Thứ ba, 4/1/2011, 07:00 GMT+7
Cùng khám phá hành trình trở thành Thần tượng âm nhạc Việt Nam 2010 của cô cựu sinh viên Ngoại giao qua từng nét giai điệu ngập tràn cảm xúc mãnh liệt.
> Uyên Linh trở thành Vietnam Idol/ Uyên Linh òa khóc trong vòng tay bố mẹ
1. "Falling" (Alicia Keys)
Trước khi đến với Vietnam Idol 2010, Uyên Linh từng rất nổi tiếng trong giới học sinh - sinh viên Hà Nội khi biểu diễn ca khúc Falling của ca sĩ da màu Alicia Keys trong khá nhiều cuộc thi âm nhạc sinh viên như Soul of Melody (trường ĐH Ngoại Thương tổ chức) hay Let's Get Loud 2007 (nghe ca khúc).
Uyên Linh khi còn là sinh viên Học viện Ngoại giao Hà Nội.
Đến với đêm Gala nhạc nước ngoài của Vietnam Idol, cô cựu sinh viên Ngoại giao cũng chọn ca khúc này vì "Falling đã gắn với rất nhiều kỷ niệm của tôi khi còn là sinh viên. Tôi muốn dành phần biểu diễn của mình để hồi tưởng lại những tháng ngày ấm áp ấy, cũng như muốn kiểm chứng sự tiến bộ của bản thân cho tới lúc thi Vietnam Idol năm nay" (xem video).
2. "Saving All My Love For You" (Whitney Houston)
Uyên Linh giành giải đặc biệt cuộc thi hát tiếng Anh "Let's Get Loud 2008".
Trong đêm chung kết cuộc thi hát tiếng Anh Let's Get Loud 2008, Uyên Linh đã chinh phục và "ép phê" ban giám khảo cũng như toàn bộ khán giả có mặt tại Cung văn hóa Hữu nghị (Hà Nội) với bản tình ca nổi tiếng Saving All My Love For You, gắn liền với tên tuổi Whitney Houston - thần tượng của cô (xem video). Với chất giọng đặc biệt, khả năng phát âm tiếng Anh chuẩn và phong cách trình diễn tự tin, Uyên Linh mê hoặc khán giả qua từng câu hát và đã giành giải đặc biệt của Let's Get Loud năm đó.
3. "If I Ain't Got You" (Alicia Keys)
Uyên Linh rất thích hát những ca khúc tiếng Anh.
Vòng sơ tuyển của Vietnam Idol 2010, Uyên Linh tiếp tục chọn một ca khúc của ca sĩ da màu Alicia Keys đi dự thi, nhưng lần này là If I Ain't Got You (nghe ca khúc) chứ không phải Fallin'. Khả năng cảm thụ từng nốt nhạc, lối hát đầy cảm xúc và đặc biệt là cách phát âm tiếng Anh chuẩn của Uyên Linh đã ít nhiều gây được ấn tượng cho ba vị giám khảo Quốc Trung, Siu Black, Quang Dũng và giúp cô trở thành một trong 96 thí sinh vào vòng Nhà hát và vòng Bán kết tại TP HCM.
4. "Tình 2000" (nhạc sĩ Võ Thiện Thanh)
Uyên Linh với mái tóc dài "ngơ ngác" trong những vòng đầu của Vietnam Idol 2010.
Ở vòng Top 24 nữ, Uyên Linh chọn biểu diễn Tình 2000 - ca khúc của nhạc sĩ Võ Thiện Thanh đã được Mỹ Linh thể hiện rất thành công. Phần trình diễn của Uyên Linh ở vòng này có phần hơi rụt rè, mái tóc dài cũng tạo thêm cho cô sự "ngơ ngác" (xem video). Mặc dù phần biểu diễn chưa thực sự thuyết phục, tiềm năng ở cô gái 22 tuổi này khiến ban giám khảo cũng như khán giả bắt đầu để ý. Uyên Linh cũng cho biết khi cô được vào vòng sau, chỉ có Siu Black ủng hộ còn hai giám khảo Quang Dũng và Quốc Trung có phần hơi lưỡng lự.
5. "Với anh" (nhạc sĩ Hồ Hoài Anh)
"Với anh" là màn biểu diễn đánh dấu sự lột xác của Uyên Linh tại Vietnam Idol 2010.
Tới vòng bán kết, Uyên Linh có một bước đột phá ngoạn mục khi trình diễn ca khúc Với anh của nhạc sĩ Hồ Hoài Anh với bản phối mới. Mái tóc dài được thay thế bằng kiểu tóc ngắn cá tính, những trang phục già dặn và đơn điệu từ các vòng trước nhường chỗ cho những bộ cánh bắt mắt. Sau phần trình diễn của Uyên Linh, nhạc sĩ Quốc Trung đã phải thú nhận rằng mình bắt đầu có hứng thú sản xuất âm nhạc cho các ca sĩ, dù anh không còn hứng từ lâu. Với anh được coi là một trong những ca khúc xuất sắc của Uyên Linh tại các vòng thi Vietnam Idol (xem video).
6. "Những lời buồn" (nhạc sĩ Đức Trí)
Uyên Linh "phiêu" trong "Những lời buồn".
Lọt vào Top 10, Uyên Linh có phần ra mắt trong đêm Gala đầu tiên với ca khúc Những lời buồn của nhạc sĩ Đức Trí theo phong cách R&B pha trộn với Jazz (xem video). Người nghe bị cuốn vào giọng hát đầy mê hoặc của Uyên Linh và không nhận ra đây là một ca khúc cũ đã được Phương Vy thể hiện rất mềm mại trước kia nữa. Đạo diễn Nguyễn Quang Dũng nhận xét: "Anh nhận thấy từng động tác nhỏ trên người em giống như là hơi thở của em khi đang hát vậy, giống như âm nhạc đang chảy trong từng mạch máu của em".
7. "Mùa đông sẽ qua" (nhạc sĩ Huy Tuấn)
Đêm Gala Pop/ Rock, Uyên Linh không có đối thủ khi trình diễn "Mùa đông sẽ qua".
Sang đến đêm Gala Pop/ Rock, Uyên Linh dường như không có đối thủ khi cống hiến cho khán giả một màn trình diễn đầy cảm xúc với Mùa đông sẽ qua của nhạc sĩ Huy Tuấn (xem video). Phần thể hiện của Uyên Linh khiến vị giám khảo khó tính là nhạc sĩ Quốc Trung phải thừa nhận rằng cách xử lý bài hát của cô như "một ca sĩ chuyên nghiệp đã có thời gian đi hát lâu". Tuy nhiên, cũng có nhiều ý kiến cho rằng khi hát Mùa đông sẽ qua, Uyên Linh vẫn chưa vượt được qua cái bóng của Mỹ Linh - cái tên gắn liền với ca khúc này.
8. "Anh mãi là" (nhạc sĩ Hồ Hoài Anh), hát cùng Văn Mai Hương
Mai Hương và Uyên Linh trong bản song ca - 'Anh mãi là'.
Phần trình diễn Anh mãi là của "mẹ con nhà Cám" Uyên Linh - Mai Hương trong đêm Gala song ca đã thực sự "ép phê" khán giả. Hai giọng ca được đánh giá là "có cùng đẳng cấp" gây bất ngờ bởi sự kết hợp đầy ăn ý và cùng nhau "tung hứng" các câu hát (xem video). Không chỉ đem tới một "cái kết đẹp" cho đêm Gala song ca, Anh mãi là cũng là một trong những phần trình diễn đáng nhớ nhất của Vietnam Idol 2010.
9. "Chỉ là giấc mơ" (nhạc sĩ Kim Ngọc)
Uyên Linh chạm được vào tận cùng cảm xúc người nghe với "Chỉ là giấc mơ" trong đêm Gala của BGK.
Vốn gây được sự chú ý từ các đêm Gala trước, nhưng phải tới đêm Gala của ban giám khảo, Uyên Linh mới thực sự tạo nên một cơn sốt trên khắp cả nước với hai ca khúc theo hai phong cách khác nhau - Chỉ là giấc mơ và Đường cong. Mở đầu đêm Gala, cô gái 22 tuổi khiến khán giả đắm chìm vào những cảm xúc mãnh liệt nhất của tình yêu với Chỉ là giấc mơ (xem video). Tiếng hát của Uyên Linh thể hiện tâm trạng đầy khắc khoải, đã chạm được vào sâu thẳm trái tim của hàng triệu người.
10. "Đường cong" (nhạc sĩ Nguyễn Hải Phong)
Uyên Linh khoe "đường cong" trước những lời khen của ban giám khảo.
Cũng trong đêm Gala của ban giám khảo, Uyên Linh một lần nữa đem tới sự ngạc nhiên cho cả hội trường Hãng phim Việt (TP HCM) lẫn khán giả xem truyền hình trong cả nước khi thể hiện "đường cong" trong giọng hát của mình với ca khúc Đường cong - một sáng tác của nhạc sĩ Nguyễn Hải Phong. Phần trình diễn của Uyên Linh đã khiến cả khán phòng như nóng bừng lên (xem video). Sau đêm Gala của Top 3, cô đã tiếp nhận thêm một biệt danh mới do Ban giám khảo và khán giả trao tặng - "Sexy Lady".
11. "Sao chẳng về với em" (nhạc sĩ Quốc Trung)
Uyên Linh "biến hóa" với "Sao chẳng về với em" của nhạc sĩ Quốc Trung.
Đêm chung kết Vietnam Idol 2010, Uyên Linh chọn ca khúc Sao chẳng về với em của nhạc sĩ Quốc Trung làm phần mở màn của mình vì muốn "thu hút các fan" của vị giám khảo này. Uyên Linh còn mạnh dạn phá cách bằng việc thay đổi một chút phần lời bài hát, khiến tác giả của bài hát cũng phải ngỡ ngàng và bày tỏ: "Tôi muốn chia tiền tác quyền cho em vì sự mới mẻ này". Sao chẳng về với em từng được hai diva Thanh Lam và Hồng Nhung hát rất thành công, nhưng Uyên Linh đã có cách thể hiện rất riêng của mình, đặc biệt ở những khúc phiêu đầy ngẫu hứng (xem video).
