WLAN growth slows after companies rush 802.11n upgrades

IDG News Service - Because many enterprises have already upgraded their networks to the 802.11n standard, sales growth in the enterprise wireless LAN sector was cut in half during the second quarter, according to Infonetics Research.

Global wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment revenue increased by 14 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, compared to a jump of almost 30 percent year-on-year during the same period last year, according to Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics. Still, equipment for WLANs remains the fastest growing network segment, he said.

The major event this quarter was initial shipments of enterprise class access points based on 802.11ac -- which is the latest standard for WLANs and promises increased speeds, network reliability and the ability to handle more users. But the impact of 802.11ac on overall sales will be minor this year because many enterprises have just upgraded to 802.11n, Machowinski said.

Wireless industry expert Roger Hockaday agreed:

"There is no burning desire to move to 802.11ac at the moment, apart for in some very specific high density environments, like a university lecture theater," he said.

But while many large enterprises are in a holding pattern, service providers are increasing their investments. For example, shipments of access points for outdoor use grew by 22 percent year-on-year during the second quarter, propelled by service provider deployments, according to Infonetics.

The growth also comes from public indoor areas such as shopping malls, according to Hockaday. He also thinks small and medium-size companies will show a growing interest in building WLANs.

"When you talk to medium sized companies, they don't see wireless as critical, because they haven't seen the need yet. But I think that will change, as more laptops come without an Ethernet port and the use of tablets grow," Hockaday said.

The perennial leaders in the WLAN market -- Cisco Systems and Aruba Wireless -- both turned in solid performances during the second quarter and grew their share of overall revenue, according to Infonetics.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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After successful launch, NASA probe heads to the moon

Computerworld - After a successful lift off late Friday night, NASA's lunar orbiter is powered up, communicating and on its way to the moon.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory lifted off at 11:27 p.m. ET atop a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket, which started out as a ballistic missile but was converted into a space launch vehicle. It was the first NASA mission to launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.

LADEE's ascent into space could be seen up and down the East Coast, even as far away as Maine.

NASA's lunar orbiter blasted off Friday night atop a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket. The spacecraft now is headed to the moon. (Image: NASA)

The observatory separated from its rocket, powered up and began communicating with ground controllers soon after liftoff, according to the space agency.

It is expected to reach the moon in about 30 days and then enter lunar orbit and begin its work.

The launch wasn't without a glitch, however.

NASA reported that during technical checkouts soon after the launch, the spacecraft commanded itself to shut down its reaction wheels, which are used to position and stabilize the spacecraft. Engineers are working on the problem and feel they have plenty of time to get the reaction wheels working again before LADEE enters lunar orbit.

A normal spacecraft checkout takes a couple of days, and this anomaly may add a couple more days to the process, NASA said.

"The LADEE spacecraft is working as it was designed to under these conditions. There's no indication of anything wrong with the reaction wheels or spacecraft," said S. Pete Worden, Ames center director, in a written statement. "The LADEE spacecraft is communicating and is very robust. The mission team has ample time to resolve this issue before the spacecraft reaches lunar orbit. We don't have to do anything in a rush."

He added that this is not an unusual event for a spacecraft.

The orbiting observatory is expected to study the moon's atmosphere, giving scientists information that should help them better understand Mercury, asteroids and the moons orbiting other planets. However, that's not the spacecraft's only mission.

About a month after launch, it is scheduled to begin a limited test of a high-data-rate laser communication system. If that system works as planned, similar systems are expected to be used to speed up future satellite communications, as well as deep space communications with robots and human exploration crews.

This will be the space agency's first test of laser communications, though in 2017, NASA is expected to launch a Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, which is expected to run tests for two to five years.

Using a laser for communications, instead of radio systems, would enable robots -- similar to the Mars rover Curiosity -- as well as astronauts to send and receive far greater data loads, whether they're in orbit around Earth, on the moon or on a distant asteroid.

The two-way laser communications system can deliver six times more data with 25% less power than the best radio systems.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at  @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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Trust no one, advises security expert after NSA revelations

IDG News Service - The U.S. National Security Agency's efforts to defeat encrypted Internet communications, detailed in news stories this week, are an attack on the security of the Internet and on users' trust in the network, some security experts said.

The NSA and intelligence agencies in allied countries have found ways to circumvent much of the encryption used on the Internet, according to stories published by The New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian. The NSA, the British GCHQ and other spy agencies have used a variety of means to defeat encryption, including supercomputers, court orders and behind-the-scenes agreements with technology companies, according to the news reports.

