Technology - Improving Our Life: Apple

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Microsoft to open its 'Apple-style' Retail Stores later this year

Microsoft will follow the the path blazed by Apple and open its first two bricks and mortar retail stores in the US later this year.

The software maker said on Tuesday it signed leases at shopping centres in Mission Viejo, California and Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Shops at Mission Viejo is already home to an Apple store. The other location, Scottsdale Fashion Square, does not have a competing Apple shop.

Microsoft maker picked those areas because they're "hot markets", with the right demographics, said Kim Stocks, a corporate communications director at the company.

She said the stores will sell laptops in addition to Microsoft and third-party software, Zunes, and Xbox 360 games and consoles.

News of the store strategy was leaked earlier this week on the Gizmodo technology news site. Gizmodo obtained a detailed Powerpoint presentation showing a fit out bearing a striking resemblance to the Apple Store look.

"Essentially, Microsoft is taking the best elements from the Apple Store, Sony Style and other "flagship" stores," Gizmodo said.

The Microsoft stores will feature a "Guru Bar" where customers can ask for technical advice. Apple Stores feature a service area known as the Genius Bar.

Apple, however, is not the only source of inspiration. The leaked Powerpoint document also says that the Microsoft stores will be available to host birthday parties - a service which has a long association with that other chain that specialises in (Big) Macs.

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Apple Launches its Touch Tablet Device before Christmas

Apple is reportedly planning to launch a new tablet-sized device before Christmas in what is a new product category that will fall between its iPhone/iPod Touch and the entry level MacBook laptop.

The company is also working with four record labels on a plan to increase digital sales of albums, according to a report in the Financial Times newspaper.

The project with the record companies - EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Vivendi's Universal Music Group - aims to offer interactive features with music downloads.

"It's all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music," one unnamed executive told the paper.

Dubbed project "Cocktail", the Financial Times said book publishers have also been in talks with the computer maker about offering their services on the new device, which could compete with Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

The AppleInsider blog, which broke the story on Friday, said the device will be feature a 10-inch screen and be "3G-enabled".

However the Financial Times report states that device will "probably [come] without phone capability".

The AppleInsider report puts the launch date as a first quarter 2010, citing "people well-respected by AppleInsider for their striking accuracy in Apple's internal affairs".

Confirmation of the twin projects could come as early as September when Apple traditionally launches its new line-up of iPods for the pre-Christmas shopping seasons.

iPods with cameras?

There has also been speculation that the new generaion iPods - the Nanos and Touches - will retain their current shape but will both come with built-in cameras, similar to those found on iPhones.

The Cult of Mac blog has reported that Chinese companies which make iPod accessories have been showing off new designs and protoypes with space on the back for the new features.

The iPhone 3GS, which was launched last month, comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera.

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Samsung Instinct Challenges Apple's IPhone Via Sprint Nextel

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, began selling its touch- screen Instinct handset for $70 cheaper than Apple Inc.'s new iPhone to win sales in the U.S.

Sprint Nextel Corp. will offer the phone, which can access e-mail and get live television programs, starting today for $129.99 each, according to Sprint's Web site. That's below larger rival AT&T Inc.'s $199 price for the iPhone. Unlike Apple's latest phone, the Instinct can also record videos.

The Instinct joins High Tech Computer Corp.'s Diamond and LG Electronics Inc.'s Vu in challenging the iPhone, which helped Apple become the second-largest maker of so-called smartphones in the U.S. in less than a year. Still, like other touch-screen models, Samsung's new phone is ``no match'' for Apple's product because it fails to replicate the strength of the iPhone's software, according to technology columnist Walt Mossberg.

``I still feel like the Instinct is inferior to the iPhone, in part because it seems so obviously to be imitating it, but falls short in quite a number of areas,'' said Jan Dawson, an analyst at London-based researcher Ovum. ``There's been so much hype and excitement around the iPhone 3G that almost no matter what Sprint does to publicize this launch it will be very hard to compete with the iPhone buzz.''

Apple will probably ship 4 million iPhones in the U.S. in the second half of this year, or quadruple the number of Instinct phones Samsung is likely to sell, according to estimates by Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment.

