<IT WORLD> Microsoft gets
touchy By Martin J
Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - Microsoft has
been touting some of the new features of its
dominating web browser, Internet Explorer, this
week. IE10 will ship with Windows 8 later this
year and its focus relies heavily on the Metro
touch screen interface.
The current trend
in web browsers is to remove as much of the menu
and toolbars as possible and display more of the
content. Metro Internet Explorer 10 will have no
visible interface at all leaving only the web page
available for viewing. The menu bar will reappear
by swiping the top or bottom of the screen or
right-clicking the mouse. Tile based blocks of
data, which form the basis of Metro, will feature
heavily on the new finger friendly browser and
taskbar pinned websites and apps will alert the
user whenever they are updated.
There will
also be improved security features such as and
Enhanced Protected Mode
which sandboxes scripts and applications until the
user deems them as safe.
Both Google and
Mozilla have confirmed that they are developing
browsers to run in the Windows Metro environment.
However, the level of control that Microsoft will
have over third-party apps running on Metro is
still vague.
The software giant is
following Apple and Google's digital footsteps by
introducing an app store and encouraging users to
download and run applications and programs from
that. However restricting the use of third-party
software such as alternative browsers will
certainly spell an early demise for the operating
system. Microsoft has evolved from previous
mistakes regarding browser monopolies.
The
good news is that Firefox and Chrome will be
reprogrammed to run on both Windows 8 classic
desktop and Metro so users don't even need to go
near IE if they want to keep their favorite
browser on the new Windows.
Current
versions of Firefox are heading for a silent
update schedule from June, which means that
updates will be applied in the background without
the user's interaction. At present the company
updates the browser every six weeks. Firefox 11
was released this week patching 12
vulnerabilities. Its intention is to update and
install security patches without bothering the
user. Google's Chrome already employs this method
of upgrading.
This method of silent
updating is set to become the norm with all web
browsers as Microsoft too will be adopting it for
Internet Explorer.
Industry Legal battles between
tech companies are nothing new, Apple after all is
the king of the courtroom. However, this week saw
a new battlefield emerge between social media and
search sites Yahoo and Facebook. Jumping on the
patent bandwagon, Yahoo has sued Facebook for
infringement of 10 patents concerning methods of
advertising on the web.
Talks regarding
revenue sharing opportunities between the
companies broke down and Facebook has since
announced an initial public offering of its shares
that could value the company at US$100 billion.
Yahoo claimed that it had no option.
"Unfortunately, the matter with Facebook
remains unresolved and we are compelled to seek
redress in federal court. We are confident that we
will prevail."
Yahoo's complaint goes on
to state that for much of the technology on which
Facebook is based, Yahoo got there first and was
therefore granted patents by the Unites States
Patent and Trademark Office to protect its
innovations. Some of the technology in question
includes methods of webpage customization, content
sharing, online ad placement, sending messages to
friends, click fraud detection, and social photo
display optimization.
Facebook responded
with expressions of disappointment. "We're
disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business
partner of Facebook and a company that has
substantially benefited from its association with
Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation."
It is likely that the two companies will
come to some agreement, as was the case in a
similar scenario in 2004 when Yahoo went after
Google and settled for 2.7 million shares. Yahoo
may have missed the social media boat but it
certainly protected itself on the patent front.
According to US government databases Yahoo has
over 3,300 patents and applications while Facebook
has just 160.
Security The BBC
came under cyber attack this week as two of its
satellite feeds into Iran were blocked and
denial-of-service attacks hit its website.
Director general Mark Thompson pointed the finger
at Iranian authorities who also tried to jam the
Persian Service's London phone lines and BBC
Persian TV.
"For those working for the BBC
Persian service, interference and harassment from
the Iranian authorities has become a challenging
fact of life," he said.
Watchdog group
Reporters Without Borders recently named Iran as
an "enemy of the Internet" following major
clampdowns on information and data flow. Iranian
Internet providers attacked the web with blanket
censorship, service blocking and outages during
elections and protests. (See Web
police show their power, Asia Times Online,
February 25, 2012.)
Earlier this month
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sanctioned
the creation of The Supreme Council of Virtual
Space, which can only be described as an Internet
overlord designed to manage an internal Iranian
network isolated from the World Wide Web.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times
Online correspondent based in Thailand.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
Industry
