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Daily Installment of Coffee Joe, By Jim O'Connor

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Ahsu asked "do you have a private place in the house?" I said "What?" She replied "a private place. I want to have a cigarette." I was a little relieved and I said "yeah, the bathroom." I showed her to the bathroom and I asked "would you like anything to go with your cigarette?" She replied, "what ever you're in the mood for is fine with me." This started to make me a little nervous again. I said, "I can make some coffee, but I will have to do it manually. My robot is still busy." She laughed a little and said, "Now you really know how to impress a lady, don't you?" I didn't answer. I went to the kitchen to make the coffee. I could see on the monitor that there were some messages waiting, so I said, "computer, read messages please." The robot had sent me a message that said it was in need of maintenance and could not go anywhere. I thought to myself "Shit! Why didn't I just get a new robot"? This was really starting to get to me. The next message was the same thing. In fact, it left about ten messages that only said where it was and that it was unable to move.

I took the coffee to the bathroom and lit up a cigarette. I told Ahsu about the robot's messages. She got all shook up about it and yelled, "don't go get it! Don't go get it!" I said "Relax. The robot has been having problems. That's why I wanted to get a new one." She said, "Joe, I know you have no way to know what you're getting into, but if you go to get the robot, I don't think I'll ever see you again." Ahsu was still shaking. She said, "I know it looks like a maintenance call, but if you knew what those guys could do to you. Just leave the robot." I asked "what guys? Is this something else the FCC is playing with?" She said, "You don't understand Joe. Listen to me. Buy a new robot. Don't get the old one back. Promise me Joe."

Ahsu said, "I don't know why, who, what or anything about these people. In addition, yours is not the first robot to send a maintenance message. Another guy I know, who was a part of the operation, just never came back. We got a message at the restaurant saying that he had gone to Seattle to retire, but I never heard his voice again. I never saw him again. He had been working at the restaurant for about four years." I said, "Listen Ahsu, I believe you, but the robot is programmed to do just what it did in case of mechanical failure." She said, "Please leave the robot."

Unstable Connection

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Hello. I play WoW and I've recently been having problems with my connection. I am experiencing intermittent lag and frequently get disconnected from the game.



I have my Windows Firewall and Norton set up to allow the ports recommended by WOW for smooth playing, but no dice. If someone could please tell me what's wrong I'd appreciate it.



Attached below is a tracert to the game. I am particularly concerned that the first line on the tracert times out. Please help. I'd like to know where the problem lies so I can fix it.



Tracing route to 63.241.255.10 over a maximum of 30 hops

Intel: Moore's Law Applies to the Smart Grid

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Posted by Andrew Nusca

NEW YORK — Intel wants to bring its microprocessing muscle and Moore’s Law to the smart grid, an executive said yesterday.

Speaking yesterday at the 9th annual Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference in New York, the company’s general manager for eco-technology, Lorie Wigle, said the company best known for its computer chips is actually a top 5 player in the smart grid.

In a brief presentation, Wigle said smart grid progress required three things: flexible architecture, Internet Protocol standards and consumer empowerment through energy management.

Wigle highlighted the company’s Open Energy Initiative, which consists of four pillars: grid infrastructure, home energy management, smart (commercial) buildings and microgrids and communities.


Intel is internally aligning itself to achieve these goals, Wigle said, and is walking the talk by not only consuming green energy — Wigle said Intel is the No. 1 buyer of green energy, three years running — but by providing products for businesses and individuals.



That includes products such as wind turbines. Wigle said the average utility wind turbine contains up to 16 microprocessors, used for management and smart grid communication. There’s a growing opportunity for Intel in that space, she said.

Wigle also mentioned the 70 NIST standards, and stressed that Intel didn’t want to develop all-new processes if it wasn’t necessary.

“We do not want to reinvent things that are 90 percent there. We’d prefer to capitalize on prior investment,” she said, adding that Intel would like to use the IPv6 protocol “everywhere we can.”

Wigle also highlighted grid modeling and simulation, which Intel sees as a major opportunity for its computational power.

“Complete grid simulation is probably an access-scale computing problem,” she said, noting that such a computer requires more than 200 times the computing power as high-performance PCs on the market today.

For more of this story, read Intel: We want to bring Moore’s Law to the smart grid on Smart Planet.



Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Creating Apps Just for Cars

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Ford and the University of Michigan are developing social networking apps.

By Erika Jonietz



If you have a smart phone, chances are good that you add to its functionality pretty often by downloading new software apps. But updating the computer systems built into your car usually requires a long visit to the dealership, where company technicians install new software using special interfaces.