12. "Take Me To The River" (Al Green)
Phần trình diễn "Take Me To The River" bốc lửa của Uyên Linh trong đêm chung kết Vietnam Idol 2010.
Đến phần thể hiện ca khúc nước ngoài trong đêm thi cuối cùng, Uyên Linh tiếp tục đưa khán giả đi hết từ bất ngờ này đến bất ngờ khác với ca khúc kinh điển Take Me To The River từ thập niên 1970. Giọng ca với những "đường cong" uốn lượn cùng phong cách thu hút qua từng bước di chuyển trên sân khấu của Uyên Linh trong phần biểu diễn này đã hoàn toàn thuyết phục ngay cả những khán giả khó tính nhất, tới mức hai giám khảo Siu Black và Quốc Trung đã phải trao tặng cô một nụ hôn sau tiết mục "hừng hực" và "hoang dã" này (xem video).
13. "Tell Him", hát cùng Anh Thư (Celine Dion & Barbara Streisand)
Trước đêm công bố danh hiệu Vietnam Idol 2010 vài ngày, bản thu âm ca khúc Tell Him do Uyên Linh hát cùng cô bạn thân Anh Thư đã xuất hiện trên mạng và tiếp tục khiến các fan của cô cựu nữ sinh Ngoại giao phải "nổi da gà" (nghe ca khúc). Tell Him là bản song ca nổi tiếng của hai diva Celine Dion và Barbara Streisand, nay được Uyên Linh và Anh Thư hát lại theo một phong cách riêng.
Trần Nguyễn Uyên Linh và cô bạn thân Phạm Phan Anh Thư.
Sau khi nghe xong bản thu âm này, nhiều người tuyên bố rằng họ không tin đây là do hai người Việt Nam hát. Giọng ca của Anh Thư cũng không hề thua kém gì cô bạn Thần tượng âm nhạc 2010. Sau khi Tell Him xuất hiện trên mạng, cô đã nhận được hàng loạt comment kiểu như: "Anh Thư và Uyên Linh là cặp song ca tuyệt vời" hay "Anh Thư sang năm đi thi Vietnam Idol đi".
14. "Cảm ơn tình yêu" (nhạc sĩ Huy Tuấn)
"Cảm ơn tình yêu" giờ đã trở thành ca khúc gắn liền với tên tuổi Uyên Linh.
Cảm ơn tình yêu là bài hát nhạc sĩ Huy Tuấn viết riêng cho Vietnam Idol 2010 và được dùng để thử thách Top 2 - Mai Hương và Uyên Linh. Dù Văn Mai Hương đã thể hiện rất tròn trịa ca khúc này nhưng khi Uyên Linh xuất hiện trên sân khấu, người nghe như bị thôi miên vào lãnh địa cảm xúc âm nhạc mà cô tạo ra với sự nồng nàn, da diết và mãnh liệt (xem video).
Uyên Linh đã biến một sản phẩm "đơn đặt hàng" cho người chiến thắng Vietnam Idol thành một ca khúc có linh hồn riêng. Cảm ơn tình yêu cũng giống như lời tri ân của cô dành cho hơn hàng trăm nghìn fan đã ủng hộ mình trong suốt thời gian qua. Sẽ là một gánh nặng và áp lực đặt lên vai Uyên Linh nếu mặc định cô là một diva tương lai, nhưng giọng ca 22 tuổi đầy nội lực này hoàn toàn xứng đáng với những gì đã đạt được. Trước mắt Uyên Linh còn cả một chặng đường dài để khẳng định mình.
Thăm dò ý kiến
Bạn thích Uyên Linh trình diễn ca khúc nào nhất?
Fallin' Với anh
Những lời buồn Mùa đông sẽ qua
Chỉ là giấc mơ Đường cong
Anh mãi là Take Me To The River
Tell Him Cảm ơn tình yêu
Nguyên Minh
Theo dòng sự kiện:
Mai Hương: 'Tôi khóc từ trước khi công bố kết quả' (30/12)
Uyên Linh bình luận thể thao (29/12)
Uyên Linh òa khóc trong vòng tay bố mẹ (26/12)
Mỹ Linh 'lấn át' Uyên Linh trong đêm trao giải Idol (26/12)
Uyên Linh trở thành Vietnam Idol (26/12)
Sunday, February 20, 2011
20/02 Jennifer Aniston bán nhà 42 triệu USD
Chủ nhật, 20/2/2011, 10:40 GMT+7
Ngôi sao Friends muốn đơn giản hóa cuộc sống, việc đầu tiên cô làm là rao bán ngôi biệt thự trên sườn đồi Beverly Hills ở Los Angeles - nơi cư trú của những người nổi tiếng thế giới và đắt đỏ nhất thị trường nhà đất Mỹ.
Dù được mệnh danh là một trong những người đàn bà đẹp nhất thế giới, Jennifer Aniston vẫn một mình. Ảnh: Celebriry9.
Tờ People cho biết, nữ diễn viên vừa ăn mừng sinh nhật lần thứ 42 cảm thấy rằng, đã đến lúc cô cần phải bán đi ngôi nhà sang trọng. Những nhà môi giới sành sỏi đã định giá ngôi nhà ở mức 42 triệu USD (khoảng 877 tỷ đồng). Aniston mua ngôi nhà này năm 2006 với giá 13,5 triệu USD và mất hai năm để cải tạo nó. Người phụ nữ độc thân hấp dẫn nhất thế giới chuyển đến ở đây vào năm 2009, ngay trước sinh nhật lần thứ 40 của mình.
Ngôi biệt thự được xây dựng vào năm 1970 với tầm nhìn bao quát Los Angeles, gồm 3 phòng ngủ, 5 phòng tắm, phòng khách, phòng ăn, phòng sinh hoạt chung, hệ thống phòng thay đồ - tủ quần áo - vệ sinh - phòng trang điểm - spa liên hoàn. Vợ cũ của Bad Pitt từng âu yếm gọi nơi này là "Ohana" và cho biết, nó giống "một cái ôm", khiến cô có cảm giác như "rung động với tình yêu".
Ngôi biệt thự sang trọng trên sườn đồi Beverly Hills quá rộng so với cô. Ảnh: People.
Giải thích cho việc bán nhà, minh tinh tóc vàng cho biết, một buổi sáng khi thức dậy ở London, cô thấy rằng "cuộc sống của mình thật lộn xộn". "Tôi cần được đơn giản hóa và ngôi nhà hiện tại quá rộng với tôi. Vì thế, tôi buộc phải bán nó” - Aniston phân trần. Mặc dù Aniston đã có một ngôi nhà nhỏ ở Los Angeles, cách xa Beverly Hills nhưng người đẹp tiết lộ, cô đang tìm kiếm một ngôi nhà nhỏ trong thành phố New York làm nơi trú thân mới.
N.T.
Theo dòng sự kiện:
Jennifer Aniston (11/03)
Jennifer Aniston lả lơi bên tình mới (11/03)
Jennifer Aniston và Jessica Simpson nổi giận vì John Mayer (19/02)
Jennifer Aniston luôn quyến rũ với bikini (18/02)
Jennifer Aniston vui vẻ với tình mới trên biển (08/02)
Jennifer Aniston chụp ảnh nóng với bạn trai mới (22/01)
Ngôi sao Friends muốn đơn giản hóa cuộc sống, việc đầu tiên cô làm là rao bán ngôi biệt thự trên sườn đồi Beverly Hills ở Los Angeles - nơi cư trú của những người nổi tiếng thế giới và đắt đỏ nhất thị trường nhà đất Mỹ.
Dù được mệnh danh là một trong những người đàn bà đẹp nhất thế giới, Jennifer Aniston vẫn một mình. Ảnh: Celebriry9.Tờ People cho biết, nữ diễn viên vừa ăn mừng sinh nhật lần thứ 42 cảm thấy rằng, đã đến lúc cô cần phải bán đi ngôi nhà sang trọng. Những nhà môi giới sành sỏi đã định giá ngôi nhà ở mức 42 triệu USD (khoảng 877 tỷ đồng). Aniston mua ngôi nhà này năm 2006 với giá 13,5 triệu USD và mất hai năm để cải tạo nó. Người phụ nữ độc thân hấp dẫn nhất thế giới chuyển đến ở đây vào năm 2009, ngay trước sinh nhật lần thứ 40 của mình.
Ngôi biệt thự được xây dựng vào năm 1970 với tầm nhìn bao quát Los Angeles, gồm 3 phòng ngủ, 5 phòng tắm, phòng khách, phòng ăn, phòng sinh hoạt chung, hệ thống phòng thay đồ - tủ quần áo - vệ sinh - phòng trang điểm - spa liên hoàn. Vợ cũ của Bad Pitt từng âu yếm gọi nơi này là "Ohana" và cho biết, nó giống "một cái ôm", khiến cô có cảm giác như "rung động với tình yêu".
Ngôi biệt thự sang trọng trên sườn đồi Beverly Hills quá rộng so với cô. Ảnh: People.Giải thích cho việc bán nhà, minh tinh tóc vàng cho biết, một buổi sáng khi thức dậy ở London, cô thấy rằng "cuộc sống của mình thật lộn xộn". "Tôi cần được đơn giản hóa và ngôi nhà hiện tại quá rộng với tôi. Vì thế, tôi buộc phải bán nó” - Aniston phân trần. Mặc dù Aniston đã có một ngôi nhà nhỏ ở Los Angeles, cách xa Beverly Hills nhưng người đẹp tiết lộ, cô đang tìm kiếm một ngôi nhà nhỏ trong thành phố New York làm nơi trú thân mới.
N.T.
Theo dòng sự kiện:
Jennifer Aniston (11/03)
Jennifer Aniston lả lơi bên tình mới (11/03)
Jennifer Aniston và Jessica Simpson nổi giận vì John Mayer (19/02)
Jennifer Aniston luôn quyến rũ với bikini (18/02)
Jennifer Aniston vui vẻ với tình mới trên biển (08/02)
Jennifer Aniston chụp ảnh nóng với bạn trai mới (22/01)
20/02 Uyên Linh xúc động trước tình cảm của du học sinh
Chủ nhật, 20/2/2011, 10:01 GMT+7
Quán quân Vietnam Idol 2010 bất ngờ trước sự yêu mến và ủng hộ nhiệt tình của sinh viên Việt Nam tại Singapore trong chương trinh 'Music Revolution 2011', tối 18/2.
