TOKYO - ZMP of Japan began selling a two-legged walking robot Thursday that runs on Microsoft's new robotics software — a product the companies said will make it easier to transfer technology from one robot to another. U.S. software maker Microsoft Corp. is a relative latecomer to robotics. Microsoft Robotics Studio, a package of software especially made to program movements and other applications for robots, went on sale in December 2006, and ZMP's device is the first biped to run on it.
On Thursday, a demonstrator using a Microsoft Xbox 360 remote got the 14-inch-tall, 5.5-pound, $5,345 "e-nuvo WALK" to take a few steps and kick a small plastic ball.
Expected to ship in January, the robot, which has six motors in each leg and a boxlike torso but no head, is available online and only in Japan, though it will function overseas.
Japan has a thriving robot culture, partly because of a history of animation and TV shows that depict robots as friendly. The government is also pushing robotics as a way to put the nation ahead of the world. Robots are used in the schools here, and robot competitions are popular.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said robotics is the next hot field in technology. And Tandy Trower, a who oversees robotics at Microsoft, foresees a day when robots will operate in every home, much as Gates in the 1970s envisioned a PC proving valuable in every home.
"This really isn't about Microsoft trying to create any kind of an exclusive solution," Trower said in an interview. "We think that this is the natural evolution of the PC technology, that PCs will start to get up from our desk and move around and interact with us in a richer way."
Microsoft Robotics Studio is free for noncommercial users, and there have already been some 150,000 downloads, the company said.
In addition to robots for research and education, ZMP makes consumer products such as the Nuvo humanoid and the Miuro music-playing, rolling robot.
Adobe and Yahoo test running ads inside PDF documents
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Software maker Adobe Systems Inc and Internet company Yahoo Inc said on Wednesday they will offer a service to let publishers run advertisements in Adobe's popular document-reading format.
The new service, Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo, presents publishers with an alternative to conventional subscriptions, which, if widely adopted, could open up a new model based on free, ad-supported publishing, analysts said.
The deal is the latest move by Yahoo to expand the reach of its advertising beyond Yahoo-owned sites. Since last year, Yahoo has signed partnership deals to supply online ads to Web auctioneer eBay Inc, cable TV group Comcast Corp and a consortium of U.S. newspaper groups.
The Adobe service allows publishers to generate revenue by including text-based ads linked to the content of an Adobe PDF (portable document format) page in a separate side panel.
"People want content for free," said Matt Swain, an analyst at market research firm InfoTrends, who has been briefed by the companies on their plans. "The question is how do I reach consumers without charging them a subscription fee?"
The service is set to begin public testing, which will run several months, the companies said. An earlier private test included technology and professional publishers IDG InfoWorld, Wired, Pearson Plc's Pearson Education, Meredith Corp and Reed Elsevier NV.
The free service requires no special software and is open to U.S. publishers of English-language content, initially.
Publishers who join Yahoo's online advertising network get access to the Web company's extensive network of advertisers.
"This is powerful up and down the spectrum of publishers," said Todd Teresi, senior vice president of the Yahoo Publisher Network, of how customers could include everyone from media conglomerates to a school's parent-teacher group newsletter.
Advertisers gain a distribution channel that can reach highly specific audiences based on their reading interests while allowing them to track how specific ads perform. The approach is akin to how Web-based, pay-per-click ads now work.
Publishers who rely on Yahoo for corporate brand or Web-search advertising will have the option of delivering ads in PDF-based publications as well, he said.
"From an advertiser point of view this looks like an extension of our existing marketplace," Teresi said.
The text-based ads are displayed in a panel adjacent to the content with no moving or flashing elements. Each time the PDF is viewed, ads are matched by Yahoo to the content.
In terms of relevance to advertisers, such ads could rank above Web-page banner ads in terms of targeting capacity, but below specific keyword-based Web ads, Teresi said.
An Adobe executive said the project remained in an experimental stage, part of a "long-term market evolution."
Google adds tracker to mobile phone map service
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google on Wednesday released upgraded mapping software that figures out the general vicinity a mobile telephone is in based on which transmission tower it is using.The beta, or test, version of new Google Maps for mobile software lets mobile phone users choose from options including seeing satellite views of their locales, getting directions, and finding nearby businesses.
Unlike other mapping devices, Google's new tracking feature can display a phone's location without the user entering an address or coordinates through the keypad.
"Let's face it; entering things into your phone using the keypad is so 2006," Google mobile team engineer Mike Chu wrote in a posting on the US Internet giant's website.
"While some people are lucky enough to have GPS-enabled mobile phones that provide location information ... the vast majority of us are not."
The revamped mapping software enables mobile telephones linked to the Internet to simulate GPS (global positioning system) tracking, which uses orbiting satellites.
The free Google Maps version 2.0 comes with a "My Location" feature that determines which cell tower a mobile telephone is using and displays a map of the area with a blue circle pinpointing the spot.
A test of the service by AFP showed the mobile telephone location pinpointed a spot less than a kilometer away on a map and provided an aerial view.