Ford has begun changing that paradigm with its Sync and MyFord Touch systems, and by opening the Sync programming interfaces to mobile app developers. In January, Ford, Pandora, Stitcher, and Orangatame debuted Sync-enabled software that allow drivers to use the car's voice-recognition and speech-synthesis systems to interact with Internet-based streaming radio and Twitter apps running on the driver's phone.



Now Ford is looking to do much more than simply create in-car versions of existing smart phone applications. With the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Microsoft, Ford is providing expertise for a computer science and engineering course called "Cloud Computing in the Commute." Students in the class will work in small teams to design, build, and demonstrate automotive telematics applications. "The services you care about when you're driving are different from those you use when you're walking around with your phone," says T.J. Giuli, a software engineer in Ford's Infotronics Research and Advanced Engineering division, who is co-teaching the class with Michigan professors Brian Noble and Jason Flinn. The software development platform for the class is based on Microsoft's Windows 7 and Robotics Developer Studio and will provide access to vehicle performance data, networking services, voice recognition, text-to-speech, and Internet services such as social networking platforms, as well as to the Windows Azure cloud computing environment.



"We're not interested in apps that could be running on your smart phone and moving it into your car," says Noble. Instead, the students are developing unique apps, such as a "green mileage" application, or a crowd-sourced app to track road conditions and traffic. "The challenge is to find a killer app and then build it," Noble says. A particular emphasis is being placed on using the existing voice-recognition and speech-synthesis capabilities of Ford's Sync system to simplify driver interactions with the automotive apps.





The Sync-enabled apps available today run on a smart phone, with a programming interface providing a connection between those apps and a car's on-board voice engine. But the Michigan students are developing apps that will generally run in the vehicle, taking advantage of onboard processing and storage in a specially modified 2011 Ford Fiesta (Giuli refers to the research platform as "Fiestaware"). The students also have access to cloud-based services for computation and storage, and some are making use of that in addition to onboard resources.



At the end of the term, the student projects will be evaluated by a team of faculty, Ford engineers, and Microsoft leaders. The winning app will be embedded in the Fiesta, and the app's creators will drive from Ann Arbor to the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA.



The reason for using the app model is to bring a faster development cycle of mobile software to the automotive industry, says Giuli. While Web-based or mobile apps can be written in days or weeks, it typically takes several years for new technology to be built into cars. "You can't stay relevant by releasing new features every three years," Giuli says. By using more general-purpose hardware and then building software, he says, "you can follow consumer tastes more quickly and continue to make the vehicle relevant after it's sold."



Even using general-purpose processors and operating systems, there are special challenges in designing apps specifically for cars, however. For example, even within a manufacturer such as Ford, not every car model uses the same networking system to send data to and from the various sensors and subsystems in the vehicle. As a result, every app would have to be adapted for each basic car model. Giuli hopes that in the future, vehicle networking might be standardized, at least within a single automaker, to simplify things for app developers.



Venkatesh Prasad, who heads Ford's Infotronics Research and Advanced Engineering team, says that the ultimate vision involves leveraging both existing app stores and finding new ways to distribute Sync apps. "The philosophy is to make the lives of our consumers easier," he says.

And Now, a Word from Our Sponsor

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Our Daily Bit of the U. S. Constitution. Law Makers Ignore This Like Always

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Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;-- between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

IRS, DOJ Use Social Media Sites to Track Deadbeats, Criminal Activity

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Documents offer peek at use of social networking sites in investigations


By Jaikumar Vijayan

Computerworld - Advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has obtained documents showing how law enforcement agencies and the Internal Revenue Service are gathering information from social networking sites for their investigations.



The documents were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed last December by the EFF and the University of California, Berkeley's Samuelson Clinic. The lawsuit was filed against six federal agencies and sought information on their use of social networking sites for data collection and surveillance purposes.



The agencies named in the lawsuit were the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.



The EFF this week obtained documents from two of those agencies -- the IRS and the Justice Department -- that show how the government is collecting information from social networking sites, as it has been suspected of doing for some time, said Shane Witnov, a law student and spokesman for the lawsuit at the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic. "The documents tell us clearly that the government is using social networking sites for undercover investigations," Witnov said.

In the case of the IRS, formal policies appear to be in place governing the manner in which agents can use social networking sites to investigate taxpayers, Witnov said. Guidelines contained in a 2009 IRS training course show that the agency clearly forbids agents from using deception and fake social networking accounts to ferret out information.



Agents are also limited to only accessing and using publicly available information from social networking sites. "We were actually quite impressed that they had formal training in place and that these were the rules they had established," Witnov said.

The 38-page IRS training document posted on the EFF Web site provides detailed tips to agents on how to conduct searches, locate relevant taxpayer information, narrow down and refine results, and save multiple Web pages using Adobe's Web capture feature. Among the social media applications mentioned are Google Groups, FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and Second Life.

