Samsung Invests $2B in Biopharmaceuticals

Today in international tech news: Samsung -- the smartphone-TV-camera Samsung -- is investing at least $2 billion in biopharmaceuticals. Also: Nintendo apologizes for its exclusion of gay options in an upcoming videogame; unprecedented technology will take center field at the World Cup; Comcast courts partnerships with Asian cellphone operators; and an Australian state will fine anyone using Uber.

Samsung Group, the world's leading smartphone maker, is investing at least US$2 billion in... biopharmaceuticals?

With this foray into the drug industry, Samsung hopes to become a major player in biotechnology, which is expected to be a booming industry in coming years.

A key component of this play is so-called biosimilars -- cheap versions of brand-name biotechnology drugs that no longer are protected by patents. Samsung plan to sell its first biosimilar product, a version of the arthritis therapy drug Enbrel, in Europe in 2016

Breaking Down the Crazy Apple-Buying-Beats Riff

What if Apple wants to manage and sell Beats Music subscriptions itself? Right now, you can order Beats Music through AT&T, and it's available through other U.S. mobile networks and carriers. When Apple saw those deals happening, I'm sure there was a mad scramble in Cupertino. Was Apple supposed to let the cellular service carriers collect the revenue for side-stream products without a fight?

The hottest -- and possibly craziest -- tech rumor of the week is, hands down, that Apple is in negotiations to acquire Beats Electronics for US$3.2 billion.

First reported by Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times, the story has been fanned into a raging inferno faster than a wildfire on a hot August day. Unfortunately, the only cited source for the rumor is "people familiar with the deal."

The Basic Beats Deal

On the surface, the deal to acquire Dr. Dre's and Jimmy Iovine's Beats Electronics would give Apple a popular line of cool headphones as well as a nascent streaming music service, Beats Music, which is designed around paying subscribers. Individuals pay $9.99 per month, while a family of five can get it for $14.99 each month.

The premise behind Beats Music is curated playlists created by DJs who live and breathe music. Finding the right stream for each person has been the challenge for years, especially when a single person's own tastes can change not only from day to day but within a day: Who hasn't busted a move to a song in the morning and later that day couldn't skip it fast enough?

Mood music, baby. Contextual. With Beats Music, you craft a sentence to describe your location, how you feel, and whom you're with. For instance, you would build a sentence through preconfigured labels for something like this: I'm ON A BOAT and feel like GOING BACK IN TIME with MY FAMILY to VINTAGE SOUL & FUNK.

Apple doesn't have this.

Apple's iTunes Radio lets you create a basic radio station, which supposedly learns from your preferences, letting you note the kind of song you would like to play more of -- or never play again. Apple's solution is good, but it's not fantastic -- and it sure as heck isn'tinsanely great.

Still, Beats Music is an app that runs on the iPhone, so Apple already has it anyway -- just no cut of the revenue.

Meanwhile, iTunes downloads fell 2 percent to $3.93 billion, which signals the first annual decline since iTunes launched in 2003. On the other hand, streaming music revenue in the U.S. grew 39 percent, generating $1.4 billion in revenue, to account for 20 percent of the recorded music industry's business, Billboard reported.

If you do the math -- no matter how the notes are shifting -- the music business representspocket change to Apple, which generated $170 billion in 2013.

Worse, even if Beats is fantastically successful, Apple's customers are still happily using their iPhones. Even if a rival like Google (or the burgeoning Amazon) rushed out to buy Beats and somehow made it exclusive, Beats Music wouldn't be enough to get millions of people to ditch their iPhones.

Desperate to Buy Cool?

Another flavor to this rumor is that Apple suddenly is desperate to buy cool. The problem with this statement is that it goes against the DNA of Apple: Apple doesn't buy cool. Apple buys intellectual property, the people behind innovative little companies. Apple doesn't buy things that it already essentially has.

No matter how uncool Tim Cook might seem to be, he doesn't seem to be the type of stodgy old man who wants to buy someone else's creation to add to the Apple family of products -- especially not to be cool.

It would be such a huge departure -- with little practical monetary upside -- that there would have to be a much better explanation.

