Since at least the 1990s, when personal computers first became commonplace, public policy experts have worried the ill effects of a Digital Divide. That is, a learning, socialization and economic gap across socio-economic status, race and gender caused by unequal access to computing resources.

No need. The Digital Divide has now been bridged by smartphones - the most advanced personal computing devices ever. While personal computers were disproportionally used by the rich, the white and the male, smartphones are more likely to be used by Blacks and Hispanics than Whites, and by girls as equally as boys.

Whites Trail In Smartphone Ownership

According to a Pew research survey conducted last year, 49% of Hispanics and 47% of Blacks own a smartphone, compared to only 42% of Whites. The survey also revealed than men and women were about evenly split (46% to 45%, respectively) in smartphone ownership, as were suburban and urban residents (49% to 48%, respectively).

Only The Income Gap Remains

Mobile computing is a fast-moving revolution that is spreading online access to all who welcome it. In fact, the majority of adult Americans and more than a third of teens now own a smartphone. That said, household income remains a differentiator - there is still a clear gap in smartphone ownership between rich and poor.

Expect this too to disappear very soon as prices continue to fall.

Android smartphones and the latest Nokia Asha devices, for example, are available for less than $100 (no contract needed) all around the world. In the U.S., many smartphones now come free with a carrier voice and data plan. Prices for devices and services will almost certainly continue to drop.

In an interview with Bloomberg last month, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen noted that "$50 Android smartphones" would be available this year.  Carriers that demand fees that millions cannot afford are likely to be routed around - by Google fiber as likely as legislation. Fewer and fewer people, particularly in the United States and other rich countries, will be denied always-on, any-place connectivity to the global Web.

The Smartphone Is The Computer

Naysayers like to retort that smartphones don't fully erase the Digital Divide because, even more than tablets,they are primarily "consumption" devices. While "real" computers, the argument goes, can be used to create things and do real work, smartphones are all about downloading content and chatting on Facebook. 

Work is changing, however, in many cases to take advantage of the spread of smartphones.  Such changes may, in fact, disproportionately favor minorities. A separate Pew study last year revealed that Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to use their mobile devices for a wider range of activities than do Whites. 

(See also Teenagers & Smartphones: How They're Already Changing The World.)

Further, some have called the notion that smartphones are not designed for "real work" an elitist view: 

To discount identity performance, socialization and other activities on social media as not productive, not educational, not meaningful, pure entertainment and a waste of time offensively reduces less privileged folks as “an other,” less worthy and less human.

Productivity Divide?

If smartphones connect an increasing number of Americans to knowledge resources, job opportunities and cultural amenities, are they  delivering a clear and calculable economic benefit equivalent to that provided by PCs? 

It seems that economic analysis has simply not yet caught up with the impact smartphones are having on work and the economy. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that already today's smartphones possess the computing power of a "desktop" in 2005 and that "at heart [smartphones] are like all computers before them. They are efficiency engines, a means of saving time, bridging distance, reducing cost."

Nonetheless, the Journal acknowledges that proving smartphones' aggregate economic value remains difficult: 

Yet there's something bizarre going on. Even as an estimated 130 million smartphones roam the U.S. streets, economists can't quite find them.

Still, as the Journal also states: "Can you find an area of life and business not being affected by the devices?" 

Global Phenomenon

The situation may be even clearer overseas. Already, 89% of the developing world has a mobile device. It's a solid assumption that these mobile phone users will soon transition to smartphones. Indeed, smartphone sales now eclipse traditional mobile phone sales. According to the International Telecommunication Union, "mobile broadband" subscriptions have grown from 278 million in 2007 - when the iPhone was first introduced - to 2.1 billion this year.

These numbers continue to grow - and researchers say the trend is already making a big difference:

• Bridging The Digital Divide In Developing Nations Through Mobile Phone Transaction Systems - University of West Georgia
• Mobile Finance Options Changing Lives In Developing Countries - Bankless Times
• Mobile Technology's Role In Combating Global Poverty And Enabling Entrepreneurship - Brookings Institution
• Alleviating Poverty: Mobile Communications, Microfinance And Small Business Development Around The World - Brookings Institution

As smartphones continue to spread to every demographic group in every corner of the world, there's just no more room for the Digital Divide. That's a big deal, and likely to bring significant economic, social and cultural effects over the coming months, years and decades.

(See also The Numbers Are Clear: Mobile is Taking Over the World.) 

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Apple recently apologized after a blistering public attack by several outlets within China's state-controlled media over its iPhone warranty and returns policies. Microsoft is now facing a similar attack, albeit presently far more muted, over its Surface tablet warranty policies.

(See also What's Really Behind China's Attacks On Apple.)

According to Bloomberg, China's state-owned radio criticized Microsoft because its Surface Pro does not adhere to the nation's "notebook computers" law, which requires a one-year repair warranty for the device and a two-year warranty for parts.

Microsoft, whch promotes the Surface Pro as "a laptop in tablet form," offers only a one-year warranty, according to Bloomberg.

Will Steve Ballmer Have To Apologize Like Tim Cook Did?

While the issue regarding warranty policies for the Surface Pro in China may ultimately prove minor, the potential for a far larger dust-up between Microsoft and China is very real. Recently, Apple faced withering criticism from China's state-run network television, CCTV, and state-run press, The People's Daily. Faced with a potential loss of sales in Apple's second-largest market, Apple CEO Tim Cook quickly offered a public apology and promised to alter the company's policies. 

Quoting a China media specialist, Bloomberg suggests that, as with Apple, this initial Surface Pro story could become "the opening shot against the world's largest software maker."

While Surface sales have not been spectacular, Microsoft still has high hopes for the device. The company has been selling Surface tablets in China since October 2012. China was the second market, after the U.S., where Microsoft rolled-out the Surface line.

Microsoft has yet to publicly respond to this issue. Whatever Microsoft's response, however, it may not end how China's state-run media depicts the company and its products. A contrite statement from Steve Ballmer may ultimately be necessary. 

As I noted earlier this month regarding Tim Cook's apology:

Cook's apology is a wise move. Apple needed to let the public know that the company was committed to the China market and that it treats its China customers the same way it treats others — by, for instance, offering new replacement phones instead of refurbished models.

Image of Surface Pro courtesy of Microsoft. 

Early Monday morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued an apology letter, written in Chinese and posted to Apple's corporate site in China, in which the company promised to improve its customer support and warranty policies in China. The mea culpa came after several public attacks by official China media.

(See also What's Really Behind China's Attacks On Apple.)

"Sincere Apologies"

According to The Wall Street Journal, which offered a translation, the Cook letter read, in part:

We are aware that a lack of communications... led to the perception that Apple is arrogant and doesn't care or attach enough importance to consumer feedback. We express our sincere apologies for any concerns or misunderstandings this gave consumers.

Cook's contrite, rapid response ws not unexpected. Just last week, in "Nobody Likes Tim Cook. Oh, Except Apple Customers And His Peers," I praised Cook for his willingness to quickly get in front of issues like Apple Maps and Foxconn labor concerns. And given that Apple's 2012 sales in China were $23.8 billion and China is Apple's second largest market, Cook really didn't have much choice but to make nice.

Will The Apology Help?

Of continuing concern, though, is whether or not the China government is singling out Apple. Last month ReadWrite noted that actions taken across multiple organizations within China's government could be part of a concerted effort to either limit Apple's potential within the country or to help China build it's own viable smartphone platform - to compete against Apple's iOS and Google's Android. 

While this remains supposition, China's aggressive pressure on Apple has clearly had an impact. Again, from the Journal:

Apple has been the target of criticism in China's state-run media since the middle of last month. China's powerful national broadcaster, China Central Television, and The People's Daily—the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party—have accused Apple of skirting warranty periods, adopting customer-service policies that discriminate against Chinese customers, and formulating an inadequate and arrogant response to the reports.

As ReadWrite detailed last month, a widely viewed China Central Television (CCTV) report that accused Apple of not fully meeting its product warranty obligations generated a significant social media backlash within the country. Per the Cook letter, Apple will extend warranty coverage on the iPhone 4 and 4S and will replace any broken iPhone 4 or 4S with a new phone - not a refurbished device, as was the previous practice. The company will also provide additional training to Apple authorized resellers regarding company warranty policy and make its product warranty policies more clear to prospective buyers.  

Image of Tim Cook courtesy of Reuters.

