The suspect in the massive 2019 data breach of Capital One was found guilty Friday of hacking and wire fraud charges. The Capital One hack, one of the largest-ever breaches of a financial services company, affected more than 100 million US customers and involved the theft of sensitive data including Social Security and bank account numbers.
The hacker, Paige A. Thompson, a former systems engineer at Amazon Web Services, used a self-made tool to detect misconfigured AWS accounts and then use those accounts to hack into the systems of more than 30 organizations, including Capital One, the US Department of Justice said in a release. In addition to downloading data, she planted cryptocurrency mining software on servers and directed crypto to her online wallet, the Justice Department said.
“She wanted data, she wanted money, and she wanted to brag,” Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Friedman said in closing arguments, according to the release. The Justice Department didn’t identify the other organizations affected by Thompson’s activity.
Following Thompson’s arrest, Amazon said she’d left the company three years before the hack took place. Last year, Capital One agreed to pay $190 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by customers. Both Capital One and Amazon Web Services denied liability but said they’d settle to avoid the time, expense and uncertainty of litigation.
The year before, Capital One agreed to pay $80 million to settle claims by federal bank regulators that its cybersecurity measures fell short and that it failed to put proper risk assessment steps in place when it started using cloud storage services. The regulators gave Capital One credit for how it notified customers after the hack and how it took steps to remedy problems. And the company said safeguards it had put in place before the breach helped it secure data before any customer information could be disseminated or used.
In addition to wire fraud, Thompson was found guilty of five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer and damaging a protected computer, the Justice Department said. She was found not guilty of aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 15, the Justice Department said, and faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud. Illegally accessing a protected computer and damaging a protected computer are punishable by up to five years in prison, the agency said.
A lawyer for Thompson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the verdict.
It’s been over half a year since iOS 16 was released to the general public, yet there always seems to be new features and settings to discover within Apple’s latest iPhone software update. Not all these unexplored features will be as popular as unsending texts and emails or cutting out objects from your photos, but they’re still worth exploring if …
Former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is working to help T-Mobile and Sprint get their $26 billion merger approved by regulators.
Clyburn, a Democrat, confirmed she’s working as a paid consultant to the carriers to advise them on their impending merger. The news of her involvement was first reported by Politico on Monday.
The companies, whose merger was announced in April last year, need approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the US Department of Justice.
“Affordable broadband access is a critical priority particularly for those Americans who are underserved or currently have no viable options at all,” she said in an interview with CNET. “I am advising T-Mobile and Sprint as they seek to accelerate the creation of an inclusive nationwide 5G network on how best to build a bridge across the digital divide that currently exists in our country.”
Clyburn served on the FCC from August 2009 until June 2018. She was originally appointed under President Barack Obama and served as interim chairman of the agency for half the year in 2013. Clyburn was considered a champion of several consumer causes, including reforming prison inmate calling services and pushing to modernize and protect the FCC’s Lifeline program, which subsidizes the cost of phone and broadband service for poor and disabled Americans. She also advocated for enhanced accessibility in communications for the disability community. And Clyburn was a strong supporter of the 2015 net neutrality protections adopted when her party was in control of the FCC.
It’s not uncommon for former FCC commissioners and others serving in government to work for companies they once regulated. Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican, also consults for T-Mobile. He published an op-ed in Fortune in May extolling the benefits of the merger. But Clyburn’s involvement in advising the merger is interesting because she was part of the majority on the FCC in 2011 that rejected the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, concluding that a reduction in the number of national carriers would harm consumers. When the idea of a merger between T-Mobile and Sprint was first floated in 2014, the Democratic-controlled FCC also signaled it wouldn’t approve the deal for the same reason.
Critics of the deal, including many public interest groups that have long considered Clyburn a friend, oppose the merger, because they say more consolidation in the wireless market is bad for consumers. Specifically, they say the deal will lead to fewer choices and higher prices for consumers and reduce the incentive for these companies to continue to compete aggressively on price. They also point to the competitive pricing and promotions both T-Mobile and Sprint have offered in the market, which have pressured AT&T and Verizon to lower prices and ditch contracts. And they argue that if the deal were to be approved those competitive pressures would go away.
“The proposed combination of T-Mobile and Sprint is a clear-cut horizontal merger that will dramatically curtail competition in the wireless market and harm consumers,” Phillip Berenbroick, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, said in August when the group filed a petition with the FCC to deny the deal. “By nearly any measure, today’s wireless marketplace is already excessively consolidated … Without independent T-Mobile and Sprint challenging Verizon Wireless and AT&T, and each other, consumers are unlikely to continue to reap the benefits they have accrued from four-firm competition.”
Executives for the companies say they will not raise rates on consumers. In a letter to the FCC on Monday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere made a personal pledge to regulators that the “New T-Mobile” would not raise prices on its service following the merger. Doing so, he said, would erode the relationship with T-Mobile customers.
“I want to reiterate, unequivocally, that New T-Mobile rates are NOT going to go up,” he said. “Rather, our merger will ensure that American consumers will pay less and get more … My management team and I can make this personal commitment because we believe in delivering on our promises, and we know if we do not, we will lose credibility and the trust of our customers.”
The companies say the deal will lead to faster and wider deployment of 5G, the next generation of wireless technology that will not only increase speeds, but also improve the responsiveness of the network. The new technology is expected to pave the way for a slew of new services like streaming VR and self-driving cars.
They’ve argued they need the scale of a larger, combined company because 5G infrastructure will be very expensive to build, particularly in hard-to-reach areas like rural communities or underserved poor areas.
Legere and Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June that the deal is necessary to ensure US dominance in 5G. The two executives will be on Capitol Hill again later this month defending the merger in front of a joint hearing before two House committees, as the intensity over the regulatory review of the deal heats up.
Still, Clyburn said she’s not abandoning the ideas she fought to protect when she was a public servant. She serves as a board member of the Benton Foundation, a public interest group pushing for equity and diversity in communications policy. Clyburn was also recently appointed by Rep. Frank Pallone, chair of the House Commerce Committee, to serve on the board of the National Security Commission for Artificial Intelligence.
“I bring certain sensitivities and passions that I believe are natural extensions of this public-private partnership that I have been a part of for 19 years that is so clearly expressed in our nation’s universal service principles,” she said.
