New and improved BlackBerry Storm a-comin' this fall?

The original Storm landed with a thud thanks to its sluggish performance, lack of Wi-Fi, and tricky touchscreen. Now a pair of reports have it that RIM is set to whip up a new Storm, complete with Wi-Fi and a "brand-new" touchscreen.

First up, we've got SlashGear, which has an unnamed source "very close to the issue" claiming that the "BlackBerry Storm 2" is set to arrive this September on Verizon Wireless, and that the revamped handset "addresses one of the biggest criticisms of the first smartphone and of Verizon devices in general" (ouch)—namely, that "it will support Wi-Fi."

Next comes Boy Genius Report, which claims that SlashGear's story is "100% confirmed" and adds a rumor of its own ("confirmed to us by two independent sources"): that the new Storm will have "new screen tech" that "improves the screen enormously and makes typing really pleasurable."

Now, if you recall, the original Storm's touch display (the first of its kind for a BlackBerry) is actually clickable—that is, you touch it lightly to move the cursor, then press harder on the spring-loaded display to "click" a button or perform an action.

The idea, of course, was to add some feedback to the Storm's virtual QWERTY keypad (as well as to "mimic" the "flick to select, click to take action" effect of "the old BlackBerry jog dial," as I wrote in my review), but users complained that the clickable display felt a bit "sticky" in actual use.

OK, so what's RIM's new touchscreen solution? No word on that, unfortunately, although Boy Genius Report claims that the new technology will be called "TruePress," for what it's worth.

In any case, the claims of a September release date for a Storm 2 sound about right; the first Storm was announced last October and released in late November, and handsets typically have a one-year life cycle. Also, RIM and Verizon Wireless are probably eager to step up the pace, given the original Storm's cool reception. (No official word from Verizon or RIM, of course.)

So, BlackBerry fans—ready for a new Storm? What features would you be looking for? And should the Storm 2 (assuming it exists) revamp the touchscreen, or are you fine with the current ClickThrough display?

Related:
Blackberry Storm 2 due in September, has WiFi [SlashGear]
BlackBerry Storm 2 with Wi-Fi and a new screen [Boy Genius Report]

Conflicker on Move(Source:Yahoo tech)

Last night, Conficker -- the computer worm that's had every computer user in a tizzy for weeks -- finally began to show signs of life. What exactly it's doing, no one's quite sure.

Here's the scoop: On April 8, Conficker began updating itself via Internet download, a process which became possible on the April 1 launch date. Before April 8, Conficker had been searching for updates but hadn't found any such instructions. Now they are finally being delivered.

What's in those instructions, though, remains a bit of a mystery: The downloaded programs are heavily encrypted, so they can't be analyzed in detail. We do know that, after installation, the instructions we can see are relatively benign: They tell the computer to check one of five random websites -- MySpace, eBay, AOL, CNN, and MSN -- in order to verify the computer has internet access. It then confirms the date and time.

After this, the downloaded software seemingly deletes itself, along with every trace that it had ever been installed (right down to the registry keys).

That doesn't mean it does delete itself, though. Some speculate that the downloaded software installs an as-yet undetectable rootkit on the machine that leaves the computer open for further compromise.

Curiously, the payload also includes instructions for Conficker to delete itself and stop running on May 3, though compromises already introduced -- and additional ones that may be downloaded over the next few weeks -- will leave any infected machine vulnerable to attack.

Research into exactly what's going on -- made difficult due to the encryption on the worm -- continues. (Trend Micro has more technical details if you're interested.) Stay tuned for more updates.

Hands on with Kensington's SlimBlade Trackball

I haven't been a trackball user for many years, but Kensington's new SlimBlade Trackball could make a convert of me once again.

Foremost this is a standard trackball, but it's one with an impressive feel and immaculate design. The ball is large and rides quite high. At the same time, as the name implies, the base is very slim and flat, the result being that your wrist doesn't strain upwards when you use it and your fingers rest very naturally on the top of the ball when you use it. Buttons are big and easy to reach, too. Overall I found the trackball extremely comfortable even for extended computing sessions.

If that was all there was to it, the SlimBlade would be a pretty cool device, but it has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

One problem with most trackballs is the lack of a scroll wheel. Well, Kensington solves that by letting you rotate the ball along the plane parallel to the desk to scroll up and down or left and right, whatever is allowed by the app you're in. Think of it as spinning a dial or knob side to side and you get the idea. No need to take your hand off the device to scroll; you can do it all with a simple twist.

