Google Docs: Your Online Office?

Over the next few weeks,Google will be rolling out a new featurethat allows Google Docs users to access their documents even without an Internet connection. For now the change only applies to the word processor, but similar capabilities are expected to become available for spreadsheet and presentation documents once the initial trials are complete.

This move wasn't unexpected. The updated Google Docs take advantage of the company'sGoogle Gearslibrary, a programming tool that allows Web application developers to synchronize online data with files on the user's local hard drive. It also intensifies the burgeoning competition between Google and Microsoft, which offers Web-based collaboration features similar to Google Docs in the form ofMicrosoft Office Live Workspace.Some pundits feel that online services like Google's are the Number One threat to Microsoft's dominance of the productivity software market. Myself, I remain skeptical.

Current fans of Google Docs will surely appreciate this new feature, but I still have a hard time seeing how a Web-based application could ever replace traditional word processing software for serious business computing. I have a hard enough time getting all the capabilities I want out of alternative office suites, such asOpenOffice.org.

And then there are the security and liability concerns. Having access to your documents from any computer anywhere is a powerful productivity enhancement, but quite frankly I work with a lot of documents that should never leave the walls of my office -- and I'm just small potatoes. Google, Microsoft, and other online application providers will have to demonstrate a serious commitment to document security before they can attract enterprise customers to these services, especially given the current regulatory climate.

How comfortable are you with shifting your business computing off the desktop and into the network? Do you see browser-based applications becoming viable alternatives to the apps of old? Or are they just another flash in the pan we call "Web 2.0"? Sound off in the PC World Community Comments.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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Microsoft Wants To Extend Mobile OS Reach, But Doubts Remain

LAS VEGAS -(Dow Jones)- While Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) wants to expand beyond business customers, it remains to be seen if the mix of improvements to its Windows Mobile operating system will be able to get the job done.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant has pushed hard to get its foot in the mobile door through its operating system, and now wants to bust it open. At the CTIA Wireless trade show on Wednesday, it unveiled the latest version of its operating system, which features tweaks to improve the user interface and better appeal to consumers. Some critics, however, said the improvements won't be sufficient to truly reach out to the mass market.

"Windows Mobile has been quite successful at meeting the needs of the enterprise user," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at market research firm Current Analysis. "That said, I eagerly await a complete overhaul of the user interface."

Microsoft
has made strides in getting its software into smartphones. The company boasts that Windows Mobile will power 20 million smartphones. That trails only privately held Symbian Ltd., which runs most of Nokia Corp.'s
(NOK) handsets, which also includes simpler phones.

As a result, it's better known in corporate circles. But the company wants to reach out to more consumers. The shift comes at a time when more consumers are considering upgrading their basic handsets.

"Windows Mobile is not just for business phones," said Robert Bach, head of the entertainment and devices unit of Microsoft
, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. "It's a phone for people."

Windows Mobile has been regarded as a solid tool for professionals, but never really appealed to casual consumers. The Apple Inc.
(AAPL) iPhone's user interface and Safari Web browser, for example, are seen as offering a better experience.

Microsoft's
newest version, Windows Mobile 6.1, allows users to more easily surf full Web pages on the cellphone than they could in the past. The company also upgraded the user interface so things are easier to reach and set-up. The new version will be made available to phone manufacturers in the third quarter, with devices hitting the market by the end of the year.

Many of the different upgraded features are found in other phones, Back said, but he argued the innovation comes from the combination of the multiple changes into one package.

There are no new game-changers in the latest update, but changes are definitely needed, according to Maribel Lopez, founder and analyst at telecom consultancy firm Lopez Research.

The upgraded operating system is the latest move that Microsoft
has made to go after the consumer market. In February, the company agreed to acquire privately held Danger Inc., which makes software for the Sidekick mobile text devices. In November, it acquired Musiwave SA, which provides mobile music services to carriers and media companies.

If Microsoft Corp.
can successfully pull off its announced acquisition of Yahoo Inc.
(YHOO), it could gain a major edge in the mobile arena. Yahoo
has been making a similarly strong push with its Yahoo Go mobile Web browser.

Bach declined to comment on the progress of any potential deal.

"I haven't spent much time looking at it," he said about the potential to fold Yahoo's
mobile business into Microsoft
. "We'll wait and see how they come out."

On the enterprise side, Microsoft
said it would make available its System Center Mobile Device Manager, which allows corporate IT managers to better run the smartphones on their internal company systems.

The service also includes better security and allows the smartphones to create a virtual private network connection to the corporate system.

Microsoft
, however, faces stiff competition from Research in Motion Ltd.
( RIMM). A legion of corporate workers still rely on their Blackberry email devices, and the company has a lock on much of the enterprise market. Apple, meanwhile, recently unveiled a set of enterprise programs in an attempt to get into the segment.

Bach noted phones with Windows Mobile were comfortably ahead of the iPhone and Blackberry devices.

http://money.cnn.com/

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CTIA: Sprint Uses 'Instinct' To Compete With iPhone

With their sights clearly on the Apple iPhone, Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) and Samsung on Tuesday introduced a touch-screen phone with a 3-inch display, multimedia capabilities, and QWERTY keypad.

