Wall Street falls as debt woes plague (Reuters)
Reuters - Stocks fell in a choppy session on Tuesday, but showed resilience in the face of Europe's debt crisis, recovering some of their losses on more encouraging signs from the U.S. economy.
Deflationary Hurricane Will Slam Into U.S. Economy, Charles Nenner Says
‘Tis the season to spend, spend, spend and it looks like consumers are doing just that. But, can this momentum spur a sustainable recovery and how long before people in this country are put back to work?
Charles Nenner of the Charles Nenner Rese
Google Earth 6.0 Offers a Full Walking Tour Experience
Google introduced a major upgrade for Google Earth on Monday that gives users the ability to zoom in on many locations on the planet and instantly transform the perspective to a view from the street. The free Google Earth 6 release also includes other new features for exploring the planet virtually, including historical images for selected urban locations.
Though Street View took its inaugural bows in Google Earth during 2008, the new release now fully integrates the virtual walking tour experience. "You can journey from outer space right to your doorstep in one seamless flight," noted Google Earth Product Manager Peter Birch in a blog.
The streets available for conducting virtual walking tours are all in selected city locations. To switch to Street View mode, drag the Google Pegman icon at the top of the zoom control onto any road highlighted in blue, Birch wrote.
"Unlike our earlier Street View layer, you can now move seamlessly from one location to another as if you're walking down the street by using the scroll wheel on your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard," Birch wrote. "If you want to visit somewhere farther away, simply click the 'exit' button and you'll immediately return to an aerial view where you can easily fly to your next destination."
Google Earth 6 integrates a huge array of photos of major urban areas, including major landmarks and tourist attractions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. When visiting these locations using Google Earth, users are able to pan 360 degrees to view everything else in the area.
Though historical photos have been available in Google Earth since 2006, the new release makes it significantly easier for users to discover and access these images. "When you fly to an area where historical...
WikiLeaks Saga Underscores Need for Data Controls
As the furor over thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables intercepted and spread to news organizations by WikiLeaks continues, the corporate IT world is surely looking inward for lessons to be learned.
The site was accessible again on Tuesday, reportedly going through a rented server in the U.S. after it came under apparent attack from hackers who blocked it in the U.S. and Europe.
Former President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in on the fallout Monday.
In a webcast discussion with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Bush said "leaks are very damaging, and people who leak ought to be prosecuted." And Clinton said the disclosure of documents by WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange in 2006 and owned by the Sunshine Press, "is not just an attack on America's foreign-policy interests [but] an attack on the international community -- the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity," according to USA Today.
The Obama administration has ordered a review of all government communication procedures and vowed to prosecute anyone who leaks classified information.
But what can private IT teams do to safeguard their internally classified information from some future corporate WikiLeaks?
Not much, according to Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity school in Bethesda, Md.
"You cannot simply say 'Don't trust the users,'" Paller said. "I suppose the best advice is that data-leakage and data-transfer monitoring is worth the money -- much like a security camera -- to raise the chance that a thief could get caught."
Charles King, principal analyst of Pund-It, said the real lesson of WikiLeaks, which exposed thousands of documents on the wars in Iran and Afghanistan last summer in the biggest security breach in U.S. history before this month's diplomatic cable release,...
Comcast ‘Toll Booth’ for Netflix Revives Net Neutrality
The fight for Net neutrality now has a practical case that could affect the future of streaming media on the web. Comcast is requiring that a major Internet service provider pay an additional fee for delivering Netflix's streaming movies.
The fee is being imposed on Level 3 Communications, one of the broadband backbone networks that Netflix uses to provide its newly expanded streaming service. The movie service, which made its name by providing DVD rentals in red envelopes via the U.S. Post Office, has steadily been increasing the films available for immediate streaming over broadband connections. Recently, it launched a streaming-only membership option.
On Monday, Level 3 issued a statement that it had been informed on Nov. 19 by Comcast that there will be a "recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content."
Level 3 called the fee a "toll booth" allowing Comcast to "unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable-TV and Xfinity delivered content."
Level 3 added that the action "threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control" Comcast has as the nation's largest cable provider. The backbone provider said it accepted the payment terms "under protest" to ensure customers would not experience disruptions.
Level 3 said it is asking regulators and policy-makers for action to ensure that "a fair, open and innovative Internet does not become a closed network controlled by a few institutions."
Comcast said its payment demand was being "misportrayed" by Level 3, and was only part of the "commercial negotiations" between the companies. It said the fee "has nothing to do with Level 3's desire to distribute different types of network traffic," but instead reflects the cable company's "established" commercial arrangements with content...
