Monthly Archives: June 2014

Sprint Corp S.N has agreed to pay about $40 per share to buy T-Mobile US Inc, a person familiar with the matter said, marking further progress in the attempt to merge the third and fourth-biggest U.S. mobile network operators.

The $40 price represents a 17 percent premium to T-Mobile US’s closing share price on Wednesday, giving it a valuation of more than $32 billion and the shares have more than doubled in price since the group bought smaller rival MetroPCS a year ago.

Deutsche Telekom shares were up 1.4 percent at 12.60 euros by 1115 GMT on Thursday, valuing the German firm at over 56 billion euros ($76 billion).

However, Hannes Wittig, an analyst at JP Morgan, said the $40 price, if confirmed, seemed low.

“T-Mobile US should be worth more than that given that the synergies should exceed $20 billion, Deutsche Telekom would share some of the execution risk and Sprint would be getting control … Somewhere in the high 40s would be more appropriate,” he said.

Japan’s Softbank 9984.T, which owns Sprint, and Deutsche Telekom, which owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, still have to negotiate on the details, including financing and the termination fee to be paid should the merger get blocked by regulators, the source familiar with the matter said.

Analysts see the regulatory challenge as the biggest hurdle facing the companies since both the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have expressed a desire to have at least two more network operators competing against the market leaders AT&T and Verizon.

Three years ago regulators rejected AT&T’s agreed $39 billion bid for T-Mobile US, which resulted in AT&T paying Deutsche Telekom as T-Mobile’s full owner a reverse break-up fee of $6 billion in cash and U.S. mobile assets.

Under the proposed sale to Sprint Deutsche Telekom is expected to keep a 15 to 20 percent stake in the combined company, the source said.

It also remains to be seen what the break-up fee would be if the deal fails to gain regulatory clearance. Bloomberg said Softbank was pushing for a termination fee of $1 billion, while Deutsche Telekom wanted more like $3 billion.

Officials at Sprint, Softbank and Deutsche Telekom declined to comment. T-Mobile US did not respond to requests for comment.

REGULATORY CONCERNS

The U.S. telecommunications sector is already in the throes of a major, broader consolidation, with AT&T seeking to buy satellite TV operator DirecTV and cable company Comcast trying to merge with rival Time Warner.

The changes could create a clutch of media and telecoms giants and leave Sprint an also-ran with an inferior business, the source said.

Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son has made no secret of his long-held desire to buy T-Mobile and merge it with Sprint, creating a carrier with the resources to upgrade its network and better compete with AT&T and Verizon.

For Deutsche Telekom, an exit from the United States would allow it to concentrate on its European business, including at home in Germany where it faces an upcoming auction of radio spectrum and needs to invest more in optic fiber broadband.

But first Sprint, T-Mobile US and their owners have to win over U.S. regulators to their merger plan.

“The (regulatory) agencies have tipped their hand and the parties know that,” said an antitrust expert who asked not to be named to protect business relationships.

“(They) must think that they have stronger arguments and they’re willing to battle them out with the agencies. That has to be part of their calculus here.”

Analysts have also said that Softbank and Deutsche Telekom could choose to challenge the U.S. government in court if the acquisition was blocked.

“We see the odds of approval from both the FCC and DOJ as very low unless landscape-altering concessions are offered,” wrote Nomura analyst Adam Ilkowitz in a note.

Via: reuters

End-to-End, a Chrome add-on from Google, adds another layer of security to e-mail. “End-to-end encryption means data leaving your browser will be encrypted until the message’s intended recipient decrypts it, and that similarly encrypted messages sent to you will remain that way until you decrypt them,” said Google’s Stephan Somogyi.

Google is flying in the face of the National Security Agency with a new Chrome browser add-on. The idea is to make your e-mail more secure — and to provoke other e-mail providers to take similar measures.

Dubbed End-to-End, the Google Chrome extension promises to help users encrypt, decrypt, digitally sign and verify signed messages within the browser using OpenPGP, an open standard supported by many existing encryption tools.