And there's more: There are two additional working modes you can use, the View mode and the Media mode. Click the button above the right-click button and you enter View mode, which lets the trackball perform shortcuts designed for graphics and photo programs. Now, the dial-twist action zooms in and out of your image, a left-click displays the image at 100% size, and the right-click displays it to fit the width of the window. Click the View mode button again and you return to regular browsing. (View mode isn't supported in all apps, but it worked with everything I tried. A list of supported apps is here.)

Media mode is similar. Click the top-left button and the dial action changes volume, left-click pauses, and right-click stops the music. This works with both Windows Media Player and iTunes.

All cool stuff, and I encountered no problems working with any of the modes -- at least once I'd trained myself. Since none of this is labeled on the trackball (all four buttons are text-free), you might want to keep the cheat sheet guide handy for the first two days. (Also, don't forget, none of this will work unless you download the drivers from the above website; software isn't included in the box.)

At about $105 (street price), this isn't a cheap solution to dropping a standard mouse or even a less sophisticated trackball on your desk, but if you spend long hours working in image editing apps or leave your computer to play music all day long, the SlimBlade is an appealing solution... and a very attractive product to boot.

Voice mail losing its appeal for many

Remember when a blinking voice mail indicator on your phone or answering machine used to be a badge of honor, a status symbol that meant someone was looking for you and needed urgently for you to call them back?

Now that's been replaced by an email inbox, SMS, and comments on your Facebook status. For many, that blinking light is no longer something to be proud of but an annoying nuisance that's likely to be ignored outright.

It was slow to hit me, but I now realize that I'm among the "voice mail phobics" that the New York Times discusses in this story. When I return home, I feel anxious when checking for that red light, because if it's flashing, it means I have a headache ahead that I never want to deal with.

Like many, I use a voice mail service provided by the phone company, and while that's convenient -- when I'm on the road I can check my messages from anywhere, easily -- it means dialing a gaggle of numbers and passwords and remembering the various codes required to make it all work. Naturally the process is totally different for my cell phone and my land line, too. And even though I've set up speed dial codes to make this all reasonably automated, it's still a hassle that, at the end of a long day, is the last thing I want to deal with.

The bigger headache, though, is still lying in wait. Most messages are safely deletable ("This is an important announcement. UPS will be coming to your house between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.!") but some people really want me to call them back, leaving phone numbers and email addresses that, I guess, I am expected to write down. That means finding a pen and paper and, most difficult of all, the will to care about what the caller wants. If it's so important, can't they just send an email? If paper isn't within easy reach, I usually end up figuring that if it really is important enough, they'll call back.

And now I know: I am not alone. One study shows that 30 percent of all voice mail goes unretrieved for three days or more, and 20 percent of people rarely -- or never -- check their voice mail at all. On the other hand, text messages are responded to considerably faster, almost universally, even by older users.

I will say there's one reason I end up checking my voice mail that trumps all the others: It's the only way to stop that aggravating red light from blinking.

Spam level *declines*... to 97 percent of all email

If you think you're getting a lot of spam these days, well, that's because you are. In Microsoft's latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses). Surprisingly though, that's down a bit from the first half of last year, when total spam volume reached a whopping 98.4 percent of all email sent.

The latest report (which covers security through the end of 2008, so Conficker isn't part of the package) is available for download here. (Be warned: The full report is 184 pages long. Consider checking out the smaller highlight report instead.)

The good news: Spam filters are getting better than ever. Microsoft's filter system for Exchange now scrubs out 39 out of every 40 emails sent. Spam also saw that slight decline thanks to the shut down last year of the ISP McColo, a major haven for spammers who suddenly had to go shopping elsewhere.

What are we being spammed about? Pharmacy and other product ads make up the lion's share of spam, accounting for 72.2 percent of all spam sent. Only 10 percent of the total spam share now involves sexually-oriented pharmaceuticals; that's a huge decline from previous studies, as apparently Viagra and Cialis are no longer that hard to come by.

Image-only spam, dating come-ons, financial spam, and fraudulent diplomas round out the remainder of the most common spam subjects.

Alternate statistics show the total spam level at lower -- one source pegs it at a mere 81 percent of mail traffic (a figure which seems awfully low) -- and also notes that even with the taking down of McColo and other spammer ISPs, spam traffic will inevitably rise again to "normal" levels.