Guest author Michael J. Petrucelli is the founder and executive chairman of iClearpath, an online immigration startup.

Despite the United States’ rich history as a haven for ambitious immigrants, many foreigners looking to work in the U.S. have had to cope with increasingly restrictive immigration policies. As a result, the percentage of immigrant-founded startups in Silicon Valley has declined from 52.4% in 2005 to 43.9% in 2012.

In 2011, leaders in the tech and startup world lobbied for a “Startup Visa" that would allow immigrant entrepreneurs to receive a two-year visa if a qualified U.S. investor was willing to invest in their startup venture. Unfortunately, the proposed bill fell upon deaf ears.

This month, though, the Partnership for a New American Economy announced plans to organize the largest ever virtual march on Washington in support of immigration reform to keep more innovators in the U.S. The goal is to build on what Silicon Valley did in stopping SOPA/PIPA and create the infrastructure for tech leaders to leverage technology and social media to move legislation in D.C.

Until we see a dramatic modification of U.S. immigration policy, foreign entrepreneurs (and freelancers) will have to jump through a series of outdated bureaucratic hoops in order to work in the U.S. Let’s take a look at how complicated that can be:

The Visa Options Rundown

E-visas, H-1B and L-visas are the most common ways to work in the U.S. as a foreign national.

E-1 Visa. The E-1 Treaty Trader Visa is a special designation geared towards businesspeople from select nations (Canada, Mexico, and most European countries) who undertake a sign()ificant amount of international trade with the U.S. To qualify as a trader, at least 50% of the applicant’s exports/imports must concern the U.S. The higher the volume of trade, the more viable the application will appear. Note that this requires an existing business venture (rather than a start-up), significant constraints on the operations of the business and a potentially arbitrary adjudication before the visa is issued.

E-2 Visa. The E-2 Investor Visa is geared towards citizens of select nations who can prove an “active investment with a substantial amount of capital in a bona fide enterprise in the United States.” Again, the definition of "substantial" causes confusion and anxiety because it is not a hard and fast number or equation. ()One rule of thumb hold that an investment of more than $150,000 will be considered "substantial.") Similarly, any amount that is a large percentage of total investment may qualify. In addition, the applicant must be in the U.S. solely to develop and direct the investment enterprise.

EB-5 Visa. This is the so-called “Mllionaire Visa”. It allows foreigners to become legal permanent residents in the U.S. through a substantial investment in the American economy. There are two paths: the Basic Program and the Regional Center Pilot Program. Both require a capital investment in a U.S enterprise of $500,000 or $1,000,000, depending on the location of the investment.

H-1B Visa. This visa allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in certain specialty occupations. The regulations define a "specialty occupation" as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge, bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) and any state licensure (if required). H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer, which puts entrepreneurs at a big disadvantage because they cannot sponsor themselves. This is the crux of the argument for an Entrepreneur Visa like those available in countries like Canada, UK, Australia, Chile and Singapore. (Note that the H1-B is a temporary visa that can last up to six years. H-1B holders who want to continue to work in the U.S. after their temporary H1-B expires, but who have not obtained permanent residency status, must remain outside of the U.S. for a year before reapplying for another H-1B visa.)

L-1 Visa. The L-1 visa is geared towards intra-company transfers. However, managers or specialized knowledge workers who have been employed at a foreign company for one of the past three years may be eligible if their new enterprise is in the same industry as their former foreign company. While some creative entrepreneurs have gone this route, the complexity of establishing different operations in different countries is generally not viable for scrappy start-up founders.

OPT Option. Aliens in the U.S. on a student visa can legally work here for 12 months beyond their visa expiration under the Optional Practical Training Program. For students in STEM fields, this extends to 17 months. Its' a great start for a new graduate, but not long enough a runway to get something up and running.

Other Visa Options

For the sake of completeness, lesser-known visas include

O-1 Visa. O-1 visas are geared towards people with extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business or athletics. This can extend to successful serial entrepreneurs from foreign nations – though likely not first-time entrepreneurs.

EB-1 Visa. Along the same lines as the O-1 visa, an EB-1 visa is granted to applicants with an “extraordinary ability, [who] are an outstanding professor or researcher, or are a multinational executive or manager.”

E-3 Visa. This classification applies only to nationals of Australia coming to the United States solely to perform services in a specialty occupation. The specialty occupation requires theoretical and practical application of a body of knowledge in professional fields and at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent. This is a pretty good option for Australians.

While leading the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), I saw first-hand how unnecessarily complex the process of immigration paperwork could be. But until a new, dedicated Startup Visa” is established, these options are the only means available to foreign entrepreneurs.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

While media and government source continue to allude to China as the biggest source of cyber attacks hitting innocent servers on the Internet, recent evidence instead suggests it's actually the Russian Federation that's king of the cyber attack mountain.

The evidence comes from German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom (DT), which has set up a new portal to monitor real-time cyber attacks against its network. According to the data on the sicherheitstacho.eu (loosely translated as "security tachometer") site, Russia was responsible for 2.4 million attacks against DT last month.

The People's Republic of China, the current bugaboo of security mavens, ranked 12th on the same list, its 168,000 attacks coming in far behind nations like Germany, Ukraine and the United States. Curiously, it was Taiwan that held the number two slot, with 907,000 tracked cyber attacks, seemingly dispelling the notion that it's the Commies out to get Western corporate interests.

Security Whack-a-Mole

The monitored attacks are not actually hurting DT - at least, not directly. The incoming volleys are instead hitting a network of 97 sensored machines deliberately designed to be tempting targets on the Internet, a concept known as honeypots. According to DT, these honeypots are built to "feign weaknesses to provoke attacks and as such act as early warning systems."

"Our honeypot systems show that once attackers have identified weaknesses, they exploit them immediately," said Thomas Kremer, Board Member responsible for Data Privacy, Legal Affairs and Compliance in a statement to the press.

"If, for example, a provider announces an update for its operating system, attackers launch themselves at the old system to find the gap that the update is intended to close." Kremer said. "For this reason, customers should install updates immediately - this successfully prevents 90 percent of attacks. Apart from up-to-date virus protection, that is the most important security precaution for all IT users."

The honeypots are programmed to mimic a wide variety of Internet-facing systems, such as servers, desktops and even vulnerable smartphones.

Hardening Against 24/7 Attacks

The security tachometer site itself is definitely an eye-opener, even in DT's soothing trademark pink tones (DT is the parent company of U.S. carrier T-Mobile). According to the information provided by DT, most of the attacks are in the form of automated bots, which probe a potentially weak system for holes. If a human hacker wants to come back later and investigate further, they may, or the bot may simply call in other bots to further infiltrate the system.

Security experts won't find this map much of a surprise, since it's long been known that Russia remains a big source of cyber trouble - far more, in sheer numbers, than China. Of course, this map could be interpreted as contrarian evidence, too: perhaps the bot handlers in the other countries recognize the DT honeypots for what they are and have moved on to real targets. Or perhaps the targets presented simply aren't interesting.

Whatever the explanation, Deutsche Telekom's security tachometer makes it clear that the Internet is far from safe, and vulnerabilities on any platform - from any source - can be discovered at any moment.

Image courtesy of Deutsche Telekom.

If you tuned into the Presidential debates this past Fall you may have caught the one moderated by CNN personality Candy Crowley. Remarkably, it was the first presidential debate moderated by a female in 20 years. Wonder how that dry spell ended? Because of a petition created at Change.org.

Debate organizers were influenced by three Montclair, N.J. high school students, who, inspired by a civics class, were able to sign up more than 180,000 supporters for their online petition.

30 Million Signatures

One of the biggest challenges of finding innovative new ways of doing things is monetization, and that's where Change.org shines. The company has in effect become a marketing machine for mostly non-profit organizations. It has also boosted its beneficial standing by becoming a certified B Corp.

Change.org is designed to make creating petitions easy, and features selected petitions on its home page.

Future Changes

The way Change.org works is simple. Anyone can start a petition for free, but qualified organizations can send sponsored petitions to specific Change.org members by paying a premium. “Every package is custom built for each sponsor,” Dulski says, adding that “we have people in house who know how to make petitions stronger.”

The future for sponsored Change.org petitioners seems bright. Dulski promises that the company is “going to develop a great analytics platform for sponsors, so we’re able to better reach the kind of people who are passionate about their causes.”