> Uyên Linh gửi lời tri ân cuộc thi 'Let's Get Loud'
Uyên Linh tâm sự, không những đây là lần đầu tiên đến với Si
ngapore, mà lần đầu tiên Uyên Linh được đi máy bay ra nước ngoài. Chính vì vậy dù chuyến đi rất ngắn ngủi cũng đã để cho cô rất nhiều cảm xúc. Cảm xúc với một Singapore tráng lệ, với những bạn học sinh, sinh viên Việt Nam đang sống và học tập tại đây.
Uyên Linh xúc động trước sự quan tâm tận tình của những anh chị đại diện của Hội sinh viên.
Cô dành tặng cho khán giả các ca khúc gắn liền với cô trong cuộc thi Idol: Cảm ơn tình yêu, Take me to the river.
Sinh viên tại Singapore giao lưu ca nhạc cùng Uyên Linh trên sân khấu .
Nam Cường cũng vui mừng trước khi đến Singapore. Những màn pháo tay rộn ràng, những làn sóng tay không ngừng trong nhà hát với gần 100 chỗ đã hết sạch vé mỗi khi cả Uyên Linh và Nam Cường biểu diễn.
Nam Cường đã không để các bạn sinh viên thất vọng. Ca khúc “Bay giữa ngân hà” và “Phải là anh” được yêu cầu không ngớt, nhiều bạn còn ngạc nhiên không ngờ Nam Cường lại hát live tốt thế, vì trước nay các bạn vẫn nghĩ, ca sĩ thần tượng dành cho teen thường hát nhép khi trình diễn. Nam Cường đã chứng minh những điều mọi người vô tình áp đặt là sai.
Nam Cường và Uyên Linh đều khẳng định đây là chuyến đi lưu diễn khó quên và cảm giác muốn được quay lại hòn đảo xinh đẹp này lâu hơn nữa.
Dung Lâm
Theo dòng sự kiện:
Uyên Linh (14/02)
Uyên Linh tủi thân trong ngày Valentine (14/02)
Uyên Linh, Nam Cường xuất ngoại đầu năm (12/02)
Uyên Linh hát trong 'Đêm Valentine thế kỷ' (10/02)
Uyên Linh chúc Tết độc giả (03/02)
Uyên Linh chạy sô giáp Tết (29/01)
Quán quân Vietnam Idol 2010 bất ngờ trước sự yêu mến và ủng hộ nhiệt tình của sinh viên Việt Nam tại Singapore trong chương trinh 'Music Revolution 2011', tối 18/2.
> Uyên Linh gửi lời tri ân cuộc thi 'Let's Get Loud'
Uyên Linh tâm sự, không những đây là lần đầu tiên đến với Si
ngapore, mà lần đầu tiên Uyên Linh được đi máy bay ra nước ngoài. Chính vì vậy dù chuyến đi rất ngắn ngủi cũng đã để cho cô rất nhiều cảm xúc. Cảm xúc với một Singapore tráng lệ, với những bạn học sinh, sinh viên Việt Nam đang sống và học tập tại đây.
Uyên Linh xúc động trước sự quan tâm tận tình của những anh chị đại diện của Hội sinh viên.
Cô dành tặng cho khán giả các ca khúc gắn liền với cô trong cuộc thi Idol: Cảm ơn tình yêu, Take me to the river.
Sinh viên tại Singapore giao lưu ca nhạc cùng Uyên Linh trên sân khấu .
Nam Cường cũng vui mừng trước khi đến Singapore. Những màn pháo tay rộn ràng, những làn sóng tay không ngừng trong nhà hát với gần 100 chỗ đã hết sạch vé mỗi khi cả Uyên Linh và Nam Cường biểu diễn.
Nam Cường đã không để các bạn sinh viên thất vọng. Ca khúc “Bay giữa ngân hà” và “Phải là anh” được yêu cầu không ngớt, nhiều bạn còn ngạc nhiên không ngờ Nam Cường lại hát live tốt thế, vì trước nay các bạn vẫn nghĩ, ca sĩ thần tượng dành cho teen thường hát nhép khi trình diễn. Nam Cường đã chứng minh những điều mọi người vô tình áp đặt là sai.
Nam Cường và Uyên Linh đều khẳng định đây là chuyến đi lưu diễn khó quên và cảm giác muốn được quay lại hòn đảo xinh đẹp này lâu hơn nữa.
Dung Lâm
Theo dòng sự kiện:
Uyên Linh (14/02)
Uyên Linh tủi thân trong ngày Valentine (14/02)
Uyên Linh, Nam Cường xuất ngoại đầu năm (12/02)
Uyên Linh hát trong 'Đêm Valentine thế kỷ' (10/02)
Uyên Linh chúc Tết độc giả (03/02)
Uyên Linh chạy sô giáp Tết (29/01)
18/02 Art School Runs Afoul of Facebook’s Nudity Police
February 18, 2011, 8:50 pm
By MIGUEL HELFT
The New York Academy of Art, a graduate university that has been teaching figurative art since 1982, is not the kind of institution you would expect to get into trouble for mischief on Facebook. Yet the school recently received a stern warning from the site: “You uploaded a photo that violates our Terms of Use, and this photo has been removed.” The message went on to explain the kinds of things that Facebook does not allow: photos that attack a person or group, that depict drug use or contain violence or nudity.
Facebook apparently had determined that an image the academy had uploaded to its Facebook page ran afoul of its ban on nudity. Yet the image — an ink-on-paper drawing of a woman’s naked upper body by Steven Assael — was hardly racy. It was the kind of drawing you might see in galleries and museums the world over.
Days later, when a school administrator was uploading images from a faculty show to Facebook, the school’s account was suddenly blocked from uploading anything for seven days. “They must have decided that we are a repeat offender,” said David Kratz, president of the academy. “We are a graduate school of figurative art. We teach people classical skills and technique.” Mr. Kratz said he and his staff were at a loss for what to do, since “there is no obvious way to contact anyone” at Facebook.
The academy took to its blog, where it wrote about the incident, posted the image in question and lamented Facebook’s actions and its power as a curator of online culture. “As an institution of higher learning with a long tradition of upholding the art world’s ‘traditional values and skills,’ we, the Graduate School of Figurative Art, find it difficult to allow Facebook to be the final arbiter — and online curator — of the artwork we share with the world.”
So what happened? Facebook now says it made a mistake. While the company bans nude photographs, its representatives say the company has an unwritten policy that allows drawings or sculptures of nudes. It explained that it only reviews images that are flagged by users, and that its staff reviews many thousands of images a day.
“We count many amateur — and some professional — artists among our employees, and we’re thrilled that so many artists share their work on Facebook,” Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. “In this case, we congratulate the artist on his lifelike portrayal that, frankly, fooled our reviewers. Each member of our investigations team reviews thousands of pieces of reported content every day and, of course, we occasionally make a mistake. We’re sorry for the confusion here and we encourage the artist to repost his work.”
But a number of other figurative artists say they too have had their work removed by Facebook, and in some cases had their accounts blocked. They say they feel that Facebook is taking aim at their work and accuse it of censorship.
“It seems like they have really gone after artists,” said John Wellington, an artist in New York who is a graduate of the academy. “The images they are taking down are clearly paintings.” After one of his paintings was taken down recently, Mr. Wellington said he deleted from Facebook all the images that he had uploaded that showed a nipple, for fear that his account would be disabled.
Richard T. Scott, another graduate of the academy, who lives in Paris, said some images he had uploaded were also removed. He said he knew of more than 50 paintings, including some entered into an online contest of figurative drawings, that were deleted by Facebook. Mr. Scott said he was particularly concerned because Facebook had allowed him to showcase his work and to be discovered by galleries and collectors. “For figurative painters, Facebook has been a democratizing force, and it has been pivotal for my career,” he said.
Last year, The Huffington Post reported that a Colorado-based artist had had his work removed for similar reasons.
How widespread these cases are is difficult to ascertain. Facebook faces many challenges in policing everything from cyberbullying to threats among its more than 500 million users.
A check of a handful of major art institutions suggests that while the academy’s experience is not unique, it is perhaps not so common either. Elyse Topalian, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said the museum had never encountered problems when posting artworks with images of nudes on Facebook. It has done so many times to highlight works from its collection.
Mr. Axten said: “Anyone can do a search on Facebook and find thousands of images of artwork. If we’re censoring, we’re doing a terrible job at it. We don’t censor art and have no intention to.”
Mr. Axten also pointed out that Facebook members who have had their accounts blocked can appeal. However, there is apparently no way to appeal when a single image is blocked.
Randy Kennedy contributed reporting.
By MIGUEL HELFT
The New York Academy of Art, a graduate university that has been teaching figurative art since 1982, is not the kind of institution you would expect to get into trouble for mischief on Facebook. Yet the school recently received a stern warning from the site: “You uploaded a photo that violates our Terms of Use, and this photo has been removed.” The message went on to explain the kinds of things that Facebook does not allow: photos that attack a person or group, that depict drug use or contain violence or nudity.
Facebook apparently had determined that an image the academy had uploaded to its Facebook page ran afoul of its ban on nudity. Yet the image — an ink-on-paper drawing of a woman’s naked upper body by Steven Assael — was hardly racy. It was the kind of drawing you might see in galleries and museums the world over.
Days later, when a school administrator was uploading images from a faculty show to Facebook, the school’s account was suddenly blocked from uploading anything for seven days. “They must have decided that we are a repeat offender,” said David Kratz, president of the academy. “We are a graduate school of figurative art. We teach people classical skills and technique.” Mr. Kratz said he and his staff were at a loss for what to do, since “there is no obvious way to contact anyone” at Facebook.
The academy took to its blog, where it wrote about the incident, posted the image in question and lamented Facebook’s actions and its power as a curator of online culture. “As an institution of higher learning with a long tradition of upholding the art world’s ‘traditional values and skills,’ we, the Graduate School of Figurative Art, find it difficult to allow Facebook to be the final arbiter — and online curator — of the artwork we share with the world.”
So what happened? Facebook now says it made a mistake. While the company bans nude photographs, its representatives say the company has an unwritten policy that allows drawings or sculptures of nudes. It explained that it only reviews images that are flagged by users, and that its staff reviews many thousands of images a day.
