NEw SARS-likE viRUS EMERGES iN MidEASt - Kuwait Times

HO CHI MINH CITY: Policemen and security staff secure the main entrance
gate of Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Court where three bloggers stand trial
for “anti-state propaganda” yesterday. The court in southern Vietnam jailed
three bloggers for “anti-state propaganda”, including one whose case has
been raised by US President Barack Obama. —AFP
New Zealand agents spied
‘unlawfully’ in Dotcom case
WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime
Minister John Key has ordered an inquiry
into government agents spying “unlawfully”
while assisting police in the lead up to
the arrest of Megaupload boss Kim
Dotcom.
Key said yesterday he has told the
Intelligence and Security department to
investigate “the circumstances of unlawful
interception of communications of certain
individuals by the Government
Communications Security Bureau”.
He said a memorandum had also been
filed in the High Court dealing with the
Megaupload case advising that the bureau
“had acted unlawfully while assisting the
police” to locate people subject to arrest
warrants issued in the case.
Key did not name Dotcom specifically,
but said the bureau “had acquired communications
in some instances without statutory
authority”.
Dotcom is fighting extradition to the
United States after being arrested in
January by New Zealand police cooperating
with a major US investigation.
The US Justice Department and FBI
claim Megaupload and related sites netted
more than $175 million in criminal proceeds
and cost copyright owners over $500
million by offering pirated copies of
movies, TV shows and other content.
The 38-year-old German national, who
legally changed his name from Kim
Schmitz, had moved to New Zealand in early
2010 and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle until
his arrest.
Key said he was “quite shocked” to learn
the government secret agents had acted
unlawfully.
“I expect our intelligence agencies to
operate always within the law. Their operations
depend on public trust,” he said.
Key said he had not been asked to sign
an intercept warrant in relation to
the case “nor was I briefed on the operation
in question” but he added he believed
the incident was an isolated error.
“Because this is also a matter for the
High Court in its consideration of the
Megaupload litigation, I am unable to comment
further.” —AFP
Kaspersky releases new
consumer products
DUBAI: Kaspersky Lab announces the release
of its new flagship consumer products:
Kaspersky Internet Security 2013Premium
Security Suite;and Kaspersky Anti-Virus
2013Essential Protection Solution.The new
versions of both products share the refined,
easy-to-use interface and deliver new technologies
to provide maximum protection
against all kinds of threats. In response to the
ever-changing threat landscape, particular
attention has been paid to the security of
potentially vulnerable applications thanks to
the unique Automatic Exploit Prevention technology.
Users of the brand new version of
Kaspersky Internet Security will also enjoy
complete protection for their online purchases
and online banking transactions, thanks to the
easy-to-use Safe Moneyfeature. Both products
are fully compatible with the Windows 8 operating
system, efficiently protecting applications
and user data, whether in the classic
orthe new touch-friendly user interfaces.
Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of
Kaspersky Lab, commented: “When developing
the new versions of our home user products
we paid particular attention to the users’
needs as well as the threats they face.
Knowing that the loss of sensitive data and
money are the things that worry users most,
we have developed an entire set of new protection
technologies to address these concerns.
Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 is now
better than ever when it comes to protecting
the most valuable information during online
activities. With its Hybrid Protection approach
and new Automatic Exploit Prevention and
Safe Money technologies,Kaspersky Internet
Security 2013 helps our customers build the
most efficient security system that is also easy
to set up and use.”
Main highlights
● New antivirus engine with better detection
rates for the entire scope of emerging
cyber threats
● Unique Automatic Exploit Prevention
technology targets the most sophisticated
threats utilizing vulnerabilities in popular software
● Simplified user interface provides easier
installation, activation and day-to-day use of
the product
● Better performance in key user scenarios
and longer battery life for mobile computers
New Kaspersky Internet Security features
● Unique Safe Money technology protects
users’ money “at all costs” during online shopping
and banking
● New anti-spam module efficiently blocks
unwanted mail, saving you time and hassle
Learn more about the key benefits of Kaspersky
Internet Security 2013 in this infographic.