Clyburn, who was the first African-American woman to serve on the FCC and was also the first woman to chair the agency, was included in CNET’s first list of notable women in tech to celebrate International Women’s Day last year.
First published Feb. 4, 11:14 a.m. PT.Update, 3:42 p.m. PT: Added T-Mobile’s commitment to the FCC that it won’t raise rates.
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Former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix told British politicians on Wednesday that he’d been the victim of entrapment and that the media had misrepresented the work of his company.
A Channel 4 documentary that aired in March showed Nix offering to entrap politicians in compromising positions in order to influence the outcome of elections. He even suggested he had previously used Ukrainian sex workers as honeytraps. “I find that works very well,” he was shown as saying.
But Nix now says it was “hyperbole” and “a lie” that he had used such tactics in the past.
“We were just telling the client what we thought he wanted to hear,” said Nix. “It’s something I regret enormously because of the damage it did to the company.”
In spite of these regrets, he said that the footage was heavily edited and that the conversation was steered by an undercover reporter trying to entrap him. “They deliberately seeded questions to elicit certain answers,” he said.
Channel 4 on Wednesday disputed Nix’s version of events.
Channel 4 News
Nix gave evidence to the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for a second time this week after Cambridge Analytica was drawn into the scandal involving Facebook user data. He was recalled after the committee heard evidence from other witnesses that raised questions about the accuracy of Nix’s testimony.
Nix said he didn’t deliberately mislead the committee, even as he admitted that Cambridge Analytica did receive Facebook user data from researcher Aleksandr Kogan — something he’d previously denied. He thought the committee had originally asked him whether Cambridge Analytica still had the data, he said.
He maintained that Cambridge Analytica had played no part in the 2016 Brexit referendum. “It is deeply troubling that this conspiracy theory has gained such traction,” he said.
Nix took the opportunity to defend himself and his company and point the finger elsewhere — primarily at the media (Channel 4 in particular) and at former employees who he claimed had axes to grind. The media’s representation of Cambridge Analytica, which shut down at the beginning of May, as a large and powerful multinational was wrong, he said.
“The truth is we are a very small advertising agency that happens to work across a number of sectors, one of which is political campaigns,” he said. “Most of our time is spent selling toothpaste and automotive and things like that.”
Nix also honed in on evidence provided to press and to the committee by whistleblower and former Cambridge Analytica contractor Chris Wylie, which he said comprised “90 percent” of the media’s accusations against him. Wylie was trying to start a rival company without him and pitch the idea to Silicon Valley investors. He characterized Wylie as “resentful” as well as “bitter and jealous.”
Wylie did not immediately respond to request for comment. And Channel 4 on Wednesday disputed Nix’s version of events. “We absolutely disagree and reject Mr. Nix’s allegation that Channel 4 News “heavily edited” the undercover footage to portray him and Cambridge Analytica “in the worst possible light.” We’ve included Channel 4’s full statement above.
Committee Chair Damian Collins dismissed the idea saying Wylie’s evidence was based around documents he had provided, not opinions. “That’s what we’re basing our questions on,” he said. “Evidence that you do not dispute.”
At one point, Member of Parliament Brendan O’Hara told Nix that he was attempting to paint himself as the victim when he wasn’t one. “What happened if I was the victim?” he said. “If you were sitting where I’m sitting right now, you’d probably feel quite victimized.”
On one occasion, Nix was reprimanded by O’Hara for “rudeness and bluster.” But the MPs’ frustrations were not reserved solely for the ousted CEO.
“We also feel Facebook were not open and honest with the committee with the answers they gave,” Collins said, referring to an evidence session attended by Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer.
Google’s announcement this week that it’s bringing Nest back under its wing has some former employees of the smart-thermostat maker saying the company never should’ve been spun off in the first place.
Tony Fadell, co-founder and ex-CEO of Nest, said both companies’ efforts in connected gadgets were hurt when Google made Nest a separate business less than two years after acquiring it. Google bought Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion, and the spin-off happened in 2015 during the restructuring that created the Alphabet holding company.
“From the outside it looked like Nest was the perfect poster child for Alphabet,” Fadell told CNBC in an interview Friday, “but at the same time, separating it was undoing the thing that was most essential for both companies — figuring out how to make them work together.”
But Fadell, who left Nest in mid-2016 amid questions regarding sales goals and workplace culture, told CNBC that bringing Google’s AI smarts to Nest gadgets had always been the point.
“Nest was acquired by Google for a specific reason,” Fadell told the network. “I pitched it as ‘We are the senses and you are the brain.'”
Two other former Nest employees, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNBC that after the Alphabet restructuring, Google and Nest staffers weren’t properly encouraged to work together. The two teams were also kept in the dark about each other’s projects, even when those efforts were similar, and even after Amazon began gobbling up the smart-home market with its Echo and Alexa products. Google reportedly tried to sell Nest in 2016 but abandoned that effort.
“I think it would have helped had the [mergers and acquisitions] team put something in place in the early days to structure and incentivize Google and us in a way that would have led to more cooperation,” one of the ex-employees told the network.
“It was like a soap opera,” one of the former staffers said.
A culture clash might have been involved. Fadell, an ex-Apple executive and disciple of Steve Jobs, is known as the godfather of the iPod, and played a key role in the development of the iPhone. His joining the search giant was seen by many as Google co-founder Larry Page’s attempt to inject his company with Apple’s storied hardware sensibility. But Apple’s rigid and secretive culture is a stark contrast from Google’s open and experimental one.
Fadell told CNBC he’d like to see Google’s effort to marry its AI technology to Nest products succeed this time around.
“For the sake of Nest customers and talent,” he said, “I hope they follow through on their commitment they made to us four years ago instead of trying to sell it off like they did just two years ago.”
Twitter’s former CEO is still regretting not curbing online abuse sooner on the social network.
“I wish I could turn back the clock and go back to 2010 and stop abuse on the platform by creating a very specific bar for how to behave on the platform,” Dick Costolo said Wednesday at the Upfront Summit conference in Los Angeles, according to Axios.”I take responsibility for not taking the bull by the horns,” said Costolo, who thought he couldn’t make such a bold move because he wasn’t a founder.
It’s not the first time Costolo, Twitter’s chief from 2010 until 2015, has made such comments about the abuse. In a series of internal memos in Feb. 2015, Costolo said he felt personally responsible for inadequately responding to the incessant harassment, strongly believing it drove users away.