The IRS document provides an example of how information gathered from a social networking site could be useful in a tax investigation. In the example, a revenue officer discovers that a taxpayer he is investigating maintains a social networking site to advertise his services as a comedian. The officer discovers that the individual maintains a video clip on his social network site where he lists his schedule of past and future performances. That information could be useful in determining amounts paid to the taxpayer for his performances and where those payments were deposited, the document noted.

"Future performance sites are potential levy sources and show where the taxpayer will be for possible summons if returns and financial information are needed," the document said.

Meanwhile, the documents obtained from the criminal division of the Justice Department show that law enforcement agents there use social media sites for undercover operations, Witnov said.



A DOJ slide presentation titled "Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites" from the department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section describes how evidence from social networking sites can reveal personal communications that might help "establish motives and personal relationships." The slide show also mentions how content posted by a user on a social media site could provide location information and "prove and disprove alibis."

The presentation also mentions the responsiveness of some social media sites such as Facebook to law enforcement requests for data. It also notes that most Twitter content is public while private Twitter messages are stored on Twitter's servers until a user deletes them. The "bad news" for law enforcement, however, is that there is no contact information for Twitter users, such as phone numbers, making the site less valuable for gathering information. The DOJ documents also say that Twitter only retains the last log-in IP address and does not preserve data unless legally required to do so.

The DOJ presentation also says that going undercover on social media sites can allow law enforcement to communicate with suspects and targets, gain access to nonpublic information and map social relationships.

The goal in getting the government to disclose its policies related to such practices is to foster a dialogue on the appropriate use of social networking sites in criminal investigations, Witnov said.

"There is a balance between privacy and protecting ourselves from crime," that needs to be achieved, he said. There are instances where the seriousness of a crime might override privacy rights. But there need to be guidelines on when and how information from social networking sites can be collected, he added.



Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

Intel Launches Six Core Server Processors

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The Xeon 5600 series microprocessors, built using Intel's 32-nm technology, deliver 60% greater performance and use less energy than their predecessor.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek


Intel on Tuesday introduced the Xeon 5600 series microprocessors that include the company's first six-core server chips.

The new series comprises 15 products, including a trio of chips for embedded systems, and are built using the company's 32-nanometer processor technology. The series is the successor to Intel's 45-nm 5500 series introduced a year ago.


In releasing the 5500 series, Intel said the products were "as significant and as transformational as the Pentium Pro" introduced more than 10 years before. The latest series, however, ups the ante, because of the transition to 32-nm technology, according to Intel.

Benefits of the new lineup include speed. The 5600 series delivers up to 60% greater performance than its predecessor. As a result, 15 single-core servers running 5500 series processors can be replaced with a single 5600 series server, Intel says. In addition, customers can achieve a return on investment with the latest products in as little as five months versus eight months for the 5500 series.

The 5600 series offers better security through a new set of security instructions that deliver faster data encryption and decryption. The new chips also have Intel's TXT processor-based security shield that provides more protection for applications moved between virtualized servers.

The latest products also deliver better power efficiency. For example, a two-socket server using the low-voltage, six-core L5640 chip can deliver the same performance as last year's X5570 processor, but with up to 30% less power consumption, Intel says.

The 5600 series, code-named Westmere, is compatible with the same motherboard sockets as the 5500 series. The new products all have 12 MB of L3 cache.

The seven quad-core server models have a peak clock speed of 3.46 GHz with a top thermal design power of 130 watts. The five six-core versions reach a top speed of 3.33 GHz with the same maximum TDP. The low-voltage six-core and quad-core models have TDPs as low as 60 watts and 40 watts, respectively. Prices range from $387 to $1,663 each in quantities of 1,000.

System manufacturers expected to release servers based on the 5600 series include Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Oracle.

Along with server chips, the 5600 series also include a trio of processors for the embedded computing segment, including two six-core models and a quad-core version. The chips include seven-year lifecycle support and have prices ranging from $530 to $958 each in quantities of 1,000.

Intel also officially released the six-core Core i7-980X Extreme Edition desktop/workstation processor, demonstrated last week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The chip, which has a clock speed of 3.33 GHz, is priced at $999 in quantities of 1,000 units.

Intel's new six-core server processors will compete with Advanced Micro Devices' eight- and 12-core Opteron chips, codenamed Magny-Cours. The new products are scheduled for release by the end of the month.

Virus Update from Symantec

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Suspicious.XX is a detection technology designed to detect entirely new malware threats without traditional signatures. This technology is aimed at detecting malicious software that has been intentionally mutated or morphed by attackers.



Suspicious.AD is a detection technology designed to detect entirely new malware threats without traditional signatures. This technology is aimed at detecting malicious software that has been intentionally mutated or morphed by attackers.