One recent victory had 200,000 Gatorade consumers using Change.org to demand the removal of the controversial ingredient BVO from its product bottles. Gatorade removed the ingredient, scoring a victory for the 15-year-old Mississippi teenager who started the petition.

International Action

While most of its biggest victories have been in the U.S., Change.org has become a global phenomenon. “We have staff in 18 countries,” notes Dulski. A perfect example of that global power was the petition calling for Malala Yyousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot for advocating female education, to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. This petition, posted by Tarek Fatah of Toronto, has gained more than 287,000 supporters.

With influence comes power that translates into more galvanizing events - and that, in turn, attracts even more users. Do you have an innovation that could use the gravy train of a complementary business? Can you leverage the Time Compression Ubertrend to create a service that helps consumers save time? I’m ready to file my petition to help America become more innovative.

No One Stays On Top Forever

Room For Growth?

Even as it lost the lead in market cap, Apple may also have lost its primacy in generating buzz. No product this year - shipping or not - has generated the buzz of Google Glass. Even the launch of a new smartphone is no longer all about Apple, as Samsung ratchets up the hype leading up to next week's launch of its flagship Galaxy S4. 

Getting Harder To Move The Needle

I simply don’t believe Apple will make, or even wants to make, a TV set. To realize the dream, as discussed previously, you need to put a computer - something like an Apple TV module - inside the set. Eighteen months later, as Moore’s Law dictates, the computer is obsolete but the screen is just fine. No problem, you’ll say, just make the computer module removable, easily replaced by a new one; more revenue for Apple… and you’re right back to today’s separate box arrangement. 

A white paper issued last week by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology could pose a significant threat to Android. According to the government paper, China's “mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android.” Reuters broke the story Tuesday. Should the Ministry take action to limit Android within the country, there could be a major impact on the world's most popular smartphone OS - and a potential big win for Apple and others.

As Reuters noted, the China Ministry was quite direct in its concern about Android:

While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google.

What's behind  China's fears?

The world’s largest smartphone market could be worried that its homegrown companies will be unable to develop their own viable mobile OS. Or that Google’s control of Android might ultimately favor their Motorola division or other partners. While Android has become the dominant smartphone platform around the world, with an estimated 70% market share, Android commands an estimated 90% of the Chinese smartphone market.

Android's Bumpy Road To China

This is not the first time Google and China have locked horns over Android. Last May, China officially approved Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility. As the Wall Street Journal noted at the time, the Chinese government required Google to keep the Android service open source and to make it broadly available to China’s handset manufacturers, including ZTE and Huawei. Despite this requirement, South Korea’s Samsung remains by far the dominant Android handset maker, both overall and inside China.

Late last year there was a highly publicized spat over Android between Google and China’s Alibaba Group, one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms. Alibaba had developed its own Aliyun mobile operating system and inked a deal with Acer to offer smarpthones using the new OS. At the time, more than 90% of Acer's smartphones ran on Google's Android. Under pressure from Google, however, Acer nixed the project right before launch.

Alibaba claimed that Aliyun was developed in-house using Linux, while Google claimed it was a "non-compatible" version  of Android. As a member of Google's Open Handset Alliance (OHA), Acer was prohibited from supporting non-compatible versions of Android. Andy Rubin, Google’s head of Android, posted comments on his public Google+ page that no doubt inflamed the situation:

The fact is, Aliyun uses the Android runtime, framework and tools. And your app store contains Android apps (including pirated Google apps). So there's really no disputing that Aliyun is based on the Android platform and takes advantage of all the hard work that's gone into that platform by the OHA.  

What Could Happen Next

This latest Ministry white paper could be a signal that the government will officially support Alibaba or other solutions over Google’s Android, or possibly seek ways to limit Android’s dominance of the Chinese market.

If so, this could have a significant impact on both the Android ecosystem and Google itself. Google’s hope is that Android will spur widespread adoption of Google services and generate significant mobile ad and mobile search revenues. Forbes, for example, estimates that mobile search ads contribute 35% to Google’s overall market value, “primarily because we expect mobile advertising revenues to increase.”

The latest actions by China could limit that potential. Google's services have a limited footprint in China even as China's low-cost smartphone manufacturers have helped quickly spread Android - and Google's mobile services - throughout the world. Should China take action to limit Android within the country, this could cause Chinese manufacturers to pull back on Android in China and around the world, perhaps opening doors for new operating systems.

Meanwhile, Apple continues its efforts to grow its sales in China. Earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook predicted that China would become Apple’s number one market. "China is currently our second largest market, Cook said. "I believe it will become our first. I believe strongly that it will."

While in China, Cook met with a number of government officials and with China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua. China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile phone carrier, with over 700 million subscribers. Anything that limits Android's appeal inside China will most likely help Apple. 

Along with Apple, of course, other smartphone OS companies may also benefit from China's growing concern over Android's market dominance. As TechCrunch has noted, for example, Jolla, the Finnish start-up whose OS is built atop the failed MeeGo operating system, is focusing its efforts on the massive China market. 

Top image courtesy of Android's Google+ page. 

iPhone users, take note: Google is releasing a new update for Google Maps for iPhone that promises faster local searches and a cleaner interface to help find the places you want to be. It should only extend Google's lead over Apple's own troubled iPhone maps app. 

According to the Google Maps blog, the update will feature new English-language versions for seven Middle Eastern nations: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Even more useful, especially if you're using Google Contacts instead of the iPhone's native Contacts app, is the capability to integrate that data with the Google Maps app. Logged in users will see nearby friends's addresses when they view local maps, according to Salahuddin Choudhary, Product Manager, Google Maps.

Local searches will get faster by virtue of graphical tools and icons that will get the search job done quicker.

"For faster local search, you can tap one of the new icons for restaurants, coffee shops, bars and other types of places to quickly see nearby haunts," Choudhary wrote. "So if you're in a rush and need a quick coffee, just tap the search box, then the coffee cup icon, to see the cafes closest to you."

(See also Google Maps: 10 Million Lost iPhone Users Breathe Sigh Of Relief.)

The update is a small set of tweaks to an app that was very much awaited prior to its release in December 2012 - and that is already widely considered superior to the debacle that was Apple Maps. It will be interesting to see if Apple has any major changes planned to compete with the innovation Google is still pushing out.

Images courtesy of Google.

UPDATE: It turns out that The Pirate Bay was indeed pulling an elaborate joke about moving its hosting to North Korea yesterday. Announced on its Facebook page this morning, the file-sharing site admitted to the hoax, which used a clever IT trick to make it appear as if it were being hosted in North Korea. The site was even kind enough to post a picture of its co-founders hanging out with North Korean leaders that definitely wasn't Photoshopped.  

Allegedly, the site was never forced to leave Sweden, and was simply dealing with a temporary legal argument while major infastructure changes would solve the issue in the following week (though it is still unclear where TPB is currently being hosted until such changes allow it to return to the Swedish Pirate Party).

"We've also learned that many of you need to be more critical. Even towards us. You can't seriously cheer the "fact" that we moved our servers to bloody North Korea," the post reads. "Always stay critical. Towards everyone!" At least the tricksters at The Pirate Bay had a point (sort of). 

ORIGINAL:

Just yesterday, former b-baller and reality TV juggernaut Dennis Rodman arrived stateside after a widely publicized hangout with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying, "I love him. The guy is awesome. He was so honest." Apparently, Kim's generosity extends to torrenting sites as well.

As of this morning, notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has been offered virtual asylum in North Korea after being kicked out of Norway, according to the site's most recent blog post.

Having lost its hosting from the Swedish Pirate Party last week, The Pirate Bay jumped to pirate parties in Norway and Catalonia. That brief relationship ended this morning, when the Norwegian Pirate Party ousted the file sharing site as well, with party leader Geir Asalid claiming that party doesn't have the economic muscle necessary to fight for the right to torrent. 

After some very brief downtime, the site popped back up, though at the same address and with no indication of the new hosting location until a traceroute for the site was tracked back to an ISP located in the Potong-gang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. Following a handful of initial reports, The Pirate Bay posted its blog post acknowledging the switchover. 

Is The Pirate Bay Messing With Us?