“I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd,” he said. “There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.”
Costolo was out of a job five months later. On Wednesday, he offered a slew of suggestions for Twitter, including how staffers could manually curate messages, promote tweets with quality content and purge abusive ones.
He also said similar strategies could be applied to dealing with “fake news.”
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Federal authorities have charged an ex-Verizon employee with selling phone records. Daniel Eugene Traeger pleaded guilty to a felony count of unauthorized access to a private computer. From 2009 to 2014, Traeger sold call records and location data to an unnamed private investigator.
Over the course of that period, Traeger was paid more than $10,000 according to court records. He now faces up to five years in prison though prosecutors are recommending a lesser sentence since he plead guilty as part of a plea deal.
Traeger was based in Birmingham, but authorities haven’t specified whether the information sold just involved customers in Alabama.
“It appears that fewer than 500 customers’ information may have been accessed in 2014,” a Verizon representative said in an emailed statement. “We worked with the FBI on this matter, and they caught the criminal.”
Powermat champions one of the key standards in wireless charging, but drama had distracted the company from making that capability more broadly available. The other hitch is a rival standard called Qi, which boasts a larger number of devices that embrace its technology. The incompatibility between the two has been one of the key hurdles to mainstream adoption of wireless charging.
Powermat said the resolution allowed for additional funding from its key shareholders.
NCTA President Michael Powell addresses the cable industry at the group’s annual trade show last week.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET
Cable companies have been “increasingly saddled with heavy rules without any compelling evidence of harm to consumers or competitors,” Powell, president of National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said at the group’s trade show last week in Boston. He pointed to proposals to force more competition in the cable set-top box business and to regulate privacy for Internet service providers as evidence of “tectonic shifts that have crumbled decades of settled law and policy.”
For consumers, he said, these regulatory policies will lead to higher costs as they are encouraged to buy set-top boxes no one wants. Meanwhile, the privacy rules leave out the biggest companies, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, which are already collecting and selling sensitive information about consumers. Proponents of such rules argue that consumers will ultimately have more choice and lower prices.
CNET sat down with Powell to talk about the issues facing the cable industry. He offered his candid views on the Federal Communications Commission, as well as his thoughts on the presidential campaign. Below is an edited excerpt of that conversation.
Q: You said the FCC launched an assault on the cable industry. Do you think the FCC is picking on cable companies? Powell: It’s not that they’re picking on us. But regulatory agencies set priorities. They establish visions that guide their agenda, and what I see emerging is a very pointed view that the Internet communications ecosystem is increasingly perceived as bifurcated rather than being seen as a virtuous ingredient of what drives Internet growth. Instead [cable companies] are considered a barrier or an impediment to that.
Let’s talk about the FCC’s set-top box proceeding. The FCC wants to allow third parties to offer boxes so people aren’t forced to rent one from a cable operator. I’ve never understood why cable companies would want you renting boxes from them anyway. Powell: They don’t. It’s because of the box that we have to send trucks out to your house so the guy with the blue booties can come in and install it. We know the real pain point for us is when you move and have to return a box to a crummy retail store and have a bad experience. It’s interesting that the FCC talks a lot about the revenue of the set-top boxes for the cable companies, but the commission didn’t talk at all about the expense.
So why do I still have to rent a box from the cable company? Powell: You could buy a TiVo right now. By the way, most of the models that have survived, like TiVo, include subscription. TiVo is way more expensive than leasing a set-top box from the cable company.
The truth is we want to be on all kinds of devices: iPhones, iPads, tablets, Rokus, Apple TVs. Our disagreement with the FCC has nothing to do with getting on third-party devices.
But they want to create a market for competitive boxes. We want to create a market where everything is a box. And we’re already doing it. Time Warner Cable and Charter have already built fully integrated cable apps. Comcast has already announced their fully integrated cable app. Those apps are going to be capable of running on Roku, Apple TV, iPad, it won’t matter what the device is.
The cable industry is opposed to the FCC taking over privacy regulation for Internet providers from the Federal Trade Commission. What are your objections to this approach? Powell: There are a lot of nuances in privacy for Americans. Some people will give their privacy away if they see value in it. So protecting privacy is not an easy one-size-fits-all solution.
The FTC’s process responds to harms that evolve with learning. I think it’s a superior approach to the one that the FCC is forced to employ, which is, ‘I’m going to type out a rule and put it in a rule book and then enforce against that rule for the next decade, no matter what happens in the marketplace.’
When you have markets move as dramatically as the Internet does with as much experimentation and risk-taking that’s required, prophylactic rules in a rule book can be problematic because they don’t breathe. You can put a rule in a book and it takes 20 years to get it off.
All we’re asking is for the FCC to harmonize regulation with the FTC.
You come from a prominent Republican family. Your father, Colin Powell, served as secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national security adviser. What do you think of Donald Trump?
Powell: I think it’s an interesting phenomenon. I don’t know Donald Trump so I won’t speak personally. The way I was raised as a public servant I have a lot of difficulty with how he has styled his candidacy. As a person who grew up in a family of public servants, I have a deep belief in civility and a deep belief that you fight with ideas and not emotion. I have a deep belief that your client is the American people, not yourself or a party or anything else. I believe in a society that will only thrive through inclusion, not division. And I think leadership is about trying to connect the better nature of people and not profit from the worst nature in people.
I won’t just make that comment about Mr. Trump. The political system is letting us all down. Somebody once told me that the way most people vote for president is they want the person who exhibits the qualities that they wish they fully were. You should want them to be better.
There was a time when people in the Republican party really wanted your dad to run for president. Some still do. Anybody in the Powell family thinking about politics? Powell: At the moment that answer would clearly be no. I can’t speak for my dad, either.
I don’t know why he doesn’t run for president, but it’s a system that at the moment isn’t encouraging people like him to run. I can name you lots of people I admire who should run for president. We should be worried as a country that a Colin Powell or Bob Gates or a lot of other people I admire don’t want anything to do with this. If you have a system that elects the most powerful person in the world that people are being repelled by, something is wrong.
What do you think a Trump or Clinton presidency would look like for the FCC? Powell: It’s anyone’s guess. He doesn’t have a history, unlike Mrs. Clinton, who has been in the business a long time. There is an orbit of people around her who have expertise or interest who have been around that machinery for decades. I could guess at the kind of people who could be involved.