This is not the first security move Google has made. Gmail supported HTTPS when it first launched. Gmail also uses an encrypted connection when you check or send e-mail in your web browser. What’s more, Google warns people in both Gmail and Chrome if its systems detect bad actors are targeting Gmail users. Now, Google is adding another layer of security with End-to-End. The extension is in its alpha version.

“End-to-end encryption means data leaving your browser will be encrypted until the message’s intended recipient decrypts it,” Stephan Somogyi, product manager, Security and Privacy, wrote in a blog post, “and that similarly encrypted messages sent to you will remain that way until you decrypt them in your browser.”

An Extra Layer of Security

While end-to-end encryption tools like PGP and GnuPG have been around for a long time, Somogyi said they require a lot of technical know-how and manual effort to use. Google is trying to make this kind of encryption easier by releasing code for a new Chrome extension that uses OpenPGP.

Once Google’s e-mail gurus feel the extension is ready for prime time, the company will make it available in the Chrome Web Store. That, Somogyi said, means anyone will be able to use it to send and receive end-to-end encrypted e-mails through their existing Web-based e-mail provider.

“We recognize that this sort of encryption will probably only be used for very sensitive messages or by those who need added protection,” he said. “But we hope that the End-to-End extension will make it quicker and easier for people to get that extra layer of security should they need it.”

Shaming E-mail Providers

We caught up with Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, to get his take on the new Google security schemes. He told us Google is being intentional about its strategy with End-to-End.

“The fallout from the NSA scandal has heightened public awareness of privacy and security issues, and Google is trying to be on the right side of that debate,” Sterling said. “The ‘public shaming’ of companies without e-mail encryption puts pressure on them to take action or risk losing users by being seen as weak on security.”

Google will not be able to shame at least one e-mail provider — at least not anymore. After pointing out that 1 percent of Gmail messages sent to Comcast.net addresses remained encrypted, the telecom giant announced it is testing use of encryption. Google also called out France’s Orange service. So far, no word from Orange on encryption plans.

Via: enterprise-security-today

Most things that need to be done to ensure data security are relatively simple, according to Derrick Bates, information security officer, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust.

“The best way to make sense of all the security guidance from various information security bodies is to ask six key questions: who, what, where, when, how and why,” he told the SC Congress in London.

The “who” will identify the various stakeholders, “what” will identify the data that needs to be protected, “where” will identify the location of the data, “when” will identify vulnerable periods such as during upgrades, “how” will identify what needs to be done, and “why” will link data value to the business.

“Answering these six questions will provide 95% of what is required to make a business case for securing your network and provide greater clarity of thought on the topic,” said Bates.

While declaring bring your own device (BYOD) to be the “scariest thing to happen in IT security since the USB stick”, he said mobility is “brilliant” and should not be shied away from.

Instead, Bates said organizations could reap all the benefits offered by mobile data without the risk, as long as the organization ensures the appropriate controls are in place.

“It is always important to ensure basic controls are in place to protect the low-hanging fruit from compromise,” he said.

This approach, however, needs to be backed up and supported by an effective user security awareness training program, said Bates.

“In addition to the traditional chalk and talk approach, I use scenario-based sessions that are not aimed at teaching people, but rather changing the way they think.

“Effective security awareness training should be aimed at triggering automatic responses through understanding why certain behavior is risky,” he said.

Finally, Bates said it is important to ensure that all stakeholders understand risk as it applies to information security and not just the core business.

“Someone in the business may not understand the value of backing up information, but they will understand the concept of insurance for valuable items,” he said.

Bates said while the concept of clinical risk is well understood in the NHS, his security team had to design a completely different risk form for data risk and teach the business what it meant.

“Information security professionals in organizations need to ensure they are expressing themselves in a way the business can really understand,” he said.

Via: computerweekly

Here’s a little factoid that has pretty much nothing to do with the broader significance of Swift, Apple’s new programming language for developing iOS and OS X apps. But it made me smile, and it suggests that when my editor Matthew Panzarino described yesterday’s event as “developer fanservice,” he was right in more ways than one.

So if you look at the section of Apple’s “Swift tour” discussing “simple values,” you’ll find a short code example assigning occupations to different variables — Malcolm is a captain, Kaylee is a mechanic, and Jayne is in public relations.