“We count many amateur — and some professional — artists among our employees, and we’re thrilled that so many artists share their work on Facebook,” Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. “In this case, we congratulate the artist on his lifelike portrayal that, frankly, fooled our reviewers. Each member of our investigations team reviews thousands of pieces of reported content every day and, of course, we occasionally make a mistake. We’re sorry for the confusion here and we encourage the artist to repost his work.”
But a number of other figurative artists say they too have had their work removed by Facebook, and in some cases had their accounts blocked. They say they feel that Facebook is taking aim at their work and accuse it of censorship.
“It seems like they have really gone after artists,” said John Wellington, an artist in New York who is a graduate of the academy. “The images they are taking down are clearly paintings.” After one of his paintings was taken down recently, Mr. Wellington said he deleted from Facebook all the images that he had uploaded that showed a nipple, for fear that his account would be disabled.
Richard T. Scott, another graduate of the academy, who lives in Paris, said some images he had uploaded were also removed. He said he knew of more than 50 paintings, including some entered into an online contest of figurative drawings, that were deleted by Facebook. Mr. Scott said he was particularly concerned because Facebook had allowed him to showcase his work and to be discovered by galleries and collectors. “For figurative painters, Facebook has been a democratizing force, and it has been pivotal for my career,” he said.
Last year, The Huffington Post reported that a Colorado-based artist had had his work removed for similar reasons.
How widespread these cases are is difficult to ascertain. Facebook faces many challenges in policing everything from cyberbullying to threats among its more than 500 million users.
A check of a handful of major art institutions suggests that while the academy’s experience is not unique, it is perhaps not so common either. Elyse Topalian, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said the museum had never encountered problems when posting artworks with images of nudes on Facebook. It has done so many times to highlight works from its collection.
Mr. Axten said: “Anyone can do a search on Facebook and find thousands of images of artwork. If we’re censoring, we’re doing a terrible job at it. We don’t censor art and have no intention to.”
Mr. Axten also pointed out that Facebook members who have had their accounts blocked can appeal. However, there is apparently no way to appeal when a single image is blocked.
Randy Kennedy contributed reporting.
18/02 Facebook, Android, China and More at Mobile Conference
February 18, 2011, 5:57 pm
By JENNA WORTHAM
BARCELONA, Spain — This week, tens of thousands of mobile technology executives, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts descended on this beautiful city to watch demonstrations of new software, get a close look at the latest phones and tablets and stop at a tapas bar or two.
Amid the multitude of products and services introduced at the Mobile World Congress, several major themes threaded their way into many of the announcements and panels. I’ve emptied out my notebook and listed them below.
Phones Go Facebook: Although Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has repeatedly denied rumors of an official Facebook phone, several devices unveiled at the conference showed off software that is tightly integrated with the social networking site. INQ, a small handset maker based in London, showed off two such devices. HTC worked closely with Facebook to develop two phones that incorporate Facebook applications like chat, messaging and photos directly into their user interfaces. Perhaps the most interesting introduction of the week came from Gemalto, a Dutch company that unveiled a SIM card with a Facebook application included. This allows phone owners who do not have access to the mobile Internet to sign up for Facebook and update their status messages using the handset’s text-messaging channel.
Android Overload: Just like at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, Android’s tentacles reached into dozens, if not hundreds, of smartphone demonstrations, application booths, mobile discussions and tablet computer unveilings. When asked how many Android devices were at the show, Andy Rubin, one of the chief architects behind the operating system at Google, confessed, “I have no idea.” This year’s show also marked the first time Google had a presence on the showroom floor, and the company went all out to endear itself to attendees. It handed out honey-infused smoothies to celebrate the Honeycomb version of Android and encouraged visitors to make use of a playground slide that snapped a Polaroid picture at the bottom. Conference rumor has it that Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, went for a ride on it.
Chinese Competition: Of all the flashy booths offering hands-on demonstrations of mobile wares, two jumped out as making a bigger splash than most. Huawei and ZTE, two hardware manufacturers based in China, say they are looking to make an aggressive play for market share in the United States. Both are betting on a strong portfolio of chic — yet cheap — smartphones and tablets to help win over American shoppers. “Our traditional market is the emerging market,” Lixin Chang, chief executive of ZTE USA, said in an interview. “Last year, we broke out in Europe. This year, we’ll break out in the U.S.”
Mobile Money: Near-field communication, or NFC, was one of the hottest mobile technologies at the conference. Everyone, from tech executives to the heads of wireless carriers, touched on the lucrative business opportunity that awaits the introduction of services that let you wave your phone to pay for something. On Thursday, the crush of people hoping to attend sessions on mobile finance and NFC technology was so big that organizers decided to repeat several of them. “It’s definitely an overnight revolution,” said Elvira Swanson, a senior business leader at Visa who works in its mobile payments division. “But it’s a coming evolution.”
I’d welcome additional themes and thoughts from those who attended the conference in Barcelona and those who followed along at home.
By JENNA WORTHAM
BARCELONA, Spain — This week, tens of thousands of mobile technology executives, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts descended on this beautiful city to watch demonstrations of new software, get a close look at the latest phones and tablets and stop at a tapas bar or two.
Amid the multitude of products and services introduced at the Mobile World Congress, several major themes threaded their way into many of the announcements and panels. I’ve emptied out my notebook and listed them below.
Phones Go Facebook: Although Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has repeatedly denied rumors of an official Facebook phone, several devices unveiled at the conference showed off software that is tightly integrated with the social networking site. INQ, a small handset maker based in London, showed off two such devices. HTC worked closely with Facebook to develop two phones that incorporate Facebook applications like chat, messaging and photos directly into their user interfaces. Perhaps the most interesting introduction of the week came from Gemalto, a Dutch company that unveiled a SIM card with a Facebook application included. This allows phone owners who do not have access to the mobile Internet to sign up for Facebook and update their status messages using the handset’s text-messaging channel.
Android Overload: Just like at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, Android’s tentacles reached into dozens, if not hundreds, of smartphone demonstrations, application booths, mobile discussions and tablet computer unveilings. When asked how many Android devices were at the show, Andy Rubin, one of the chief architects behind the operating system at Google, confessed, “I have no idea.” This year’s show also marked the first time Google had a presence on the showroom floor, and the company went all out to endear itself to attendees. It handed out honey-infused smoothies to celebrate the Honeycomb version of Android and encouraged visitors to make use of a playground slide that snapped a Polaroid picture at the bottom. Conference rumor has it that Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, went for a ride on it.
Chinese Competition: Of all the flashy booths offering hands-on demonstrations of mobile wares, two jumped out as making a bigger splash than most. Huawei and ZTE, two hardware manufacturers based in China, say they are looking to make an aggressive play for market share in the United States. Both are betting on a strong portfolio of chic — yet cheap — smartphones and tablets to help win over American shoppers. “Our traditional market is the emerging market,” Lixin Chang, chief executive of ZTE USA, said in an interview. “Last year, we broke out in Europe. This year, we’ll break out in the U.S.”
Mobile Money: Near-field communication, or NFC, was one of the hottest mobile technologies at the conference. Everyone, from tech executives to the heads of wireless carriers, touched on the lucrative business opportunity that awaits the introduction of services that let you wave your phone to pay for something. On Thursday, the crush of people hoping to attend sessions on mobile finance and NFC technology was so big that organizers decided to repeat several of them. “It’s definitely an overnight revolution,” said Elvira Swanson, a senior business leader at Visa who works in its mobile payments division. “But it’s a coming evolution.”
I’d welcome additional themes and thoughts from those who attended the conference in Barcelona and those who followed along at home.
16/02 A Phone That’s the Life of a Laptop
February 16, 2011
By DAVID POGUE
Does the redundancy of your gadgets ever bother you?
You have a phone. A laptop. A desktop PC. A GPS thing. A TV. Maybe a tablet. Each contains the same stuff: a screen, a processor chip and some memory. You’re buying the same components over and over again — in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate — just so each device can perform identical functions in different situations.
Well, that does bother Motorola. For several years now, it’s been hammering away at a central idea: since the modern app phone is essentially a computer, why can’t it become a brain that you slip into different docks? That was the idea behind the Bedside Dock (phone becomes touch-screen alarm clock) and the GPS Dock (attaches to your windshield) for certain Motorola phones.
Now comes Motorola’s most compelling, ambitious and exciting idea of all: a phone that can become the brain for a full-blown laptop.
The Motorola Atrix 4G ($200 with a two-year AT&T contract) is a beautiful, loaded, screamingly fast Android phone. The companion laptop — sleek, light, superthin, black aluminum — has no processor, memory or storage of its own. Instead, you insert the phone into a slot behind the screen hinge. The phone becomes the laptop’s brains.
That’s a powerful idea. It means, first of all, that you don’t have to sync anything. Everything lives on the phone; the laptop is simply a more convenient viewer.
It also means that when you’re sitting on a plane or at your desk, you can work with a trackpad, full screen and traditional keyboard.
And it means that your laptop is always online, thanks to the phone’s Internet connection.
Finally, it means that you have to reverse your usual thinking about battery life. The laptop is basically a giant battery. With the phone inserted, you can happily work away for eight or 10 hours on a single charge. In fact, the laptop actually charges the phone while you work. Yes, that’s correct: you’ll get off the plane with a more fully charged phone than when you got on.
Both the phone and the laptop are gorgeous. The phone has the usual Android goodies, like front and back cameras and hi-def video recording, and it uses Motorola’s MotoBlur software, which can unify the address books and messages from your various online accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and e-mail).
But to make it powerful enough to drive a laptop, Motorola had to give it far more oomph than a typical phone. It has a dual-core processor, which, in English, means “faster than any phone you’ve ever used.” We are talking slick, responsive, satisfying.
The phone also has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button on the top back of the phone. That is, you can unlock and turn on the phone with a single finger. It’s better in theory than in execution, alas: it often takes several finger-swipes before the phone recognizes you. (You can also set up a regular typed-in password, or none.)
This phone doesn’t do much to address America’s cellphone obesity epidemic; you could probably fit an iPhone inside its body cavity and still have room for a pencil. On the other hand, the screen is gigantic — 960 x 540 pixels — which is great when you’re viewing GPS maps, documents and photos.
