For $10 million in cash, Facebook has acquired more talents to expand their company and cover all bases.  With the social network company's acquisition of Hot Potato, Facebook sends a clear message that it wants to further develop its "Places" feature that is currently available on the site.  Hot Potato, a relatively very young site that was only introduced to the public in November of last year, was a part of the Realtime Crunchup event of TechCrunch.  After its launch, Hot Potato raised $1.42 million Series A funds from some investment firms that concentrate on funding start-up firms.  A good number of angel investors then followed, strengthening the company despite its short existence.

Hot Potato's popular apps

Hot Potato's main product is its iPhone application, which allowed users to make streams of conversation involving specific events, like for example, a sporting event, a TV premiere viewing, or a concert.  It is as if the one watching a concert would tweet "That was a cool rift from the guitarist" to other spectators in the arena without having to use a hashtag like in Twitter.  Other people who have received the message from the first person can respond, as the two or more people are now engaged in a streaming conversation that happens real-time and based on their location.

From being an iPhone app to an FB app, this feature will be turned into a movement with 500 million members.  The team of Hot Potato members themselves admitted, through a blog post, which also announced the acquisition, that if their company is going to be bought, Facebook would be the best option.

What happens now?

With the acquisition of Hot Potato by Facebook, the former will close down and be fully integrated to the Facebook company.  In the same blog post, they declared that the company will be wrapping up its operations and that new registration attempts for new users will not be allowed anymore.  As for existing users, they will be given an option to download all their data from the site for a month.  After a month, all user data will be deleted as Hot Potato will officially close shop.  Facebook will not be keeping any data from old Hot Potato users.  As the probability of Hot Potato users having Facebook accounts is huge, having no facilities for former Hot Potato users to transfer their information to FB won't really be a problem anymore.

What seems to be the obious trend with Facebook ventures is that they usually acquire talents rather than products, so people who worked in Hot Potato may already be having new jobs in Facebook.  As for the product, some of Hot Potato's features may be integrated into Facebook's Places, making it a lot richer in terms of features.

Videos viewed on the web may have always proven to be a bit of a disappointment for some people, as they are usually smaller compared to those played on a TV screen.  Moreover, they are bound to be only experienced passively in a browser, unlike with watching video clips on TV or movie house screen.  In that respect, Internet company Mozilla plans to do something with this.  One of its divisions is working on the Drumbeat project, a group that starts on initiating open technologies on the web.  One of the Drumbeat project's initiatives is Popcorn, which is a tool that plans to make web videos as interactive as the other web products today.

A close look at the Mozilla Popcorn

Insiders who have seen and tried this project say that Popcorn, which is currently in its infancy stages, is quite a bit rough, but has a huge potential once the concerns will be ironed out.  What makes Popcorn a potentially very useful tool is a number of features, including its ability to add metadata to web videos that are native to HTML 5, tagging information on videos like location, details about the topics and people in the video, as well as subtitles and details on licensing.  Meanwhile, the metadata can be easily used while actually watching the video for an enhanced viewing experiencing.

In case a video has subtitles attached to it, then the subtitles can be forwarded to a translation tool online so that the subtitles can be translated into a language that the video viewer wants.  So that the translated subtitles will be in sync with the video, Javascript will handle the job.  Moreover, if the video contains data on location, it can be plotted on a map, which the viewer may look at while simultaneously watching the video.

One advantage that is mostly recognized with HTML 5 videos is that they can be played to be viewed without the need to use Flash or Silverlight plug-ins.  Moreover, HTML 5 also features native multimedia capacities that permit videos to be improved by other features in the browser.  CSS, Canvas, and Javascipt tools can alter the video file's size, look, and position to make it better.  The demo page of Popcorn by Mozilla can already be accessed.  In the corners that surround the main video, there are widgets that pull information and links to other websites like Flickr, Wikipedia, Twitter, and Google News to contribute data to the video.  A person trying to access the Popcorn demo page whose browser does not support the demo can watch a demo video on the website of the Drumbeat project.  However, expect there are still a lot of concerns that have to be ironed out with the Popcorn before it will be released for use.

Reports of the Microsoft 15's appearance have been leaked and posted on various Internet news sites.   But apart from screen caps and other information that has been divulged, news about the pre-alpha build has it that a new application will be integrated into the next generation of the Microsoft Office suite.  Could it be the Microsoft Office 15?

