Foxconn's iPad 2 polishing plant reopens following deadly explosion

Weeks after an explosion at a Foxconn iPad 2 polishing plant in Chengdu, China, killed three and injured 15 people, the facility has reopened.
The plant, owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., resumed operation this week following an investigation of the explosion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Details of the investigation were not disclosed.
Foxconn, the trade name of Hon Hai, closed its workshops that polish electronic parts following the explosion, which occurred in mid-May. Analysts initially showed concern that the closure could affect production of Apple's iPad 2, along with other electronics products from other companies, but those concerns were quickly downplayed.
Reacting to the news on Thursday, analyst Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets noted that Apple has not publicly acknowledged any production disruptions with the iPad 2. That's different from previous issues, when the company was forced to delay the international launch of the first-generation iPad, or repeated issues with the white iPhone 4.
Further, iPad 2 shipping times at Apple's online store remain at one to two weeks. That's unchanged from early May, and less than the two to three week wait time buyers experienced in April.
"We believe rising investor visibility to iPad 2 availability is likely to further dissipate concerns about production disruption," Abramsky said. "Apple may provide an update on iPad shipments at WWDC on Monday, which may help alleviate concerns."

Earlier Thursday, Brian White, analyst with Ticonderoga Securities, cited sources in the Apple supply chain, who said that the explosion at the Foxconn plant would not have a significant impact on iPad 2 production. White's sources told him that the facility had been held back by yield issues on certain outside components, and that the facility may not have reached the "optimal utilization rate."

Sony Pictures falls victim to major data breach

In a statement released Thursday, the group claimed that it had also managed to compromise all "admin details," including administrator passwords, as well as 75,000 "music codes" and 3.5 million "music coupons" from Sony networks and websites.
The group has publicly posted a full list of compromised sites, along with links to documents containing samples of what it claimed was material stolen from Sony.
The compromised databases included one that appeared to contain information belonging to people who participated in a promotional campaign involving Sony Pictures and AutoTrader.com, as well as another involving a Sony-sponsored Summer of Restless Beauty campaign.
Also compromised in the break-in, according to LulzSec, was a Sony music codes database, a music coupons database, and databases from Sony BMG Belgium & Netherlands.
The compromised databases contained "varied assortments of Sony user and staffer information," the group said.
"SonyPictures.com was owned by a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now," LulzSec said. "From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING."
"What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted," the group claims. "Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it's just a matter of taking it."
LulzSec said that it had copied and published only a relatively small sample of the information it had managed to access because it did not have the resources to download everything. The group said that in theory it could have "taken every last bit of information," but that would have taken weeks.
The group posted a link to the SQL injection vulnerability it had exploited and invited anyone to verify it personally. "You may even want to plunder those 3.5 million coupons while you can."
In a brief comment sent by email, Jim Kennedy, Executive Vice President of Global Communications for Sony Pictures Entertainment, said the company is looking into the claims made by LulzSec, but offered no other comment.
If the breach is as extensive as LulzSec has claimed, it would be the second major compromise that Sony has suffered since mid-April, when intruders broke into its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment networks.
Those breaches resulted in the compromise of personal data belonging to nearly 100 million account holders.
Since then, there have been a series of intrusions at various Sony websites around the world.
The attacks, such as the one carried out against Sony Pictures by LulzSec, have been designed largely to embarrass Sony, which has sparked the wrath of many hackers for its hard line stance over copyright and IP protection.
The continuing attacks have become a huge issue for the company. Sony was forced to shut down its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment networks for several days to fix issues resulting from those intrusions. Even now the networks are still limping back to normal.
So far, Sony has hired at least three external security firms to help patch its networks. It also recently hired a new chief information security officer to help coordinate its security efforts. With the company's websites having been routinely broken into, despite such measures, many wonder just how porous Sony's networks are.
Sony itself characterized the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment intrusions as highly targeted and sophisticated cyberattacks. However, all of the publicly disclosed ones since then appear to have been the result of some fundamental security oversights on the part of the company.