The laptop looks and feels like a black MacBook Air: 2.4 pounds, all cool brushed aluminum. The flat-topped keys poke up through the aluminum — again, very MacBook Airish. They’re slightly smaller than standard size, but still fine for rapid touch-typing.
The best thing about the whole phone-laptop concept is that you don’t have to think. You can pop the phone into the laptop, or yank it out, without shutting it down or entering any kind of special mode.
After about 10 seconds, whatever was on the phone’s screen appears on the laptop’s screen. It’s wild: you actually see your phone in a window. All of the buttons and icons are clickable with the trackpad clicker. You can even make phone calls in this setup — the laptop becomes a speakerphone. It’s a crazy, mind-blowing experience.
You can even run all your Android apps on the laptop’s 11.6-inch screen. Sadly, the apps don’t actually exploit the much larger laptop screen real estate. If you click the Full Screen button on the phone window, the software magnifies beautifully; if you’re over 40, you’ll have no problem reading “small” type, which is now bumper-sticker size. But you’re not seeing any additional area — only an enlarged version of what was on the phone screen. Good thing the phone’s screen has such high resolution to begin with.
The laptop also lets you open a second window, containing the Firefox Web browser at full size. That’s handy for doing e-mail, checking online calendars and, of course, surfing the Web.
All of this is so thoughtfully executed, so beautifully designed, that recommending it might seem like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, it’s ultimately a some-brainer, because there are a few flies in the Atrix ointment.
First, scrolling is a serious problem. On the phone, you scroll things with a quick swipe of your finger on the touch screen: your e-mail Inbox, your Twitter feed, your Applications list and so on. But when the phone’s in the laptop, swiping is far more difficult. While pressing down the recalcitrant clicker button, you drag one finger on the trackpad. It’s spectacularly awkward, especially because the phone frequently misinterprets the initial click as an “I want to open this app” gesture. There are Page Up/Page Down keystrokes, but they don’t function in phone apps — only in Firefox.
Second, remember that this is an Android laptop, not a Mac or Windows laptop. You can edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files very comfortably, using the built-in Quickoffice software. But you won’t be running the kinds of programs you could run on a real laptop — games, Photoshop, whatever.
Because the phone runs Flash video, you ought to be able to enjoy TV shows at Hulu.com. But maybe because it’s phone Flash, it’s so jerky that it’s unwatchable, even on a fast Wi-Fi connection.
Third, the Internet speed isn’t what it should be. If you’re in one of the cities where AT&T has finished upgrading its network to 4G (fourth-generation equipment), you’re supposed to get superfast Internet service. In practice, though, the 4G adds nothing. Even when you test it in a 4G town like New York (as Engadget did) or Boston (as I did), the Atrix has an even slower Internet connection than a non-4G phone. (AT&T’s explanation: the 4G indicator may appear on the phone even when the area’s 4G network upgrade isn’t yet complete.)
Fourth, the phone and the laptop together cost $500 (after $100 rebate). Now, for that money, you could get a nice phone and a full-blown Windows netbook that runs faster and does it all. Of course, you lose most of the perks — a single storage gadget, eternal battery life and so on. And the netbook you buy won’t be anywhere near as beautiful as the Atrix laptop.
But it’s not just the price of the hardware. To use the browser on the laptop, you’re required to pay AT&T an additional $20 a month — a “tethering plan.”
You can also buy a TV dock for the Atrix, with remote control, so that you can view your photos, videos and other stuff on the big screen. There’s also a beautiful wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse; together with the TV dock, you can turn any TV into a full-blown Android PC.
The Atrix, then, is three things. It’s an extremely fast, powerful, superbly designed phone. It’s a gorgeous, lightweight, long-lasting laptop that’s tragically clumsy to use.
Above all, it’s a really, really brilliant idea. Here’s hoping that Motorola sticks with its team of fresh-thinking engineers long enough to produce an Atrix II.
E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com
By DAVID POGUE
Does the redundancy of your gadgets ever bother you?
You have a phone. A laptop. A desktop PC. A GPS thing. A TV. Maybe a tablet. Each contains the same stuff: a screen, a processor chip and some memory. You’re buying the same components over and over again — in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate — just so each device can perform identical functions in different situations.
Well, that does bother Motorola. For several years now, it’s been hammering away at a central idea: since the modern app phone is essentially a computer, why can’t it become a brain that you slip into different docks? That was the idea behind the Bedside Dock (phone becomes touch-screen alarm clock) and the GPS Dock (attaches to your windshield) for certain Motorola phones.
Now comes Motorola’s most compelling, ambitious and exciting idea of all: a phone that can become the brain for a full-blown laptop.
The Motorola Atrix 4G ($200 with a two-year AT&T contract) is a beautiful, loaded, screamingly fast Android phone. The companion laptop — sleek, light, superthin, black aluminum — has no processor, memory or storage of its own. Instead, you insert the phone into a slot behind the screen hinge. The phone becomes the laptop’s brains.
That’s a powerful idea. It means, first of all, that you don’t have to sync anything. Everything lives on the phone; the laptop is simply a more convenient viewer.
It also means that when you’re sitting on a plane or at your desk, you can work with a trackpad, full screen and traditional keyboard.
And it means that your laptop is always online, thanks to the phone’s Internet connection.
Finally, it means that you have to reverse your usual thinking about battery life. The laptop is basically a giant battery. With the phone inserted, you can happily work away for eight or 10 hours on a single charge. In fact, the laptop actually charges the phone while you work. Yes, that’s correct: you’ll get off the plane with a more fully charged phone than when you got on.
Both the phone and the laptop are gorgeous. The phone has the usual Android goodies, like front and back cameras and hi-def video recording, and it uses Motorola’s MotoBlur software, which can unify the address books and messages from your various online accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and e-mail).
But to make it powerful enough to drive a laptop, Motorola had to give it far more oomph than a typical phone. It has a dual-core processor, which, in English, means “faster than any phone you’ve ever used.” We are talking slick, responsive, satisfying.
The phone also has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button on the top back of the phone. That is, you can unlock and turn on the phone with a single finger. It’s better in theory than in execution, alas: it often takes several finger-swipes before the phone recognizes you. (You can also set up a regular typed-in password, or none.)
This phone doesn’t do much to address America’s cellphone obesity epidemic; you could probably fit an iPhone inside its body cavity and still have room for a pencil. On the other hand, the screen is gigantic — 960 x 540 pixels — which is great when you’re viewing GPS maps, documents and photos.
The laptop looks and feels like a black MacBook Air: 2.4 pounds, all cool brushed aluminum. The flat-topped keys poke up through the aluminum — again, very MacBook Airish. They’re slightly smaller than standard size, but still fine for rapid touch-typing.
The best thing about the whole phone-laptop concept is that you don’t have to think. You can pop the phone into the laptop, or yank it out, without shutting it down or entering any kind of special mode.
After about 10 seconds, whatever was on the phone’s screen appears on the laptop’s screen. It’s wild: you actually see your phone in a window. All of the buttons and icons are clickable with the trackpad clicker. You can even make phone calls in this setup — the laptop becomes a speakerphone. It’s a crazy, mind-blowing experience.
You can even run all your Android apps on the laptop’s 11.6-inch screen. Sadly, the apps don’t actually exploit the much larger laptop screen real estate. If you click the Full Screen button on the phone window, the software magnifies beautifully; if you’re over 40, you’ll have no problem reading “small” type, which is now bumper-sticker size. But you’re not seeing any additional area — only an enlarged version of what was on the phone screen. Good thing the phone’s screen has such high resolution to begin with.
The laptop also lets you open a second window, containing the Firefox Web browser at full size. That’s handy for doing e-mail, checking online calendars and, of course, surfing the Web.
All of this is so thoughtfully executed, so beautifully designed, that recommending it might seem like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, it’s ultimately a some-brainer, because there are a few flies in the Atrix ointment.
First, scrolling is a serious problem. On the phone, you scroll things with a quick swipe of your finger on the touch screen: your e-mail Inbox, your Twitter feed, your Applications list and so on. But when the phone’s in the laptop, swiping is far more difficult. While pressing down the recalcitrant clicker button, you drag one finger on the trackpad. It’s spectacularly awkward, especially because the phone frequently misinterprets the initial click as an “I want to open this app” gesture. There are Page Up/Page Down keystrokes, but they don’t function in phone apps — only in Firefox.
Second, remember that this is an Android laptop, not a Mac or Windows laptop. You can edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files very comfortably, using the built-in Quickoffice software. But you won’t be running the kinds of programs you could run on a real laptop — games, Photoshop, whatever.
Because the phone runs Flash video, you ought to be able to enjoy TV shows at Hulu.com. But maybe because it’s phone Flash, it’s so jerky that it’s unwatchable, even on a fast Wi-Fi connection.
Third, the Internet speed isn’t what it should be. If you’re in one of the cities where AT&T has finished upgrading its network to 4G (fourth-generation equipment), you’re supposed to get superfast Internet service. In practice, though, the 4G adds nothing. Even when you test it in a 4G town like New York (as Engadget did) or Boston (as I did), the Atrix has an even slower Internet connection than a non-4G phone. (AT&T’s explanation: the 4G indicator may appear on the phone even when the area’s 4G network upgrade isn’t yet complete.)
Fourth, the phone and the laptop together cost $500 (after $100 rebate). Now, for that money, you could get a nice phone and a full-blown Windows netbook that runs faster and does it all. Of course, you lose most of the perks — a single storage gadget, eternal battery life and so on. And the netbook you buy won’t be anywhere near as beautiful as the Atrix laptop.
But it’s not just the price of the hardware. To use the browser on the laptop, you’re required to pay AT&T an additional $20 a month — a “tethering plan.”
You can also buy a TV dock for the Atrix, with remote control, so that you can view your photos, videos and other stuff on the big screen. There’s also a beautiful wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse; together with the TV dock, you can turn any TV into a full-blown Android PC.
The Atrix, then, is three things. It’s an extremely fast, powerful, superbly designed phone. It’s a gorgeous, lightweight, long-lasting laptop that’s tragically clumsy to use.
Above all, it’s a really, really brilliant idea. Here’s hoping that Motorola sticks with its team of fresh-thinking engineers long enough to produce an Atrix II.