A peek at Microsoft Office 15

Office 2010, or what used to be known as Office 14, had only been shipped last June.  However, a report by Softpedia via Wzor, a Russian tech news website, has already published proof that there is indeed a new Office 15 and work on it has already been steady.  According to the report by Softpedia, a new codename is also present, something that Microsoft watchers always look out for.

The codename for this project is allegedly "Microsoft Limestone Integration Application" or "Microsoft Lime" for short.

According to the report, Lime will be a portion of Office 15, and that it is just part of the build that was recently leaked.  However, some sources claim that Lime is a utility for user interface and not really considered as a different application itself.

More speculations
 
On a site dedicated to news about Microsoft developments, the site's writer, Stephen Chapman noted that two months ago, there have been hints that Microsoft had plans to launch a new application for its next Office suite.  Chapman matched the stories and saw a connection between those rumors and a mention of a new feature that was going to be a major one through a LinkedIn profile of an intern who used to work in Microsoft's Excel group.

Speculations have then floated around as to what the Microsoft Lime and Office 15 are all about. It might be connected to the intern's hint months ago, thus, making the application related to Excel and integrating it to another technology, or it may also be an app related to business intelligence or even charting or graphing, some speculate.

A guess was offered by Robert McLaws, a consultant for Microsoft and former blogger for Windows.  According to McLaws, "the new app is most likely the extension of the co-authoring features of Office Web Apps into a shared desktop runtime."  He speculates this because the best features of the Microsoft Groove were left out of the last release because he said they might be subject to improvement into being a next generation real-time collaboration platform that is based on Azure.

The information from Wzor and Softpedia states that the delivery date for Office 15 is in the early months of 2014.  But since the delivery for Office 14 is this year, some see the release of Office 15 to be in 2013 the latest, given the schedule of a 2- to 3-year lapse Microsoft always puts between products.

A key manager of Apple, Inc. has been charged and arrested in California, in relation to allegations that he had been getting kickbacks for leaking insider secrets to companies in Asia that are supposed to be suppliers of Apple’s banner phone, the iPhone and its accessories.

Since 2005, Paul Shin Devine has been working for the technology giant Apple, as a global supply manager.  Federal authorities are now making him face accusations of receiving kickbacks from at least six companies based in Asia. The identity of these companies were not revealed by the authorities, although they have named which Asian countries these companies are based – China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.  Wall Street Journal has named these companies as Kaedar of China, Creslyn of SoKor, and Jin Li of Singapore.

Cases galore for Devine

The Cupertino, California-based company has also filed a civil suit against Devine, 37 years old, accusing him of getting bribes and payments of over $1 million for the past years from the Asian companies.

Last Friday, Devine appeared before a San Jose court.  Court documents did not record any setting of bail for Devine.  He was set to return to court on Monday, as scheduled.  In the federal grand jury, Devine was charged with 23 counts of assorted crimes, including conspiracy, accepting kickbacks, wire fraud, and money laundering.

Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, read a statement from the company, saying the Apple adheres to the highest standards in ethics when they do business.  Therefore, any dishonest behavior both within the company and out is never tolerated, according to him.

What did Devine really do?

According to reports, Devine used his position at Apple to his advantage by gathering information that are supposedly to be used by the company alone. He shared it with suppliers of Apple overseas so that he, in turn, could be paid and these companies could negotiate better conditions with Apple.  According to the court reports, Devine did share his kickback earning with an Andrew Ang of Singapore.  For his part, Ang was also slapped with three counts of conspiracy and wire fraud charges.

Investigation regarding this matter was done by the joint forces of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Devine was set to appear before the federal court on Monday.

The funds paid by the firms to Devine were said to be laundered through a number of foreign and US accounts in different banks in the country and outside it.  The payments were then supposed to be "samples," which are funneled to accounts under his name and his wife’s as well.

Reports say that investigators found out about Devine's activities when they read his e-mail.  There were letters that point out to Devine giving Apple suppliers information that give them the edge in possibly leaking the same information to Apple's direct competitors.

Following the uphill climb of Google's Android over the iPhone, Google found itself in the middle of yet another controversial move by Oracle Corp.  Oracle is claiming that the development of Android, Google's most popular mobile operating system, was a case for patent and copyright infringement.  The law suit was filed in a federal court in California. Karen Tillman, the spokeswoman of Oracle, said that the suit was filed on the basis of intellectual property rights violation.  Google was accused of "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringing Oracle's Java-related intellectual property."  To this, Tillman claims that Oracle is seeking appropriate actions.