Leak or Misinformation?

It's unlikely that the Financial Times reporters simply made this stuff up. They likely had a source -- but was that source tapping into the truth? What if the source was working with faulty -- even planted -- information? What if that source is now fired?

So how could this deal actually make sense?

First, Apple has a tendency to create innovative new ways for hardware and software to work together. If Apple is creating new wearable technology that needs a new hardware specification -- say a new plug for headphones -- getting Beats to build it into its line of popular headphones would be smart.

If Apple had to pony up the cash to retool a manufacturing system to make it happen, that would make sense. Heck, Apple did something similar for its sapphire glass efforts, so why not for popular headphones?

Of course, Apple could simply build special new headphones itself, right? Sure, but why stop there? Consider Apple's new CarPlay initiative. It lets car manufacturers create their own interfaces to Apple's tech. This is a relatively new move, a loosening of typical Apple control. It's not a leap to imagine Apple wooing Beats to incorporate or use some new Apple tech.

Second, what if Beats Music has an important patent, technology, or special transferrable music license? What if Apple's music man Eddy Cue -- who reportedly is in discussions with Beats -- learned this from Iovine?

While possible, all of it seems a bit unlikely, especially the licensing: If the music industry has such a love-hate relationship with Apple, wouldn't it ensure that Apple couldn't simply buy specialized streaming rights from Beats Music?

There's a smarter option that still makes sense: What if Apple wants to manage and sell Beats Music subscriptions itself? Right now, you can order Beats Music through AT&T, and it's available through other U.S. mobile networks and carriers. When Apple saw those deals happening, I'm sure there was a mad scramble in Cupertino. Was Apple supposed to let the cellular service carriers collect the revenue for side-stream products without a fight?

Having significant third-party subscriptions processed through carrier monthly billing processes is a competitive landscape-shifting move that Apple would recognize -- especially if Beats Music should turn out to be utterly fantastic.

Apple has to be fighting to ensure that the carrier-driven subscription model does not become a default model for Beats Music -- or worse yet, for any industry.

On the upside for Beats Music, instead of working with AT&T, what if it could get Apple to manage its subscription service? What if Apple rolled out the service across the world, letting Beats Music do its thing, while Apple just gave Beats Music a huge worldwide channel boost to hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts?

Apple has access to an incredible base of customers who happily buy content through their iTunes accounts -- and through their iPhones. Even if Apple should manage to retain a 30 percent cut of the revenue, there would be no other way Beats Music could rocket out to the world as quickly as it could through Apple.

That's a win-win situation. Worth $3.2 billion? Hard to say, but at least it seems to make sense for both Beats and Apple

Adobe Voice Can Make You a Better Storyteller

Voice-overs for pages are performed by touching a microphone button on your iPad's display. Recording stops when you remove your finger from the screen. A nice feature of Voice is that it will sweeten the audio it records with the iPad's microphone. The process adds richness to your voice. However, it won't work miracles, so don't expect your pipes to be transformed to those of James Earl Jones

If you have a story to tell -- even a dull one -- Adobe Voice can improve your presentation. The free app can't make your story more compelling, but it can give you a better shot at getting it across. Adobe Voice is available for the iPad 2 and above running iOS 7.

To kickstart your use of Voice, Adobe offers a welcome page with a pair of sample slideshows to give you an idea of how others have used the app. One video is an inspirational message from a mother to her daughters about living a happy and empowered life. The other is a promo for a line of clothing.

There's also a tutorial -- it appears to be made with Voice -- for using the software. It provides the essentials for creating a short video in Voice. Every story is made of pages, and your voice tells the story on each page. Every page has an image or graphic to illustrate your story. Finished videos can be shared with others.

A Little Prodding

When you start a story, you'll be asked for a title. If you don't have one, you can skip that step. If you don't have a video topic in mind, Adobe helps you out with suggestions in categories like personal, business, causes, school, greetings, tales and instructional.

For example, in personal there are ideas such as "the best party ever" and "when I made a wrong choice." In business, there's "key accomplishments for the quarter" and "annual report in one minute." School topics include classics such as "what I did on my summer vacation" and "summarizing Hamlet in 60 seconds."