Would a Clinton FCC be similar to Obama’s FCC? Powell: The thing with Obama’s FCC is there were actually twin commissions. Julius Genachowski was one kind of guy, and it was a very different approach and tenor. Then there was Tom Wheeler. I don’t think it’s the president or the ideology that is that determinative.
Trust me, I can find a lot of Democratic constituencies that were happy with rulings I made. And I can find plenty of Republican constituencies that didn’t like what I did. It has a lot to do with the individual you put in the main chair and what surrounds her or him. That will determine the dynamic so it’s hard to say.
Do ex-NFL players really know how banged up their bodies are? Their iPhones might help.
Medical researchers at Harvard University have created an app that lets former players share how on-field injuries may still be affecting their brains and bodies.
Ex-players spend about 20 minutes a week with the app, called TeamStudy, recording their pain tolerance, mobility and memory. The broader public is also encouraged to use the app so researchers can compare the health of nonathletes to that of the former players.
“We want to get as much specific data on how a player’s health may affect their well-being over the course of their lives,” said Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a Harvard neurology professor and TeamStudy’s lead investigator. The app’s anonymity might allow researchers to attract players who would otherwise be reluctant to discuss chronic aches and pains, he said.
George Wrighster is among several ex-NFL players involved with creating the TeamStudy app. The app is part of a Harvard University research study on the health of former football players.
Harvard University
TeamStudy debuts as the health and safety of pro football players continues to make headlines. Last April, the NFL agreed to a $1 billion settlement after more than 5,000 retired players sued the league for allegedly hiding health risks linked to concussions and head trauma. Many players have rejected the settlement.
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the NFL’s concussion research used flawed data and omitted widely known concussions suffered by hall-of-fame players. The NFL disputes the Times story.
TeamStudy, available in Apple’s App Store as of last week, is part of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard, a program that examines the health of former NFL players. More than 3,000 ex-players are part of the study, which is funded by the NFL Players Association, the official union that represents players.
George Wrighster, a former tight end with the Jacksonville Jaguars who suffered at least three concussions during his career, says getting players to discuss their injuries remains a challenge.
“It may be humbling to say you’re still in pain and not as tough as you used to be,” said Wrighster, 34, who deals with chronic neck and back pain. “Hopefully, this will give them an outlet where they can be open and honest about what they’re going through.”
The TeamStudy app collects data when participants perform simple physical activities, such as walking. They’re also asked to respond to questions about the ability to focus.
The app was built using ResearchKit, Apple’s year-old software platform that allows medical institutions to conduct research through iPhones.
Startup Vivaldi Technologies debuted a new browser Tuesday, a technical preview version designed more to attract users of fifth-place Opera than to dethrone leading browsers like Google’s Chrome.
Perhaps the world doesn’t need another browser. But Jon S. von Tetzchner, Vivaldi’s chief executive and co-founder, believes there’s room in the market. And maybe he should know: he formerly held both those jobs at Norway-based Opera Software, which launched its browser in 1996 and made a business out of it, even though the Web browser market at the time was dominated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator.
“Most browser makers in the market are trying to make a limited browser, maybe with extensions. But that is not what everyone wants,” von Tetzchner said. “As an example, there are still about 20 million people still using Opera 12, even though that browser is more than three years old. There is a need for a browser for the tech user, the user that wants more from their browser.”
Von Tetzchner evidently thinks there’s money to be made correcting what he sees as Opera’s missteps. In 2014, when Opera closed its My Opera site for blogs, email, online chat and forums, Vivaldi launched its own community site to pick up the My Opera refugees. With the Vivaldi Technical Preview 1, the company hopes to attract disgruntled Opera browser fans and, like other browser developers, make money by referring people to search engines that share the resulting search-ad revenue.
The browser market is as tough as it’s ever been, with aggressive investments from Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple into products not just for PCs but for phones and tablets, too. Even as programmers direct many of their resources toward mobile apps, the Web remains a fundamental part of computing, and advancing standards are making websites and Web apps steadily more sophisticated.
That’s why there’s such an effort to improve browser speed, security and features: in many ways, the browser is an operating system, and today’s tech giants want as much influence as possible over that technology foundation.
Vivaldi lets people organize browser tabs visually down the left edge of the screen.
Vivaldi Technologies
Opera, which ranks in fifth place on desktop computers with about 1.4 percent of global usage, went through a major transition as the company scrapped the Presto engine at its heart and moved instead to the open-source Blink and Chromium software from Google. Blink and Chromium are the foundations of Google’s Chrome, but the software can be built into other browsers, too; Russian search site Yandex also picked Google’s technology for the foundation of its Yandex Browser.
Opera’s transition left some features behind, and that’s where von Tetzchner hopes to capitalize.
Vivaldi Technical Preview 1 includes an interface for issuing written commands, notes that let people annotate Web pages with tags and screenshots, a refurbished and visual bookmark system, and tab stacks to help people with lots of browser tabs stay organized. And keeping the same name from an Opera feature, it’ll offer a “speed dial” tool to reach favorite sites quickly.
“People chose to use Opera because of the feature set it had to offer and because they liked the company. Opera has moved on and has defined a new target market,” he said. “We aim to provide a browser for those former Opera users that want more from their browser and all others who want the same.”
Von Tetzchner isn’t the only former Opera employee at Vivaldi. “There are about 25 people at Vivaldi, while the technical team is 18 people. Half of them are former Opera people,” he said.
Vivaldi co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner
Stephen Shankland/CNET
The initial browser runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Mobile versions will follow, but Vivaldi doesn’t have details yet, von Tetzchner added.
Mobile is a major challenge. Apple’s Safari, a fourth-place browser on personal computers, commands influence with programmers by virtue of its widespread use on iPhone and iPad devices running Apple’s iOS operating system. Google has been working hard to improve its mobile version of Chrome, and Mozilla has not only a mobile browser effort but an entire browser-based mobile operating system.
Opera remains relevant in mobile browsing too, though it’s struggled to carry forward its relevance as the smartphone market transitions from more primitive operating systems to iOS and Google’s Android. Opera offers a variety of mobile browsers, including Opera Mini and the newer Opera Coast.
