Category: Computers, Science & Technology

In an interesting move, Amazon, has acquired the digital comic book store, Comixology. Amazon is been acquiring different companies over time such as its acquisition of Audible some time ago.

If you’ve never used Comixology, then imagine a sort of iTunes store for comic books, where you can buy a comic book and read it on the web, or you can read it through iOS or Android app on your tablet, or smart phone.

Comixology has some 50,000 comics available for sale, and last year the company launched a self-publishing platform for comics, that allows comic book creators to upload, and sell, their own work, which will tie in well with Amazon’s own self-publishing efforts.

Comixology will remain a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon, and retain its name, much is Audible did.

Speaking of my favorite password tool, LastPass, the LastPass company announced a new feature in their blog on April 9th.

This new feature arose in the wake of all the publicity around the HeartBleed exploit that I mentioned in an earlier post, and addresses the HeartBleed exploit specifically. Now the LastPass security check can be run from the LastPass icon menu, and it will run the security check and give you recommendations as to whether you should immediately change your password on a given website.

Essentially, it is checking for the use of OpenSSL, and then directing you to change the password for that site. One feature I like about LastPass is its ability to choose a random password that is very complex, enter it into the field for the password change, and then “remember” that password in your LastPass database.

This is a very neat way of checking websites and changing your password to a strong, difficult to guess, password, thus adding greater security to your web surfing habit!

Google is selling Google Glass to anyone in the United States on April 15, but only for a limited time. This is a change from those beta users that essentially had to qualify for the right to spin their $1500 to be part of the beta program!

Now, even if you don’t have a Google Glass Explorer invitation, you can get your hands on Google’s wearable computer. You still need to go to a special website and sign up, again, for the right to spin your $1500 to purchase Google Glass. And, in the interest of helping the economy, here’s a link to that website.

Now, I’m not sure how many of you have $1500 lying around that you can use for an impulse buy! If so, I’d be glad if you send some my way! I can think of some cool tech toys that I’d like to get my hands on. I’m not sure Google Glass would be among them, but that’s just me!

The big news this week in the tech world is the HeartBleed exploit. OpenSSL is used by many websites to secure their web traffic. Secure socket layers (SSL) provides encryption for websites to encrypt and protect the flow of data.

However, Open Source is “taking it on the chin” from a lot of corners that were already opposed to Open Source in the first place. The accusation is that because OpenSSL is an Open Source project, and that so many people have eyes on the source code, that that is allowing exploits to be developed. In fact, the opposite is actually true! The more eyes that are on the source code, the easier it is to find holes and patch them. However, as my colleague at work, that I’ve chosen to call “JoeBob Not-his-real-name,” says: “Anything created by man is inherently flawed.”

The HeartBleed bug, known by the rather difficult to say name, CVE-2014-0160, has been spreading out on the Internet for the last two years, and there’s even some speculation that the NSA has been exploiting the bug for some time to gather information from websites.

Whether this is true or not, it is true that this exploit provides a hacker access to be able to read usernames and passwords from anyone that uses the websites that are using OpenSSL.

This is a HUGE problem, and for this reason, you need to change your passwords immediately on all sites that use OpenSSL, among those are: Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter.

So, get out there and change those passwords! And, Oh, by the way, you should be using something like LastPass to provide very secure passwords for all of your websites, which you can then access by a single password into your LastPass account!

Sorry guys! Two big problems… first, a bad cold, stopped up, feelin’ yukky, plus, I worked all weekend on two things: 1) the TV Studio hardware I showed you on the show last week, and 2) three big software upgrades at work! Wow! What a weekend! LOT’S of stuff happening… we will be on schedule for this coming weekend!

Okay, we have another weird Facebook story! As well is it’s crazy buying spree this week in which they bought Oculus Rift virtual-reality for $2 billion in cash and stock, Facebook also announced that they are hiring John Carmack as a Facebook employee. Now, you may not know right off hand who John Carmack is, but if I mentioned Doom, or Quake, what do you think of? If you’re like me, it takes you back to the early days of computer gaming on MS-DOS when, yes, that same John Carmack created these venerable games!

Carmack went to work for Oculus in late 2013, and he has agreed to go to work for Facebook now that they have purchased Oculus, and plan to develop virtual-reality games and applications. Carmack has long been a champion and supporter of virtual-reality games, which makes sense as an outgrowth of his first person shooter gaming development days.

However, you must admit, it’s been a very strange week for tech news!

We all know that the end of Windows XP is coming in just over a week, as I write this. A lot of stock pundits are predicting that Microsoft stock will fall because so many people are still using Windows XP, and have not moved on to Microsoft’s later operating systems. Also, this week, Microsoft announced a price drop on the Xbox one console and game bundle from $500.00 to $450.00.