Once you have an idea and title, Voice helps you structure the story in your video. It includes eight story arcs -- promote an idea, for instance, or tell what happened, explain something, follow a hero's journey, or teach a lesson -- but you're not locked into any of the story arcs. You can always choose to make up your own.

When you create your first video, Voice will provide you with screen prompts for creating content on a page. You can turn that off by choosing "skip tutorial" when you begin a video.

Voice-overs for pages are performed by touching a microphone button on your iPad's display. Recording stops when you remove your finger from the screen. You can instantly review what you said and record it again if you don't like what you hear.

A nice feature of Voice is that it will sweeten the audio it records with the iPad's microphone. The process adds richness to your voice. However, it won't work miracles, so don't expect your pipes to be transformed to those of James Earl Jones.

Give It a Look and Feel

After you've recorded your voice-over for your page, you'll be prompted to add an icon, photo or text. Unfortunately, video can't be imported into the program.

Voice has a library of more than 25,000 icons and access to some 100,000 quality stock photos on the Web.

A great feature about Voice is that its photo searches of the Web returns only royalty-free photos, so you don't have to worry about rights violations when you use them in your video. What's more, Voice automatically will create the proper credits for the photos you use and tack them to the last frame of your video.

In addition to using photos from the Web, you can import pics into the app from your iPad or Adobe Creative Cloud, Facebook or Dropbox accounts. You can also snap shots with your iPad and bring them immediately into a page.

As you add pages to your video, thumbnails will appear on a timeline on the bottom of your iPad's display. You can move through the timeline by dragging your finger on it. Tapping a thumbnail lets you jump to that page to edit it.

Voice also gives you some options for controlling the overall appearance of your video. For example, it gives you a number of choices for slide layouts. You can place two objects on a page, for instance, or an object and a caption or an object and a full photo.

More than 30 themes are included with the program. A theme is primarily an assortment of background colors for your slides.

Voice also will lay a musical soundtrack behind your video. Some 35 musical pieces are included with the program organized into categories such as happy, playful, relaxed, rousing, thoughtful and uplifting.

Although for now you're limited to the musical library in Voice for your video's score, the next upgrade of the program reportedly will allow users to use their own tune collections in the program.

Fast and Fun

When you finish your video, you'll want to share it. Voice lets you upload your video to Facebook and Twitter. You also can share it via email or instant messaging, but first you have to upload it to the Adobe Voice website, which easily can be done from within the app. Messages and emails touting the video will contain a link to view it at the Adobe site.

Not being able to export a slideshow in a video format -- MP4, for instance -- is disappointing and seems like a gratuitous restriction on the fruits of a voice user's labors.

Another annoyance is that it doesn't support landscape mode. I like to have my iPad at a slight angle when working with it on a tabletop. My iPad case does that but only in landscape mode, so Voice's portrait-only support is inconvenient.

Irritations aside, Voice is a fun program to use and certainly the fastest way to create a good-looking slideshow that I've seen to date.

Windows Phone's Secret Weapon: Customization

Can you imagine "I'm a Windows Phone and I'm an iPhone" video ads that spoof the awesome old "I'm a PC and I'm a Mac" ads? The role would be reversed: The iPhone would be the stodgy, barely customizable dude, while the Windows Phone could be anyone cool -- or even just morph to fit a mood. Suddenly, consumers could place an attribute on Windows Phone: customization. Me

Despite coming from one of the world's most well-known tech companies, Microsoft, Windows Phone has a freakishly odd smartphone branding problem. From what I see out there, most consumers barely know what a Windows Phone is or how it works or why they might want one.

Business users tend to be more aware of it -- particularly the PC laptop-toting ones -- but they often end up choosing an Android smartphone or even an iPhone instead.

There are a lot of reasons Microsoft is woefully behind in smartphone market share, but now that it can align its software and services with slick hardware that it can control, thanks to its acquisition of Nokia, the company finally has a chance to create something meaningful for the mobile world.

So, from an unabashed Apple fan, why this? Why now?

