more portable and costs significantly less than its Barnes & Noble rival.

In the table below, we compare how the Kindle 3 (3G Wi-Fi) stacks up against the Nook Color:

Amazon Kindle vs NookColor: specs

Feature	Amazon Kindle 3	NookColor	Verdict?
Screen size	6in	7in	NookColor
Display resolution	800x600 pixels	1024x600 pixels	NookColor
Display technology	4-level grayscale	VividView LCD	NookColor
Touch screen	No	Yes	NookColor
OS	Linux (2.6.10 kernel)	Android 2.1	Draw
CPU	Intel PXA255	ARM Cortex A8-based Ti OMAP 3621 (800 MHz)	Draw
Supported files	AZW, PDF, TXT, MOBI, PRC, MP3, AA	EPUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, PPS, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, PPTX, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, AAC, MP4	NookColor
Internal memory	4GB	8GB	NookColor
Memory card slot	No	Yes (Micro SD)	NookColor
Wi-Fi	802.11b/g/n	802.11b/g/n	Draw
3G HSDPA network support	Yes	No	Kindle 3
Radio	No	Yes	NookColor
Battery life	4 months (approx.)	8 hours (approx.)	Kindle 3
Dimensions	191×135×18mm	205x127x12mm	Kindle 3
Weight	241g	422g	Kindle 3
Keyboard	QWERTY	Touch screen	Kindle 3
Web browsing	Yes	Yes	Draw
Price	US$189	US$295	Kindle 3

As you can see, the Nook Color trumps the Kindle 3 when it comes to display technology and file support. The Kindle 3, on the other hand, wins out in the price and portability stakes.

If you're looking for a gadget that can do a variety of multimedia tasks, plump for the NookColor. If you just want an affordable and easy-to-carry reading device (with a few extras thrown in), get a Kindle 3.

Still undecided? Read our full, in-depth review of the NookColor and Kindle 3 for an exhaustive overview.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

What to Do if You've Been Hacked

Among the surprising advice: Don't shut down the computers

What to Do if You've Been Hacked
	wsj.com - 9/26/2011 BEN WORTHEN

It's a nightmare scenario every business fears.

Your tech department has spotted suspicious activity on the company network. Your customers and employees are getting hit with credit-card fraud and identity theft. MasterCard Inc. is on line one.

The panic sets in: Your company has been hacked!

So, what do you do?

Next, remember that getting hacked doesn't have to be a business-crippling experience. While it will likely set a company back financially, if handled properly it won't have a long-lasting impact.

"The public is forgiving when it's apparent that the company is doing the right thing," says Lori Nugent, a lawyer at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP who specializes in breach cases. In fact, if a company is on top of the technological problems and communicates well, it can build loyalty among its customers, she says.

There are a number of small but critical steps businesses need to take when they find out they've been breached. Here's a look at what to do when it happens to you.

Don't unplug. The natural instinct when an employee discovers he or she has been hacked is to power off the machine (and maybe throw it against the wall in frustration).

But it's the wrong move.

True, turning off the Internet connection and detaching the computer from the corporate network can help prevent the infection from spreading. But shutting the machine down can also erase valuable evidence that will help investigators determine what's been stolen and where it's been sent. A lot of malware—a catchall term for programs like viruses written and installed by hackers—resides in a computer's memory and not on the hard drive. Turning off a computer erases the memory, and with it many traces of the hack, security experts say.

Call in the pros. By now, you've probably realized you're in over your head. There are many companies that specialize in post-breach forensic investigation; it's a good idea to get in touch with one of them now. In fact, you should have one on speed dial for emergencies.

Also, now is the time to tell the police. (This is a separate step from disclosing the breach publicly, so you can wait to make that decision.) Local law-enforcement groups typically don't have the resources to investigate a breach, but filing a police report is often necessary to collect insurance. If you decide you do need official help, the Secret Service is the federal entity charged with investigating hacking intrusions. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also has a cyber division.