Technology behind the
world-class security suite
Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 offers a
number of brand new technologies, designed
to combat the most widespread and sophisticated
threats that target your personal data
and bank accounts. Key among them are the
unique Automatic Exploit Prevention and Safe
Money technologies.
Protection from zero-day exploits
Automatic Exploit Prevention technology
was designed to address some of the most
sophisticated threats - those exploiting vulnerabilities
in popular software. Exploits
have long become the cybercriminals’
weapon of choice forperforming online
attacks known as ‘drive-by downloads’ -
when a user gets infected just by visiting a
certain webpage.
Automatic Exploit Prevention protects
Kaspersky Lab’s customers against these
types of exploits, including those that utilize
so-called zero-day vulnerabilities. The latter
are among the most dangerous, infecting
the system using unknown or unpatched
security flaws in popular software.Based on
Kaspersky Lab’s vast experience in IT security,
the Automatic Exploit Prevention technology
is able to recognize unauthorized
activity by an exploit without blocking the
normal operation of a potentially vulnerable
program such as your web browser, document
viewer etc. Learn more in this white
paper.
Secure online shopping and banking
Safe Money technology contains a
diverse set of protection methods for when
you deal with real money online. Such activity
may include making purchases online,
working with an electronic payment system
like PayPal, or accessing your bank account
from your computer. Available in Kaspersky
Internet Security 2013, this new feature provides
enhanced protection for your banking
operations.Here is how it works:
● Switches automatically to special “Safe
Browser” mode when you visit banking websites;
thisisolates your payment operation
from other online activities to ensure your
transaction is not monitored
● Activates automatically when visiting
most common payment websites, and you
can easily add your own bank or shopping
website to the list
● Checks the authenticity of the payment
website itself to ensure the site isn’t compromised
or a fake
● Safe Money evaluates the security status
of your computer, and warns about significant
threats that should be addressed
prior to making payments
● Virtual Keyboard ensures tamper-proof
entry of your password or credit card number
New and improved security features
Both Kaspersky Internet Security 2013
and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013 solutions
share the new antivirus engine, which offers
better detection of all types of malicious
programs, including the most complex samples.
Particularly, specific methods have
been introduced to better fight complex
and targeted threatsby neutralizing
attempts to embed malicious code into core
system processes. At the same time, our new
consumer products provide smaller and
faster database updates thanks to certain
parts of the antivirus databases being transferred
to the cloud-based Kaspersky
Security Network.
27
TECHNOLOGY
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
Data that lives forever
is possible: Hitachi
New method of storing digital information
TOKYO: As Bob Dylan and the Rolling
Stones prove, good music lasts a long time;
now Japanese hi-tech giant Hitachi says it
can last even longer-a few hundred million
years at least. The company yesterday
unveiled a method of storing digital information
on slivers of quartz glass that can
endure extreme temperatures and hostile
conditions without degrading, almost forever.
And for anyone who updated their LP
collection onto CD, only to find they then
needed to get it all on MP3, a technology
that never needs to change might sound
appealing.
“The volume of data being created every
day is exploding, but in terms of keeping it
for later generations, we haven’t necessarily
improved since the days we inscribed
things on stones,” Hitachi researcher
Kazuyoshi Torii said. “The possibility of losing
information may actually have
increased,” he said, noting the life of digital
media currently available-CDs and hard
drives-is limited to a few decades or a century
at most.
And the rapid development of technologies
has resulted in frequent changes of
data-reading hardware.
“As you must have experienced, there is
the problem that you cannot retrieve information
and data you managed to collect,”
said Torii, apparently referring to now-obsolete
record players and cine films.
Hitachi’s new technology stores data in
binary form by creating dots inside a thin
sheet of quartz glass, which can be read
with an ordinary optical microscope.