E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com
18/12 The Mystery of Obama’s Dinner with Tech Executives
February 18, 2011, 5:31 pm
By NICK BILTON
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
President Obama’s motorcade as he arrives for a private dinner with technology executives in Woodside, Calif.For technology spectators, a dinner on Thursday evening with President Obama and a dozen Silicon Valley executive seems like a scene straight out of an Agatha Christie novel: a pile of questions and very few answers surrounding the dinner and its guests.
Who determined the seating arrangement? What did they all eat? How did Steve Jobs look? Did Mark Zuckerberg really wear a jacket and not his signature hooded sweatshirt? And of course, what did this group of tech executives talk about?
But just like any secret dinner in a good mystery novel, spectators are left with many more questions than answers.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama toasts with technology business leaders at a private dinner.The New York Times reached out to several of the attendees with the hopes of finding out more, but most did not respond or declined to comment. Oracle, Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo, whose chief executives were all in attendance, had nothing to share. Steve Westly, one of the guests at the dinner, said via a spokesman that he was “unwilling to express the specifics of the dinner as it was a private event.”
Still, with scraps of information, the Internet was buzzing Friday:
Searching Twitter for the term “fly on the wall“ resulted in a thousands of people saying they would like to have been in disguise as a fly on the wall at the dinner.
The blog Search Engine Land dissected an image that was released by the White House, pointing out who sat where. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Zuckerberg were the lucky two who sat next to President Obama.
The San Francisco Chronicle followed the money trail while reporting on the dinner and listed the political contributions of each guest. The Chronicle also cited people who believed that the agenda was not to discuss innovation in Silicon Valley, but instead “suggested that the president was paving the way for his 2012 re-election campaign.”
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, issued a statement about the President’s trip to Silicon Valley, and although he didn’t share too much about the dinner, Mr. Carney insisted the event was meant to discuss new investments in Silicon Valley.
“The president specifically discussed his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire,” Mr. Carney said. Referring to the dinner attendees, he said, “The group also discussed the importance of new investments in education and the new White House initiative Startup America, a partnership with the private sector aimed at supporting new startups and small businesses.”
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama talks with Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
By NICK BILTON
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
President Obama’s motorcade as he arrives for a private dinner with technology executives in Woodside, Calif.For technology spectators, a dinner on Thursday evening with President Obama and a dozen Silicon Valley executive seems like a scene straight out of an Agatha Christie novel: a pile of questions and very few answers surrounding the dinner and its guests.
Who determined the seating arrangement? What did they all eat? How did Steve Jobs look? Did Mark Zuckerberg really wear a jacket and not his signature hooded sweatshirt? And of course, what did this group of tech executives talk about?
But just like any secret dinner in a good mystery novel, spectators are left with many more questions than answers.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama toasts with technology business leaders at a private dinner.The New York Times reached out to several of the attendees with the hopes of finding out more, but most did not respond or declined to comment. Oracle, Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo, whose chief executives were all in attendance, had nothing to share. Steve Westly, one of the guests at the dinner, said via a spokesman that he was “unwilling to express the specifics of the dinner as it was a private event.”
Still, with scraps of information, the Internet was buzzing Friday:
Searching Twitter for the term “fly on the wall“ resulted in a thousands of people saying they would like to have been in disguise as a fly on the wall at the dinner.
The blog Search Engine Land dissected an image that was released by the White House, pointing out who sat where. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Zuckerberg were the lucky two who sat next to President Obama.
The San Francisco Chronicle followed the money trail while reporting on the dinner and listed the political contributions of each guest. The Chronicle also cited people who believed that the agenda was not to discuss innovation in Silicon Valley, but instead “suggested that the president was paving the way for his 2012 re-election campaign.”
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, issued a statement about the President’s trip to Silicon Valley, and although he didn’t share too much about the dinner, Mr. Carney insisted the event was meant to discuss new investments in Silicon Valley.
“The president specifically discussed his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire,” Mr. Carney said. Referring to the dinner attendees, he said, “The group also discussed the importance of new investments in education and the new White House initiative Startup America, a partnership with the private sector aimed at supporting new startups and small businesses.”
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama talks with Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
16/02 When in Rome, Let Your Smartphone Do the Translating
February 16, 2011
By BOB TEDESCHI
You can use a smartphone to save a few dollars on an airline ticket, buy a Starbucks latte or gain the inside edge on draft news in fantasy sports leagues.
Or you can use it to save your skin in a place where no one speaks your language.
Google introduced a free new iPhone app last week, Google Translate, which puts a more phone-friendly interface on its Web-based translation service, making it useful in situations where you’d need it most.
The app joins a surprisingly cluttered lineup of mobile software from established companies and newcomers. Some of the competition is good, and international travelers will need to consider titles like Odyssey Translator (for iPhone) and Lonely Planet Phrasebooks (for iPhone and Android). But for many, the new app on the block will be all they need.
Google’s iPhone app works much like the company’s Translate app for Android.
It’s fairly amazing stuff. Push a button, speak a query in one language and it displays a translation. Fifteen popular languages are covered by this feature.
You must speak carefully for the app to recognize your query, but if Translate misconstrues a word, you can edit the query with the phone’s keypad.
The app will also speak the results in 23 languages. You’ll have to listen carefully, though, because the translator’s computerized voice is occasionally hard to understand.
The quality of the translations is identical to what you will find on Google.com — good, but inconsistent.
Translate for Android recently added a useful feature for conversations between Spanish and English speakers, in which participants use their native tongue, and the app translates without anyone typing a word.
Google doesn’t disclose plans for future product rollouts, but those seeking this feature in other languages, or on iPhones, should stay tuned.
Whether on iPhone or Android, the app’s big drawback is that it relies on a network connection, so if you use it often while in another country you can incur huge data charges, and if you can’t find a network, you’ve just lost your digital translator.
Unless you plan ahead, that is. Google Translate lets you store and retrieve queries without a connection. But so much can happen on a foreign trip that you will have to store a lot of queries to cover all your possible needs.
Those who are willing to spend a little more can avoid such hassles.
Of the apps I tested in the low-price category, I liked the Odyssey Translator iPhone series features the most. There are seven foreign titles under the Travel Pro brand, for $5 each, and each title in the series has a limited, free version (through the Odyssey Translator Travel Free titles) for those who want to try before they buy. The app takes a different approach than competitors. Odyssey Translator starts you with more than a dozen major categories, like Emergency, Transport and Conversation, and within each category it offers more subcategories, like Directions, Taxi and Train.
Then, within each subcategory, the app displays three columns of oft-repeated phrases, in English, which you mix and match according to your needs.
Sometimes that approach complicates matters. Instead of getting a single translation for the phrase “What is the fare for a ride to the city center?” for instance, you must choose a button for the phrase “Can you” and another for the phrase “take me to.”
When pressed, the buttons display the foreign translation, and the app offers a spoken translation that is easily understandable.
Lonely Planet’s Phrasebook series ($6 each for dozens of languages, for iPhones and Android devices) also breaks down queries into major categories, and the app’s search box helps you quickly narrow the list of possible phrases. Like the Odyssey series, it works when you have no network connection.
The spoken translations are good, but the delivery is often so fast that a user would find it difficult to repeat the phrases. As a result, the app is less effective as a learning tool than Odyssey Translator.
For most people, a low-price app is all you’ll need. But spending a little more on an app may yield you features that will come in handy.
Some of the higher-price apps are meant less for quick lookups than for serious language students and translators who are looking for more precision.
Take Ultralingua. The company produces titles for nine different languages at from $10 to $25 apiece, each of which provides offline translations. The apps work on the iPhone, Windows and some Palm devices.
The apps mostly translate single words only, so if your query involves a longer phrase, it would take many minutes to complete the task. But if you want to know the Spanish word for “shoot,” in the cinematic or billiards context, the app gives you the answers.
It also offers a full range of conjugation options for verbs. And in a category where iTunes users complain about occasionally inaccurate translations, the Ultralingua series has attracted consistently good reviews.
That contrasts with one of Ultralingua’s competitors in the high-price category, Jibbigo, which is available for eight languages, at about $25 each. It functions like Google’s Translate, but without the need for a network connection. And the new bi-directional translation feature of the Google Android app is available on all of Jibbigo’s titles.
Jibbigo worked consistently well for me, but many iTunes critics complained that the app often failed to recognize their spoken queries.
Matthew Harbaugh, chief operating officer of Mobile Technologies, which publishes Jibbigo, said the company would soon issue updates based on the feedback from iTunes and Android customers. He added that Jibbigo was considering ways to let users test the apps before buying.
Until that happens, the app will require a leap of faith that may be too far for many iPhone users to make.
Quick Calls
IPad owners preparing for golf season can get an edge on the competition with the Golf Digest Hot List issue ($5). The app includes reviews of 94 clubs and video tutorials, among other features. ... Picasso fans will appreciate the new iPhone app 3D Photo ($1), which turns snapshots into cubist photo portraits. ... If you’d like a quick view of your income tax liabilities, try TaxCaster Mobile (free on Android and Apple devices), from Intuit.
By BOB TEDESCHI
You can use a smartphone to save a few dollars on an airline ticket, buy a Starbucks latte or gain the inside edge on draft news in fantasy sports leagues.
Or you can use it to save your skin in a place where no one speaks your language.
Google introduced a free new iPhone app last week, Google Translate, which puts a more phone-friendly interface on its Web-based translation service, making it useful in situations where you’d need it most.
The app joins a surprisingly cluttered lineup of mobile software from established companies and newcomers. Some of the competition is good, and international travelers will need to consider titles like Odyssey Translator (for iPhone) and Lonely Planet Phrasebooks (for iPhone and Android). But for many, the new app on the block will be all they need.
Google’s iPhone app works much like the company’s Translate app for Android.
It’s fairly amazing stuff. Push a button, speak a query in one language and it displays a translation. Fifteen popular languages are covered by this feature.
You must speak carefully for the app to recognize your query, but if Translate misconstrues a word, you can edit the query with the phone’s keypad.
The app will also speak the results in 23 languages. You’ll have to listen carefully, though, because the translator’s computerized voice is occasionally hard to understand.
The quality of the translations is identical to what you will find on Google.com — good, but inconsistent.
Translate for Android recently added a useful feature for conversations between Spanish and English speakers, in which participants use their native tongue, and the app translates without anyone typing a word.