Conquering browsers funded by giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google is likely impossible. But Opera showed browsing is a big enough market that it was possible to make a business in the giants’ shadows. Perhaps Vivaldi will find another such place.
“The browser market has always been challenging, but we are ready for that challenge,” von Tetzchner said.
Hector Monsegur interview part 1: Sabu speaks about his…
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The character of Hector Monsegur, a former LulzSec hacker who went by the nom de guerre “Sabu,” is a complicated one.
Here’s a boy who grew up in poverty, many members of his immediate family serving time in jail. Here’s a kid who found an outlet in the Hacker Manifesto. Here’s a father who adopted and raised two girls after their mother, his aunt, was arrested. Here’s an activist who helped provoke the repressive Tunisian government. Here’s a villain who, in the eyes of many, betrayed his friends to protect himself when the FBI came knocking.
Shakespeare it ain’t, but it is an interesting tale. After years of underground online activity and thousands of hacks, FBI agents presented Monsegur with a long list of charges against him, including some 12 counts of hacking and related fraud. However, the agents also presented a greater threat: to take away the two girls he was fostering and hand them to protective services. This and only this, says Monsegur, led to his becoming an FBI informant.
Now playing: Watch this:
Hector Monsegur interview part 2: Operation Tunisia and…
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Between June 2011 and March 2012, Monsegur would publicly maintain his role as one of the world’s most prominent hackers and general haters of the establishment. In fact, as the days counted down and his work with the FBI was about to be revealed, he grew even more vocal, saying things like “without informants or subpoenas the feds would be lost.” He also said “CIA wouldn’t hire me and the feds I think would love just to throw me under a prison somewhere. I’m useless to them.”
Actually, he was pretty useful. According to the FBI, the man behind Sabu helped stop some 300 hacks against government websites. Information obtained by agents watching Monsegur’s every move through 2011 and early 2012 also led to the arrest of numerous suspected international hackers, including activist Jeremy Hammond, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence for his role in the Strafor email leak. Hammond maintains that Monsegur, under FBI direction, provided both the encouragement and the tools for the attack. Monsegur, for his part, denies any acts of entrapment.
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Hector Monsegur interview part 3: Sony’s hack and Sabu’s…
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Monsegur’s cooperation with the FBI was so effective that, at his sentencing, federal prosecutors took the unusual step of detailing just how helpful he was. He was released after having served seven months in prison and would face only a year of probation rather than the possible decades of incarceration.
These days, Monsegur maintains that he does not have a PC and is making minimal use of the Internet — he is allowed, but he’s concerned the actions of others might be blamed on him. Better just to steer clear. Still, he has plenty of opinions about the current state things. He believes the most recent Sony hack, for example, is simply a continuation of the many attacks against the corporation. “Sony has been compromised for at least six years that I know of,” he said. “The people who are complaining to be GOP or whatever, are the people that owned Sony way back when… This is not a new hack.”
As to what comes next, Monsegur says those seven months behind bars exposed him to a new passion: teaching. “I feel like I want to help people in general with understanding privacy.” The former Sabu hopes to educate others about who they can trust and how they can protect themselves in a world increasingly full of scams, traps and phishing attacks. That sort of knowledge is a valuable thing, and it’s certainly hard to imagine a better teacher.
Guess who’s discovered the joys of Candy Crush — ex-Sony…
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A half-year after Jack Tretton stepped down as head of Sony’s PlayStation division in America, he has time to do something he didn’t have a chance to before: play Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans.
To devout PlayStation fans, this could be considered a form of treason.
When he was in his old job, he was laser-focused on Sony products, vetting games for the PlayStation and the company’s Vita handheld video game device. When he wasn’t doing that, he was checking up on what his competitors, including Microsoft and Nintendo, were up to.
Sure, he knew about games made for mobile devices, but he didn’t have the time to actually play them. Now he slings around Apple’s mobile devices, complete with the most addicting and popular titles. “While console is obviously very important and a very big part of the gaming business, it is just a part of the games business,” Trenton said in a wide-ranging interview at his office in Redwood City, Calif. Now he’s playing several mobile games, and experiencing what’s outside the console industry. “I never thought I’d be saying that even a year ago.”
In a spartan office he’s rented, Tretton is relaxed as he talks about getting back into the game, so to speak. He likes advising, and he’s been talking to experts throughout the industry. And he says he’s probably met more people in the months since he left Sony than in the past 20 years.
When he’s not doing that, though, he’s trying to beat the owl, a notoriously hard level of Candy Crush.
Dressed in a purple-shaded shirt, a sport coat and jeans, Tretton weighed in on how he sees things from the outside, the benefits of having a more female perspective in the industry and the health of game makers.
A changing industry
Tretton grew up playing coin-operated arcade games like the spaceship battle game Galaga and the maze-like Pac-Man. But some of his fondest memories are of another space game, Megamania, and Pitfall, an action adventure title. The two games were among the most popular on Atari’s 2600, one of the earliest video game consoles.
When he was home from college, he’d play with his brother, who was 12 years his junior. While playing together helped them bond, Tretton was still an older brother. “I used to have to decide whether to beat him and send him out of the room crying or if I should let him win and feel better about himself.”
Tretton at a Sony press conference in June 2013
Getty Images
Three years after he graduated from college, he went to work for Activision, maker of Megamania and Pitfall. Tretton was at Sony for the launch of the first PlayStation in 1995.
He’s seen a lot change in the years since.
Today, mobile devices are invading everyone’s lives, including his own. Look around an airport or on a bus, and almost everyone’s playing a game. About 70 percent of the revenue from mobile app stores flow to video games, according to a recent study by App Annie.
Tretton says it won’t be long before these devices should be considered standard video game consoles, particularly if wireless controllers built for them catch on.
“The average gamer is going to want to be able to bring that experience with them,” he said. And it won’t come at the expense of a high-end PC or dedicated game console either, he added. “I would personally rather accept the lowest common denominator, and a dumbed-down form of a game, to know that I can use anybody’s smartphone, anybody’s PC, anybody’s tablet, anybody’s console and to be able to log in and play my game.”
Women and tech
Women, and the way they’re hired, promoted and treated by the outside world, continue to be a big topic of discussion in the technology industry. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, was criticized this month for suggesting women shouldn’t ask for raises but rather trust the system — and “karma” — to pay them fairly. Nadella has since apologized and said he wants to champion women’s rights instead.