Now if you’re the right kind of nerd, you probably recognized those names immediately as characters from the much-loved TV show Firefly, created by Joss Whedon and aired ever-so-briefly on Fox more than a decade ago. Malcolm is indeed the show’s captain, Kaylee the mechanic, and the bit about Jayne is a joke about a joke.

Part of the reason this tickles me is the occasional, usually hidden, influence that a show that lasted for less than one season (it was briefly revived as a film) still seems to exert in the tech world. Most notably, it was widely believed to be the inspiration for the naming of Google Wave (hey, remember Google Wave?), and apparently the whole Wave development process involved lots of references to Firefly and other Whedon-related works.

Also, you may have noticed that the Firefly reference what seems to be a reference to John Green’s novel Paper Towns. (Which I have not read. Sorry.)

Anyway, now you know. And, uh, sorry if I ruined the joke.

via: Whedonesque , techcrunch

Announced as far back as January, the efforts of founder Alex Bandar, COO Casey McCarty and Shop/Production Manger Matt Hatcher have finally come to fruition; the Columbus Idea Foundry — a 65,000 square ft. “makerspace” in the heart of Columbus, Ohio — is open in its brand new location.

The new space, nestled in a downtown district called Franklinton, celebrated its official open house yesterday and it is going to mean a lot to central Ohio.

What is it though? According to Hatcher and McCarty, it is “the largest community ‘makerspace’ on the planet.” Built in a 100-year-old shoe factory, it’s kind of like a gymnasium for people who want to make things.

You pay a monthly membership fee of $35 and then an hourly fee to use a multitude of different tools to make that thing you need — be it a 3D printed prototype, a piece of jewelry, a CNC metal cut, laser cut template, fired pottery or other needful object for your startup, business or art studio. There are different hourly rates ranging from $5-$35 depending on the toolset.

Additionally, you can also pay a fee to have the facility just make your prototype for you.

While typically more suited to product prototyping, McCarty pointed out to me that “some people do small production runs in the facility, it just depends on the project.”

Just before the open house, I did a short walk-through with Hatcher and he gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. I could describe all the funding and grant work that brought this building to action but it is already well documented by the ever-competent tech reporting of Ms. Carrie Ghose. In short, however, it has everything you’d need to make your own hardware or art project.

The work spaces come complete with every tool you can imagine from a laser cutter, to an IC3D three-dimensional printer (local company), to a complete wood shop, to a complete metal shop and three kilns. There is even a Raspberry Pi/Arduino room and a coding learning space. Bridge The Gap youth incubator also has representation at the space.

There are several studio spaces local artists can rent and use.

But what does it mean to Columbus, Ohio? What a lot of people don’t know about Columbus is that there is a fierce entrepreneurial spirit in the capital of the 7th most populous state in the nation.

There are many startups in Columbus, and in nearby Cincinnati too. I can see how a facility like this could lower the barriers for many hardware startups — for which the beginning capital investment can be a bit more intense — to get their concepts going.

I think relatively low rates like they are offering will boost the activity in the area even more.

The facility is opening now and looking for the next big thing from makers in the area. John Biggs grew up in Columbus and it’s exciting to see this world-first happening in our hometown.

Via: techcrunch

Smart phones? Bah!

Think BIG. Think public. Think ‘Internet of Things You Can’t Get Away From’. Think smart vending machines!

Imagine this: you walk up, ready to quench your thirst with some high fructose corn syrup, and the beverage vending machine decides to draw on its internet-enabled access to cloud services and data analytics to take your image with HD video, guess your age, discern your gender and then target-market you.

Or, according to the press release:

Make the purchasing experience more personal, interactive and fun for consumers.

The Register’s Simon Sharwood on Friday wrote up his experiences with perky vending machines from Intel and Microsoft.

Sharwood went to a recent Microsoft-hosted demonstration in Sydney where he became intimate with a fridge made by the local Coca-Cola bottler.

The sugar-water-stocked machine was taking photos of people in the vicinity, superimposing wigs on their heads and exhorting them to buy a drink – “all without obscuring the sweet, sweet, beautifully chilled beverages within, thanks to the use of a clear display.”