Why the lawsuit?

Analysts claim that the Android operating system, which is used on more than 200,000 smartphone units and other devices sold every day, actually used a part of the Java technology, which is the property of Oracle after it acquired the Sun Microsystems this year for $5.6 billion.  Apparently, the lawsuit filed against Google is a clear indication of Oracle's efforts to require licenses for the use of Java, a programming language that is currently used in many of today's web-based products and technologies.

According to Larry Ellison, Chief Executive of Oracle, Java is one of the key products of their company, as the software is used not only in Internet-based applications but also in different electronic devices such as smartphones, PCs, and DVD players.  Having said that, they want to protect their asset.  But Edward Reines, Weil Gotshall's IP litigator, sheds some light on the most recent lawsuit and said that the corporate views of Sun when it comes to implement patents for Java is obviously different from that of Oracle.

At first, Google refused to release any statement on the lawsuit,  known as Oracle of America Inc v Google Inc.  But now that the company was able to gather its thoughts on the issue and review the case filed against them, they are saying that the Android operating system didn't actually use Java and violated the patent and copyright law.  Instead, Google is claiming that the Android actually used Dalvik, a technology that is compatible with Java.  With this, Google claims that the lawsuit is "baseless."

What analysts have to say about Oracle vs. Google's Android

It looks like Microsoft can gain some edge with the lawsuit filed against Google's Android.  According to some analysts, this can be the perfect opportunity for Microsoft to advance against its competitors and take advantage of the situation as the Android is now under litigation and the Oracle seems to threaten the open source community.

Whatever the results of the on-going litigation will be, the suit filed by Oracle will surely affect Google one way or another.  And Microsoft's Windows Mobile, which dropped to 5% of the market share, can benefit from this.  Now that the Oracle is hailed as the villain in the open source community, Microsoft can also rise above the situation.

Technology giant Google has acquired another company in its stable by purchasing San Francisco-based Jambool Inc. Jambool's business lies on manufacturing software that gives providers of online games the facility to administer virtual currency that is being spent in their sites.

Reports from the media claim that the Social Gold platform of Jambool is in direct competition with Facebook Credits, which is the virtual currency application of the networking site.  Google's acquisition of Jambool is reportedly in line with efforts by the former to construct its own social networking site that will eventually compete with Facebook head-on.

A look at the acquired company

The move was confirmed by Jambool's founders themselves, Vikas Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, and Reza Hussein, Chief Technology Officer, in their company’s website.   Gupta and Hussein both have had long and accomplished careers in the world of technology, having been employed by the online retailing pioneer Amazon.com.

Jambool traces its history in 2006 and defines itself as a company that develops products that allow websites to get into the world of virtual economy, which includes managing and creating currency and goods for use online.

The company shall be handed to Google on a high note, as Hussein and Gupta have reported that in the first six months of this year, Jambool's main product, Social Gold, has processed more than two times the volume of payments it had processed compared to the entire year of 2009.

Google expressed in a statement on e-mail that Jambool will aid their company as they "expand into digital goods and content" by offering more innovative payment options.

The costs of buying companies

TechCrunch, a technology news website that first reported this development when it was still not confirmed, has also reported that the acquisition's price tag has been pegged at about $70 million.  The statement in the Jambool blog did not confirm this information.

Based in Mountain View, California, Google started in the industry as a search engine portal and has acquired more and more businesses recently, including Slide Inc., a producer of "social games," allegedly for $182 million.  Reports have also claimed that the company has also invested an unconfirmed amount of $100 million in Zynga, a popular producer of online games like Mafia Wars that are available in social networking sites.

What Jambool will be used for

Jambool has an FAQ posted in their site that explains what their customers will experience with this change in the upcoming months.  Apparently, the current Google game site is only a directory of different games that can be played on other sites, but Google plans to develop a "Google Games" site where the company itself will host games that the company will also develop.  Once the games will be developed, Jambool's facilities will be utilized there as well.

Anticipation mounts as Office for Mac 2011 is rumored to be released by the end of October.  The Office for Mac 2011 is touted as the first release of the program's Mac suite that will include the much talked-about ribbon user interface (UI) by Microsoft.  Three editions will be reportedly released in the market with prices confirmed ranging from $99 to $279.