Tretton said the video game industry needs to follow a similar tack. “It’s been a male-dominated industry in terms of people working on the development side and consuming,” he said. “As you get more women in development, I think that will change.”
PlayStation’s health, the Xbox challenge and where VR is going
When it comes to Sony, Tretton is confident he left the PlayStation 4 ready to tackle the increasing challenges to its industry. The recipe for success, he said, remains about creating high-quality games. “Anything that takes their focus off of that could ultimately leave the door open for competition.”
One of the places Sony’s testing new waters is a device called Project Morpheus, a virtual reality headset much like the Oculus Rift that Facebook bought for $2 billion this year.
While virtual reality has evolved more in the past couple years than in the decades before, Tretton isn’t sure it’s ready for prime time. “I think it will be evolutionary for gaming, I don’t know if it will completely change the way people play games,” he said.
As for Microsoft, he said the company has come around to what customers want after flubbing the device’s launch with a high price tag ($499 when it launched, compared to $399 for the PS4) and unpopular policies around sharing and reselling used games. Microsoft reversed its unpopular policies and introduced a $399 version of its console in June to more directly compete with the PS4 on price, and it has instituted various promotions to drive the price even lower.
That’s a good start, Tretton said. “Microsoft has the message correct now, but they’re making up for lost time and maybe some mixed messaging.”
Tretton doesn’t count out Bungie yet. “It’s a franchise that they’re going to be investing in for many years to come,” he said. “People have the expectation it was going to be everything Halo ever was and more on day one, and I think that’s a tall task to live up to.”
Former Apple CEO John Sculley reportedly is planning to launch a smartphone brand in India, according to a report by tech-news site BGR that didn’t cite sources.
Smartphone usage is exploding in India, with major players like Apple and Samsung pushing their phones through distribution networks and Indian companies like Micromax luxuriating in annual growth in smartphone sales between 200 and 500 percent. Last year, Strategy Analytics said India had surpassed Japan to become the third biggest smartphone market in the world.
Sculley, known for firing Steve Jobs from Apple in 1985, is said to be one of the founding partners of the as-yet-unnamed brand, which will be led by Ajay Sharma, currently the head of Indian handset maker Micromax‘s smartphone unit and previously HTC’s India chief.
With funding from Inflexionpoint, which is an IT supply chain company co-founded by Sculley, the new venture will launch a series of smartphones and a few feature phones as early as next month, according to the report.
Sculley suggested last fall he was considering a bid for struggling BlackBerry.
Mobile veteran Sanjay Jha has been named the new chief executive officer of chipmaker GlobalFoundries. Jha is the former CEO of Motorola Mobility and also previously served as the COO of Qualcomm.
“Sanjay is one of the most respected leaders in the technology industry and has a proven track record of consistently delivering shareholder value,” vice chairman of GlobalFoundries’ board Ibrahim Ajami said in a statement. “His industry background and experience as a foundry customer will position GlobalFoundries for continued growth.”
GlobalFoundries is closely tied to the mobile industry — it makes chips for several smartphone and tablet manufacturers. Reportedly, the company is in talks with Apple to make some chips at its Fab 8 factory in Malta, N.Y. GlobalFoundries also announced last week that it would be expanding this factory to produce 20- and 14-nanometer nodes.
GlobalFoundries CEO Ajit Manocha will now be returning to his previous role as an adviser to the company’s shareholders. He will work with Jha for a smooth transition.
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead a company with such a strong track record in an industry that I know and love,” Jha said. “I look forward to working closely with Ajit during the transition and with a very talented global team to continue to make our customers successful.”
Peter Ledermann is one of just a handful of highly skilled people on the planet who designs and hand-builds phono cartridges. These tiny electro-mechanical devices are usually machine made, but Ledermann builds world-class cartridges with his hands and a microscope. His company, Soundsmith, also manufactures speakers and amplifiers, and services vintage Bang & Olufsen and Tandberg products.
Ledermann’s resume is impressive: He was the director of Engineering for Bozak, one of America’s leading speaker manufacturers in the 1960s. And for 10 years, starting in 1980, he was an IBM senior research engineer and is credited as the primary inventor of 11 IBM patents. He started Soundsmith during his IBM tenure, and Ledermann currently employs 15 people in his 8,000-square-foot facility in Peekskill, N.Y.
Ledermann personally builds and repairs all of the top Soundsmith cartridge models. He and his staff also can repair other brands of high-end cartridges on site. As we talked, Ledermann didn’t strike me as a straight-laced engineer type — no, the man loves music and takes real delight in his work. He strives to make cartridges that can so precisely trace an LP’s incredibly complex, microscopic groove wiggles that you hear only the music. Ledermann feels that with the best cartridges and turntables, an LP should sound like the master tape. “If it sounds like a record, you’ve blown it,” he said.
A Soundsmith technician at work.
Steve Guttenberg/CNET
Ledermann’s large listening room — outfitted with his Strain Gauge phono cartridge, SG-810 preamplifier, HE-150 amplifiers, and Monarch speakers — sounded wonderful. His cartridges really did minimize LPs’ ticks and pops to a remarkable degree; even old records were eerily quiet. I’m not claiming they were 100 percent noise-free, but definitely quieter than what I’m used to.
Soundsmith’s hand-built phono cartridges start at $480 for the Otello, and go up to the high four figures. Phono cartridges are usually very delicate devices, as are most Soundsmith cartridges, but the company offers two “unbreakable” Irox models. They’re designed for folks who throw parties and play a lot of records, blind people, or listeners with limited or unstable hand motion. I know of no other manufacturer of high-end cartridges that offers that type of model.
Ledermann also has a recording and mastering studio onsite where he records music, without tape recorders. He instead records direct to disc, on a record cutting lathe. Ledermann doesn’t make records to earn a profit — all of the money is earmarked to help rescue children around the world working as slave laborers. The DirectGrace records I listened to really are exceptional.
Former Apple CEO John Sculley is said to be considering buying BlackBerry, according to a report by The Globe and Mail. No, this is not a parody Onion article.
The man known for firing Steve Jobs from Apple in 1985 told the Canadian newspaper that while he was not commenting on the matter, he said he has been a “longtime BlackBerry fan and user.”