The reports, relying on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, show that many tech companies are collaborating with the spy agencies to "destroy privacy," said cryptographer and security specialist Bruce Schneier. "The fundamental fabric of the Internet has been destroyed."

The new revelations should raise major concerns from Internet users over who they can trust, Schneier added. "I assume that all big companies are now in cahoots with the NSA, cannot be trusted, are lying to us constantly," he said. "You cannot trust any company that makes any claims of the security of their products. Not one cloud provider, not one software provider, not one hardware manufacturer."

It doesn't appear that the NSA is defeating encryption by brute force but by "cheating" by attempting to build backdoors into systems and strong-arm companies into giving it information, Schneier said.

Digital rights group the Center for Democracy and Technology echoed some of Schneier's concerns, with CDT senior staff technologist Joseph Lorenzo Hall calling the NSA's encryption circumvention efforts "a fundamental attack on the way the Internet works."

The NSA has been working for years to build backdoor vulnerabilities into encryption standards and technology products, the stories said. A representative of the NSA didn't respond to a request for comment on the stories.

Hall criticized those efforts. "In an era in which businesses, as well as the average consumer, trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it's incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure," he said in an email. "The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naA-ve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners."

The New York Times story this week, citing a Guardian report from July, said Microsoft has worked with the NSA to provide the agency with pre-encryption access to Outlook, Skype and other products.

Microsoft has repeatedly denied helping the NSA break encryption on its products. The company complies with legal court orders for information on its customers and will provide agencies with unencrypted customer information residing on its servers if ordered by a court to do so, a spokeswoman said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Microsoft will craft XP patches after April '14 -- but not for you

Just because Microsoft doesn't plan on giving Windows XP patches to the public after April 8, 2014, doesn't mean it's going to stop making those patches. In fact, Microsoft will be creating security updates for Windows XP for months -- years, even -- after it halts their delivery to the general public.

Those patches will come from a program called "Custom Support," an after-retirement contract designed for very large customers who have not, for whatever reason, moved on from an older OS. As part of Custom Support -- which according to analysts, costs about $200 per PC for the first year and more each succeeding year -- participants receive patches for vulnerabilities rated "critical" by Microsoft. Bugs ranked as "important," the next step down in Microsoft's four-level threat scoring system, are not automatically patched. Instead, Custom Support contract holders must pay extra for those. Flaws pegged as "moderate" or "low" are not patched at all.

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"Legacy products or out-of-support service packs covered under Custom Support will continue to receive security hotfixes for vulnerabilities labeled as 'Critical' by the MSRC [Microsoft Security Response Center]," Microsoft said in a Custom Support data sheet. "Customers with Custom Support that need security patches defined as 'Important' by MSRC can purchase these for an additional fee.

"These security hotfixes will be issued through a secure process that makes the information available only to customers with Custom Support," the data sheet promised.

Because Microsoft sells Custom Support agreements, it's obligated to come up with patches for critical and important vulnerabilities. And it may be required to do so for years: The company sells Custom Support for up to three years after it retires an operating system.

Custom Support and the XP security updates that result have been one reason why some experts have held out hope that Microsoft will backtrack from retiring XP next April. Their reasoning is straight-forward: Microsoft will have patches available -- its engineers won't have to do any more work than they already committed to doing -- so handing them out to all would be a simple matter.

Or not. Most experts have said that the chance Microsoft will prolong Windows XP's life run between slim and none. And giving away patches to everyone risks a revolt by those big customers who have paid millions for Custom Support.

But Microsoft does have options. Computerworld sees six.

1. Continue patching for free
If Windows XP remains a major presence, as it appears likely, with projections as high as 33.5 percent of all personal computers at the end of April 2014, Microsoft could decide to continue patching the aged OS with free fixes for critical vulnerabilities, maybe even those rated important.

Such a move would be unpalatable to Custom Support customers, but Microsoft could renegotiate the fees -- unlikely -- or remind those companies of the program's other benefits, which include access to support representatives, as well as to prior patches and hotfixes.

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Microsoft updates Windows Phone App Studio after developer projects soar

Microsoft is updating the recently launched beta of Windows Phone App Studio to improve performance and scalability after the new app development tool crossed 55,000 active projects.

The hosted service was launched two weeks ago in a bid by Microsoft to increase the number of applications available on Windows Phone by allowing users to create apps without writing any code. The service lets users choose from a number of templates to get started, then add content such as images, videos, RSS, and Twitter feeds.