The Office for Mac 2011

Microsoft positions the Office for Mac 2011 as the Mac-based equivalent of the Office 2010, which is Windows 7 enabled.  New icons and splash screens are reportedly included in the Office for Mac 2011, which is also reported to include a Template Gallery, more tools for proofing, and support for languages like Hebrew  and Russian, which read right-to-left rather than most languages' left-to-right.  This tool will be featured in the Office suite for Mac for the first time.

Microsoft released a statement last week, saying that two more languages will be supported by the Office for Mac 2011 – Russian and Polish.  Its predecessor, Office for Mac 2008, only supported 11 languages.  With the inclusion of 2 more languages, Office for Mac 2011 will be now supporting 13 languages all in all.  The statement also confirmed that October will be the date of release of the Office for Mac 2011 for a number of regions, although there is no word yet on the specific regions. Also, the US MSRPs were included in the three editions.

The "MacRibbon"

In a press release, there were no specific capabilities that were pointed out by Microsoft.  Some capabilities, though, have already been leaked by members of Microsoft's Office for Mac team, who previewed some of the first-time features in a series of descriptive posts to their Mac Mojo blog.  Also, the blog featured a video demo of the product, which shed light into these new capabilities.

It was through these blog entries that the "MacRibbon" was introduced, as Microsoft's senior lead program manager  Han Yi Shaw, who oversees the Office User Experience (UX) and Word for Mac, stated that "the most notable introduction to our new Office 2011 user interface is strikingly new, but readily familiar to Mac and PC users alike. It's called the ‘Office for Mac ribbon,' or as we refer to it internally, MacRibbon.”

The “Ribbon” to be featured in the Office for Mac 2011 signifies the roots it shares with the ribbon also seen in both Office 2007 and 2010 for Windows. The “Ribbon” has its own share of critics, though, who have been quick to point out that since it was initially seen in Windows 7, it takes too much of screen space, with icons that are unsightly huge and look cluttered.  This ribbon will be displayed in PowerPoint, Excel, and Word programs under the Mac menu bar which it will only complement, not totally replace.  The standard tool bar will still be there, and the ribbon can be collapsed together with the standard tool bar.

A faulty antenna has caused an executive his job.  The Apple executive in charge of hardware for the iPhone, the company’s flagship mobile phone product, was reportedly sacked amidst countless complaints of users with the antenna of the iPhone 4, which has only been launched recently.

The departure of Papermaster

The company did not deny the departure of Mark Papermaster from Apple. Official statements did not confirm, though, the circumstances of the departure, so it is not clear whether Papermaster was indeed ousted or vacated his position in his own initiative.  News outfits have successfully contacted Papermaster who refused to comment on the news.

However, someone who has access to insider information, but wants to remain anonymous since he was not authorized to discuss the issue, claimed that Papermaster was "pushed out" as one hardware problem surfaced after another, which allegedly started with concerns over the iPod Touch.

The senior vice president for Macintosh hardware engineering, Bob Mansfield, will take Papermaster's place in the company.  Mansfield has had experience in dealing with a number of technologies that make up the iPhone.  This includes the A4 chip, touch screens, and retina display, according to an Apple spokesperson.

Papermaster's stint in Apple

Papermaster's relatively short stint in Apple started controversies.  In 2008, Apple, to put it bluntly, pirated Papermaster from IBM.  This set off a battle between IBM and its former employee who had risen to their company's top management levels in a span of 25 years.  The feud reached the courts as IBM sued Papermaster in federal court.  IBM claimed that Papermaster signed a non-compete agreement with them, in an obvious attempt of blocking Papermaster's from joining apple.  The case was settled between the two parties after Papermaster testified in court that no trade secrets by IBM have been revealed by him to his new bosses.

The faulty antenna design

The antenna design was one of the features Apple chief Steve Jobs lauded when he introduced the iPhone 4.  The antenna is built into a steel band, and this steel band wraps the phone. Complaints flooded as customers who bought the phone claim that if they touch a spot on the phone's lower left section, there would be a sharp decrease in the phone's reception, which would usually result into calls being dropped.

The problem was rather handled clumsily by Apple as the company issued evasive answers.  The company's first solution was to recommend that the users hold the phone in such a way that they would avoid touching that problem spot.  Days later, the company found out that there was a problem with the signal meter software that should indicate correct reception.  The entire event tuned into a public relations nightmare for Apple as Jobs later called for a press conference, stating that similar problems also plagued other Droid phones, something that other phone producers contested.  He later offered free bumpers to owners of the iPhone 4 customers, as these bumpers were supposed to isolate the antenna from being touched.