“The only thing I would say is, I think there’s a lot of future value in BlackBerry, but without experienced people who have run this type of business, and without a strategic plan, it would be really challenging,” Sculley continued. “Whoever buys it would have to have a strategic plan that was credible and could succeed, and they would want to have an experienced team that would be able to implement that plan.”
BlackBerry announced last month that it was for sale after dwindling sales and heightened competition from Apple, Samsung, and other phone makers. Shortly after the announcement, Fairfax Financial Holdings put together a consortium to buy out BlackBerry in a tentative $9 per share offer. Chinese PC maker Lenovo is also rumored to be considering the acquisition of BlackBerry.
At a Forbes conference last month, Sculley recounted his clashes with Jobs. Sculley told the conference attendees that it was basically the Apple board’s fault for creating an environment in which he and Jobs butted heads. While Sculley did fire Jobs, he later said that he thinks Jobs was “the greatest CEO ever.” Sculley was Apple’s CEO from 1983 to 1993.
When contacted by CNET, a BlackBerry spokesperson said the company is not disclosing any potential buyers at this time.
“The Special Committee, with the assistance of the company’s independent financial and legal advisors, is conducting a robust and thorough review of strategic alternatives,” the spokesperson said. “We do not intend to disclose further developments with respect to the process until we approve a specific transaction or otherwise conclude the review of strategic alternatives.”
Updated October 24 at 2:25 p.m. PTwith comment from a BlackBerry spokesperson.
Two former HTC executives are hoping for a fresh start with their own company.
Michael Coombes, former head of U.K. sales at HTC, and James Atkins, former U.K. marketing head for the company, said on Monday that they are launching smartphone manufacturer Kazam. The two executives are promising smartphones that are about “stunning design, robust hardware, and intuitive technology, underpinned with improved customer service. Kazam will focus on the European market.
Coombes will serve as CEO, while Atkins will be the chief marketing officer. The two executives left HTC in March, part of an exodus of several key executives leaving as the company struggles with its turnaround.
“There is a real opportunity for a new mobile brand to disrupt the status quo,” Atkins said. “We are passionate about delivering a truly positive mobile experience that doesn’t just stop once you’ve bought the phone.”
The company, of course, faces tremendous hurdles, and could very well go from Kazam to kablooey in short fashion. After all, if a company with the resources of HTC continues to struggle with the handset business, how much of a chance does a startup have?
Kazam, which will focus on the European market, believes it can differentiate itself by offering phones that it will continue to support after they’re purchased. Considering that smartphones routinely get software updates, the company will likely offer more support than new versions of the software. The bare-bones statement didn’t provide any concrete details on the products themselves, noting only that a line of smartphones will launch later this year. Presumably, the company would use Android as well.
“Kazam’s dynamic structure and focus on local markets means we can react quickly to the ever-evolving and diverging needs of today’s consumer,” Coombes said.
But in a market where money, scale, distribution, and brand talks, Kazam is at a distinct disadvantage. It lacks all of those things when stacked up against the two executives’ former employer, not to mention giants such as Apple and Samsung Electronics.
Also, in many markets where the carrier plays a dominant role in what the consumer ultimately buys, getting an in with the big companies will be a huge challenge. Fortunately, unlocked phones are more popular in Europe, so there’s a potential market for customers who want something different.
But with companies such as HTC, Sony, and LG fighting for the scraps left over from Samsung and Apple, there appears to be little left over for Kazam. Even relatively large companies such as Huawei and ZTE have struggled to get into mature markets despite vast resources.
We’ll have to hear more about Kazam and its phone first before making a final call, but for now, the startup is raising a lot of questions about its business with the announcement.
Corrected on June 18 at 11:04 a.m.: This story initially misstated Michael Coombes’ title at HTC. Coombes was the head of U.K. sales for HTC.
Why does every new iPhone have a number in its name, but not the iPad, iPod, or any of Apple’s desktops or laptops? It’s a good question, so let’s head over to ex-Apple adviser Ken Segall for his tuppence worth.
“iPhone is sold differently,” explains Segall, who was involved in the famous ‘Think different’ ads. “Since two previous models are still available when a new model is launched, the number is needed to distinguish one from the other. Consider it a necessary evil.” Segall also thinks Apple should drop the ‘S’ identifier, as seen on the iPhone 4S.
The ‘S’ has become known as the incremental upgrade, according to Segall, with Apple only knocking out a handset with a proper spec boost every other year. Segall claims the ‘S’ is an “awkward moniker” whether spoken or read, and the iPhone 4S will never be as simple as the iPhone 4. “More important,” he writes, “tacking an S onto the existing model number sends a rather weak message. It says that this is our ‘off-year’ product, with only modest improvements.”
Rather, Apple should number its next handset the iPhone 6, rather than 5S, then iPhone 7, then iPhone 8, etc. “I think it’s safe to say that if you’re looking for a new car, you’re looking for a 2013 model — not a 2012S. What’s important is you get the latest and greatest.”
He signs off: “I don’t know what the ‘S’ is supposed to mean. But I’m pretty sure that 6 is better than 5.”
Which is all well and good, but he overlooks the fact that a device with a large number next to it sounds like an old, tired product. Who’s going to buy an iPhone 11? Film franchises have the same problem. Which is why a few years ago we started seeing titles like The Final Destination and Rocky Balboa.
What do you think of Apple’s naming convention? Should it drop the ‘S’ moniker? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of BlackBerry, has sold off his entire stake in the company, according to a regulatory filing.
A year ago, Balsillie was one of the largest individual shareholders in BlackBerry (formerly known as Research In Motion) with 26.8 million shares in the company. But in a document filed today, BlackBerry disclosed that Balsillie no longer holds any shares in the company.
Balsillie and fellow former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis stepped down last March amid shareholder criticism over the way the company was being run and a stunning drop in its share price. Current CEO Thorsten Heins stepped in to replace them, and has helped usher in the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and a rebound in the share price.
While there are questions about how well BlackBerry 10 will do in the market, the company’s new Z10 smartphone has earned some critical praise for its unique user interface.
Lazaridis, who still serves as vice chairman of BlackBerry, owns 29.9 million shares in the company.
A group of former Nokia employees has formed a company with the goal of bringing to market a smartphone powered by software discarded by their former employer.