In the related world of malware infections, the Microsoft report noted that worldwide, 8.6 machines were suffering from malware for every 1,000 which were clean. That sounds pretty good, but it still translates to about 9 million computers worldwide suffering from malware attacks.

What do you need to watch out for today, attack-wise? The most common attacks at the moment target Microsoft Office and PDF files, and those types of attacks are further on the rise.

source:Y!tech

Hands on with the Nintendo DSi

The third generation of Nintendo's DS series handheld -- the Nintendo DSi -- is here and it's the biggest leap forward yet for the series. I got my hands on the gadget and have been really enjoying the gaming device so far. I expect any Nintendo fan will feel the same.

Let's look first at what's new and different about the DSi vs. older versions of the handheld. While it's a bit different in proportions (just a few mm in each dimension and about 4 grams lighter) than the DS Lite, the most obvious change is the addition of two cameras on the device. One points at you, one points out the back, so you can use the DSi for webcam-style self-shots (and all the tools you need to add bunny ears or wacky visual effects are included in the OS), or snap away like a regular camera. Well, a very low-res regular camera: Both lenses are 0.3-megapixels in resolution, and even up-close-and-personal shots are blurry and grainy. The DSi won't replace your regular camera -- heck, it won't replace your cell phone camera -- so think of it as a "just for fun" feature for use with the DSi's camera-aware game titles.

Where to save all those photos? The DSi now includes an SD slot you can use as you would on most any other device: Store pictures or drop some music on it so you can play it back with the DSi's audio player.

What had to go to make room for the cameras and SD slot? The old Game Boy Advance cartridge slot, which took up a huge amount of space on the older DSes but which few people ever used. Buh-gye.

There's more under the hood, as the DSi enters the late-2000s with both feet: Much like the Wii, you can download games from the Internet via an integrated shopping system, which you buy with Nintendo points. The DSi also works as a solid web browsing platform (courtesy of Opera), and the browser (free!) should likely be the first thing you download. Performance is on the pokey side, but the accuracy of web pages is surprisingly good, and it's easy to move around pages with the stylus.

Naturally the DSi is built for gaming, and gameplay is zippy, engaging, and addictive (provided the game is good). Both screens now measure 3.25 inches instead of the old 3 inches, and that means that though the games are the same, they're that much more immersive. Aside from some minor button-shifting, everything else is largely identical, though load times did seem faster, at least vs. my old (original) DS.

$170 is a pretty hefty investment in a handheld gaming device, but the DSi does so much I think the price is justified. If you're happy with your DS Lite, you probably needn't rush to upgrade right away. But the moment those buttons start to loosen up, well, get thee to a game store.

source:Y!tech

Return a cell phone.. go to jail???

Tales of police overreaction continue to amaze and disappoint. The latest news of a wildly inappropriate police response comes from our pals in the UK, where a young Paul Leicester found a cell phone lying in the street.

Leicester, ever the Good Samaritan, called up the last person who'd been dialed on the handset and arranged with the receiver, a friend of the phone's owner, to pick up the phone at the nearest police station.

Perhaps Leicester should have simply agreed to meet them there, as he'd find the next four hours of his life spent under arrest at the Merseyside police station, guilty, as the Daily Express puts it, of "theft by finding."

The chills that such a case give me are hard to put into words, namely because of the completely wrong message it sends to people who just want to exhibit common decency. Each year, Britons lose some 1 million cell phones. I've heard the figure reaches as high as 12 million phones in the U.S. each year, and only a small percentage of those handsets are ever returned.

When someone who finds a phone actually takes the time to thoughtfully contact the owner and arrange for the phone to be collected at a safe place, what are we saying when he is arrested for a crime instead of being thanked profusely?

The other thing about this case that I don't understand at all: What kind of cell phone thief would take a phone into a police station and turn it in to the cops?

Meanwhile, the Merseyside police have (obviously) dropped the case, but Leicester's family remains rightfully angry over the incident and say they expect an apology for their son, one which they've yet to receive. I'd add that the kid probably deserves a free cell phone for his trouble, too.

Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year

Admittedly I don't think much about it at all. I leave my laptop running overnight because I know it'll take five minutes or more to get things going in the morning -- not just booting up, but launching the various apps I start the day with, downloading my overnight email, filtering out the spam, and otherwise "getting settled."

But all the power wasted while computers are sitting idle overnight adds up, and one study has finally tried to measure it. The tally: An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

On a CO2 basis, that's 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the amount produced by 4 million cars on the road.

