Volume 14, Issue 12 Atari Online News, Etc. March 23, 2012 Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2012 All Rights Reserved Atari Online News, Etc. A-ONE Online Magazine Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor Atari Online News, Etc. Staff Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking" Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile" Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips" Rob Mahlert -- Web site Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame" With Contributions by: Fred Horvat To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe, log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org and click on "Subscriptions". OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org and your address will be added to the distribution list. To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to subscribe from. To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the following sites: http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm Now available: http://www.atarinews.org Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi! http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/ =~=~=~= A-ONE #1412 03/23/12 ~ Power of the Internet! ~ People Are Talking! ~ No New Xbox Soon! ~ Web Address Controversy ~ AOL Killing AIM Dev Team ~ Celeb Hacker Guilty! ~ Yahoo Board Challenge! ~ Facebook Warns Employers ~ I Google with Bing! -* Seattle Retro-Computing Meet *- -* Chrome Wins Browser Battle With IE! *- -* Microsoft Banning Apple Purchases by Staff *- =~=~=~= ->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""""""" Well, I apologize for my maudlin commentary last week, but apparently today's culture states that it's good for one's soul. Whatever, but it did help to "vocalize" some important concerns. It's been a trying week, still waiting for the many contacts that I made to follow up with some needed answers to my questions. About all that I have learned is a couple of outstanding fees to cover some of the final burial arrangements. Nothing from insurance companies or the probate court in order for me to move forward with dealing with my father's estate. It looks like I may have to retain an attorney to help manage a lot of the inevitable red tape. How about this summer-like weather we've been having lately?! Records have been dropping like meteors lately - about 5-6 have been smashed in this area this month already! It's mid-March and many of my perennials are already flourishing, and tree buds have started to sprout. Now we can look forward to being buried under a lot of pollen. Fun stuff! I think we're fairly close to saying a final goodbye to the winter that never was - at least for this year! Until next time... =~=~=~= ->A-ONE User Group Notes! - Meetings, Shows, and Info! """"""""""""""""""""""" Seattle Retro-Computing Society Meets Saturday, March 24th Come one, come all, to the Seattle Retro-Computing Society's regular monthly meeting! It will be held Saturday, March 24th from 11:30 AM to 5:00 PM (please note our new starting time, which is an hour later than it was last year). Please read the important announcement about our website at the end of this message! Do you do any of the following with old computers? Will you be near Seattle on Saturday? + Use, collect, and/or restore them + Play games on them + Write programs for them + Develop new hardware for them + Help other people do any of the above If your answer was "yes," then the SRCS is for you! We exist so you can show off your awesome stuff, bounce ideas off of fellow enthusiasts, and be inspired by one another's achievements, plans and aspirations. No idea is too big or too small, and we're not picky about what flavor of vintage machine you prefer! Come on down and tell us about it! The meetings are graciously hosted by the Living Computer Museum, which is gradually fitting out a computer museum in Seattle's SODO neighborhood. There will be refreshments, a Buy-Sell-Free-Trade table, and enough table space & power to set up anything you may want to show off! For further details, please see our web page at http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/ and our mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-retrocomp . Hope to see you there! We are pleased to announce that the feature on our website which says who is coming, what they mean to bring, and what they hope someone else will bring has been de-zombied. We formerly had trouble with it not resetting after the meetings each month, so no one could rely on anything they saw there unless it happened to contain a date. Well, it now works properly (AND says when you're coming even if you don't say you'll bring anything!) - but since everyone kind of gave up on it over the last few months, as I write this only three people have filled it out for the coming meeting. Please take a moment to fill in your RSVP for March! Gordon "gsteemso" Steemson SRCS agitator-in-chief =~=~=~= ->In This Week's Gaming Section - No Plans for New Xbox Anytime Soon! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" =~=~=~= ->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Microsoft Says No Plans for New Xbox Anytime Soon Microsoft says it's not coming out with a new Xbox gaming console anytime soon. Some video game players had hoped that Microsoft Corp. would unveil an upgrade at the E3 Expo in June, a big, yearly video game conference in Los Angeles where game makers show off new wares and titles. Microsoft Corp. said Monday that it won't be discussing new Xbox hardware at the event. Rather, it plans to focus on games, music and other entertainment for the Xbox 360, which came out in 2005. Nintendo Co. will be showcasing the Wii U, the successor to the Wii. Unlike the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3, the current Wii doesn't offer high-definition graphics, so it's in greater need of an upgrade. =~=~=~= A-ONE's Headline News The Latest in Computer Technology News Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson The Power of The Internet at The Heart of One World Festival The One World international documentary festival, which opens here on Wednesday, will focus on the new weapon in revolutions and revolts across the world: the Internet. "If the Romanian 1989 revolution was the first one to be televised, the Green movement from Iran blossomed on the Internet and was fuelled via virtual networks. This change of tools has only taken 20 years", the organisers underlined. "Young generations are contesting the existing power in the West but also in the rest of the world, especially in the East. We want to reflect these changes", festival director Alexandru Solomon told a press conference. A special section called "Revolution Online" will showcase "Rouge Parole", the story of the Tunisian revolution and the expulsion of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Internet and social networks played a crucial role in the mobilisation against the regime in several countries, such as Egypt. "Fragments of a Revolution" shows how Iranian exiles depended on the Internet to follow the "Green movement" in their home countries, trying to find images and comments on social networks, anxiously expecting mails from their friends and families who were left behind. But the power of new technologies also helped British students to find new ways of protesting against austerity cuts. The film "The Real Social Networks" follows the backroom meetings of a group of London students as they hacked computers, occupied universities and shut down banks. A total of 50 documentaries from around the globe will be shown until Sunday in Bucharest in one of the biggest documentary film festivals in eastern Europe. Major Yahoo Shareholder Launches Board Challenge A major Yahoo shareholder has launched a campaign to win four seats on the Internet company's board, setting the stage for a nasty battle that could drag on for months. Hedge fund Third Point LLC, which owns a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo Inc., thinks the struggling company would do better if Third Point representatives were in the boardroom helping recently hired CEO Scott Thompson overhaul the operations. Thompson joined Yahoo's board in January after the company lured him away from eBay Inc.'s PayPal to become its CEO. Third Point formally began its attempt to shake up Yahoo's board with a Wednesday regulatory filing that comes more than a month after the hedge fund announced it would revolt unless the company accepted its slate of candidates as directors. In a letter last week, Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb gave Thompson a final chance to avert a mutiny by allowing the hedge fund's candidates to join the company's board. Yahoo now must grapple with a shareholder mutiny that will add to the turmoil surrounding the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, as Thompson mulls a dramatic reorganization that could bring a large number layoffs. This marks the second time in four years that Yahoo has faced a boardroom challenge from a disgruntled shareholder. In 2008, billionaire Carl Icahn sought to overthrow Yahoo's board after the company balked at a chance to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share. Icahn wound up accepting a truce that gave him and two of his hand-picked choices seats on Yahoo's board. Icahn and his allies are no longer on the board. Third Point, based in New York, wants to use the botched Microsoft negotiations as an example of why Yahoo's board needs more expertise. The hedge fund opposes a Yahoo request to maintain a court seal on certain documents contained in a lawsuit filed by shareholders upset about how the Microsoft talks were handled. The Delaware Chancery Court case has already been settled, but Third Point still wants the opportunity to review some of the evidence that so far has been kept under wraps. Third Point's proposed directors are Daniel Loeb, the hedge fund's manager; former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker; former MTV Networks executive Michael Wolf and turnaround specialist Harry Wilson. In its filing, Third Point estimated it will spend about $8 million trying to get its nominees elected. The hedge fund already has invested about $1 billion during the past seven months to acquire its Yahoo holdings. Yahoo's 11-member board already has changed. Four directors, including Chairman Roy Bostock, plan to step down at the company's annual meeting this year. The company appointed two directors, Alfred Amoroso and Maynard Webb, to its board last month and says it is still evaluating other candidates.. Unless a compromise is reached, the showdown between Yahoo and Third Point will be settled at the company's annual meeting. A date for the meeting hasn't been set yet, although Yahoo usually holds it in late June. When Icahn mounted his 2008 challenge, Yahoo postponed the meeting until August. The upcoming departures from Yahoo's board are part of an attempt to placate shareholders frustrated with a long-running financial funk that has depressed the company's share price. Web Address Controversy Deepens after U.S. Warning A controversial attempt to expand Internet addresses far beyond the likes of .com, .org or .net has provoked a rare threat from the U.S. government to withdraw a key license from the body that runs the Internet's core functions. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) depends on its U.S. government contract to coordinate the unique addresses that tell computers where to find each other, without which the global Internet could not function. But this month the government warned that the non-profit body's rules against conflicts of interest were not strong enough and only temporarily extended ICANN's contract - which it has held since its formation in 1998 - instead of renewing it as many in the industry had expected. A failure to secure the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract would severely damage ICANN's ability to implement its address expansion program, the most radical move in the organization's history. The conflict of interest concerns arise from the fact that some past and present board members stand to benefit financially from the liberalization of Web addresses through ties to organizations that make money from registering new domain names or consulting on the expansion. Currently, organizations are restricted to a couple of dozen so-called top-level domains, such as .com, .org or .net, or country code domains such as .co.uk. ICANN wants to enable brands, cities or firms seeking to build new Internet businesses to apply to own and run their own domains, for example .apple, .nyc or .gay, giving them more control over their Web presence and a greater choice of names. "Not to award ICANN the IANA contract would be to completely knock it off its foundations," said Philip Corwin, who is legal counsel for the Internet Commerce Association, an organization for domain name investors and developers. "ICANN needs that contract to have the authority they need to really make this program work." The contract has been renewed until September. A whole industry has already sprung up to take advantage of ICANN's initiative. One of those is Top Level Domain Holdings, a London-listed firm set up to acquire and operate the new domains, whose chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, was chairman of ICANN when it approved the change. TLDH has already put in 40 applications and intends to submit more for domains including .miami and .music. Many critics are skeptical as to whether ICANN will achieve its stated aim of boosting competition and innovation, pointing to previous experiments with the likes of .aero, .travel and .museum, which have gone largely unused. But convinced or not, hundreds of consumer brands feel forced to apply for their own domains - a costly and complex process that comes with obligations to actively operate the domain - fearing they will lose out to rivals if they do not. A three-month window will close on April 12, likely for years and possibly forever. A recent survey by Internet registry services company Afilias, which is applying for about 150 new domains on behalf of clients and already provides key infrastructure for .org, .info and .mobi, found considerable uncertainty about the process. Of 200 major consumer brands it surveyed in the United States and Britain, 53 percent were either not aware that they could participate in the process at all or did not know that the application window was open and when it would close. Of those who were aware, however, 54 percent of brands were in the process of applying, and only 6 percent said they definitely would not. "There's a buzz about this now," said non-executive Afilias director Jonathan Robinson. Others with less of a stake in the process call such behavior outright defensive. "Of the people that I'm talking to, the vast majority of those that are moving ahead to apply don't have a concrete business initiative in mind for how they will use the registry," said Jeff Ernst of technology analysis firm Forrester. "They're fearful of another organization getting their string, or they're fearful that another competitor will buy its own and get first-mover advantage in doing something strategic." Stuart Durham, European sales director of consultancy Melbourne IT, which is preparing about 100 applications for customers, says interest is rapidly increasing as the end of the window approaches. Joshua S. Bourne, a managing partner and co-founder of FairWinds Partners, a consultancy that works with brands on their Internet strategy, said some of the world's biggest brands were refusing to apply. "I think we're going to be very surprised on May 1st when some of the world's biggest brands aren't included," he said. "They want to make a statement because they don't agree with the whole ICANN process, but in the end I think they'll regret it." Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's outgoing chief executive, told Reuters this week the expansion was going smoothly. "We're holding the course. There's not a single complaint about anything to do with the administration of the program." But at a major ICANN meeting earlier this month he warned it was time for the organization to tighten up its rules. "ICANN must be able to act for the public good while placing commercial and financial interests in their appropriate context. How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?" "Preserving ICANN's ability to act independently, in the public interest, is paramount to the future of the Internet and this institution," he said. Facebook Warns Employers Not To Demand Passwords Facebook is warning employers not to demand the passwords of job applicants, saying that it's an invasion of privacy that opens companies to legal liabilities. The social networking company is also threatening legal action. An Associated Press story this week documented cases of job applicants who are being asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their backgrounds. In