It's not always easy to believe what The Pirate Bay says. If this turns out to be a joke, it wouldn't be the first time The Pirate Bay has pulled such a hoax about its virtual whereabouts. In 2007, the site pulled an April Fool's Day joke revolving around this exact situation, writing at the time, "We would like to thank Kim Jong-Il for the opportunity and we would like all of our users to review their current feelings towards this great nation!"

This time around, a number of colluding circumstances make this announcement sound considerably more legitimate. Not only has The Pirate Bay switched out its homepage image (seen above), but the ISP is in fact being traced to North Korea only hours after the Norwegian Pirate Party's announcement was released. If it is a hoax, this would certainly be an elaborate one. 

Those within the torrent news network also seem to believe the situation - to a degree. "A Pirate Bay insider informs TorrentFreak that they had been working for a while to get connectivity in North Korea," reports TorrentFreak. “We’ve been in talks with them for about two weeks, since they opened access for foreigners to use 3G in the country...TPB has been invited just like Eric Schmidt and Dennis Rodman. We’ve declined up until now," the source went on to say. 

Hosting the winner of 2004's Celebrity Mole and the first ever Hulk Hogan's Championship Wrestling Tournament (aka Mr. Rodman) and wining and dining him as if he were an ambassador is one thing. But putting the actions of your country's Internet network in direct opposition to the fierce lobbying efforts of Hollywood and the United States copyright police is an entirely different kind of political taunt. It likely doesn't bode well for the increasingly precarious relationship between the U.S. and North Korea.

For those not inclined to travel to the site's blog, you can read an excerpt from The Pirate Bay below:

This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing [sic] a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.

Top image courtesy of The Pirate Bay. Second image courtesy of TorrentFreak. 

Guest author Steve Hamm is a strategist, writer and videographer in IBM's corporate communications department.

Last September, when Typhoon Sanba smashed into the Korean peninsula, it packed winds so strong that they sent rocks flying through the air like missiles and caused massive power outages. “Hwangsa” storms, carrying dense clouds of yellow dust from China’s Gobi Desert that are sometimes loaded with heavy metals and carcinogens, sweep across the peninsula from West to East.

9.3 Petabytes Of Storage For The KMA

Menaced by such destructive weather phenomena, South Korea is upgrading its national weather information system with the goal of understanding weather patterns better and predicting better the location and ferocity of weather events. The upgrade being installed by the Korean Meteorological Administration increases the agency’s data storage capacity by nearly 1,000% to 9.3 petabytes, making it Korea’s most capable storage system.

The KMA project dramatically illustrates today’s big data phenomenon and its impact on weather forecasting. Thanks to the rapid spread of sensors and satellites, and to the increase in computer number-crunching speeds, it’s possible to forecast weather changes more accurately and with improved detail – potentially saving thousands of lives and safeguarding property. 

Increasing evidence of climate change worldwide is prompting governments and scientists to take action to protect people and property from its effects. But to take effective action, they need to know understand a lot more about the weather – everything from what’s going to happen tomorrow to what’s coming next year. For instance, leaders of the city of Hoboken, N.J., in the United States, which flooded badly last fall during Hurricane Sandy, are considering building a wall around Hoboken to keep the tidal Hudson River at bay. The problem is, if they don’t build high enough the wall could end up turning the city into a giant bathtub rather than keeping rising waters out.

Listen To Deep Thunder

IBM Research scientists are working to bring the most sophisticated data analytics to bear on weather forecasting. Their long-term weather analysis project, called Deep Thunder, combines data with sophisticated mathematical algorithms and computing power.

The scientists established at test bed in the New York City metropolitan area, where they set up a three-dimensional grid of thousands of blocks. That makes it possible for them to run calculations that produce very precise weather forecasts for a particular locale. Using this capability, the team was able to predict with remarkable accuracy the snowfall totals in New York City during the mammoth snow storm that blanked the northeastern United States in February – and also to predict accurately when the snowfall would start and stop.

Blame It On Rio

The IBM Research team is putting their algorithms to work on behalf of cities around the world. For instance, Rio de Janeiro, because of its climate and terrain, has recurring flooding and landslide problems in many hilly neighborhoods. The researchers used data describing the physics of the atmosphere to create a mathematical model of how storms are likely to unfold in Rio. With it, they can predict up to 40 hours ahead of time how much rain will fall in a particular location — with 90% accuracy.

In recent months, the Deep Thunder team, lead by Lloyd Treinish, has developed new techniques for ingesting many more measurements from weather sensors. The team is also extending its technology to new applications, including agriculture and wind farming.

For detailed and super-accurate weather information to have maximum impact, it has to be accessible by a large number of people. That’s why IBM has created iPad and cloud applications that deliver the power of Deep Thunder to people’s hands wherever they may be. Hopefully, by the time Rio hosts the summer Olympics in 2016, practically everybody who attends will be able to get their hands on Deep Thunder data so they know exactly what to expect when they venture out to the various game venues.

Note: This post originally appeared on IBM's Smarter Planet blog. IBM provided the storage hardware and software for the KMA project. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

In the past few weeks, I have written two stories about the menace the Internet represents, particularly in view of the hacking attacks almost certainly perpetrated by the Chinese Red Army. In particular, my contention that we need to develop a next generation Internet that's more secure and, preferably, walled in, drew a lot of heated commentary.

Here are just a few of the choicest ones:

• This is unmitigated isolationist idiocy.
• Seriously... is this a spoof article?
• This post should not appear in readwriteweb.

(See World War III Is Already Here - And We're Losing and Cyberwar Imperative: We Need A Next-Generation Internet.)

Hacking As Retaliation?

That's great, and maybe there really isn't any problem here. But the fact is that about 10 days after the first story ran - I got hacked.

A coincidence? I think not.

Or maybe it was my own doing, astutely observed one reader: "I asked for it." Now where have I heard that blame game before?

So what happened? Someone hacked my email password and sent thousands for spam messages using my account. I knew something was wrong when I suddenly was inundated with "Mail delivery failed" subject lines. My Twitter account was hacked, too, but that could just be Twitter's lax security measures.

Of course, there's no way to tell if the dirty deed was done by the Chinese, or even whether it was in retaliation for the articles. But the timing certainly seems suspect.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama ranked hackers and cyber attacks among the greatest economic and national U.S. security threats. The President's response was to issue an executive order calling for more sharing of cyber-attack and threat information between private and public sectors. Naturally, civil libertarians object to this executive order due to potential invasions of privacy.

Solution: Fix the Internet Itself

A far more practical idea comes form New England Complex Systems Institute, which is set to publish a report next week that agrees with my stated principles. The NECSI report blames the problem on the Internet itself, and says that the only solution is to redesign it.

"The current design of the Internet is inherently insecure," says NECSI President and co-author Yaneer Bar-Yam in a press release. "Any node can be attacked from any other node, requiring the entire network to be fortified against all possible attacks, an unrealistic goal," adds Bar-Yam.

That would require redesigning the Internet's architecture itself. The report proposes substantial changes to routers in charge of switching data packets between network nodes.

"Collective security-preventing attacks would require that the routers of the Internet themselves would need to have protocols that allow refusal of transmission based upon content or extrinsic information such as point of origin," according to the study's authors.

The study, Principles of Security: Human, Cyber and Biological, was developed at the request of a long-term military planning group, the Strategic Studies Group, which reports to the Chief of Naval Operations. The report is being released for the first time to the public next week.

As for me, I'm glad to see that other people are thinking about realistic solutions to make our Internet less vulnerable to attacks of all kinds.

Image of alleged Chinese hackers compound courtesy of Reuters.

It started with a gecko, of sorts. It then became a fennec, a type of winter fox. Now, it is a smartphone, and soon it will be available all over the world.

We are, of course, talking about Firefox OS, the open source, Web-based smartphone operating system created by Mozilla. The company announced Sunday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, that it has partnered with device manufacturers and mobile operators across the world to launch Firefox smartphones in 2013. 

Mozilla also officially launched the Firefox Marketplace, an app store featuring mobile Web applications and websites that will be able to operate on the new smartphones. Both the Firefox OS and Marketplace are optimized towards HTML5 development and open Web standards using Mozilla’s Firefox browser as its backbone. 

Mozilla claimed three initial manufacturers ready to build and deploy Firefox OS smartphones: LG, Alcatel and ZTE. These devices will be distributed to 17 global carriers in nine countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Serbia, Montenegro, Poland, Spain, Hungary and Venezuela. (Note that these are largely developing markets, and the list does not include the United States.) Since the announcement yesterday, Sony has also said that it would build and release Firefox OS smartphones in 2014. On the other hand, market leader Samsung has said that it is not interested in building smartphones for Mozilla (likely due to its investment in the similar Tizen platform).