3G IPhone Launch

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, announced the faster and cheaper iPhone this month, which will go on sale in 22 countries on July 11 and run on third-generation, or 3G, wireless networks. AT&T said it would subsidize the device, which will sell for half as much as the previous version.

Unlimited 3G data plans for iPhone consumers will be available for $30 a month, in addition to voice plans starting at $39.99 a month, according to AT&T. The Instinct can be activated with Sprint's plan for unlimited data service starting at $69.99 per month, which will include 450 minutes of voice service.

LG, the world's fourth-largest handset maker, began selling its Vu to AT&T last month, increasing the number of touch-screen phones sold by the Korean company in North America to five. Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, has also promised to introduce touch-screen handsets this year to take on the iPhone.

Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, earlier this month unveiled its latest touch-screen model, the Omnia, which may be introduced in the U.S. by the end of the year.

Omnia Negotiations

``We are negotiating with a number of carriers in the U.S. and we are optimistic that we will come to an agreement soon,'' Youngcho Chi, senior vice president of Samsung, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on June 18. The company is talking to all four major U.S. carriers, Chi said.

The Instinct will run on Sprint's EV-DO Revision A network, which provides faster wireless access to browse the Internet and access e-mails.

The phone also comes with so-called ``haptic'' technology that makes the phone vibrate when the screen is touched. Equipped with 2 gigabytes of memory, the phone can store approximately 2,000 songs from the Sprint Music Store, according to Sprint.

Still, the Instinct is less attractive than the iPhone because of the smaller screen and user interface, according to Ovum's Dawson.

``If you're a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it's no iPhone,'' Mossberg wrote in a column on the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

Fastest-Growing Market

Phones with Internet, e-mail and video are the fastest- growing part of the handset market, with users forecast to quadruple to 400 million units in the next three years, according to RBC Capital Markets estimates.

Samsung boosted its global market share of the mobile-phone market to 16 percent in the first quarter, closing the gap with Nokia, which had a 41 percent, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., ranked fifth after LG Electronics, also plans to introduce its touch-screen X1 device under the new Xperia brand.

Motorola Inc., ranked third worldwide, may lose its No. 1 spot in the U.S. this year as consumers abandon its handsets for more-advanced models, research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics said last month.

``The iPhone is something Samsung will watch out for and may have to sell their phones at lower prices to compete,'' said Choi Hyun Jae, an analyst at Tong Yang Investment Bank in Seoul. ``Samsung will probably have to compete with the iPhone to win market share from Motorola, which is losing share in the U.S.''

Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kansas, fell 21 cents to $8.07 at 9:34 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Apple declined $1.48 to $179.42 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

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Apple TV, End of Set-Top Cable Boxes?

Richard Siklos

The announcement this week that Sony plans to work with other television makers to eliminate the need for set-top cable boxes could not have gained more affection at Fortune magazine's Hollywood digital test lab - also known as my living room.

Under the auspices of a cable industry standard called Tru2Way, Sony's plan is to sell TVs that will allow consumers to access interactive services like video-on-demand without renting and hooking up these bothersome cable boxes. (When was the last time you saw a cable box on top of a set, anyway?)

Last weekend, it so happens, I ventured into the newfangled world of gizmos designed to bypass the cable box - and cable altogether. These devices aim to bridge the computer and TV and, finally, allow people easily to download movies and shows directly from the Internet to their big screens. I decided to give the year-old Apple TV a whirl, and, as is often the case with things from Steve Jobs' elf-works, I was tickled to see that it arrived as a perfect little shiny white box with a wee remote. Hooking up the little guy was a little trickier, mostly because of the confounding array of inputs and controls on the LCD TV. (Truth is, had we not had a houseguest who happens to specializes in hooking up Apple networks, the Apple TV box would have been packed up and sent back - thanks John.)

Once up and running, it was great to use Apple's elegant navigation system to browse and order movies - and to watch trailers - compared to a typical cable-box remote and on-screen guide. The selection of movies (around 1,000) is better than what's available on cable video-on-demand, but still considerably less than the 10,000 that Netflix offers on its new set-side device. One cool feature of Apple TV: for a dollar more than the $2.99-$3.99 rental price, a lot of the latest films are available in high-definition. Podcasts, TV shows and selected Youtube videos are also available - plus the ability to look easily at photos and listen to music via my iTunes library.