Adobe CEO downplays Flash, iOS feud, says Android tablets will dominate iPad

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said Thursday that the argument between Apple and his company over the lack of Adobe Flash on iOS is over, while also predicting that tablets running Google's Android will eventually overtake the iPad.
Narayen made the comments in an on-stage interview with journalist Walt Mossberg at the D9 conference hosted by All Things D. When asked by Mossberg whether "Adobe and Apple are done having the argument" over Flash, the executive said, "Absolutely."
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Narayen engaged in a public war of words last year. Last year, Jobs published an open letter accusing Adobe Flash of not having "performed well on mobile devices." Narayen fired back with his own letter dismissing Jobs' comments as a "smokescreen" and blaming "the Apple operating system" for crashes that Jobs had attributed to Flash.
During Thursday's interview, Narayen asserted that the disagreement between the two companies hadn't ultimately been about the technology. "It's a business model issue, and it's about control of a platform," he said.
Narayen continued to stress Adobe's multi-platform strategy, noting that applications compiled in Adobe AIR can be easily converted for iOS and Apple's App Store. According to the executive, Apple has been approving such applications because it "still has control of the business model associated with it."
The Adobe chief touted the fact that his company will have 130 million phone devices that run Flash by the end of the year. However, Mossberg responded by interjecting that he had "yet to test a single one where Flash works really well,"
Narayen compared himself to "a kid in a candy shop" working with companies producing non-iPad tablets. “I think the community is vibrant. I’m really excited,” he said.
"There is more power on these devices now than when we delivered Photoshop on a PC several years ago," Narayen said. "So we are clearly betting on these devices not just being consumption devices but also productivity devices for our community." Narayen promised that Adobe would bring all of its creative applications to tablets.
Just as with smartphones, Android, which supports Flash will eventually hit "an inflection point" with tablets and overtake the iPad, Narayen predicted. He also sees HP and RIM gaining traction with tablets in the enterprise.

8 security considerations for IPv6 deployment

Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author's employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.
Feb. 3, 2011, came and went without much fanfare, but it was a milestone for Internet stakeholders, whether they knew it or not. On that Thursday, the last available IPv4 addresses were allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Though some Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) have a reasonable inventory of IP addresses that could last another year or two, the days of "new" IPv4 address allocations are largely over.
Now that we're out of IPv4 allocations, it's time to get serious about adopting the next generation of Internet Protocol, IPv6. With a 128-bit address space (compared to IPv4's 32-bit space), IPv6 can accommodate the ongoing and exponential growth of the Internet, which currently is adding about a million new devices every hour. In fact, compared with the 4.3 billion IP addresses that IPv4 allows, IPv6 will enable another 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses -- enough to accommodate global Internet demand for the foreseeable future.

Microsoft gives the first official look of Windows 8 touch interface

At the D9 conference today, Steve Sinofsky, President of Windows and Windows Live at Microsoft, gave the first look at the next version of Windows, currently "codenamed" Windows 8. On display was the new touch user interface: an interface designed for tablets and touch computers. For the first time in its life, Windows will receive a true touch interface. Since Windows XP, Microsoft has tried to graft touch capabilities onto its operating system, but has consistently failed to bridge the gap between precise mouse and keyboard interfaces, and sloppy, imprecise, finger-based interfaces. Windows 8 changes that. Microsoft describes the new interface as "touch first"; it'll work with a mouse and a keyboard, but it was designed for fingers.

10 Things to Know About Windows 8

At All Things D last night, Steven Sinofsky, the President of Microsoft's Windows division, gave us a peek at what Windows 8 will look like. A lot will likely change between now and the time the OS is available to the public, or even in beta, but that sneak peek revealed some important details about the future of Windows, and how Microsoft sees us using our computers in the future.
At first glance, the interface is different: so much so that it's almost unrecognizable from the standard Windows we all know so well. The taskbar is gone, the desktop is gone, and in their place is a very Windows Phone 7-style system of tiles. In a preview video, Microsoft director of Program Management Jensen Harris took us on a tour of the video, but some of the most important things to know about Windows 8 are the things he didn't say. Here are some of them:
1. Windows 8 will support system-on-a-chip architecture, meaning tablets and other devices. We can all put the rumors to rest that Microsoft would make a play for the tablet market with Windows Phone 7. Instead, Microsoft has gone in for a convergence play, bringing the desktop and laptop versions of Windows closer to Windows Phone 7 instead. The interesting thing is that they're trying to do it without cramming the code for Windows Phone 7 down the throats of desktop users. We already knew that Windows 8 would have ARM support and x86 support, but based on the video we know that Microsoft is going for the same experience regardless of the device you'll use. The only question remaining is whether or not Windows 8 will come in separate versions or SKUs for tablets. We're betting they will.
2. Windows 8 will be backwards compatible. Near the end of the video, Harris expressly says that users will be able to open and run "legacy apps," even from the Start Screen. He uses Microsoft Office as an example to prove that old Windows 7 applications will work on Windows 8, and while it looks horrible, it does work. The big unresolved question here is whether or not that means you'll be able to run Microsoft Office on your ARM-equipped tablet. At least laptop and desktop users won't have to ditch all of their software to upgrade to Windows 8.
3. Windows 8's Start Screen can be disabled. Another thing we saw near the end of the video when Jensen opened Microsoft Office was the standard Windows 7 UI underneath the Start Screen. That means you'll be able to turn the Start Screen off entirely and use Windows 8 the same way you use Windows 7. You may be able to drag in newer Windows 8 apps into view on the sides of your screen, but you'll definitely be able to navigate files and folders and run applications the way you're used to. Plus, there's a "Desktop" tile on the Start Screen. What more proof do you need?