Mozilla’s Evolution

The seed of Firefox OS came from Mozilla’s first ventures into the mobile browser wars against Android. Mozilla started with its rendering layout engine, Gecko, and applied it to Android as a third-party browser. Initially, the Gecko-boot of Firefox for Android was named Fennec. 

Mozilla then started thinking bigger.

As HTML5 has evolved into the newest open Web standard, Mozilla became a leading developer and evangelist for HTML5 websites and apps. The problem that Mozilla had with smartphones, though, was that it was not possible to tie smartphone hardware capabilities to mobile browsers. If you ever hear of the “Web vs. Native” argument when it comes to apps, the issue of tying Web browsers to smartphone and tablet hardware (like a camera, accelerometer etc.) is central to the issue. Mozilla wanted to fix that and created what it calls Web APIs (application programming interfaces) to access hardware through a browser. 

(See more ReadWrite coverage of HTML5.)

That goal was what ultimately led Mozilla to announce its own smartphones this year at Mobile World Congress. It has dedicated itself to open Web standards and mobile evolution, all in the name of consumer choice. Firefox OS smartphones will be extremely affordable and targeted at emerging smartphone markets where there is still a lot of potential to make a dent in the industry. 

Building The Marketplace

As shown in the rise of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, the name of the game in smartphones is apps. Mozilla plans on leveraging the power of the Web to build out its app store by enabling websites and app developers to create apps for the mobile Web that can easily be integrated into Firefox OS. 

To start, Firefox announced that a variety of content and app partnerships with the likes of AirBnB, Box, Disney Mobile Games, EA Games, Facebook, Pulse News, Sound Cloud, Twitter and others. Mozilla stated that it will have a variety of games, news and media, productivity and business apps.

When it comes to apps built for the likes of iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, many already have a core of HTML5 and Web-based technology powering them. Apps are often built as mobile websites and then “wrapped” with native properties to help them connect to device hardware before being deployed to the various native app stores. Mozilla’s plan is to eliminate that need to “wrap” apps and let developers build straight for the Web. The potential  is that almost any app that will work in browser can easily be deployed to the Firefox Marketplace, reducing the cost for developing and distributing apps.

We will see the first Firefox OS smartphones in developing markets later this year. Does Firefox OS excite you? Let us know what you think of the project in the comments. 

So Burger King's Twitter account got hacked on Monday. Apple and Facebook got attacked too. And so it goes. Within a few years, the Internet will be engulfed by "nuclear" warfare, but the bombs will be entirely created in plain ASCII text. What can be done?

We need a new Internet, that’s all. One designed from the ground up to be far more secure than what we have today. A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about the Chinese hacking into The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. All because they delved too deeply into the affairs of some Chinese government officials.

On Tuesday, Mandiant released two reports that not only provided more evidence to support its allegations that many hacking attacks originate in China, but also pinpointed the exact location, a 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai. As The New York Times put it, that building is the “People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors.”

The hacking underground is teeming with activity, as witnessed by the Apple and Facebook attacks. In Apple’s case, a worm was unleashed when employees visited a site called iPhoneDevSDK.

No Evidence?

I shuddered at the foregone conclusion of some media outlets: “there was no evidence that any data left Apple.”

Really?

They can break in at will but they have to leave evidence that they took stuff? Then there was the wholesale hacking of the Burger King Twitter account, which resulted in a string of profane tweets.

Like I wrote in World War III Is Already Here - And We're Losing, we’re smiling the enemy in the face. In that article, I proposed that America ramp up its investment spending in cyber security and robotics dramatically, by boosting cyber-security investment to $5 billion and robotics to $20 billion, annually.

As Steve Blank observes, “We are getting our asses handed to us by the Chinese. Almost irrationally we have decided not to have a National Industrial policy — leaving that to private capital.”

Who Will Lead The Charge?

So it’s up to us pundits in the media to lead the charge for disruptive change. And one thing that clearly has to go, in its current form, is the Internet. I propose the U.S. create a next-generation Internet, a superset, or n-th layer if you will, that make our critical Internet infrastructure, which is now largely powering the U.S. economy, less massively vulnerable to hacking attacks.

We have already seen what Russia did to Estonia in 2007 and to Georgia in 2008. Now imagine what a full-blown war would look like today - or in 2015?

Way back in August 2006, Bloomberg BusinessWeek cited a counterintelligence report that found at least 108 countries engaged in “collection efforts against sensitive and protected U.S. technologies),” up from 37 a decade ago. Now that’s a trend. Among the few countries specifically mentioned, China and Russia were among “the most aggressive” in targeting the U.S.

The Fiscal Times, a publication funded by Peter Peterson, agrees with my bleak assessment: Chinese Attacks Reveal an Undeclared Global Cyber War.

Next-Generation Internet: Wants & Needs

So how should this Next-Generation Internet be architected?

I will give you my wish list and you, tech wizards, can write the spec:

• Secure: It should be extremely secure, from day one. I know some will say that anything can be hacked, but let’s put the fence up high enough so that climbing it becomes a relatively esoteric art.
• Real ID: Everyone using it in an official U.S. capacity should be readily identifiable. I propose some type of next-generation eye-recognition technology using a computer or mobile camera. This will help sites like LinkedIn and Facebook in their endless battle against identity fraud. It will also help deter spamming because each business will need to use its “eyeD” to launch a marketing campaign.
• America Only: It should be accessible by Americans only, for obvious reasons. Americans are free to leave the Next Gen Internet, but they do so as their own discretion.

I’m sure many people can’t believe I would even propose such a thing. I know that things are going to have to get a lot worse before anyone takes my proposals seriously.

That's OK. I've already called this World War III, and it's only beginning to escalate. To win, we'll need to innovate. And that means staying ahead of the pack.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Hypemarks was a Los Angeles social sharing startup that after about a year of failing to gain traction and turn a profit, changed course, moved to San Francisco and became Tint, an embeddable social-feed service.

The story of pivoting direction is common in the U.S. start-up world. But what's different about this story are the players involved. One of the company's four employees, its software engineer, is not an American citizen. He works legally in the country on a student visa. But if he were to lose his job, the developer would face the prospect of being forced to return to his native India, relinquishing his toehold in the States.

While the fate of startups like Tint are yet to be determined, the status of their foreign-born nationals could be solidified should the third iteration of the new Startup Act become law. The proposed bill would plug a brain drain causing the U.S. to fail to retain some of the best minds its universities educate.

Startup Act Update No Sure Thing

The road from proposal to legislature is full of potholes. Introduced by Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) a few weeks ago, this is the third attempt of the bill, which Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced in 2010. That version failed to gain traction, as did a 2011 proposal that didn't get far either.

To be eligible to receive an extended visa under this bill, a candidate would have to be a H-1B non-immigrant worker or F-1 student visa holder, already raising at least $100,000 in funding at their startup, and must employ at least two people (should they be the proprietor or principal). With those visas, workers would then be able to stay in the U.S. for up to three years. Also available is a new five-year visa for students studying STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, math), allowing an easier road to legal residency.

Beyond visas, the bill's second major incentive for startups is a series of tax breaks, specifically a research and development credit for companies less than five years old and with less than $5 million in annual receipts — a move geared toward helping companies expand and hire.

Weighing In

Startups are estimated to face more than a 90% failure rate. While this bill isn't a cure all for the challenges of building a new digital business, many in the community believe it could help spur innovation and open the door to an estimated 75,000 new entrepreneurs.

Howard Marks The immigration debate has always been polarizing, making it easy to forget that this country was birthed by foreigners searching for a better life. Howard Marks, the co-founder of game giant Activision, and the current co-chair at the Los Angeles accelerator Start Engine, was born in Santa Monica to European parents, grew up in France and came back to the states for college. He retains both French and British citizenship. Marks thinks the bill would spur innovation and growth and encourage the retention of a very talented crop of foreign-born entrepreneurs.

"Our country is founded on entrepreneurs, especially those who come from abroad and are looking to live the American dream," Marks says. "We need it badly. To remain competitive, we need more engineers and scientists. We are not getting enough from our own citizens."