Jobs has said he's disappointed with Apple TV sales, and, despite all its features, I can sort of see why. Undoubtedly cool, it was also something that most could live without - unlike, of course, their laptop, phone or music player - at least in this early iteration.

The endless parade of new gizmos that crescendos each January around the Consumer Electronics Show and Macworld highlight two vital questions for the gadget gods as well as the media mavens who are churning out the stuff to play on them. First, just because you can, does it mean that you should? For instance, because you can distribute all your content inexpensively for free online, is it really the best way to go? If you look at subscription-based cable channels like HBO, the answer would be no (or at least not yet). Similarly, the debate over whether all print media is created equal - and should be free and advertising-supported online - is still far from resolved. Of course, the specter of Napster-like piracy is a powerful inducement to play with new business models, however unproven.

Now for the second vital question: Is your product a solution to a real problem, or an answer to a problem that does not yet exist? In this category - and I know I'm inviting flaming by saying this - I'll put the well-received Amazon Kindle book reader. While it makes visceral sense that the production and distribution of books is amazingly inefficient and archaic, it's also not clear that book lovers have been yearning for a portable digital solution the way music lovers were (nor are they likely to start ripping them online).

So, back to the living room. Is a TV set that doesn't require an external cable box an answer to a real problem? Absolutely. But here again there are limits to what Tru2way can and can't do - for instance, you won't automatically be able to access the Web or a service like iTunes or Youtube from the built-in program guide. Therein lies the groaning irony: By the time the cable box is truly gone, new and improved versions of Apple TV and its ilk will probably take their place on ye olde set top.

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QuickTime Vulnerability Experienced In Mac OS X Too

Gregg Keizer

The QuickTime vulnerability disclosed in the Windows version of QuickTime last week also affects Mac OS X, Symantec said yesterday.

According to additional research by Symantec's security response team, the Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) bug in QuickTime is also present in the Mac versions of Apple's media player. "We tested it, and the [proof-of-concept] exploit does cause a denial of service," said Marc Fossi, manager of the Symantec team, explaining that the Windows-specific attack code fails to give a hacker access to a Macintosh but instead causes QuickTime to crash.

However, Fossi cautioned Mac users against believing that they are in the clear. "QuickTime vulnerabilities have tended to affect both Windows and Mac OS X, and it's always possible that a denial of service could lead to remote code execution," he warned.

Fossi also said that on Windows, it now appears that Microsoft's Internet Explorer Versions 6 and 7, as well as the beta of Apple's Safari browser, will offer some additional protection against attacks that are based on duping users into visiting malicious or compromised sites hosting rigged streaming content.

"The buffer overflow protection built into IE and in Safari prevents the exploit shell code from executing in the [QuickTime] plug-in," said Fossi. To successfully attack a user via IE or Safari, the current exploit example would have to be refined, Symantec added in a posting to its security blog Monday.

Firefox, however, provides no such protection, Fossi noted, because it passes off the streaming content request directly to the stand-alone QuickTime Player, ceding control to the Apple program.

Any attack on a Windows XP or Vista PC that circumvents the browser -- by delivering a rogue attachment that when opened automatically launches the QuickTime Player -- executes and compromises the computer, Symantec's research showed.

Fossi also repeated a warning given over the weekend that in-the-wild use of the exploit will probably come sooner rather than later. "When there is an exploit that's fairly complete, like this one, attacks could be soon in coming," he said. "It doesn't take someone very long to develop a malicious exploit when they start with something like this."

He recommended that network administrators block RTSP traffic -- the protocol's default outbound port is TCP 554 -- and that users steer clear of links to untrusted sites and be wary of file attachments.

Even though Apple has issued six QuickTime security updates so far this year and patched a total of 31 vulnerabilities, Fossi declined to call Apple's player less secure than those of rivals, such as Microsoft's Windows Media Player.

"Windows Media Player has had its share of vulnerabilities," he said. "A lot of people have media players installed on their computers, and they make pretty nice targets. Multimedia in general is a nice target for attackers. Most people know not to open a Word doc or an executable file, but with multimedia, everyone has a natural curiosity to see what their buddy just sent them.

"Then, bang."

Apple did not respond to questions about the QuickTime vulnerability and its plans for patching the program.

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