It also appears that this is not a one-time sale, but an actual price adjustment. Investors have been cautious about third-quarter sales figures because the Xbox one has not been selling quite is robustly as expected. So, Microsoft has cut the price to put it in a similar range with the Sony PlayStation 4. Of course, gaming console sales have been softer overall anyway. Microsoft stock is still softer than he has been in over 15 years. So, there are signs that Microsoft’s bubble, at least, may be getting ready to burst.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that their stock is dropped somewhat, so I would not count them out yet. We’ll just have to wait and see what the market does, and how their market share shakes out. It may all depend on what they do with Windows 9 and whether they will insist on continuing to bully customers into using their sorry “Metro” interface. I still think that all they would have to do is provide a software switch within Control Panel to turn off their ugly square Metro screen and give it a classicshell.net, so to speak, option… and they could reclaim a lot of there operating systems market share very quickly!

Now, we all know that historically, Microsoft his fought Open Source for all it’s worth! They have attacked Linux, they’ve called into question Open Source practices, and they have generally fought hard against the entire Open Source movement!

They are, however, finally “getting it!” They have done more to Open Source some of their minor products in recent history; much to the amazement of those of us who have watched Microsoft over the years attack Open Source.

Now, in an amazing move for them, they have released the actual source code for MS-DOS! Granted, it is an ancient operating system on the one hand, and very few people use it these days. However, there was a time when it was the basis of all of Microsoft’s products. So, it is very interesting that they’ve done this.

Microsoft gave permission to Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum to publish the full source code for MS-DOS this week. Now, for those of us that grew up cutting their teeth on MS-DOS, this is very cool to think about. With this source code now open sourced, you could actually write your own MS-DOS-based operating system and release it with a cute name, and run your machines based on your own operating system! Now, granted, there won’t be as much these days to run on that operating system, but consider the geek cred!

Some pundits are reporting that Microsoft is actually considering licensing certain Windows operating systems at no charge, now this is not Open Source, but freeware. However, it is not like Microsoft to do this… something must be changing, perhaps they’re opening up.

Obviously, releasing any part of Windows, or any version of Windows, even as freeware, would be a big deal! Much more so, than the release of MS-DOS source code. But, it is a start, so, “Way to go Microsoft!” And, I bet you never thought you’d see me say that in print!

UPDATE: Hold the phone! It turns out, that even though Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS, they still left it licensed under a very restrictive, “you can’t touch this,” research license! So, even while grabbing headlines for supposedly releasing their MS-DOS source code, Microsoft has once again shown their true stripes while trying to grab positive headlines! I knew it was too good to be true!

There’s big news this week concerning Facebook! How’s this for a strange purchase on their part? Facebook paid a reported $2 billion this week to purchase Oculus! Oculus is the developer of the Oculus Rift, the alternate reality headset that has been under development for several years, and is still a long way from practicality. Also, this is right after Facebook decided to purchase WhatsApp for $19 billion dollars!

So, this leaves us with the question” “Is Mark Zuckerberg crazy?” Or, is he “crazy like a fox?” He was quoted as saying, “Mobile is the platform of today and now we’re starting to also get ready for the platforms of tomorrow. To me, by far the most exciting feature platform is around vision or modifying what you see to create augmented or immersive experiences.”

One thing is for sure, Zuckerberg must be doing very well at Facebook! Which, of course, goes without saying!

Microsoft has released Microsoft Office for iPad. This has a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering” why did Microsoft release their Office product for iPad first? They could’ve released it for Android first. That would make more sense, based on market share. According to a Gartner report worldwide tablet sales for 2013 indicated that Apple’s iPad is down to a mere 36% market share. And, Google’s Android has a 61.9% market share.

So this begs the question, why release the iPad version first? Now, while I agree that the numbers indicate that it would be smarter for Microsoft to release Office for Android devices first, I am also of the opinion that Microsoft is not very smart in the first place! I believe that they are looking at things viscerally and reacting to the fact that the iPad is what most people think of when they think of a tablet computer, it is considered “the standard” among tablets. And, there is something to be said for the press bump that they get by releasing Microsoft Office for iPad!

After all, here we are talking about it! So in that sense, perhaps it was a good move on their part, at least from a “getting the market’s attention” point of view.

The real question now becomes, will Microsoft follow up by releasing a Microsoft Office for Google Android? If they don’t do that, to try to appeal to a market that is twice the size of the Apple iPad market, then I will go back to my assumption that Microsoft is just plain stupid.

And, by the way, all of my tablets are Google Android-based, even though I now use a MacBook Pro as my personal laptop, and I love it! But for tablets, I’m sticking with Google Android! Go with what you know!