Jeff Solomon, the co-founder and executive director of Amplify.la, a Venice, California-based accelerator, agrees that the bill could be a shot in the arm for businesses -as long as the tax breaks and visas aren't tied up behind too much red tape. "Absolutely it would make an impact," Solomon says.

While neither Marks or Solomon think the bill will significantly curb the sharp failure rate of startups, that's not really the issue. "Most entrepreneurs go through failed startups before they succeed," Marks noted. "I do not think we need to fix that.  Most entrepreneurs who are tenacious and resourceful will succeed at some point."

Not everyone is a fan of giving benefits to foreigners, of course. Aaron Abram, the co-founder and vice president of business development for the mobile research service OSURV, says we should be focusing on giving benefits to our citizens. "Shouldn’t the focus be on giving incentives to people already in America," Abram asks. "There are plenty of talented Americans who shift away from entrepreneurship because the current government is punishing them with high taxes."

Tint's Story

Tim Sae Koo For Tint, founder and chief executive Tim Sae Koo says his focus is building a strong team. And with only four members, including himself, keeping and growing that team is vital - which makes any residency issues a big potential problem. If Sae Koo was confident foreign nationals could attain visas with this new program, he says, he'd have more confidence to hire them and expand. 

"That has been a big struggle for us and a constant headache," Sae Koo explains. "If I want to hire them onto our team, it feels like a dark cloud looms over my head because I think of all the time, paperwork and troubles I will have to go through to sponsor their visa."

Sae Koo says his engineer is really excited about the bill. But the situation is far from finalized. And should the engineer lose his ability to legally work in the U.S., he could take the route of many entrepreneurs turned away from this country and end up operating a business in his home country.

We have to find a way to legally keep these talented people, Sae Koo says. Because at the end of the day, we in the U.S. are missing out on innovation and growth without them.

"I just shake my head and think of the lost opportunity the U.S. could have benefited from them, like more jobs and growth in the economy," he says.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Every day the Pentagon is attacked 3 million times. They’ve infiltrated our banks. They’ve ransacked our technology industry. They’ve breached the networks of the Chamber of Commerce. They’ve read our email by taking down one of America’s pre-eminent technology companies, Google. It’s already World War III, people. And all we do is smile at the enemy.

Last Wednesday, The New York Times announced that its computers had been hacked. That passwords had been stolen. That its private networks had been traversed with impunity by a bunch of brazen hackers. We’re not talking Anonymous here nor a bunch of ethical hackers. No we’re at war with China.

To paraphrase an old newspaper joke, “what’s black and white and red all over?” The Chinese Red Army, that’s who.

How do we know that? As William Gibson might bark, “Pattern Recognition!” Computer security experts consulting with The New York Times identified the malware “as a specific strain associated with computer attacks originating in China.”

There other telltale signs. Like the fact the hackers broke into The Times’ computers starting on Sept. 13, as the newspaper was putting its final touches on a report that the relatives of China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business dealings.

The Definition Of War

In May 2011, the Pentagon promised it would announce a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks by declaring foreign computer hacks an act of war. But despite mounting evidence that Chinese attacks continue relentlessly, there has been no further action. In view of all the recent happenings, that’s tantamount to raising the white flag.

The New York Times was not the only company hacked. That same day, The Wall Street Journal admitted it too had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers who apparently were trying to monitor its China coverage. And Bloomberg computers were infected by Chinese hackers after the company published an article on June 29, 2012 about the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping, China’s vice president at the time.

But media companies are not the only ones being breached. An Air Force Cyber Command Recruiting video on YouTube urgently proclaims, “This building will be attacked 3 million times today,” while hovering over the Pentagon. Those are blatant acts of war, people, and the daily siege of the Pentagon is just part of today’s cyber-warfare landscape.

Cyberattacks are exploding. In Jan. 2010, Google, Intel, Adobe and and more than 30 other companies were attacked in a coordinated terrorist campaign. Google said the attacks originated in China, which lead the company to abandon the Chinese market. If Google leaves the world’s largest market, what does that say about the enemy?

In January 2011, Morgan Stanley admitted it too had been hit by the same China-based hackers who attacked Google’s computers, an operation dubbed “Aurora” by cyber-security firm McAfee. Terremark Worldwide estimates that the number of companies known to be hacked in Operation Aurora now exceeds 200.

While government organizations and companies spend vast amounts of money on security precautions, the situation is so dire that the Defense Department, whose Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) developed the Internet in the 1960s, “is beginning to think it created a monster,” reports Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

What Should We Do?

Let me repeat that again, the inventors of the Internet you like and use so much think they’ve created a monster! So what should we do?

I believe we need a serious dose of innovation and reinvention to stem this monster tidal wave.

America today spends about $718 billion on defense and security. Most of that money is spent on resources and equipment designed for old-fashioned warfare.

The reality is that World War III is being fought in cyberspace and most real-life interaction will be handled by robots. And in both sectors our public and private capital spending priorities are completely misaligned.

The global cyber security market was valued at $64 billion in 2011, or less than 10% of what the U.S. spends on defense and security. Major U.S. players include CA Technologies, Cisco Systems, Fortinet, IBM, McAfee and Symantec. International security firms include Check Point Software (Israel) and Kaspersky (Russia).

Our venture capital scenario is not much better. In 2011, VCs collectively invested $935 million in tech security companies, nearly double the $498 million they invested in 2010, according to a MoneyTree report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters.

Clearly, the U.S. cyber security market is woefully underfunded. As Delaware Senator Thomas Carper puts it, “The issue of Cyber Warfare is not science fiction any more. It’s reality.” Here’s what I believe we should do:

* U.S. Defense Budget – America should reshape its defense budget to reflect the reality that World War III is already here and it’s being fought in the cyber trenches. This means the Pentagon should officially declare Chinese cyber attacks as foreign warfare and treat the matter with the utmost urgency.

* Robotics - The worldwide robotics industry today is a $25 billion global industry, with most R&D activity taking place in South Korea and Japan. How can America allow its next-generation cyber-soldier technology to be based on foreign know-how? My recommendation: put the U.S. on a robotics fast-track with a combined government-private sector investment budget of $20 billion annually.

* Cyber Security – Like the robotics industry, cyber security is in dire need of more attention, but it’s not very sexy. VCs are falling all over themselves to fund the next Facebook or Snapchat, but what if those services could no longer function because the Chinese brought the Internet to its knees with relentless denial-of-service attacks? That $1 billion VCs invested in 2011 in cyber security is a drop in the bucket compared to the Pentagon’s $718 billion budget. We need to ratchet this up to $5 billion, preferably $10 billion, by next year.

* Internet 2 – As the pronouncements of DARPA suggest, the Internet was not designed for what it’s doing today. Please take some time to read this Bloomberg Businessweek story, it’s downright scary. We need to insulate this country from the enemy, and that means designing an all-new Internet, one created from the ground up for secure operations, and preferably one that insulates the U.S. from the rest of the world.

I’m sure this last bit of advice will have free-thinkers around the world cringing. But when the Chinese decide that you’ve had enough freedom, it might be too late to come to your senses. I fully expect to be hacked by the Chinese this week.

I’ve added Mandiant to my address book. I rather be safe than sorry. And please do contribute to my crowdsourced ideation engine to suggest more ideas on how we can protect ourselves in this brave new world.

Image courtesy of Larry Ye / Shutterstock.

Why do Americans overwhelmingly prefer iPhone when the rest of the world has overwhelmingly embraced Android?

The numbers tell an incredible story. Worldwide, Android has 75% market share in smartphones, versus 15% for Apple, according to IDC. But in the United States the iPhone still rules, accounting for 63% of smartphone sales at Verizon and an amazing 84% of smartphone sales at AT&T. 

In Asia, affluent young buyers are dropping the iPhone and turning to Android devices, particularly those made by Samsung, Reuters reports. One marketing manager in Bangkok says Apple products have become like Louis Vuitton handbags, something that once was considered luxe but now is commonplace.

But here in the States Android still lags far behind, even though, to my mind, the top Android phones like the Google/LG Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S3 (my primary smartphone) are at least as good as the iPhone.

Why do such a huge majority of Americans go out of their way to choose Apple?

Home Team Bias?

Part of it might be that Apple is an American company, and Americans like to root for the home team. Part of it also might be that Apple’s lawsuits against Android phone makers have been an effective form of marketing, creating the impression that Apple’s rivals are a bunch of Asian cloners - a message that resonates with many Americans.