Windows Phone's Path

I just read the regular-reader-friendly transcript from an informal "Ask Me Anything" Q&A with Reddit Windows Phone fans in which Joe Belfiore, Microsoft vice president and manager for Windows Phone, was surprisingly candid about the past, current and future state of Windows Phone development.

In one paragraph, I think he nailed the only path forward for Windows Phone to carve out a little place in the mobile world and find reasonable success against iOS and Android -- and it's not apps, apps, apps.

Why not apps? Because Microsoft is slowly getting better apps. Apple likes to talk big numbers -- there are more than 1 million apps in the Apple App Store -- but only a tiny percentage of those apps are being used by consumers in any relevant way. If Microsoft continues to invest in app creation and developer support, it'll get enough of the good apps so that buyers won't immediately dismiss a Windows Phone.

So what's the big deal?

It's All About Customization

The question posed on Reddit was, which feature would make people choose a Windows Phone over competing platforms?

Belfiore's answer: "Right now, it's not ONE FEATURE. It's the way the whole system is designed and what it's about. We think WP is the MOST PERSONAL SMARTPHONE -- and that a combo of features, starting with live tiles and now Cortana, makes it even more personal. This is kind of a mantra for the team -- we're serious about this. We're balancing a unique, attractive visual appearance with letting the user customize it a ton. We really want your phone to feel like your 'fingerprint' ... better than any other phone."

He's right on. In fact, he's so right on that I sat up straight in my chair when I read this, turned off my Homedics back massager, and read the passage again. Customization is more than a feature. It's almost a world view that Microsoft can embrace and use mercilessly in a wide variety of advertising programs.

Heck, can you imagine "I'm a Windows Phone and I'm an iPhone" video ads that spoof the awesome old "I'm a PC and I'm a Mac" ads? The role would be reversed here: The iPhone would be the stodgy, barely customizable dude, while the Windows Phone could be anyone cool -- or even just morph to fit a mood.

Suddenly, consumers could place an attribute on Windows Phone -- customization, and more to the point, themselves: me. If Microsoft can connect my identity with the phone I carry everywhere -- well, that would be a powerful accomplishment.

Right now, customization is about the exact opposite of what Apple is offering. As for Android, the competing manufacturers are so busy trying to carve out their own little piece of the pie -- and abide by Google's rules -- that their ability to communicate complicated issues like identity and customization with a fresh interface and experience is nigh impossible.

Heck, they started using Android in the first place because they didn't have any better ideas. So, yeah, while Android is technically massively more customizable than iOS, the reality is that it's far beyond the reach of most consumers -- and will continue to be due to Android's fractured existence. Just wait until Samsung bails in favor of managing its own destiny with the Tizen OS.

Meanwhile, back to Microsoft.

As for jealousy, I still can't imagine a day when a Windows Phone could dislodge me from my iPhone. Sure, I actually like the Live Tiles concept and respect that Microsoft brought something fresh to the mobile UI. I wish Siri were named Cortana and that Apple used her voice (and likeness) and could therefore evoke fond memories of epic Halo gaming. I wish I could customize the look, feel, and placement of both apps and information I frequently access.

I would be happy if Apple would simply let me instantly launch the Camera app by letting me push both the + and - volume buttons at the same time with both thumbs. Go ahead, hold your iPhone horizontal and press the + volume button with your left thumb and the - volume button with your right thumb. What happens? Nothing. But what if that action launched the built-in Camera app out of a sleeping iPhone?

Suddenly you're holding your iPhone in a perfect position to snap a quick photo or take video. No more fumbling with the Home button, potentially unlocking your iPhone with Touch ID, and sliding the little camera app icon over. But isn't that insecure? So sandbox the Camera app so that it only takes photos or video in this mode. Apple could conceivably figure this out and implement it, and it would be a great feature that a user could choose to enable or disable.

Let's take this idea a step farther: Would Apple ever . . . can you even imagine this . . . let you choose which photo app -- or any third-party app -- to launch with a customizable physical button press?

Would the DNA of Apple even let the company imagine such a customization idea? I have my doubts that it could happen any time soon.