Google Wave will be discontinued, according to a company statement that confirmed the decision to pull the plug on this application since “traction" with customers did not happen as expected.
 
The messaging program was launched in 2009 amidst hype and the promise that it would change the way people (or at least Google users) would send messages to each other.  Google proclaimed the e-mail a "tired" concept, and the Wave was their proposed replacement for sending e-mails.

What went wrong with the Wave?

A senior vice president of Google, Urs Holzle, stated in the company blog that the program "has not seen the user adoption we would have liked."  With this sentiment, the development of Google Wave as a standalone product will be discontinued.  The site will be maintained until the end of the year and the technology will be extended to be utilized in other projects of the company.  The company said that the code for a number of features that the Wave has introduced, such as instant messages that are seen by the recipient letter-by-letter as the sender types has already been available in the Wave, but since it will be discontinued, it may be incorporated into Google’s current and future products.

A combination of online communication elements such as e-mail, Twitter feeds, and instant messaging, among others, into one “wave” was the primary feature of the service.  Google, from the start, did admit though that they were not really sure if the product will click with the interest of real Internet users.  Although the company was excited about the product, they were not sure how the public would react to their innovation.

Public reaction, as it turned out, was not receptive.  A lot of users found the Google Wave "confusing and complicated," which, of course, was adverse for a product that was supposed to make messaging easier and more convenient.

More about the Google Wave

Danish brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen who were also behind the more accepted Google Maps, created Google Wave.  When asked about what their goal with Wave was, they stated that they wanted to change online communication’s nature, and also prove that a large corporation like Google can still be a source of constant innovation.

Google recognized the brothers' work and recognizes their contribution to progress in the field of computer science.  The discontinuation of the Wave comes as just another Google product that didn't catch the public's fancy.  Among other Google products that did not go as successfully as anticipated were Google Answers, the Google's Phone Store, and Lively.

The invite-only structure that was used in the hugely-successful G-mail did not really caught on Wave as the first users did not bother sending invites, and there wasn't really a huge demand for the invites as many complained of the Wave's bogginess and difficulty of use.

Just recently, Windows has released an emergency fix for a critical vulnerability that can place many Windows users at industrial settings at risk of being hacked. Usually, Windows releases fixes and updates on every second Tuesday of each month. However, Microsoft believes that the recent vulnerability is a serious issue that needs to be taken care of as soon as possible, so that's why they released this emergency patch on a Monday.

Details on the software vulnerability

According to Windows, the software vulnerability mainly involves how a Shell32.dll tries to open or load icons from applets that are found on the control panel. If a customized short cut icon directs to a malware or any malicious file, the Windows Explorer can easily execute the malware by simply "browsing to the location." This software vulnerability was considered critical by Windows, especially since many computer users create their own short cut icons to enjoy easy access to favorite applications.

This Windows flaw can actually allow hackers to remotely control a PC by simply converting an innocent short cut icon into a booby trap.

How the vulnerability spreads

One warning Windows gave regarding this software bug is that this vulnerability is probably spread through removable drives, especially if the Auto Play function is not disabled.

Windows bug already exploited

It was admitted by Microsoft that this software bug has already been exploited by several hackers. An example is the Stuxnet worm. The Stuxnet worm actually targets data acquisition and supervisory control systems usually used in industrial settings. The software giant also admitted that Sality malware has also been exploiting the Windows flaw. Unfortunately, all current Windows versions are affected by this flaw. These versions include XP Service Packs and Itanium-based systems. As a matter of fact, several reports have been received that certain attacks were aimed at important infrastructures and power plants. This has prompted Windows to encourage users to update their systems as soon as possible.

The emergency patch as a fix

Before the emergency patch was released, several workaround strategies were suggested by Microsoft. One of these workarounds were to disable the feature to create short cut icons. However, this workaround presented difficulties in taking advantage of the visual interface of a Windows system. Because these workarounds presented difficult issues, Windows has decided to release an update to permanently fix the bug.

The recent update released by Windows fixes the bug. The company states that the bug has been fixed by "correctly validating the icon reference of a shortcut." This emergency patch actually creates a whole new version of the Shell32.dll Windows library file. However, users should be careful when installing the update, since any wrong move can lead to an incorrect update, which can lead to a PC lock-up.