But Apple and its cheerleaders in the States don’t just criticize Android phones; they also criticize Android users, depicting them as low-class people who are uneducated, poor, cheap and too lacking in “taste” (a favorite Apple fanboy word) to pay for an Apple product and instead willing to settle for a low-price knockoff.

See, for example, a recent story by Sam Biddle on Gizmodo called “Android Is Popular Because It’s Cheap, Not Because It’s Good,” illustrated with a photo of a homeless man sleeping next to a shopping cart and bags full of collected cans. Nice touch! (The article includes a breathtaking reference to African Americans having less money and therefore choosing Android, ironically citing as evidence a Samsung ad that depicts a well-to-do African American family using a $700 Galaxy Note 2 to take a family photo.) Apparently inspired by this article, John Biggs of TechCrunch picked up the “Android is cheap” meme and ran with it too.

This crap about Android being cheap has been around for years. It's true that there are inexpensive Android phones. But there are also inexpensive iPhones. And there are Android phones that cost more than an iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 costs $300 on Verizon with a two-year contract. The Galaxy S3 costs $200 with a contract. Apple’s top-end iPhone 5 starts at $200 with a contract, while the 4S costs only $100, and the iPhone 4 is free. 

But while we're on this: What on earth is wrong with making phones for people who don't have much money? And is the implication that somehow those sales don't count? Or count less?

The other canard is that Android lags behind Apple technologically. This was true at one point. But it is simply not true anymore. At the very least the two platforms are on par. And I would argue that Apple now lags behind Android.

The Inconvenient Truth

First, look at software. As a leading mobile recently declared, Apple’s iOS operating system has fallen behind Android. So much so that last year Apple tossed out the guy who ran its iOS software division.

In hardware, Android quality varies depending on the make and model. Certainly you can buy a poorly made Android phone, but high-end phones like the Nexus 4 and Galaxy S3 have top-notch fit and finish.

Then there’s screen size. With Apple you get two sizes: tiny and not-quite-as-tiny-but-still-frustrating. Android phones have bigger displays. Sure it's a matter of personal preference, but to me the bigger screens are better. The rest of the world seems to think so too. Apple and its fans have touted the superiority of Apple Retina Display. (Except when the iPad Mini came out without the Retina Display, at which point the fanboys said they really didn't notice the difference.) But that's on tablets. On the phone, apparently, they still notice the difference, and the Retina Display is said to be a huge advantage for Apple.

But guess what? The iPhone's pixel density is 326 pixels per inch (PPI), which is actually less than some of the latest Android phones. Even the Samsung GS3 has 306 PPI, which should be indistinguishable from the 326 PPI on the iPhone, since as Steve Jobs once said there's a "magic number right around 300 pixels per inch" above which the human eye can't tell the difference. Apparently that "magic number" stopped working once Samsung hit 306 PPI. Or maybe it got bumped up to 326. At least that seems to be the case for Apple fanboys, who will tell you that even though Steve Jobs said the human eye can't see any difference above 300 PPI, they can still see it. By the way, why are we arguing about pixels? How about we call it even on resolution, and give Android the win when it comes to size.

As for number of apps available, Android has caught up with the former leader and now is on track to surpass Apple by the middle of this year. Anyway, that game of “total apps available” has become pointless. When it comes to the apps that most of us need and want, they’re all available on both platforms. Some developers now give Android more priority. Also keep in mind that in the past year even hardcore Apple fans have been replacing their built-in Apple apps with superior apps from Google, including Google Maps. 

The Power Of Propaganda

Nevertheless, in America, a noisy chorus of pro-Apple bloggers keeps repeating the mantra about Android being cheap and crappy and second-rate, and people keep believing it and insisting that they must have an iPhone. American consumers have been told that those Android smartphones are hard to use, or complicated, or geeky, or unreliable, and, worst of all, on top of all that, they're made for poor people. 

And that's where the rhetoric starts to border on something ugly. Look at what Apple fans were saying in April 2012 when Instagram became available on Android. Cult of Mac had a nice roundup which included sneering tweets about Walmart and “poor peasants” and “riff raff” and “poor people," but also included these:

* “It’s like when all the ghetto people started coming to the nice suburbs. Instagram was our nice lil suburb.”

* “Instagram just got a whole lotta ghetto.” 

The italics are mine, and I've added them for a reason. Yes, it's the dreaded G word, and it comes up again in a Dec. 13, 2011 article by Glenn Derene, who wrote that “Android’s Cheap, Low Quality Apps Make It Feel Like A Technological Ghetto.”

Thank you, Apple fans, for bringing Karl Rove tactics to the world of tech.

Despite all this name-calling, Apple promoters still claim to have no idea why Android users resent them, or resent Apple. Confronted with the insults that they've been hurling at Android users, they effect a faux-naif posture of innocence and disingenuousness.

One example is a post that Apple fan Marco Arment just wrote lamenting what he sees as “Anti-Apple Anger,” and wondering “What is it about Apple and its success that makes people so angry?”

Yes, indeed, why are those Android ghetto riff-raff so ticked off?

See, I don’t think it’s Apple’s success that irks people.

I think it’s that Android users are sick of being called stupid, poor and lacking in taste by a handful of smug, condescending posers.

I think it’s that we don’t don’t like to see Android users depicted as homeless people sleeping on sidewalks.

I think it's that we don't like seeing Apple bloggers imply that Android's success doesn't really count because what -- poor people don't count?

I think it's because some of us understand what that ghetto coded language is about, and when you start tossing it around we really don't want to be in your club anymore. 

The real question is how long can this lifejacket of bullshit continue to buoy Apple's business in the U.S. market? At some point won't the U.S. wake up and realize what the rest of the world already knows?

The Future

I tend to think that things revert to the mean. I tend to think that open beats closed, that choice beats lack of choice, that diversity beats homogeneity, that offering a range of models from low-cost to high-cost ends up being a winning strategy.

I also tend to think that Apple’s stalled earnings growth and stock price collapse based on three quarters of disappointing financial results are living proof, in numbers, that Eric Raymond's 1997 essay, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," was correct.

Of course if Apple comes out with a breakthrough TV its business will take off like a rocket again. Better yet, if Apple produces a TV we will be treated to the spectacle of seeing its chorus of fanbloggers becoming overnight experts on television technology and sharing their wisdom at great length on things like chamfers, bezels, aspect ratios, color saturation, contrast ratio and all the other aspects of industrial design that only incredibly sophisticated, Dieter Rams-loving aesthetes can truly appreciate. The display might have more pixels than other TVs, or it might not, but it will still look better than any other TV because the pixels themselves will be better pixels, made from magic pixel dust.

Most important, the Apple TV will cost more, and thus will be more desirable, and all other TVs will be cheap Asian clones made by Asians who speak Asian and copy Apple, and therefore those TVs will appeal only to homeless people and people who have no education and no taste or who can't afford an Apple TV because they collect welfare and live in the ghetto, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.

The worst thing is, that kind of bullshit will work. Because it always works, especially in America. Which says more about us than it does about Apple.

Image courtesy of Reuters.

Monday, January 28, is Data Privacy Day, an internationally recognized 24 hours aimed at raising awareness and promoting best practices in the oft-shaky world of online security. As we "celebrate" this day, from social media and email accounts to personal and corporate security, privacy concerns seem more pointed than ever. 

While the federal government continues to try to regulate the sector, the very nature of its process often puts it a step or two behind events in the real world. That leaves it up to the private sector - and us as individuals - to take charge of our online presence andprivacy. Unfortunately, the very structure of the Internet makes this an uphill battle. 

Taking The Pulse 

We're stuck in an era that security expert Bruce Schneier describes as digital feudalism, where people may be tethered to technology and online services that exploit them, often without their knowledge. And even when informed of potentially invasive practices, most people are too ingrained in their habits to do much about it. "We have to blindly trust that they will maintain our security," Schneier told ReadWrite in December. 

"Privacy is not a luxury," adds Dan Kaminksy, noted security researcher and chief scientist at security firm DKH. "It's a core element of dignity. We've been willing to justify and allow too many things on the basis of 'well, what does it hurt?' Well, it hurts human dignity! And as it happens it's not a 'well, boo-hoo.' 

"Apple phones were totally tracking your location all over the place," Kaminsky notes. "And the fix was 'OK, we'll have them only track it for a week.' Which is great until you realize they're still shipping all of the locations back to home base."