So, while I hope Apple proves me wrong -- take the idea and implement it right away, please-- I know that this is the sort of customization idea that can be born from a team whose mantra is one of customization.

If Microsoft can truly elevate customization -- then illustrate and align customization with a better, more fulfilling smartphone experience -- the company has a chance to climb its way into second place in the mobile device wars.

Sony's Record-Busting Magnetic Storage Tape Unlikely to Stick

Sony's new high-density magnetic tape technology is intriguing, but it's questionable whether the company can deploy it in a commercially viable product, said tech analyst Charles King. "The IT industry is full of great, innovative concepts that -- if they fail to take reality into account -- could hit the market like a pigeon barreling into a skyscraper at full speed."

Sony has announced magnetic backup tape with the world's highest areal recording density -- 148 GB per square inch.

It provides about 74 times the recording capacity of conventional mag tape media, Sony claimed.

Data cartridges made using this technology could record more than 185 TB of data each.

This technology "is aimed at applications that require high density, which could range from specialized servers to mega data centers," Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst atTirias Research, told TechNewsWorld.

"It would be particularly suited for applications that either generate large amounts of data that need to be stored for long periods, or applications that may need rapid data backup-and-restore capabilities," McGregor continued

On Tape Technology

The current standard for tape technology is Linear Tape-Open, or LTO. The LTO Consortium, set up by IBM, HP and Seagate, now part of Quantum, licenses and certifies media and mechanism manufacturers.

LTO media consist of magnetic tapes coated with a nanometers-thick dusting of magnetic powder. Its recording density is increased by reducing the size of the magnetic particles, but that's becoming increasingly difficult.

Sony has developed a new vacuum thin film-forming technology that uses sputter deposition to create very fine crystals deposited in multiple layers on a polymer film.

Sony solved the problem of giving the crystals a uniform orientation by optimizing sputter conditions and developing a soft magnetic underlayer with a smooth interface, it explained. That let the company create a nano-grained magnetic layer consisting of magnetic particles averaging 7.7 nm in size.

The Search for Denser Storage

The world created an estimated 1.8 zettabytes of data in 2011, and was on track to generate 50x that by 2020, according to IDC. In 2012, an estimated 2.8 ZB of data was created.

There's no disputing the fact that massive amounts of data are being generated every day, and much of it needs to be stored somewhere. This has led to experiments to increase the density of storage media and look for new storage methods.

These include holographic data storage, but "we've been talking about holographic storage since the late 90s, and no one has been able to really have an uptick in demand for it so far," Mukul Krishna, senior global director for digital media at Frost & Sullivan, told TechNewsWorld.

Can Sony's Tapezilla Take Off?

Sony has not had the best of luck with tape technologies.

It developed the Advanced Intelligent Tape, or AIT, technology, which it sold between 1999 and 2006 in a number of versions, but then abandoned it in the face of competition.

Sony then collaborated with HP on the Digital Data Storage, or DDS, standard. This standard was abandoned after 2009.

IBM currently has a 128-GB per square inch tape technology in development.

"Pushing a new tape format seems like a fool's errand," Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told TechNewsWorld.

Sony could make a major impact on the market if it adapted this new technology for the LTO standard, he pointed out.

However, "The IT industry is full of great, innovative concepts that -- if they fail to take reality into account -- could hit the market like a pigeon barreling into a skyscraper at full speed," King warned. "The sheer volume of data that could be stored on Sony's new tape makes the technology intriguing, but if or when Sony can bring a commercially viable product to market are the bigger questions.

GitHub Unleashes Atom Into Open Source Realm

Simple text editors for coding currently are experiencing a renaissance of sorts, said IDC analyst Al Hilwa. "In the last few years there has been a back-to-basics movement in coding," with developers shifting to lightweight integrated development environments or editors. "I think GitHub is in a great position to drive this kind of technology, and it is great to see it become fully open-sourced."

After launching its Atom text editor into beta back in February, GitHub on Tuesday announced that the software is now fully open source under the MIT License.

"Much of Atom's functionality is provided by packages, and every Atom package has been open source since the day we launched the beta," explained GitHub developer Nathan Sobo. "Today, we're open sourcing the rest of Atom, which includes the core application, Atom's package manager, and Atom's Chromium-based desktop application framework, Atom Shell."