a post on Friday, Facebook's chief privacy officer cautions that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may open itself up to claims of discrimination if it doesn't hire that person. "If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password," Erin Egan wrote. Chrome Wins Weekend Browser Battle with IE Google Inc's Chrome web browser overtook Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer (IE) to become market leader globally for the first time last Sunday, web analytics firm StatCounter said on Wednesday. "While it is only one day, this is a milestone," said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter's chief executive. "At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to IE." On March 18, Chrome was used for 32.7 percent of all browsing, while Explorer had 32.5 percent share. When people returned to their offices on Monday, the IE share rose to 35 percent and Chrome's share slipped to 30 percent. "Whether Chrome can take the lead in the browser wars in the long term remains to be seen, however the trend towards Chrome usage at weekends is undeniable," Cullen said. On a monthly basis, Chrome's market share has surged to 31 percent so far in March from 17 percent a year ago, while Explorer has slipped to 35 percent from 45 percent a year earlier. The market share of Firefox - which is popular in Europe - is globally around 25 percent. Apple Inc's Safari is a distant number four with a 7 percent share of all browsing, with Opera at number five on 2 percent. StatCounter statistics are based on aggregate data from more than 3 million websites with a sample of more than 15 billion page views per month. AOL Isn't Killing AIM... Just Most of Its Dev Team Internet veteran AOL has had its fair share of documented struggles in recent years. The mobile revolution and appification of the Internet hasn’t been kind to the Web 1.0 company, which has largely tied its hopes around its acquisition of The Huffington Post. Now speculation has turned to its latest round of layoffs and the possible execution of one of its core products: AIM. According to the New York Times, some 40 employees were eliminated from AOL last week, and the AIM division felt the deepest hurt. One staffer told the paper that AIM is "eviscerated and now only consists of support staff" nearly all of the West Coast tech team has been killed." Supporting the "AIM is dead" mantra is the fact that Jason Shellen has been let go. He was VP of AOL messenger products and was brought over from Things Labs in 2010. Things Labs was the home of Brizzly, a social Web product that was killed off in order to focus efforts on AIM. "We didn’t plan to get rid of the service we spent the prior year or so building, but we knew there was a possibility it might not make sense to continue work on it," a blog post from the team posted earlier this month reads. "Sure enough, once we set to the task at hand - improving the hell out of AIM - we had little to no time to work on Brizzly, and it became clear that the new things we’re working on are far more worth our time and attention." That’s an understatement: until recent renovations, AIM was a sad, pitiful excuse for instant messaging dying a painful death at the hands of GTalk and Facebook Chat. If you haven’t used it since you got your Gmail or Facebook account (like some of us), it deserves another look. The refresh makes it better looking, less juvenile, and practical with its integrations with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Gmail. Improvements or not, AIM isn’t in a safe position. A system error yesterday caused more red flags: tons of users were unable to log into their AIM accounts. AOL has since said this was not an indication of abandonment but simply a 'hiccup' that the team has fixed. Touche, AOL, but my AIM client continues to misbehave, working on and off all morning. I can sign in but IMing someone (who I can see in my GTalk window is online) simply pings me with a 'user unavailable' notice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Let us know if any of you are having problems. So the problem with AIM is different than we thought: AOL isn’t outright killing the IM client, it just killed off the team - weeks after launching the overhaul. Now we have a beautiful new interface and expanded, necessary features and no one to clean up the technical messes inside. AOL is trying to go lean on products, and its AIM redesign was a bit ambitious considering the scope of the company’s layoffs. But AIM will live (or some version of living). It’s a legacy product and something the AOL will continue to use but probably not invest as much energy or money into. It’s trying to transition into an ad-based Web media network, and AIM probably won’t be a big part of that (email likely will face the same fate). Other divisions should prepare for similar treatment, including the oft-targeted Patch. Though it’s part of the whole Web content strategy, it’s only been criticized by investors as a moneyhole. Still, it’s CEO Tim Armstrong’s passion project, so even if Patch is subject to layoffs, AOL won’t forsake it entirely. The treatment of AIM and its development team sort of embodies the mindset of once-great, now-grasping Web companies: innovation is overrated. Man To Plead Guilty for Celeb Hacking A Florida man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking into the email accounts of celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson, whose nude photos eventually landed on the Internet, according to court documents filed Thursday. Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, Fla., will plead guilty Monday in Los Angeles federal court to nine felony counts, including unauthorized access to a computer and wiretapping, the documents say. He faces up to 60 years in prison. Defense attorney Christopher Chestnut said Thursday night that he is still working with prosecutors and wouldn't confirm the number of felony counts Chaney will plead guilty to. "To date, Chris has been very cooperative with prosecutors, he's remorseful for any of the harm caused to the stars, and just looks to a resolution of the case," Chestnut said. Chaney was arrested in October as part of a yearlong investigation of celebrity hacking that authorities dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi." Prosecutors said Chaney hacked into the email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry, including Aguilera and Johansson. Nude photos Johansson had taken of herself were later posted on the Internet. Aguilera also had private photos put online, court documents show. Johansson told Vanity Fair for its December issue that the photos were meant for Ryan Reynolds, who is now her ex-husband. Chaney mined through publicly available data to figure out password and security questions for celebrity accounts. He hijacked a forwarding feature so that a copy of every email a celebrity received was sent to an account he controlled, according to court documents. Chaney said he managed to hack into Johansson's email account to send one of her acquaintances an email containing a nude photo of her in exchange for a photo, authorities said. A search warrant unsealed and obtained by The Associated Press said Chaney's computer hard drive contained numerous private celebrity photos and a document that compiled their extensive personal data. Chaney forwarded many of the photographs to two gossip websites and another hacker, but there wasn't any evidence that he profited from his scheme, authorities said. He has since apologized for his actions. Microsoft Banning Mac, iPad Purchases by Its Sales and Marketing Group? Summary: An alleged internal Microsoft e-mail claims the company’s marketing and sales organization is about to halt Mac and iPad purchases made with company funds. Smart or pointless? Microsoft’s Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations Group (SMSG) may be putting in place a policy to prevent employees from using corporate funds to buy Macs and iPads. Based on an alleged internal e-mail passed on to me by one of my contacts, this edict just came down last week. SMSG encompasses 46,000 Microsoft employees worldwide, according to a Microsoft Careers page about the group, and includes Microsoft’s front-line consumer and business sales, service and support people. Here’s that supposed e-mail, from Alain Crozier, the chief financial officer of SMSG: From: Alain Crozier Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 1:17 PM Subject: Apple Purchases Within SMSG we are putting in place a new policy that says that Apple products (Mac & iPad) should not be purchased with company funds. In the US we will be turning off the Apple products from the Zones Catalog next week, which is the standard purchasing mechanism for these products. Outside of the US — we will work with your finance and procurement teams to send the right message and put the right processes in place. The current purchase levels are low, however we recognize there will be a bit of transition work associated with this. Details of historical purchases in the US are provided in the attachment to help understand the changes that will be needed.Thank you for your support and leadership on this. Alain Crozier CFO | WW Sales, Marketing & Services Group WW SMSG Finance I asked Microsoft for confirmation that the email was real. I was told by a spokesperson that the company had no comment. No confirmation; no denial. It has been Microsoft’s policy for years - dating back to Windows Mobile in 2009 - that iPhones, Blackberrys and Palm devices (and their respective data plans) cannot be expensed. Microsoft provided its own employees with free Windows Phones in 2010 (just like Apple did in 2007 when it gave its employees iPhones). Microsoft hasn’t attempted to require its employees to use nothing but Windows Phones or Windows PCs, as is evident at any Microsoft conference and/or campus visit. Some folks think moves like the alleged Mac and iPad ban make sense. Others find them overblown. If current purchase levels really are low, as the alleged memo says, why go so far as to ban them, asked one former Softie. And what about knowing your enemy? What’s your take? If it’s really happening (which I believe it is, given where I got the e-mail), is this a smart or a pointless move on Microsoft’s part? My vote is smart. In fact, I’m surprised this policy wasn’t put in place before. 'I Google Everything With Bing Now' Even fed-up former Googlers who have migrated to Bing can't really get away from the search giant. "I google everything with Bing now," said commenter Azalp Yerbua in response to our post on Google's betrayal of its users. Yerbua has decided, like many others, that he or she doesn't approve of Google's moves of late, so our commenter will now "google" with Bing. With the use of google as a verb Yerbua reminds us, however, just how dominant the company is. Not only is Google the default search engine of choice for so many of us, it also runs our email accounts, or navigation systems, our Internet chat clients, etc. Google is everywhere! Even in our lexicon. =~=~=~= Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for profit publications only under the following terms: articles must remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of Atari Online News, Etc. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.