The Finnish startup Jolla plans to base its handsets on the defunct Meego operating system, which was developed in partnership with Intel but was essentially left for dead when Nokia opted to drop investment in the platform and move to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.
The company will be led by Chief Operating Officer Marc Dillon, who worked at Nokia for almost 11 years, most recently as its principal engineer for Meego.
The company said in a statement:
The Jolla team is formed by directors and core professionals from Nokia’s MeeGo N9 organisation, together with some of the best minds working on MeeGo in the communities.
Nokia created something wonderful – the world’s best smartphone product. It deserves to be continued, and we will do that together with all the bright and gifted people contributing to the MeeGo success story.
Together with international investors and partners, Jolla Ltd. will design, develop and sell new MeeGo based smartphones. The Jolla team consists of a substantial number of MeeGo’s core engineers and directors, and is aggressively hiring the top MeeGo talent to contribute to the next generation smartphone production.
The free, Linux-based OS was designed primarily for mobile devices such as Netbooks and tablet computers. Nokia built one Meego smartphone, which was critically praised but was little more than a one-off experiment.
Steve Jobs rejected the new Apple TV‘s UI five years ago, according to an engineer who once worked on the product. And he claims now there’s no one at Apple to reject a bad design since Jobs’ passing, CNET reports.
Michael Margolis tweeted: “Fun fact — those new designs were tossed out 5 years ago because SJ didn’t like them. Now there is nobody to say “no” to bad design.” Margolis worked as a ‘senior software engineer’ at Apple, and also credits himself as a “professional hobbyist, AppleTV”. He claims to have left Apple in 2008.
He went on to clarify the new Apple TV was more a sign of the times than the harbinger of Apple’s demise: “The new AppleTV UI isn’t a sign of a doomed “post-SJ” Apple, it’s a logical next step given their design to match the iOS home page.” He went on: “Most of the AppleTV UI remains unchanged since AppleTV “Take 2″ and I think that’s a testament to how good it was. Great design is timeless.”
Apple unveiled the new Apple TV alongside the new iPad on 7 March. The set-top box has a new UI that’s more in keeping with the grid layout of apps found on the iPhone and iPad, complete with cover art. It can also stream video in 1080p HD, and has Genius recommendations to help you find new shows you might like. While it might have launched in the shadow of the iPad, it could prove the more significant product, as it might be pointing to what we can expect from Apple’s forthcoming TV set.
The standalone TV is rumoured to come packing Siri for voice control, as well as Kinect-style gesture controls. Though with Apple omitting Siri from the new iPad, some doubt has been voiced as to whether it’ll come on the TV set. What is certain is that it’ll shake up the TV industry — Steve Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson he’d come up with “the simplest user interface you could imagine”. And simplicity is the hallmark of Apple.
What do you make of the new Apple TV UI? And do you think standards have slipped at Apple? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.
Former Research in Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis still believes a comeback is in the works for BlackBerry and is willing to put his money where his mouth is.
Mike Laziridis addresses the crowd at BlackBerry DevCon 2011.
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET
Lazaridis, who alongside fellow co-CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down from RIM a week ago, said in an interview posted Friday by The Record that he is confident in new CEO Thorsten Heins. In fact, Lazaridis is confident enough that he said he plans to buy $50 million worth of additional stock.
“I absolutely know he will take this company to new heights,” Lazaridis said in the interview.
Lazaridis and Balsillie stepped down amid mounting shareholder pressure, with investors angered and concerned that RIM’s stock had lost three-quarters of its value over the past year. Few on Wall Street are as confident as Lazaridis on Heins’ ability to execute on a quick turnaround; RIM’s stock lost another 8 percent of its value on Heins’ first day on the job on concerns that he won’t do enough to shake up the company.
Still, Lazaridis is giving Heins a strong vote of confidence with his commitment. Lazaridis, who is also among RIM’s largest shareholders, still believes in the value of BlackBerrys.
“Would I be buying $50 million worth of shares if I didn’t?” he asked.
Likewise, he is less concerned about competition than some of the company’s other shareholders. Since Apple launched its iPhone and Google subsequently released its Android software, BlackBerry has been playing catch-up and has often well behind its rivals. Its next-generation BlackBerrys aren’t expected to hit the market until late this year, presumably after another wave of Android smartphones and the next iPhone come out.
Lazaridis said the decision to step down was a hard one. While he will run RIM’s newly formed “innovation committee,” he will not be involved with the day-to-day activities of the company.
“Stepping aside, as a founder, after 27 years, I would be lying if I said that wasn’t emotional for me, and for my whole family,” he said.
While the two co-CEOs had been facing calls for their removal, Lazaridis insisted that the transition to Heins was something the two had in the works for four years. Over the past few years, Heins had slowly taken on more responsibility at the company and proved he was the right person for the job, Lazaridis said.
“Bringing someone in from the outside would have been a guess,” Lazaridis said. “That would have been like going back four years and saying, ‘Well, we think he is a star but now he has to prove himself.’ He has proven himself.”
Lazaridis said his biggest regret while serving as co-CEO is not spending enough time with his family–something he hopes to rectify.
WebOS was destined to fail from the beginning, according to former Palm employees who spoke with The New York Times.
The mobile operating system, which powered Hewlett-Packard’s famous flameout TouchPad, was intended to compete with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. But people involved in its creation say the platform was doomed from conception.
“Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” Paul Mercer, the former senior director of software at Palm who oversaw the interface design of WebOS, told the newspaper. “Perhaps it never could have been executed because the technology wasn’t there yet.”
Other former Palm employees said former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein’s background in hardware hurt the effort and led to the decision to have the OS rely on a variant of WebKit, an open-source engine for displaying Web browsers also used by Apple and Google. Mercer called this a mistake because it prevented WebOS apps from running as fast as iPhone apps. He also said competition from Apple and Google made finding it difficult to find talented engineers who understood WebKit.
HP announced in August it would discontinue development of WebOS, along with production of the TouchPad–just seven weeks after the tablet computer went on the market. The announcement, made by then-CEO Leo Apotheker, was part of his plan to transform the company from a consumer-electronics product manufacturer to a business-class software and consulting services provider.
After replacing Apotheker with Meg Whitman in September, HP announced it was mulling its options for the OS, including a possible sale. Ultimately, the company announced it would release the WebOS source code to developers.