Atom currently runs only on OS X 10.8 or later. The software has not yet reached version 1.0, however, so "in the next few months, we'll be focusing on improving performance, releasing on Linux and Windows, and stabilizing APIs," Sobo said. "We think being open source will help us get there faster."

Windows and Linux releases "are certainly high-priority for the Atom team," GitHub spokesperson Kate Guarente told LinuxInsider.

Until they're ready, instructions for manually building on Linux are available on the Atom site, she pointed out

Broader Appeal

"It's interesting, because earlier statements indicated that Atom would not in fact be open-sourced," Stephen O'Grady, cofounder and principal analyst with RedMonk, told LinuxInsider.

Atom typically appeals to developers focused on JavaScript and Node.js, O'Grady noted, "but it is also relevant to anyone using editors like Sublime Text, BBEdit or, to a lesser extent, Emacs or Vim.

"The fact that it's now open source will undoubtedly widen its appeal," he added.

A Boon for Collaboration

Given that Atom packages always have been open source, "this isn't that big of a move," Jay Lyman, senior analyst for enterprise software with 451 Research, told LinuxInsider.

"However, it's good to have the actual software application or core code as open source to further feed and grow the community," he said.

Overall, "I see this as largely a housekeeping matter, but one that nonetheless should help to encourage more collaboration and perhaps a more active, responsive community that is using and building Atom," Lyman added.

'A More User-Friendly Tool'

Atom is really "an upgrade to other text editors that have been around for many years," Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst with Tirias Research, told LinuxInsider. "It is built modular to allow for easier add-ons and intended to be a more user-friendly environment."

That said, "there are a number of options available from the existing text editors and integrated development environments, and Atom is currently only available on OS X 10.8 and later, so this is not necessarily earth-shattering," McGregor opined.

Existing developers are "unlikely to switch overnight, but new developers will likely find this a more user-friendly development tool," he added.

In the big picture, though, the move "represents the development of more robust and flexible applications through an open-source/community development model," McGregor concluded.

'A Back-to-Basics Movement'

Simple text editors for coding currently are experiencing a renaissance of sorts, Al Hilwa, program director for software development research with IDC, told LinuxInsider.

"Emacs and Vim never really lost their popularity, but in the last few years there has been a back-to-basics movement in coding," he explained, whereby developers -- especially in the Web ecosystem -- are shifting to lightweight integrated development environments or editors.

"We have actually seen IDEs themselves adapt by simplifying the interfaces, such as happened with Visual Studio, but we are also seeing solutions like Atom, which bridge the gap further by adding extensibility and a rich ecosystem of packages," he added.

"I think GitHub is in a great position to drive this kind of technology," Hilwa concluded, "and it is great to see it become fully open-sourced."

Microsoft Gives XP One last Hug

Microsoft's decision to offer a Windows XP patch for a serious Internet Explorer flaw has drawn cheers, but those still using the no-longer-supported operating system shouldn't hold their breath waiting for the next one, the company has indicated. That isn't stopping security pros from lobbying for an extension of the support grace period, however

When Microsoft included Windows XP in the Internet Explorer zero-day browser vulnerability patch it issued this week, some industry observers were stunned. Had the company decided to backtrack on its assertion that it would no longer support XP? Had it knuckled under to user protests?

Not really. Redmond has not decided to backtrack on killing support for Windows XP; it made an exception this time, because the vulnerability was discovered so close to Microsoft's ending support for XP, Adrienne Hall, general manager of trustworthy computing, wrote in a blog post.

There have only been "a very small number of attacks" exploiting this flaw, according to Hall and other Microsoft executives.

Asked for specific figures on casualties, Sarah Wilcock, of Microsoft's PR agency Waggener Edstrom, pointed TechNewsWorld to Hall's blog post and the Windows XP end-of-support website

Fighting a Rearguard Action

Despite issuing the patch, Microsoft is urging XP users to upgrade to a more modern OS such as Windows 7 or 8.1.