Google doesn’t disclose plans for future product rollouts, but those seeking this feature in other languages, or on iPhones, should stay tuned.
Whether on iPhone or Android, the app’s big drawback is that it relies on a network connection, so if you use it often while in another country you can incur huge data charges, and if you can’t find a network, you’ve just lost your digital translator.
Unless you plan ahead, that is. Google Translate lets you store and retrieve queries without a connection. But so much can happen on a foreign trip that you will have to store a lot of queries to cover all your possible needs.
Those who are willing to spend a little more can avoid such hassles.
Of the apps I tested in the low-price category, I liked the Odyssey Translator iPhone series features the most. There are seven foreign titles under the Travel Pro brand, for $5 each, and each title in the series has a limited, free version (through the Odyssey Translator Travel Free titles) for those who want to try before they buy. The app takes a different approach than competitors. Odyssey Translator starts you with more than a dozen major categories, like Emergency, Transport and Conversation, and within each category it offers more subcategories, like Directions, Taxi and Train.
Then, within each subcategory, the app displays three columns of oft-repeated phrases, in English, which you mix and match according to your needs.
Sometimes that approach complicates matters. Instead of getting a single translation for the phrase “What is the fare for a ride to the city center?” for instance, you must choose a button for the phrase “Can you” and another for the phrase “take me to.”
When pressed, the buttons display the foreign translation, and the app offers a spoken translation that is easily understandable.
Lonely Planet’s Phrasebook series ($6 each for dozens of languages, for iPhones and Android devices) also breaks down queries into major categories, and the app’s search box helps you quickly narrow the list of possible phrases. Like the Odyssey series, it works when you have no network connection.
The spoken translations are good, but the delivery is often so fast that a user would find it difficult to repeat the phrases. As a result, the app is less effective as a learning tool than Odyssey Translator.
For most people, a low-price app is all you’ll need. But spending a little more on an app may yield you features that will come in handy.
Some of the higher-price apps are meant less for quick lookups than for serious language students and translators who are looking for more precision.
Take Ultralingua. The company produces titles for nine different languages at from $10 to $25 apiece, each of which provides offline translations. The apps work on the iPhone, Windows and some Palm devices.
The apps mostly translate single words only, so if your query involves a longer phrase, it would take many minutes to complete the task. But if you want to know the Spanish word for “shoot,” in the cinematic or billiards context, the app gives you the answers.
It also offers a full range of conjugation options for verbs. And in a category where iTunes users complain about occasionally inaccurate translations, the Ultralingua series has attracted consistently good reviews.
That contrasts with one of Ultralingua’s competitors in the high-price category, Jibbigo, which is available for eight languages, at about $25 each. It functions like Google’s Translate, but without the need for a network connection. And the new bi-directional translation feature of the Google Android app is available on all of Jibbigo’s titles.
Jibbigo worked consistently well for me, but many iTunes critics complained that the app often failed to recognize their spoken queries.
Matthew Harbaugh, chief operating officer of Mobile Technologies, which publishes Jibbigo, said the company would soon issue updates based on the feedback from iTunes and Android customers. He added that Jibbigo was considering ways to let users test the apps before buying.
Until that happens, the app will require a leap of faith that may be too far for many iPhone users to make.
Quick Calls
IPad owners preparing for golf season can get an edge on the competition with the Golf Digest Hot List issue ($5). The app includes reviews of 94 clubs and video tutorials, among other features. ... Picasso fans will appreciate the new iPhone app 3D Photo ($1), which turns snapshots into cubist photo portraits. ... If you’d like a quick view of your income tax liabilities, try TaxCaster Mobile (free on Android and Apple devices), from Intuit.
17/02 Apple Is Weighing a Cheaper iPhone
February 17, 2011
By MIGUEL HELFT and NICK BILTON
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has been exploring ways to broaden the appeal of the iPhone by making the popular device less expensive and allowing users to control it with voice commands.
But contrary to published reports, Apple is not currently developing a smaller iPhone, according to people briefed on Apple’s plans who requested anonymity because the plans are confidential.
Apple’s engineers are currently focused on finishing the next version of the iPhone, which is likely to be similar in size to the current iPhone 4, said one of the people. The person said Apple was not planning to introduce a smaller iPhone any time soon. Analysts expect the new iPhone to be ready this summer.
Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.
More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.
Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, appeared to reinforce that last point recently when he praised the iPhone’s uniformity, contrasting it with phones based on Google’s Android software, which come in many formats.
“We think Android is very, very fragmented and getting more fragmented by the day,” Mr. Jobs told financial analysts in October. “We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s.”
Another senior Apple executive said during a private meeting recently that it did not make sense for the company to make multiple iPhone models, noting that Apple would stick with its practice of dropping the price of older models when it introduced a new one.
The iPhone 3GS is now available for $49 with a two-year contract that helps subsidize the price of the device in the United States.
As part of its effort to find new customers for the iPhone, Apple plans to make it easier to operate the device through voice commands, removing an obstacle for people who do not like using a virtual keyboard, said another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans.
Apple is also considering changing internal components of the device to bring costs down. “Although the innards of the phone, including memory size or camera quality, could change to offer a less expensive model, the size of the device would not vary,” said the person, who has worked on multiple versions of the device.
Another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that the company was actively building a more versatile version of its MobileMe service, which allows users to store music, photos and files online and have them accessible on all their devices.
The current version of MobileMe, which costs $100 a year, has failed to catch on with consumers. Rivals like Google and others offer similar services free.
The new version of MobileMe is expected to be free and would allow users to synch their files without using a cable.
“The goal is that your photos and other media content will eventually just sync across all your Apple devices without people having to do anything,” the person said. If more iPhone users stored files online, Apple could make cheaper devices with less storage. Flash storage is one of the iPhone’s most expensive components.
Apple has dominated the high end of the smartphone market, but the company is facing increasing competition from devices running Google’s Android, which collectively outsell the iPhone. Analysts said it would make sense for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone, especially in overseas markets where carriers do not subsidize handsets. Unsubsidized handsets are often called “prepaid.”
“If they are going to be a player in the global market they have to have a prepaid option,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. But Mr. Munster said that to be successful, a prepaid iPhone would have to be able to run the more than 300,000 apps available in the App Store.
A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that a low-priced iPhone could help Apple expand its unit sales of the device sixfold.
In recent days, some published reports, citing anonymous sources, said that Apple was building a smaller iPhone. One report gave the code name of the project as N97. Several people with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that N97 was the code name for the Verizon iPhone 4, which was introduced this month.
Miguel Helft reported from San Francisco, and Nick Bilton from New York.
By MIGUEL HELFT and NICK BILTON
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has been exploring ways to broaden the appeal of the iPhone by making the popular device less expensive and allowing users to control it with voice commands.
But contrary to published reports, Apple is not currently developing a smaller iPhone, according to people briefed on Apple’s plans who requested anonymity because the plans are confidential.
Apple’s engineers are currently focused on finishing the next version of the iPhone, which is likely to be similar in size to the current iPhone 4, said one of the people. The person said Apple was not planning to introduce a smaller iPhone any time soon. Analysts expect the new iPhone to be ready this summer.
Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.
More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.
Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, appeared to reinforce that last point recently when he praised the iPhone’s uniformity, contrasting it with phones based on Google’s Android software, which come in many formats.
“We think Android is very, very fragmented and getting more fragmented by the day,” Mr. Jobs told financial analysts in October. “We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s.”
Another senior Apple executive said during a private meeting recently that it did not make sense for the company to make multiple iPhone models, noting that Apple would stick with its practice of dropping the price of older models when it introduced a new one.
The iPhone 3GS is now available for $49 with a two-year contract that helps subsidize the price of the device in the United States.
As part of its effort to find new customers for the iPhone, Apple plans to make it easier to operate the device through voice commands, removing an obstacle for people who do not like using a virtual keyboard, said another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans.
Apple is also considering changing internal components of the device to bring costs down. “Although the innards of the phone, including memory size or camera quality, could change to offer a less expensive model, the size of the device would not vary,” said the person, who has worked on multiple versions of the device.
Another person with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that the company was actively building a more versatile version of its MobileMe service, which allows users to store music, photos and files online and have them accessible on all their devices.
The current version of MobileMe, which costs $100 a year, has failed to catch on with consumers. Rivals like Google and others offer similar services free.
The new version of MobileMe is expected to be free and would allow users to synch their files without using a cable.
“The goal is that your photos and other media content will eventually just sync across all your Apple devices without people having to do anything,” the person said. If more iPhone users stored files online, Apple could make cheaper devices with less storage. Flash storage is one of the iPhone’s most expensive components.
Apple has dominated the high end of the smartphone market, but the company is facing increasing competition from devices running Google’s Android, which collectively outsell the iPhone. Analysts said it would make sense for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone, especially in overseas markets where carriers do not subsidize handsets. Unsubsidized handsets are often called “prepaid.”
“If they are going to be a player in the global market they have to have a prepaid option,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. But Mr. Munster said that to be successful, a prepaid iPhone would have to be able to run the more than 300,000 apps available in the App Store.
A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that a low-priced iPhone could help Apple expand its unit sales of the device sixfold.
In recent days, some published reports, citing anonymous sources, said that Apple was building a smaller iPhone. One report gave the code name of the project as N97. Several people with knowledge of Apple’s plans said that N97 was the code name for the Verizon iPhone 4, which was introduced this month.
Miguel Helft reported from San Francisco, and Nick Bilton from New York.
16/02 New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users
February 16, 2011
By KATE MURPHY
You may think the only people capable of snooping on your Internet activity are government intelligence agents or possibly a talented teenage hacker holed up in his parents’ basement. But some simple software lets just about anyone sitting next to you at your local coffee shop watch you browse the Web and even assume your identity online.
“Like it or not, we are now living in a cyberpunk novel,” said Darren Kitchen, a systems administrator for an aerospace company in Richmond, Calif., and the host of Hak5, a video podcast about computer hacking and security. “When people find out how trivial and easy it is to see and even modify what you do online, they are shocked.”
Until recently, only determined and knowledgeable hackers with fancy tools and lots of time on their hands could spy while you used your laptop or smartphone at Wi-Fi hot spots. But a free program called Firesheep, released in October, has made it simple to see what other users of an unsecured Wi-Fi network are doing and then log on as them at the sites they visited.