The full report is available for download here (scroll down to "PC Energy Report US 2009").

But big numbers like that become almost meaningless in an era of trillion-dollar bailouts, so to put the wasted energy in perspective, the study provides the data in terms you can better understand: If you run a company with 1,000 PCs left on overnight, you can save about $28,000 a year if they are turned off after hours. That's not chump change.

Of course, it's also a fact that your PC will function better if you restart it regularly, and nightly shutdowns can help you avoid having to suddenly reboot in the middle of the day when you'd otherwise be productive. So even though this little laptop, by my math, eats up only about a quarter's worth of power overnight, maybe it's a smart idea -- and ultimately a time-saver, too -- to shut it down after hours after all.

Via USA Today

Recycling a battery!!!

Like it or not, we live in a battery-powered world, and eventually those batteries, even the rechargeable ones, run out of juice and have to be discarded.

But... how exactly do you do that?

Batteries are little metal tubes full of often nasty chemicals and are often regarded as hazardous waste. Some can be recycled, some can't. The important point is to think before you simply toss them in the trash, and that's where this handy web page comes in.

TWICE magazine offers a comprehensive guide to the disposal of virtually every type of battery on the market, available here. It's organized by the basic type of battery -- alkaline, button, Ni-Cad, etc. -- and includes examples of where each of these batteries are used, alternate names, and so on. (Unfortunately the HTML on the page is a little messed up, causing the bullet point sections to be nested; try to ignore this.)

The sheer number of different battery types can be a little daunting, so here's a cheat sheet on how to deal with them when it's time for disposal.

> Alkaline (all types) and carbon-zinc batteries can be disposed of in regular trash, except in California (where they must be recycled) as well as, in the case of carbon-zinc, in one county in Minnesota. Silver-oxide button batteries (as in some hearing aids, watches, and greeting cards) can generally be thrown in regular trash but can also be recycled.

> Lithium- and nickel-based batteries can all be recycled. Nickel-based batteries are particularly hazardous and should never be thrown in the trash.

> Virtually all other battery types -- lead acid, other button-type batteries -- are hazardous waste and should be disposed of in accordance with local laws, which generally means dropping them off at a battery collection center.

Need help finding a place to drop off these batteries that you can't toss in the garbage? TWICE also directs us to the handy Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation website. Just visit this page, punch in your ZIP code, and the site will show you dozens of places near you where batteries are accepted for safe disposal. It's also worth noting that battery collection centers will usually take all your batteries, hazardous or no.

source: Yahoo Tech

Win Plantronics' next-gen Bluetooth headset -- before it's released!

Every now and then we get our hands on cool stuff to give away to readers, but this is the first time we've actually gotten access to a product for giveaway before it's even released.

We're not even sure what this Bluetooth headset will be called, but Plantronics is set to release the noise-canceling "luxury" model on April 23. The company has a sneak-preview website up where you can check out a glimpse of the product and see a little more about what really goes in to designing a high-end headset. Content on the site, with additional photos, is updated every few days.

Now for the fun stuff: Want to win one of your own? We'll select four winners at on April 22, and Plantronics says headsets will be shipped to them on the day of the announcement (as noted, April 23).

Here's what you have to do to qualify to win one. Two things: First, leave a comment on this post saying hello to your best friend. (If you don't have a best friend, you can say hello to me instead.) Second,
send an email to our official prizing email collector at this address
(do not email me personally!), providing your full name and mailing
address, phone number, and the Yahoo! ID you used when you left your
comment here. We'll pick the winners at random and match up the emails
the comments.

The
rules: You must live in the U.S. to be a winner (sorry, Canada!). You can only enter once. Yes, we'll check. Winners will be
chosen randomly on April 22. Plantronics and its reps will
be handling all shipping of prizes. Yahoo! is not responsible for lost,
missing, or broken packages. All personal data will be deleted after
the contest: We will not spam you or even keep copies of the entries.
Good luck!!

UK launches massive, one-year program to archive every email

In a move that even the most nonchalant of privacy advocates is crying foul over, the UK has put into effect a European Union directive which mandates the archival of information regarding virtually all internet traffic for the next 12 months. The program formally goes into effect today.