Dan Hesse, president and chief executive of Sprint, unveiled the Instinct at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas. Available this summer, the smartphone represents Sprint's direction of offering devices that give consumers everything they want from a wireless carrier: voice, data, and multimedia services. "People want the whole package," Hesse said during his keynote speech.

The Instinct has the same look as the popular iPhone, which has a larger screen at 3.5 inches. Both devices, however, are similar in size and weight. The Instinct measures 4.57 inches by 2.17 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces, while the iPhone is 4.5 inches by 2.4 inches and weighs 4.8 ounces.

The Instinct, which is exclusive to Sprint, runs on the carrier's high-speed CDMA EV-DO Rev A network for text messaging, e-mail, and connecting to the Web. The smartphone has a 2-megapixel camera for still pictures and video recording and comes with a 2-GB MicroSD memory card that's upgradeable to 8 GB. The device supports the Bluetooth wireless standard for connecting to peripheral devices but does not support Wi-Fi for connecting to the Web. The iPhone, on the other hand, supports Wi-Fi.

The Instinct has GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions. The system, which is powered by TeleNav, also includes one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings. For Web search, the smartphone uses Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Live Search.

For entertainment, the Instinct can access Sprint's video-programming network, which includes sports, news, and TV shows, and the Sprint Music Store, which sells tunes for 99 cents each.

Pricing for the Instinct will be disclosed later. The device, however, requires the user to subscribe to the Sprint Everything pricing plan, which provides unlimited data starting at $70 a month.

Hesse said Sprint's strategy is to simplify pricing by offering one price for unlimited use of all its services. The company recently introduced the "Simply Everything" plan, which includes unlimited voice, data services, and text messaging for $99 a month. "We think Simply Everything kicks off a new era in wireless," Hesse said.

Hesse predicted that consumers would favor all-you-can-eat plans over pricing based on "buckets" of minutes or limited data access, which are too confusing. "Nostradamus couldn't predict what your phone bill will be," he said.

For future Internet connectivity, Sprint remained committed to WiMax, which Hesse said would eventually give the company a "two-year market advantage" in providing higher Internet speeds to customers. "WiMax is not slide-ware," he said. "It works now."

Sprint's XOHM WiMax business unit is testing the high-speed service in Chicago and the Baltimore-Washington area.

http://www.informationweek.com/

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EBay Yanks Sale of Laptop With Vista Attack Code

Shane Macaulay's attempt to sell a hacked laptop complete with Windows Vista attack code did not last long.

EBay pulled the listing within hours of its appearance Monday, saying that it could have harmed users. "You can't sell anything that would do harm," said a spokeswoman for eBay's public relations agency.

The company removed the listing between 11 p.m. Monday and 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, Pacific Time, after eBay employees noticed the post. "It was the wording of the listing that caught the attention of the trust and safety experts who monitor the site," the spokeswoman said.

Macaulay won last week's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. He had offered the laptop he broke into for sale, claiming that his exploit code could probably still be extracted from the machine.

"This laptop is a good case study for any forensics group/company/individual that wants to prove how cool they are, and a live example, not canned of what a typical incident responce sitchiation [sic] would look like," his listing stated.

Although the laptop was listed on eBay just before April 1, a traditional day of Internet pranks, Macaulay insisted it was legitimate.

Macaulay, a researcher with the Security Objectives consultancy, was one of two hackers to claim laptops and cash prizes for penetrating systems during last week's contest. Organizers offered Vista, Mac OS and Linux-based laptops for the taking, along with prizes that varied from US$5,000 to $20,000, depending on the difficulty of the exploit. By Friday, however, only the Linux laptop remained unbreached.

Though the laptop he hacked runs Vista, Macaulay claimed that his Adobe Flash Player exploit will affect 90 percent of computers worldwide. He won a $5,000 cash prize, courtesy of 3Com's TippingPoint division, and the Fujitsu U810 laptop he had hacked into for his work.

Had Macaulay been able to sell his laptop before Adobe patched the issue, he would have violated his contract with TippingPoint, said Terri Forslof, the company's manager of security response. "We would have disqualified him from the program," she said.

The laptop had not been hit with any other attack code during the course of the contest, she added. "He was the only person who tried," she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/

New AMD 17.1-inch laptops debut from Toshiba

Toshiba thinks it is time to drive the price of 17-inch desktop replacement laptops down as it today unveiled a new model starting at around $750. The series is called the Satellite L350.

The Toshiba Satellite L350 sports a 17.1-inch WXGA+ “TruBrite” LCD display and AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processors. Possible features, depending upon configuration, might also include ATI Radeon X1250 graphics memory and a DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash. Labelflash lets you burn images and labels directly to a special DVD-R disc.

Other features of the Satellite L350 include your standard 801.11g wireless, up to 4 GB of RAM, a 200 GB hard drive and three USB “Sleep-and-Charge” ports. This laptop series should be available now.

http://www.slipperybrick.com/