A search for "cafes" in the area resulted in a list of coffee houses along with directions on request.
"We've all been there," Chu wrote. "You're out and about, and you need to figure out where you are, what's around you, and how to get there."
Google says its location tracking service is faster than GPS, uses less battery power and is more reliable indoors where architecture sometimes interferes with satellite signals.
In an effort to pre-empt concerns regarding privacy, Google says it is not gathering "any personally identifiable information" or data that could reveal particular users' whereabouts. The My Location feature can be disabled by users.
My Location software works on most Internet-enabled "smart phones," including BlackBerry models, newer Sony Ericsson devices, and some Symbian and Motorola phones.
Google says its mobile mapping software, which debuted in the US in late 2005, is used by millions of people in more than 20 countries.
Client-side vulnerabilities loom large
San Francisco - Critical vulnerabilities in common PC software, including both applications and operating systems, continue to grow in number and stand as the leading cause for concern in the IT security landscape today, according to training experts at the SANS Institute.
Holes in so-called client-side applications, including Web browsers, e-mail clients, productivity suites, and media players, have become particularly worrisome over the last year, according to SANS, which highlighted the issue as part of its annual report on the top 20 Internet security risks for 2007.
As hackers have shifted their attention further away from operating system flaws and drilled down to applications-layer vulnerabilities they have found a seemingly endless wealth of possibilities for infecting PCs with everything from spyware to botnet programs, SANS researchers contend.
Unless something can be done to improve software developers' coding habits or better test popular applications for such issues before they land on end-users' machines, attackers will be able to continue their successful assaults against enterprise networks and devices for the foreseeable future, said Rohit Dhamankar, project manager for the Top 20 report at SANS and a senior manager of security research for TippingPoint.??
"There's just been such a dramatic rise in the numbers of vulnerabilities found in applications like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office and a number of media players that attackers are having their way," said Dhamankar. "Enterprises are bolstering security, but desktop users still pose a massive risk if they can download anything they want from the Web; the attacks are also growing in sophistication to the extent that many can defeat antivirus and other security systems primarily by obfuscating their code."
Some of the most powerful tools that hackers have adopted in hunting for potential targets are the same industrial-strength applications fuzzing tools that software vendors themselves are using to search for holes in their products, said the expert.
Enterprises could do themselves a favor by enforcing stricter policies that dictate the types of applications that end-users are allowed to put on their work machines and using technical means to ensure that those rules are being followed, Dhamankar said.
Other SANS researchers noted that while companies may not want to tell end-users that they cannot utilize media players, messaging clients, and other applications that have moved into the business world from the consumer sector, they could help themselves out by limiting the variety of client-side applications that people may choose from.
"IT departments can't focus on all the applications of the world, but they can choose several and keep their eye on those while allowing end-users some freedom," said Amol Sarwate, research manager at Qualys who studies vulnerability patterns for SANS. "What companies need to do is enforce standards for applications usage and utilize technical means to block unwanted software, devices, and even wireless access points."
While many businesses have already realized that they need to shift more of their efforts toward defending client-side vulnerabilities, most have failed to embrace a proactive approach versus simply keeping track of publicly-reported flaws and patching those issues said Sarwate.
Enterprises need to think about future security issues
It will be particularly important for firms to examine the additional security issues that will be introduced in the coming years with broader adoption of technologies including VoIP (Voice over IP), according to the expert.
"The key is for people to start thinking ahead of these client-side vulnerabilities to understand what the next big thing may be. Things like VoIP need to be examined for their security implications," said Sarwate. "Many companies are already adopting these tools because of all the advantages they offer, but there will be many attacks carried out against these systems as well."
Among the advice that SANS is offering organizations hoping to improve their client-side security coverage is to mandate secure configurations at installation time for all applications, to constantly verify patching and upgrading of both applications and system software, to scan for new vulnerabilities frequently, and to keep their security systems up to date.
Other leading areas of concern highlighted by SANS in its report included critical vulnerabilities in Web applications that allow for cross-site scripting attacks or for computers to be otherwise compromised simply by pointing their browsers at poisoned URLs.
"Gullible, busy, accommodating computer users," including executives, IT staff, and others with privileged access also remain a major weak point for enterprise security, according to SANS, as these seemingly more seasoned users of computers and software are still falling for increasingly targeted spear-phishing campaigns in large numbers.
One of the best ways to educate users about the problem is for organizations to create fake spear-phishing threats and send them out to internal users to determine which individuals might be most likely to fall for the schemes and follow up with additional training, the group said.
Critical vulnerabilities in the software and systems that provide the operating environment and primary services to computer users, or server-side software, remain another area of leading concern, according to SANS.
Problems in Microsoft Windows services, Unix and Mac OS services, back-up and AV programs, management servers, database software, and VoIP technologies in particular are proving troublesome, according to the report.
Many of those issues can be addressed by following the same advice offered for solving client-side vulnerabilities, SANS said in the research.
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