The data retention rules require the archival of all email traffic (the identities of the sender and receiver, but not the contents of the messages), records of VOIP telephone calls (traditional phone calls are already monitored), and information about every website visited by any computer user in the country. The rules are being pushed down "across the board to even the smallest company," as every ISP large or small will be required to collect and store the data. That data will then be accessible -- to fight "crime and terrorism," of course -- by "hundreds of public bodies" to investigate whatever crimes they see fit.

Technically the new directive applies to all countries of the EU, but individual nations appear to be complying with the rules to various degrees. Privacy-obsessed Sweden is reportedly ignoring the rule completely, for example.

The privacy implications of the rule are enormous, as everything UK citizens do online will now be under the watchful eye of EU's powerful Home Office. One privacy advocate, whose anger is clearly barely being held back, called it "the kind of technology that the Stasi would have dreamed of." Naturally, the government counters that this kind of information has already proven invaluable in tracking down criminals, including the killer of an 11-year-old boy a couple of years ago.

Privacy concerns aside, another issue becomes one of how exactly to manage all this data. A report dating back to 2004 estimated that a single, large ISP in the UK would need up to 40 million gigabytes of storage capacity to store the traffic data from a year of user activity. Even in 2009, that kind of storage doesn't come cheap, nor does the challenge of managing it all come easy.

Microsoft extends XP sales through April 2010

It is truly the OS that will not die: No matter what you think about Windows XP's successors, the Little OS That Could has reportedly been given yet another reprieve from the high-tech dustbin. AppleInsider claims that Microsoft has agreed to another extension on sales of Windows XP, at least for Hewlett-Packard, the largest manufacturer of Windows-based PCs in the country.

The new extension -- assuming the report is accurate -- allows sales of XP bundled with new PCs through April 30, 2010, allowing HP an extra nine months of sales.

The news puts all parties -- HP, Microsoft, and consumers -- in a strange situation, as Microsoft formally retired XP from shrinkwrapped sales long ago (in June 2008). More importantly, on April 14 of this year, Microsoft will end standard technical support for XP, too.

So-called extended support will be offered for XP for five more years (through April 8, 2014), which means the OS will still receive security patches and critical fixes, but the software will no longer receive feature upgrades after April 14, barely a week from now. More critically, customers will not receive any free tech support from Microsoft (though paid plans will still be available) and the company will not honor any warranty claims for XP, either.

As for other PC companies, unless they also reach a deal with Microsoft, they won't be able to offer Windows XP downgrades from Vista after July 31, 2009. Stay tuned.

Beware of Conflicker!!!!!!

April 1st came and went, and the Internet didn't completely melt down as many were certain would happen. But Conficker is still out there, alive and well, much to the gross confusion of a scared technology-using populace. So what now?

Security company F-Secure published a helpful guide late last week about what Conficker can still do, when it could happen, and where we go from here. I won't rehash their entire Q&A here -- just click on over to F-Secure and check it out -- but I do want to address some of the biggest questions about Conficker that I've received, including answers to some that aren't covered on F-Secure's Q&A page.

Q: How do I know if I have Conficker?
A: Probably the most common question I've been getting. Easiest way: Click this link and look for the images on the Conficker Eye Chart. If images are not showing up, you might have the worm. (Scroll down that page for details.)

Q: Now that April 1 has passed, do I still need to be worried?
A: Yes. Conficker is now live and waiting for instructions from its creators. Those instructions simply haven't been delivered yet but could come at any time.

Q: Why not? Is this all just a joke?
A: It's absolutely not a joke. The creators were in part thwarted by massive efforts to keep Conficker from spreading but are also likely to be lying low for now until the heat over Conficker dies down a bit.

Q: Who made this awful worm?
A: No one knows, but it is suspected to have originated in China. Microsoft's $250,000 bounty on the creator still stands.

Q: Did the security software companies make this thing just to drum up business?
A: No. Trust me, they're plenty busy with real malware attacks to need to write their own.

Q: How do I get rid of Conficker if I have it?
A: If your regular antivirus software is ineffective, this page has links to nine removal tools (scroll to the bottom).

Q: When will this ever end?
A: Probably not for a long time. As the F-Secure page notes, not "until all the computers are cleaned up or until the people behind it decide it's not worth it anymore."

Q: Why do people write all this horrible malware?
A: Easy: For the money. Most malware doesn't just wreak havoc on your computer any more (deleting files and the like), now it usually turns your PC into a spam-sending zombie or harvests financial information from your system, all while you're unaware of it. All of that translates directly into cash for the creator of the malware... and I guess that's a lot easier than finding a job.

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