Then, in Tokyo on Thursday, he got to stand in front of one of Intel’s units, which guessed his age and gender, in order to better target its animations at subway visitors.

Sharwood writes that, according to Intel’s demo, coffee appears to be a better suggestion for men.

The Intel machine put Sharwood into the rather broad age range of 20-39, which pleased the writer, who’s about to turn 46.

Microsoft, for its part, recently announced Azure Intelligent Systems, a cloud-based service designed to manage Internet of Things (IoT) devices, collect the data they produce, and route it to tools; think business intelligence and related data-crunchers.

Of course, they’re just joining the fray that includes more and more of the biggest tech giants who are now gleefully internet-enabling our formerly stupid appliances.

A recently released SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filing shows that Google expects advertising to creep into every crevice of the IoT.

In other words, say good morning to your house! From the sounds of it, someday soon it will know when you’re up and out of bed and ready to be marketed at.

Rumor has it that Apple is poised to mix it up in the IoT with Google, with plans to announce a new software platform that would turn an iPhone into a remote-control platform for lighting systems, home security, kitchen gadgets and the like.

Of course, the IoT presents a whole new world of security risk.

As Naked Security’s John Hawes noted recently, with the advent of the IoT comes the prospect of being at risk not only of attackers snooping on the data passing between us, the cloud-based service broker who handles it, and our devices – we’re at risk of attackers taking over those data channels and hijacking the devices themselves.

Beyond those risks, the data flowing from these devices is potentially going to be ever more intimately, intrusively concerned with our private selves, from when we’re at home, to the hours we’re asleep, to what type of vending-machine snack we prefer: Cheesy? Chewy? Purchased at what hour of which day? From which we can surmise you were in transit through what part of the city?

Once such data is in the hands of a cloud service provider, there’s always the possibility that it can be subpoenaed away by our (very data-hungry) governments.

There are, of course, business-smart reasons for internet-enabling vending machines.

Vending machines are, as Microsoft has pointed out in its marketing efforts, prone to getting wonky in humid conditions.

Outfitted with environmental sensors, they’ll be able to flag upcoming problems to a vending machine operator before those problems materialise.

So yes, smart vending machines might make sense for some things, including the logistics of keeping them up so they can keep spewing snacks or weak coffee.

But they’ll also be fully capable of spying on us.

We’ve already seen the likes of spying sidewalk contraptions in the form of London’s spying rubbish bins, which were set up to identify and remember people’s smartphones, and thereby the movements and habits of their owners, as they walked by.

That’s kind of like how web pages monitor site traffic, just a whole lot creepier, given that you didn’t have to visit a site to get monitored. All you had to do was blithely walk by.

This is not to say that vending machines are in fact tracking our mobile phones. London told the smart rubbish bin company to knock it off.

But say hello to your beverage vending machine anyway, since these latest demos show that it could well be watching you – with great interest!

Via: sophos

In case you missed it:

If you’re using Yahoo Mail, you don’t have to worry about attachment size limits anymore—you can now access your Dropbox from right within your email account.

You can add files from your own Dropbox to any message, and you can save stuff people send you back to Dropbox as well. And the integration does away with file size limits, so you can send giant photo albums around to your family at will. That is, if you are actually using Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo! Mail + Dropbox

Via: gizmodo

OoberDocs, a neat little tool built and presented at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon, has expanded its feature set to include support for Google Drive. The service, which puts a copy of all incoming email attachments in your preferred cloud storage system, launched with initial support for Dropbox.

In an email, founder John McBride informed TechCrunch that today OoberDocs processed its 10,000th file upload. The company’s user base remains modest but growing.

The service sees its volume decline on weekends, and increase on weekdays, implying that it’s mainly used for business. The team previously told TechCrunch that they intended to charge business users a low, yearly fee for the product in the future.

According to McBride, support for OneDrive will be added in June, and Box in July. The user interface of the product — admittedly rough when I first used the tool — will be getting what the company describes as a “facelift” to become more “user friendly.”

It’s always fun to see a hackathon project become something more. I’ll check back in with the company in a few months to see the impact that expanding the number of cloud storage providers it supports has on its growth.

Via: techcrunch