click on image for full view

4. Windows 8 Applications will run in Metro UI. One thing you can't miss in the demo is that all of the apps that Harris runs make use of the Metro UI interface, and those apps never deviate from the Metro design. The video makes it difficult to tell how you'll be able to run multiple apps simultaneously without swiping side to side to move among them, but that could be the point. Much like Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's interpretation of "multitasking" looks like one app has the foreground while others run in the back, where you can't see them. All of the apps that you see in the video behave this way, unless you go back to the "legacy" apps on the old Windows desktop.
5. Windows 8 will be the most touch-capable OS on the market. Microsoft is betting a bundle that more people want tablets, laptops with trackpads, and all-in-one PCs with touch-screens than ever before. They're also clearly making a bet that keyboards and mice as tools to navigate windows and applications are on the way out. The on-screen keyboard still, even though Harris complains about it in the video, takes up half the screen, which tells us they're not too concerned about people actually spending time typing. The new UI is designed to get you to files with swipes and multi-touch gestures, and then when you're ready to use the app, then you can use your keyboard and mouse.

6. Windows 8 native apps will be web capable. He rushed through the statement, but Harris noted that the Live Tiles all leverage HTML5 and JavaScript to pull and provide information to the user from the Start Screen. The goal is to give users a way to see relevant information without opening an app to get it (sound familiar? It should – that was the desire behind Microsoft SideShow, which never really took hold with OEMs.) Since most of that information comes from the web in the form of email, tweets, Facebook posts, photos, and other updates, it makes sense for all of the apps behind the tiles to support web standards and to be connected to the Internet. What we don't know is how apps developed using Microsoft's own Silverlight and WPF will play into this.

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7. Windows 8 makes Aero Snap more important than ever. Even in legacy apps, you can clearly see newer Windows 8 apps pinned to the side to let you work while reading the news, or your Twitter stream. In the demo, we saw Microsoft Excel 2010 running next to a Windows 8 Twitter client, and while it looks a bit clunky, especially considering the design differences between Metro UI and the traditional Windows desktop, it does work. How it'll work with a mouse instead of a touch-screen though could be tricky. Windows 7 users who hate Aero Snap will hate this in Windows 8, but it may be the only way to get multiple apps to appear on screen at the same time.
8. Windows 8 will have a built-in app store. It's plain as day in the video, and rumors have been circulating for months, but Microsoft finally said that Windows users will be able to purchase and download applications for their Windows 8 systems from a built-in store, accessible from the Start Screen. What that store will look like is anyone's guess, but some screenshots of the store reportedly leaked back in April that may give us an idea of what it'll resemble, at least in the old Windows 7-style UI.

click on image for full view

9. Windows 8 is a huge risk for Microsoft. The fact that Microsoft is planning to make the Start Screen your center of operations when using your computer highlights the fact that they feel that Live Tiles and the Metro UI is the way to go. They're minimizing the traditional desktop-with-icons interface, and in the video, the desktop is only referred to for use with legacy applications. Microsoft seems to think that if they leave the desktop behind, no one will miss it. The rest of us aren't convinced. If the bet doesn't pay off, all of Microsoft's new features will amount to something users turn off or find a 3rd party utility to disable so they can get back to work. In the worst case, it's so integrated in the OS and people dislike it so much that they'll stick to Windows 7, and Microsoft has another Windows Me on their hands.
10. Windows 8 will look very different when released. It's important to remember that all of these things are subject to change. The Start Screen looks pretty well baked and will probably be included in one form or another, and for all we know it may only make it into tablet and premium editions of Windows 8. Other features and applications are yet to be seen, as are the underpinnings of the OS that will make all of this possible. Our next peek at Windows 8 will come at the BUILD developer's conference in September, and a lot will happen between now and then.