Provided a computer with the know-how
to understand that binary is available-simple
enough to programme, no matter how
advanced computers become-the data will
always be readable, Torii said.
The prototype storage device is two centimetres
(0.8 inches) square and just two
millimetres (0.08 inches) thick and made
from quartz glass, a highly stable and
SAN FRANCISCO: As the mobile computing
wars heat up, chipmakers that supply the
crucial components inside smartphones and
tablets aim to grab more of the glory.
Not content to remain in the shadows of
hot consumer brands like Apple or Samsung,
chipmakers — including Intel, Qualcomm
and Nvidia — want consumers to get to
know the processors that power their mobile
devices. They hope to build brand loyalty in
the process.
Intel is leading the charge by extending
its hugely successful “Intel Inside” marketing
campaign beyond personal computers.
Launched in 1991, “Intel Inside” stickers
turned commodity electronic components
into premium products, and eventually
became ubiquitous on laptops.
This year, the Intel Inside logo has
appeared on the backs of smartphones
launched in the United Kingdom, India and
Russia.
Intel hopes to bring the phone campaign
to the United States next year, seeking a marketing
advantage over rivals like Qualcomm
and Nvidia, which are not as well-known
among consumers.
“Without a doubt, my goal would be to
have consumers walk into stores and have
Intel Inside as a key driver of which phone or
tablet they choose, just like we’ve done in
the PC space,” said Brian Fravel, Intel’s head
of branding.
The world’s top chipmaker dominates the
PC market but lags smaller competitors in
the fast-growing mobile industry. Intel is
flexing its branding muscle to try to catch
up.
It remains to be seen how many handset
manufacturers agree to put the Intel Inside
logo on their devices. For emerging smartphone
brands, with little name recognition
of their own, partnering with Intel may be a
“no brainer.” At the other extreme, Apple
refuses to share branding with any of its suppliers.
The highest-profile smartphone maker so
far to use Intel’s branding is Google’s
Motorola Mobility, which launched the Razr i
in London on Sept 18.
Until now, space on most smartphones
has been reserved for the vendor, such as
Apple or Samsung, and carriers like Verizon
Wireless.
Providers of operating systems , such as
Google’s Android, also covet consumer loyalty
- their logos sometimes appear briefly on
screens when devices are turned on.
A logo-happy approach to smartphones
and tablets, though, would run the risk of
confusing consumers with what some
experts call the NASCAR effect.
As a rule, it’s seen as a good idea to add
extra branding to products only when the
additional brand strongly conveys a quality
that the handset maker’s own brand lacks.
resilient material, used to make beakers and
other instruments for laboratory use.
The chip, which is resistant to many chemicals
and unaffected by radio waves, can be
exposed directly to high temperature flames
and heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832
Fahrenheit) for at least two hours without
being damaged.
It is also waterproof, meaning it could survive
natural calamities, such as fires and
tsunami. “We believe data will survive unless
this hard glass is broken,” said senior
researcher Takao Watanabe. The material currently
has four layers of dots, which can hold
40 megabytes per square inch, approximately
the density on a music CD, researchers said,
TOKYO: A woman holds up Japan’s electronics giant Hitachi’s newly unveiled quartz
glass plate technology, which can be used for the indefinite storage of data, next to a
computer monitor at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo yesterday. The new technology
stores binary data by using a laser beam to create dots inside the thin sheet
of quartz glass which can then be read using an optical microscope connected to a
monitor device with data reading software. —-AFP
“Can you generate end-user demand for
your processors? That’s what they’re all looking
at, and that’s not an easy thing to do in
the mobile space where people aren’t accustomed
to it,” said Jack Gold, a tech industry
analyst at J. Gold Associates.
Part of the reason the Intel Inside campaign
has been unrivaled in the chip industry
is that no one else can match Intel’s $2.1
billion annual budget for advertising and
marketing. Intel helps pay for the PC makers’
own ads, as long as they include Intel Inside.