Keep a chain of custody. From here on out, you aren't just trying to stop the breach; you're also planning for the inevitable legal fallout. Maybe you won't get sued, but if you do, you'll need to be able to demonstrate that you responded to the breach in an appropriate manner. Record every time someone touches a compromised computer or server and everything that's done to it.

Find out if the breach is still open. Don't assume that because one infected computer has been cleaned up or removed the attack is over. The hacker could have taken control of multiple machines. At this stage, your job is mostly to sit back and let the pros do a thorough search of your systems. Be patient: Learning the full scope of a breach can be a time-consuming process, so don't worry if this takes a few days or longer.

Among the things the experts will need to do is find the malware that the hacker used and determine what kind of information it's programmed to find and where it sends it. Likewise, they'll check the logs of all the outbound communications for any suspicious activity. Patrik Runald, a researcher with security companyWebsense Inc., says that hackers often send data to so-called dynamic hosts that constantly change their Internet addresses. Most legitimate websites don't use this kind of addressing. If data are still being sent to these types of addresses, it's a possible sign that a breach is still happening.

Stop the bleeding. Now that the pros have assessed the scope of the problem, take the infected computers offline. Investigators will take a digital snapshot of the information on them, leaving you free to erase their contents. Also, block all access to and from any of the Internet addresses associated with the malware.

It's also important to figure out how the hacker broke in, and to fix that hole. Again, experts can look through log files and trace the hacker's movements to, say, find the email with the fake spreadsheet that an unsuspecting employee opened.

Find out what they stole. This will be slow and frustrating, but it's important to get right—so don't take shortcuts, and resist the temptation to call off the hunt too early.

If companies aren't thorough in their analysis, they'll have to disclose that a breach was bigger than they originally said. This can hurt a company that's trying to rebuild trust with a customer base, as was the case with TJX Companies Inc., which eventually said it lost more than double the number of records it initially announced in the breach it disclosed in January 2007. (A TJX spokeswoman declined to comment.)

"I always say correctly is better than quickly," says Brian Lapidus, the chief operating officer of Kroll Inc.'s fraud-solutions division.

Figure out whom to tell. This is when you bring in the lawyers.

Forty-six states have laws that specify when a company has to inform people whose records have been exposed in a data breach. And they're all different. Other entities, such as the federal Department of Health and Human Services, have separate reporting requirements for organizations they oversee.

Usually, if the data stolen include a name and something like a credit-card or Social Security number, then notification laws are triggered. But sometimes if the data are encrypted or there's a strong reason to believe that the information won't be misused, there's no need to tell anyone. In other cases, credit-card data could be so old that all the cards would have expired.

"Sometimes it's pretty clear that the data is not likely to be misused or the data doesn't meet the notification requirements," says Ms. Nugent, the breach lawyer.

Deciding whether to disclose a breach isn't just a matter of law. Sometimes companies do it because they're afraid it will get out or just because they think it's the right thing to do.

Email marketing firm Epsilon Data Management LLC, a division of Alliance Data Systems Corp., earlier this year said that email addresses it manages for companies like Target Corp. were stolen by a hacker. The company wasn't legally obligated to disclose the breach because email addresses aren't considered personal information. But Epsilon CEO Bryan Kennedy concluded that the news would get out anyway and that coming clean was in the best interest of Epsilon's customers.

Be Apologetic. You probably feel like a victim, but remember, so do the people whose information was stolen. And in their minds, it's your fault.

Remember also that your customers will probably expect the worst when they get the news about the breach. "Consumers tend to jump immediately from a data breach to identity theft," says Matthew Mors, a vice president at Mix Public Relations who has helped craft the response to many breaches.

So, while your lawyer will probably tell you not to apologize, striking a conciliatory tone is important. A good breach-notification letter will make it clear that you are taking the issue seriously and that you've gotten to the bottom of it. Also, be sure to stress that you have taken steps to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again.

Some people will still be concerned, so set up a website with more information and give them a phone number they can call. In some cases, businesses offer customers a year of free credit monitoring after a breach. An increasingly common freebie is credit-restoration services for anyone who runs into problems as the result of a breach.

Mr. Worthen is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. He can be reached at ben.worthen@wsj.com.