Twitter launching photo-sharing service

Twitter said Wednesday that it is adding a photo-sharing option for its users, a move that could deal a blow to existing services such as Twitpic and yfrog. Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo, pictured in February 2011, also announced at the All Things Digital technology conference here that the San Francisco-based service was upgrading its search function

Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo also announced at the All Things Digital technology conference here that the San Francisco-based service was upgrading its search function.
Twitter will begin allowing users to upload pictures and attach them to "tweets" directly from Twitter.com, Costolo said.
"It's part of the native data of the tweet," he said, adding that the decision to launch a photo-sharing service stemmed from a "need to remove the friction of adding photos to Twitter."
Twitter said that its official mobile applications will also provide a photo-sharing feature and the service will be available in the next several weeks.
As for search, Twitter said it will begin showing related photos and videos in search results.
Twitter's launch of a photo-sharing option poses a potentially serious threat to various third-party services people currently use to post pictures on Twitter.
It is the latest move by the company to provide in-house services and features for using Twitter.
Last week, Twitter announced it had bought TweetDeck, a popular application for using the service.
TweetDeck, which was founded in 2008, is a favorite of heavy users of Twitter, allowing them to view tweets in various different ways and to organize their messages into columns -- features not offered on Twitter's own website.

Microsoft Demos Windows 8, New Interface

It's 2am here (edit: I'm done writing, it's 2:38am now), and I really ought to be sleeping right about now, but for some stupid arbitrary reason, the D9 conference is held at honestly irresponsible hours for us Europeans (and we rock, damnit). So, here I am, MacBook Air on my lap, camomile tea (the Empress of Teas) in my cup, because Microsoft just had to show Windows 8's new interface for the first time at this ungodly hour. Oh, and they unveiled some more interesting stuff about Windows 8.
When the first bits of information came out about Windows 8 having an additional user interface just for tablets, inspired by Windows Phone 7, I always assumed we'd be seeing a separate, tablet-oriented version of Windows NT for both ARM and x86. Today though, Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky, and the ever awesome Julie-Larson Green unveiled that there will be one version of Windows, and it'll have both the new tablet interface, as well as the classic Windows interface just for those applications that need it. However, the tablet user interface is not a mere layer - it's all a bit... Weird, really.
Look at this video of it, and you'll understand. Look what happens when they show Microsoft Office. Other things to look out for: how it handles multitasking. I have to say - pretty damn awesome.

As you can see, the old Windows desktop kind of becomes part of the classic application, integrated into what I would reluctantly call its 'window'. It's kind of odd and jarring, but at the same time, I kind of get the idea that Microsoft is pulling a UAC on third party developers - UAC was designed to be annoying so that application developers would clean up their code. This jarring classic application handling? The exact same thing. Do you really want your application to be labelled as 'classic' and look like that?
Sinofsky was also asked if OEMs could forgo the classic interface altogether, and the answer was - "just don't use any desktop applications". My understanding is that Windows 8 is taking the first steps towards obsoleting the current Windows start menu/etc. paradigm. In these demos, it's already something that's relegated to classic applications alone; it doesn't seem to be possible to 'minimise' the new UI and reveal the classic desktop, nor does it seem to be possible to call up the classic desktop as an application. It looks like it's part of classic applications.
Interestingly, the new interface, and its applications, are touch-optimised (clearly), but they work equally well with a keyboard and mouse, according to Microsoft. Being a Windows Phone 7 user myself, and a devout admirer of Metro, this new interface jiggles in all the right places, but I do doubt this whole talk of 'optimised for touch, works equally well with mouse and keyboard'. Of course, this user interface is spearheaded by Larson-Green (the driving force behind Office 2007 and Windows 7's user interfaces, and thus, the best thing to have happened to Microsoft since, well, forever), but still.
The new interface comes with a whole boatload of new APIs, and makes heavy use of standard HTML5 and JavaScript, using Internet Explorer 10 which is built right into Windows 8. I'm curious what this is going to mean for other browsers - assuming this is indeed standard HTML5 and JavaScript, can I kick IE10 off Windows 8, and run these new applications in, say, WebKit?
As far as system requirements go, Sinofsky stated that Windows 8 will, once again, lower the system requirements compared to the previous version. Windows 7 was already lighter than Vista, and now Windows 8 will be lighter than Windows 7. I tip my hat to Microsoft for that one - but at the same time, they didn't really have a choice here since it'll have to run on tablets and other constrained devices.
Another question: what about a transition path from Windows x86 to Windows ARM? Well - there isn't one. No virtualisation or other compatibility layers. You'll just have to suck it. This gets a big thumbs up from me.
That's about everything I could gather from the Engadget liveblog. Sinfosky did talk about Windows NT, but not being interested in the nitty gritty like we are, Engadget skipped over it (bad Engadget! Bad Engadget!). Hopefully that part will be shown in videos on the D9 website over the coming days