What You Can Do

If you really want to raise your security-IQ, there is one simple approach: Be aware of what services you sign up for, and actually read the privacy policies that govern them. Most people don't bother, and most sites make it difficult for those who do, with lengthy policies in dense legalese presented in tiny fonts. 

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. Dan Kaminsky photo courtesy of Pinguino.

A Microsoft-sponsored survey released Wednesday found that almost half of Web users felt like they had already lost control of their own data while online - just days after the Australian government complianed that Microsoft's suggested data policies might lead to just that result.

Some 45% of the 1,000 users polled by Ipsos Public Affairs found that users feel that they "have little or no control over the personal information companies gather about them while they are browsing the Web or using online services, such as photo-sharing, travel or gaming," Microsoft said in a statement.

“As online activities have become a valuable part of daily life, privacy is incredibly important. At Microsoft, we strive to help our customers manage their personal information online by providing easy-to-understand privacy policies, settings and guidance,” said Brendon Lynch, chief privacy officer, Microsoft. “We take seriously our responsibility to customers by investing in a comprehensive and dynamic privacy program that implements our policies and delivers privacy innovations to our customers.”

Microsoft also noted that while it published the report, it didn't author it; a pair of professors from Indiana University and Oxford did so. The report shouldn't be taken as Microsoft's official stance on online privacy, a company spokeswoman said.

Australia Isn't Convinced

But in an open letter to Microsoft sent January 15, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner questioned whether Microsoft was really committed to privacy, based on a series of privacy summits the company organized last November. Specifically, the OAIC expressed "reservations" about one of the "discussion topics" Microsoft encouraged attendees to discuss.

The privacy discussions (PDF) that Microsoft organized concerned updates to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Privacy Guidelines, developed in the 1970s - before the World Wide Web, social networks, email and other forms of electronic data transmission. The discussions were held in Brussels, Singapore, São Paulo, Sydney and Washington, D.C. - as well as in Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash. - to discuss modernizing the OECD guidelines for the information age.

Should Data Be Free To Collect?

The meetings proposed rewriting the so-called "Collection Limitation Principle," which states: "There should be limits to the collection of personal data and any such data should be obtained by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the data subject."

The report published by Microsoft states this "discussion version" was used: 

"Data should be obtained by lawful and fair means and in a transparent manner. Data should not be collected in a manner likely to cause unjustified harm to the individual unless required by law. 'Harm' may include more than physical injury." 

The OAIC worried that the revised discussion version placed no limitations on the collection of personal data. And the report said as much:

"[T]he requirement in the original OECD principle that data be collected, 'when appropriate,' with the 'knowledge or consent of the data subject,' seems to ignore the reality of the extraordinary volume of data that is generated today through routine activities and transactions and near-ubiquitous sensors (such as surveillance cameras, location monitoring by smart phones, and embedded computers in cars and other devices). Often, knowledge or consent of data collection in these situations is either nonexistent or likely to be so vague as to be meaningless. No one suggested that knowledge is not important, or that consent may not be appropriate in some settings, but there seems a real risk that the 'where appropriate' exception could swallow the entire principle, given today’s technology landscape."

The OAIC expressed concern that such an approach to privacy would be illegal in Australia. "In our view, this would allow a considerably broader re-use of data than that allowed by the original OECD version and indeed by Australia’s Privacy Act 1988."

In an email, Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist, told ReadWrite, “Microsoft sponsored global conversations among privacy stakeholders to discuss how core privacy principles can evolve in a world of rapidly changing technology, data and innovation.  We published a whitepaper to summarize those conversations and to invite further input.  The Australian Privacy Commissioner’s thoughtful feedback on the report is an important part of the ongoing dialogue.”

Incidentally, at the Redmond meeting, members of other governments attended (Mexico's Secretary of the Economy, a member of Chile's House of Representatives, plus officials from Brazil and Costa Rica) but, according to Microsoft's report, no one representing the U.S. government did so.

Microsoft's Privacy Dashboard

According to the Microsoft/Ipsos survey, four in ten people online know how to protect and manage their online privacy. To make it even easier, Microsoft released a series of documents and videos that describe how to manage privacy settings on Microsoft products like Bing, Internet Explorer and the Xbox, as well as a general privacy dashboard.

While many users probably understand how to manage their browser privacy settings (turning off cookies, for example, or clearing Web pages cached within the browser) the Personal Data Dashboard beta will probably come as a pleasant surprise. The Dashboard allows users to block Microsoft from collecting personal information, preventing personalized ads (but not ads in general) It also allows users to select which topics they enjoy. Google does some of this as well.

Microsoft vs. Australia: Who's Right?

Unquestionably, Microsoft leads on one privacy aspect: Tracking Protection, a feature in Internet Explorer that actually blocks information that could be used by third parties, rather than a more gentlemanly "Do Not Track" request. From that standpoint, at least, Microsoft's commitment to privacy must be taken seriously.

So does Australia have a privacy gripe? Probably.

If nothing else, encouraging top-ranking officials from all over the world to assume that websites may capture whatever data they choose seems a bit Machiavellian. On the other hand, realpolitik suggests that all the free Web services we know and love must be paid for in some way, and that the currency of today's Web is often data, not dollars.

Still, government leadership in today's Web should follow the lead of states like California, whose mandatory privacy policies for mobile apps need to be enforced. Governments may benefit from encouraging digital partnerships, but they must always realize whose interests they represent.

(Editor's Note: The report that the OAIC referenced was published by Microsoft, based on meetings it organized. As the story now notes, the report was authored by two attendees.)

Image source: Microsoft.

For all our brand loyalty, consumer electronics are commodities. A very small number of suppliers produce the guts of most electronic devices, and competing brands are often assembled in the same factories (we're looking at you, Foxconn). Assuming the same components, the only major differences among many products are fit-and-finish standards and customer support.

What Would You Pay For Giant Monitor?

Sometimes support is reason enough to pay more. When my Macbook Pro's hard drive died 10 months after purchase, I had a replacement hard drive installed within two hours. That beats boxing the computer and waiting weeks for a replacement. When it comes to laptops, a few dollars more can be a worthwhile investment. But what about components that don't usually break? Like monitors, for example?

Source: Shutterstock For the past several years, budget-savvy buyers have saved cash by buying grey-market Asian (usually Korean) merchandise - including large-screen monitors - directly from importers. The sellers typically work through eBay, Amazon, or an auction site, and the products the buyer receives are pretty bare-bones. Seller warranties usually cover products that are Dead On Arriva and (in the case of monitors), a negotiable number of dead pixels, but that's it. The manufacturer warranties are typically written in Korean, and it's up in the air whether they even apply in the States. It's a lot like the gray market trade on which many camera vendors have built a business, but in this case the manufacturers themselves are relative nobodies, too. When you buy a Yamasaki Catleap or a Crossover 27Q monitor, you're pretty much on your own.

The flip side, of course, is that you get a whole lot of 27-inch monitor for your money. Less than $400 to your door (add an extra $10 to $100 for a "pixel-perfect" guarantee) buys components found in domestic monitors at more than twice the price. Inputs are limited, controls are basic, and case design can be a bit wonky, but you'll get the same LG IPS panel Apple uses in its Cinema Display, which is a truly beautiful thing to behold.

What About The Warranty?

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Monoprice (the ultra low-cost retailer that's been the king of cables and accessories for some time) was showing off its entry to the sub-$400 27-inch monitor market: the CrystalPro WQHD. Like the other Korean imports, the CrystalPro sports a high-resolution, 2560 x 1440, LG IPS panel, a VESA wall mount, and dual-link DVI inputs. The difference is the warranty. Monoprice offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, a full one-year warranty on the monitor, and a lifetime warranty on cables and accessories. Plus, it's located in Rancho Cucamonga, California, with live chat support seven days a week.

There's no denying that Apple's Cinema Display is a better, more polished product, but when properly calibrated, the display quality of the Korean imports can hold their own at a fraction of the cost. For system builders, those contemplating a multiple-monitor setup, or anyone looking to step up from a smaller screen, the $400 deal is tempting. With the addition of a real warranty from an American importer, we may have reached a tipping point.

My old 24-inch monitor is suddenly looking kind of small and tired. For $390, I'm willing to give an off-brand alternative a shot. How about you?