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So far, the response has been well above what Microsoft expected, according to a blog post on Monday. In the first 48 hours, Microsoft saw more than 20,000 people from all over the world starting more than 30,000 projects, and on Monday it crossed 55,000 active projects. To help manage demand, the company implemented a temporary access code system, it said.

Microsoft is also making some fundamental changes to improve App Studio's overall performance and the scalability of the system. There have been a few hiccups in the first two weeks of availability, according to Microsoft. The company is also adding new functionality; users can choose from new templates and there are connections to more external data sources, including Flickr, which users have been asking for.

The company didn't provide any details on when Windows Phone App Studio would become generally available.

The availability of more apps is key for Windows Phone's continued growth, according to Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Sales of Windows Phones to end-users increased to 7.4 million during the second quarter, which was enough to surpass sales of BlackBerry for the first time. But the OS still only has a 3.3 percent market share, according to Gartner.

"While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users," Gupta said.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

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Microsoft restores Outlook.com after three-day outage -- sort of

Microsoft on Saturday apologized for a three-day partial outage of Outlook.com and said the email service was back up and running, only to note hours later that problems still plagued some customers.

Early Saturday, the Redmond, Wash. company said it had finally resolved Outlook.com's issues, which stemmed from a failure in a caching service of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), the popular synchronization service widely used to sync smartphones and tablets with company email, contacts and calendars stored on Microsoft Exchange Server systems.

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"We want to apologize to everyone who was affected by the outage, and we appreciate the patience you have shown us as we worked through the issues," Microsoft said in a note appended to its services status board.

On Wednesday, Outlook.com, the SkyDrive cloud storage service and the Peoples contacts application suffered partial outages that began around 10 a.m. ET. While the Peoples problem was fixed about five hours later, SkyDrive's was not fully resolved until Thursday around 4 p.m. ET.

Some users of Outlook.com, however, were unable to access email on mobile devices that relied on EAS -- a category that includes iPhones, whose iOS uses EAS for synchronization -- until around 4:30 a.m. ET Saturday.

During the outage, Microsoft said, the cache service failure "caused these devices to receive an error and continuously try to connect to our service. This resulted in a flood of traffic that our services did not handle properly."

Microsoft said it had already taken steps to prevent similar problems in the future. "[We] have made two key changes ... one that involved increasing network bandwidth in the affected part of the system, and one that involved changing the way error handling is done for devices using Exchange ActiveSync."

The cache flood problem Microsoft described sounded reminiscent of the trouble earlier this year that the company documented in iOS 6.1-powered iPhones and iPads which affected not only on-premise Exchange servers within enterprises, but also Microsoft's own infrastructure, including its Office 365 subscription service.

But Outlook.com's problems were not completely behind it Saturday morning. Around 2:30 p.m. ET, Microsoft again logged a problem on the status board, saying, "A small percentage of mobile users may experience intermittent issues while syncing email."

As of 9 p.m. ET Saturday, that problem had not been resolved.

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Update: Microsoft restores Outlook.com after three-day outage

Computerworld - Microsoft on Saturday apologized for a three-day partial outage of Outlook.com and said the email service was back up and running, only to note hours later that problems still plagued some customers.

Early Saturday, the Redmond, Wash. company said it had finally resolved Outlook.com's issues, which stemmed from a failure in a caching service of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), the popular synchronization service widely used to sync smartphones and tablets with company email, contacts and calendars stored on Microsoft Exchange Server systems.

"We want to apologize to everyone who was affected by the outage, and we appreciate the patience you have shown us as we worked through the issues," Microsoft said in a note appended to its services status board.

On Wednesday, Outlook.com, the SkyDrive cloud storage service and the Peoples contacts application suffered partial outages that began around 10 a.m. ET. While the Peoples problem was fixed about five hours later, SkyDrive's was not fully resolved until Thursday around 4 p.m. ET.

Some users of Outlook.com, however, were unable to access email on mobile devices that relied on EAS -- a category that includes iPhones, whose iOS uses EAS for synchronization -- until around 4:30 a.m. ET Saturday.

During the outage, Microsoft said, the cache service failure "caused these devices to receive an error and continuously try to connect to our service. This resulted in a flood of traffic that our services did not handle properly."

Microsoft said it had already taken steps to prevent similar problems in the future. "[We] have made two key changes ... one that involved increasing network bandwidth in the affected part of the system, and one that involved changing the way error handling is done for devices using Exchange ActiveSync."

The cache flood problem Microsoft described sounded reminiscent of the trouble earlier this year that the company documented in iOS 6.1-powered iPhones and iPads which affected not only on-premise Exchange servers within enterprises, but also Microsoft's own infrastructure, including its Office 365 subscription service.