Without issuing any warnings of the possible threat, Web site administrators have since been scrambling to provide added protections.
“I released Firesheep to show that a core and widespread issue in Web site security is being ignored,” said Eric Butler, a freelance software developer in Seattle who created the program. “It points out the lack of end-to-end encryption.”
What he means is that while the password you initially enter on Web sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Amazon, eBay and The New York Times is encrypted, the Web browser’s cookie, a bit of code that that identifies your computer, your settings on the site or other private information, is often not encrypted. Firesheep grabs that cookie, allowing nosy or malicious users to, in essence, be you on the site and have full access to your account.
More than a million people have downloaded the program in the last three months (including this reporter, who is not exactly a computer genius). And it is easy to use.
The only sites that are safe from snoopers are those that employ the cryptographic protocol transport layer security or its predecessor, secure sockets layer, throughout your session. PayPal and many banks do this, but a startling number of sites that people trust to safeguard their privacy do not. You know you are shielded from prying eyes if a little lock appears in the corner of your browser or the Web address starts with “https” rather than “http.”
“The usual reason Web sites give for not encrypting all communication is that it will slow down the site and would be a huge engineering expense,” said Chris Palmer, technology director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic rights advocacy group based in San Francisco. “Yes, there are operational hurdles, but they are solvable.”
Indeed, Gmail made end-to-end encryption its default mode in January 2010. Facebook began to offer the same protection as an opt-in security feature last month, though it is so far available only to a small percentage of users and has limitations. For example, it doesn’t work with many third-party applications.
“It’s worth noting that Facebook took this step, but it’s too early to congratulate them,” said Mr. Butler, who is frustrated that “https” is not the site’s default setting. “Most people aren’t going to know about it or won’t think it’s important or won’t want to use it when they find out that it disables major applications.”
Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook, said the company was engaged in a “deliberative rollout process,” to access and address any unforeseen difficulties. “We hope to have it available for all users in the next several weeks,” he said, adding that the company was also working to address problems with third-party applications and to make “https” the default setting.
Many Web sites offer some support for encryption via “https,” but they make it difficult to use. To address these problems, the Electronic Frontier Foundation in collaboration with the Tor Project, another group concerned with Internet privacy, released in June an add-on to the browser Firefox, called Https Everywhere. The extension, which can be downloaded at eff.org/https-everywhere, makes “https” the stubbornly unchangeable default on all sites that support it.
Since not all Web sites have “https” capability, Bill Pennington, chief strategy officer with the Web site risk management firm WhiteHat Security in Santa Clara, Calif., said: “I tell people that if you’re doing things with sensitive data, don’t do it at a Wi-Fi hot spot. Do it at home.”
But home wireless networks may not be all that safe either, because of free and widely available Wi-Fi cracking programs like Gerix WiFi Cracker, Aircrack-ng and Wifite. The programs work by faking legitimate user activity to collect a series of so-called weak keys or clues to the password. The process is wholly automated, said Mr. Kitchen at Hak5, allowing even techno-ignoramuses to recover a wireless router’s password in a matter of seconds. “I’ve yet to find a WEP-protected network not susceptible to this kind of attack,” Mr. Kitchen said.
A WEP-encrypted password (for wired equivalent privacy) is not as strong as a WPA (or Wi-Fi protected access) password, so it’s best to use a WPA password instead. Even so, hackers can use the same free software programs to get on WPA password-protected networks as well. It just takes much longer (think weeks) and more computer expertise.
Using such programs along with high-powered Wi-Fi antennas that cost less than $90, hackers can pull in signals from home networks two to three miles away. There are also some computerized cracking devices with built-in antennas on the market, like WifiRobin ($156). But experts said they were not as fast or effective as the latest free cracking programs, because the devices worked only on WEP-protected networks.
To protect yourself, changing the Service Set Identifier or SSID of your wireless network from the default name of your router (like Linksys or Netgear) to something less predictable helps, as does choosing a lengthy and complicated alphanumeric password.
Setting up a virtual private network, or V.P.N., which encrypts all communications you transmit wirelessly whether on your home network or at a hot spot, is even more secure. The data looks like gibberish to a snooper as it travels from your computer to a secure server before it is blasted onto the Internet.
Popular V.P.N. providers include VyperVPN, HotSpotVPN and LogMeIn Hamachi. Some are free; others are as much as $18 a month, depending on how much data is encrypted. Free versions tend to encrypt only Web activity and not e-mail exchanges.
However, Mr. Palmer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation blames poorly designed Web sites, not vulnerable Wi-Fi connections, for security lapses. “Many popular sites were not designed for security from the beginning, and now we are suffering the consequences,” he said. “People need to demand ‘https’ so Web sites will do the painful integration work that needs to be done.”
By KATE MURPHY
You may think the only people capable of snooping on your Internet activity are government intelligence agents or possibly a talented teenage hacker holed up in his parents’ basement. But some simple software lets just about anyone sitting next to you at your local coffee shop watch you browse the Web and even assume your identity online.
“Like it or not, we are now living in a cyberpunk novel,” said Darren Kitchen, a systems administrator for an aerospace company in Richmond, Calif., and the host of Hak5, a video podcast about computer hacking and security. “When people find out how trivial and easy it is to see and even modify what you do online, they are shocked.”
Until recently, only determined and knowledgeable hackers with fancy tools and lots of time on their hands could spy while you used your laptop or smartphone at Wi-Fi hot spots. But a free program called Firesheep, released in October, has made it simple to see what other users of an unsecured Wi-Fi network are doing and then log on as them at the sites they visited.
Without issuing any warnings of the possible threat, Web site administrators have since been scrambling to provide added protections.
“I released Firesheep to show that a core and widespread issue in Web site security is being ignored,” said Eric Butler, a freelance software developer in Seattle who created the program. “It points out the lack of end-to-end encryption.”
What he means is that while the password you initially enter on Web sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Amazon, eBay and The New York Times is encrypted, the Web browser’s cookie, a bit of code that that identifies your computer, your settings on the site or other private information, is often not encrypted. Firesheep grabs that cookie, allowing nosy or malicious users to, in essence, be you on the site and have full access to your account.
More than a million people have downloaded the program in the last three months (including this reporter, who is not exactly a computer genius). And it is easy to use.
The only sites that are safe from snoopers are those that employ the cryptographic protocol transport layer security or its predecessor, secure sockets layer, throughout your session. PayPal and many banks do this, but a startling number of sites that people trust to safeguard their privacy do not. You know you are shielded from prying eyes if a little lock appears in the corner of your browser or the Web address starts with “https” rather than “http.”
“The usual reason Web sites give for not encrypting all communication is that it will slow down the site and would be a huge engineering expense,” said Chris Palmer, technology director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic rights advocacy group based in San Francisco. “Yes, there are operational hurdles, but they are solvable.”
Indeed, Gmail made end-to-end encryption its default mode in January 2010. Facebook began to offer the same protection as an opt-in security feature last month, though it is so far available only to a small percentage of users and has limitations. For example, it doesn’t work with many third-party applications.
“It’s worth noting that Facebook took this step, but it’s too early to congratulate them,” said Mr. Butler, who is frustrated that “https” is not the site’s default setting. “Most people aren’t going to know about it or won’t think it’s important or won’t want to use it when they find out that it disables major applications.”
Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook, said the company was engaged in a “deliberative rollout process,” to access and address any unforeseen difficulties. “We hope to have it available for all users in the next several weeks,” he said, adding that the company was also working to address problems with third-party applications and to make “https” the default setting.
Many Web sites offer some support for encryption via “https,” but they make it difficult to use. To address these problems, the Electronic Frontier Foundation in collaboration with the Tor Project, another group concerned with Internet privacy, released in June an add-on to the browser Firefox, called Https Everywhere. The extension, which can be downloaded at eff.org/https-everywhere, makes “https” the stubbornly unchangeable default on all sites that support it.
Since not all Web sites have “https” capability, Bill Pennington, chief strategy officer with the Web site risk management firm WhiteHat Security in Santa Clara, Calif., said: “I tell people that if you’re doing things with sensitive data, don’t do it at a Wi-Fi hot spot. Do it at home.”
But home wireless networks may not be all that safe either, because of free and widely available Wi-Fi cracking programs like Gerix WiFi Cracker, Aircrack-ng and Wifite. The programs work by faking legitimate user activity to collect a series of so-called weak keys or clues to the password. The process is wholly automated, said Mr. Kitchen at Hak5, allowing even techno-ignoramuses to recover a wireless router’s password in a matter of seconds. “I’ve yet to find a WEP-protected network not susceptible to this kind of attack,” Mr. Kitchen said.
A WEP-encrypted password (for wired equivalent privacy) is not as strong as a WPA (or Wi-Fi protected access) password, so it’s best to use a WPA password instead. Even so, hackers can use the same free software programs to get on WPA password-protected networks as well. It just takes much longer (think weeks) and more computer expertise.
Using such programs along with high-powered Wi-Fi antennas that cost less than $90, hackers can pull in signals from home networks two to three miles away. There are also some computerized cracking devices with built-in antennas on the market, like WifiRobin ($156). But experts said they were not as fast or effective as the latest free cracking programs, because the devices worked only on WEP-protected networks.
To protect yourself, changing the Service Set Identifier or SSID of your wireless network from the default name of your router (like Linksys or Netgear) to something less predictable helps, as does choosing a lengthy and complicated alphanumeric password.
Setting up a virtual private network, or V.P.N., which encrypts all communications you transmit wirelessly whether on your home network or at a hot spot, is even more secure. The data looks like gibberish to a snooper as it travels from your computer to a secure server before it is blasted onto the Internet.
Popular V.P.N. providers include VyperVPN, HotSpotVPN and LogMeIn Hamachi. Some are free; others are as much as $18 a month, depending on how much data is encrypted. Free versions tend to encrypt only Web activity and not e-mail exchanges.
However, Mr. Palmer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation blames poorly designed Web sites, not vulnerable Wi-Fi connections, for security lapses. “Many popular sites were not designed for security from the beginning, and now we are suffering the consequences,” he said. “People need to demand ‘https’ so Web sites will do the painful integration work that needs to be done.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)