Acer CEO: Windows 8 Tablet Requirements 'Troublesome'

As you all know, Microsoft is hard at work making sure Windows 8 runs well on tablets, including a completely new, Windows Phone 7-like Metro user interface. Another similarity between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7, apparently, is that Microsoft will be controlling the hardware experience rather tightly. This all comes from Acer CEO J. T. Wang.
Acer is, of course, one of the most prominent hardware partners for Microsoft, and for Windows 8 tablets, too, the company is working together with Microsoft. However, whereas Acer can pretty much build whatever it wants with Windows regular, Windows 8 for tablets comes with some very strict hardware requirements - too strict, even, according to Wang.
They’re really controlling the whole thing, the whole process,” Wang told BloomBerg at Computex, the trade show in Taiwan which currently comes down to tablets, tablets, tablets. Both chip makers and hardware partners "all feel it’s very troublesome", according to Wang.
I guess this is the backlash that was to be expected. PC makers have had an insane amount of freedom when it comes to making computers, and now, for the first time, they have to face a stricter and more controlling software supplier. Even with Android they've been relatively free to do as they please, but if the same rules applying to Windows Phone 7 will be applied to Windows 8 on tablets, then they're in for something new: resolutions, RAM, GPU, storage, and a whole load of other things could all be mandated by Microsoft.
Just like with Windows Phone 7, I see this as a good thing. Despite the strict requirements for WP7, there's a diverse set of devices to choose from, and compatibility excellent, and while the first update was blemished by Samsung failing to make decent firmware, it went perfectly fine for all other phones - a far cry from Android's mess. Tablets are more like phones than regular computers to me, so having a similar restricted hardware experience seems like a logical choice

Samsung Initiates Production of Low-Power 32GB Memory Modules.

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said that it had started volume production of 32GB registered DIMMs based on 4Gb DDR3 chips made using 30nm-class process technology. The world’s largest maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) claims that the new modules consume less energy than predecessors and therefore will enable more energy-efficient servers. Besides, the company promised to unveil 20nm-class process for DRAMs later in 2011.
Samsung’s new 32GB RDIMM performs at up to 1866MHz clock-speed with 1.35V voltage, achieving a 40% improvement over a 1333MHz , 40nm-class 32GB RDIMM operating at 1.5V, therein consuming 18% less power. Samsung’s 30nm-class 4Gb DDR3 chip offers an approximate 50% increase in productivity over a 40nm-class 4Gb DDR3, and as a result is expected to achieve rapid market penetration due to lower costs.
“With this module, Samsung has secured the highest level of product and solution competitiveness in the DRAM market for PC, server and mobile applications,” said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung started producing monolithic 4Gb DDR3 DRAM devices based on 30nm-class technology in February, 2011, about a year after the introduction of the fabrication process itself and also about twelve months after it started producing 40nm-class 4Gb DDR3 DRAM devices.
At present, Samsung already offers a number of products based on its 4Gb DDR3 chips produced using 30nm-class process technology, including 16GB RDIMMs for servers, 8GB SO-DIMMs for small form-factor systems and others.
Samsung expects to have more than 10% of its total DRAM chip production in 2012 at the 4Gb (or higher) density. According to HIS market tracker, shipments of 4Gb DRAM are expected to account for approximately 10% of total DRAM shipments in 2012, 35% in 2013 and up to 57% in 2014.
Separately, Samsung announced that it plans to reveal its first DRAM chips made using 20nm-class process technology later this year.
“We also plan to ship more energy-efficient 4Gb DDR3 DRAM based on 20nm-class process technology in the second half of this year, which will significantly expand the rapidly growing market for green IT memory solutions. Moreover, we intend to keep delivering the greenest memory products with optimal performance for customers,” said Mr. Hong.