But Outlook.com's problems were not completely behind it Saturday morning. Around 2:30 p.m. ET, Microsoft again logged a problem on the status board, saying, "A small percentage of mobile users may experience intermittent issues while syncing email."

Microsoft said the problem was resolved at around 8 a.m. ET Sunday.

The Outlook.com outages were an embarrassment to Microsoft for multiple reasons, including a boast the week before that its Office 365 cloud-based service exceeded 99.9% uptime each of the last four quarters, and new attacks against rival Google Gmail in another run of its "Scroogled" campaign that kicked off Aug. 9.

Microsoft touts its own Outlook.com as an alternative to Gmail.

In fact, the latest Outlook.com outage was the second this year within weeks of a new Scroogled attack. In mid-March, about five weeks after a different Scroogled round, Microsoft's online email service went dark for about 15 hours.

Outlook.com has logged numerous interruptions in the last 60 days, including on June 14 and 27; July 1, 2, 3, 11, 12-14 and 25-26; and the event that began Aug. 14.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at  @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Russell Brand and Rumored New Flame Nicola Schuller Cozy Up After His London Show

by Alexis L. Loinaz Today 12:25 PM PDT

XPOSUREPHOTOS.COM

Hmmm…could things be getting serious here?

Russell Brand was spotted with rumored new ladylove Nicola Schuller in London Tuesday night, three weeks after the two first turned heads when they were photographed making out at a café in Los Angeles.

Looks like their romance has gone international!

PHOTO: Russell Brand and Nicole Schuller canoodle during lunch date

The two were seen leaving Soho Theatre, where the 38-year-old funnyman had just wrapped up a performance of his stand-up show.

Katy Perry's ex-hubby, dressed in a white blazer and gray shirt, hid behind a pair of shades as the paparazzi descended on the couple, while Schuller, who is reportedly his makeup and hairstylist, flashed a tiny smile.

The sighting comes a week after he was seen cozying up to a mystery brunette, also at Soho Theatre.

PICS: Celeb date nights

Owen Beiny/WENN.com

Last month, Brand and Schuller unloaded quite the frisky PDA display, making out and wrapping their arms around each other while sitting alfresco during a lunch date at Urth Café in L.A.

In a recent interview with San Francisco Gate, Brand took dig at his sex life with ex-wife Perry, whom he divorced in December 2011 after little more than a year of marriage.

"When I got divorced, I considered becoming a monk," he told the paper. "When you're a monk, you're not allowed to have sex with anyone. When you're married, it's one person. That's one more than a monk. It's not that different. I'd be having sex thinking, 'Think of anyone, anyone else.'"

Oof.

PHOTOS: Check out stars' awkward PDA

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Usher's Son "Doing Fine" After Near Pool Drowning, Says Friend of Usher Raymond V's Mother Tameka Foster

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

It sounds like Usher and Tameka Foster's son Usher Raymond V is recovering well after nearly drowning in a pool Monday.

A reported friend of Foster's took to her local Atlanta blog recently to give an update on the 5-year-old's condition.

"My sources have confirmed that Lil Cinco [nickname for Usher Raymond V] is doing fine," she writes. "He's currently in stable condition at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Scottish Rite and is being held for observation."

PHOTOS: See more of Hollywood's hottest dads

The near drowning happened two days ago when Usher Raymond V's arm got stuck in a pool drain while he was underwater trying to retrieve a toy. His aunt and a housekeeper unsuccessfully tried to free him before contractors working in the house got him out of the pool and performed CPR on him.

Earlier today, Usher's ex-wife Tameka Foster filed paperwork requesting an emergency custody hearing in the wake of the pool accident that will take place in Atlanta on Friday. Foster is asking a Georgia judge to immediately award her temporary custody of all her minor children currently under Usher's care, including their other son together, 4-year-old Naviyd.

PICS: Famous familes

John E. Davidson/Getty

Foster's attorney, Angela Kinley, claims that, "the children are at risk while in the care of third-party caregivers...while (Usher) travels around the world for his work-related activities."

Last year, in July 2012, Usher's stepson and Foster's biological son Kile Glover died after being struck by a personal watercraft on Lake Lanier.

"Cabin fever.. But I'm so happy to say that my son is doing much better. Talking & asking for food. Thank you for ur well wishes & prayers," Foster tweeted today. Usher has yet to make a statement about Usher Raymond V's pool accident or their upcoming court hearing.

PHOTOS: Celeb Injuries

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