A TV ad promoting a phone launched by
Orange in the United Kingdom in February
features a supersonic car driven by a darkclad
pilot whose clothes are emblazoned
with Intel Inside.
Intel surveyed customers who bought
Orange’s phone.
“It wasn’t as though these were techsavvy
people who were reading all the
benchmarks. They said Intel Inside meant
performance to them,” Intel’s Fravel said.
Badly underestimating how quickly the
mobile market would grow, Intel was slow to
develop application processors, the punchy
but energy-efficient chips that drive web
surfing, games and other advanced features
of smartphones and tablets.
Along with Qualcomm, Samsung is a
major producer of mobile processors, most
of which it manufactures on behalf of Apple’s
iPads and iPhones. Texas Instruments and
Broadcom also make mobile processors, but
do not advertise much to consumers.
Since the 1990s, Qualcomm has been a
major player in the mobile chip industry. For
most of that time, advertising has been an
afterthought for the San Diego-based company.
Most of Qualcomm’s marketing has been
directed at a specific category of tech enthusiasts
keenly interested in the components
used in their devices. It has taken the form of
YouTube videos, Internet ads and social
media instead of TV commercials and other
pricey campaigns.
In October, Qualcomm is set to start a new
branding campaign, coinciding with the
launch of tablets and other devices using its
adding they believe adding more layers
should not be a problem. Hitachi have not
decided when to put the chip to practical use
but researchers said they could start with
storage services for government agencies,
museums and religious organisations. —-AFP
‘Intel Inside’ ignites
mobile branding war
chips and Microsoft’s next-generation
Windows platform.
As part of the drive, Qualcomm will share
advertising with manufacturers to showcase
features of its chips, said Tim McDonough, a
Qualcomm vice president responsible for
marketing the company’s Snapdragon
mobile processors.
“You’ll start to see the Snapdragon brand
appearing in a lot more places. But the key is
having it appear in places where it has value
to the user as a starting point. Right now, the
consumer is saying, ‘I’m ready for my next
phone, I’m not sure what to buy, and I need
some help,’” McDonough said, in a telephone
interview.
McDonough would not say how much
Qualcomm plans to spend on advertising to
counter Intel, which last year even paid hit
Korean pop group Girls’ Generation for TV
ads and a single written for Intel.
Signaling its growing interest in creating
brand awareness, Qualcomm renamed a professional
football venue in San Diego
“Snapdragon Stadium” for a few days last
year.
And suggesting Qualcomm sees the PC
industry as a model for its marketing, it hired
a new chief marketing officer, Anand
Chandrasekher, a veteran Intel senior executive,
in August.
As much smaller Nvidia transitions to the
mobile market, it aims to capitalize on game
enthusiasts who are passionate about its PC
graphics chips. Its well-oiled marketing
department hosts tournaments and aggressively
interacts with industry pundits.
Last year, Nvidia spent just $9.5 million on
advertising, a sum that can’t buy anything
close to Intel’s broad recognition. But it can
help win loyalty from a narrow but influential
group of young men.
“Intel spends way more money branding
Intel Inside, but we’ll go to events, and
gamers will come up to us with the Nvidia
logo tattooed on their body, shaved on their
head,” said Ujesh Desai, Nvidia’s vice president
of corporate marketing.
Leveraging its popularity with game fans,
Nvidia has created Tegra Zone, a collection of
games optimized to work better on mobile
devices using Nvidia’s Tegra processors. Ads
for tablets like Google’s Nexus 7 boast of
Nvidia’s punchy graphics.
“Our tack doesn’t start with, ‘How much
are we going to pay you so you put our logo
on there?’ Our tack is more, ‘Here’s how we
can partner with you so we can create a
great experience,’” Desai said.
With stagnant PC sales, executives see
mobile gadgets as the future. Annual
sales of processors used in smartphones
and tablets could hit $25 billion by 2016,
compared with $9 billion last year, according
to market research firm Strategy
Analytics. —AP