"Just because this update is out now doesn't mean you should stop thinking about getting off Windows XP and moving to a newer version of Windows and the latest version of Internet Explorer," Hall wrote.

These modern OSes "provide more safety and security than ever before," she continued.

The latest version of Internet Explorer "has increased support for modern web standards, better performance, and expanded the ability to deliver an immersive experience from within the browser. In other words, cool stuff that you need even if you didn't know you need it," Hall enthused.

"Microsoft's decision to issue an XP patch ... creates a lot more questions than it answers, and highlights the fact that the company is in a rather awkward situation," Jerome Segura, senior security researcher for Malwarebytes, told TechNewsWorld.

XP Keeps On Keeping On

XP "has proven more popular and more resilient than most people would have anticipated," Segura pointed out. "Users so far seem to be sticking by XP even with discontinued support."

Indeed they have -- while Windows 7 had nearly 50 percent of the desktop OS market in April, XP had more than 26 percent, show statistics from Netmarketshare. That's more than all the other players put together.

Microsoft's covering XP with the latest patch means "it somehow shoots itself in the foot by encouraging users to stick with [that OS] for at least a little longer," Segura said.

Who's at Risk

The financial services and healthcare industries may have the most to lose if XP remains unsupported, Darren Hayes, a professor at Pace University's Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, told TechNewsWorld in an earlier interview.

Most ATMs run on that OS, as do the "vast majority" of medical devices.

Utility companies also are at risk.

The move toward cloud computing will make things worse, warned Eric Chiu, president and cofounder of HyTrust.

"Virtualization and the cloud essentially let operating systems live forever," Chiu told TechNewsWorld. "These technologies, which run 70 percent of the data center, remove the hardware dependence of the operating system so that older OSes like XP will be able to run [in them] for the next 20 years."

This "has tremendous cost benefits for companies ... but creates a security nightmare and a hacker's delight."

What Might Happen

Malwarebytes and several antivirus vendors, including Kaspersky, Avira, Symantec and Trend Micro, are among the companies that will continue to support XP.

However, antivirus software won't resolve the underlying vulnerabilities cybercriminals are likely to discover.

"We're expecting some pretty intense exploits [against XP] over the coming months, which will certainly affect Microsoft's brand," Segura warned.

Eventually, Microsoft will "either stick to their guns and discontinue support entirely, or they'll need to extend the grace period and give users another 6-12 months to upgrade," Segura speculated. "We're hoping for the latter."

The Calm Before 2014's Tech Storm: Apple Will Bring the Rain

There's a lot on Apple's plate that should make for big, wild 2014 that will settle the innovation question. The iPhone will get a bigger screen, possibly made of sapphire glass. The iWatch likely will hit, possibly overrunning the competition in the category. OS X will be due for a refresh, as will the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and the iPad. And Apple TV may finally come into its own.

There's a lot shaping up for Apple this year, and it's going to be wild. In fact, there's so much going on at Infinite Loop in Cupertino these days that it makes me believe that 2014 will be the first post-Steve Jobs year when Apple -- in the eyes of the broader tech world -- stops dancing around and finally brings the rain.

For starters, the profit-generating juggernaut that goes by the name of "iPhone" will ship in a new form factor with a bigger screen. This will hit just when a huge number of Apple-loving consumers are shifting the bulk of their Internet activity to their mobile device, which means they'll upgrade in droves.

Apple doesn't even have to entice big-screen Android users to make iPhone 6 the fastest and best-selling mobile device ever.

Apple can pump up iPhone sales in the U.S. next year by 30 percent with a bigger iPhone, suggested Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, and this is if 80 percent of iPhones sold go to upgrading customers.

It gets better. The sapphire glass manufacturer in Arizona appears to be shipping product to China, which means the displays of the big new iPhone 6 really could be made of sapphire glass. If sapphire is as scratch-resistant as they say -- better than Gorilla Glass -- this is a big leap forward over the competition. Huge, in fact.

This is important for a couple of key reasons: First, Apple invested heavily in GT Advanced Technologies, reportedly footing the bill for hundreds of sapphire furnaces capable of churning out screens. Second, Apple has snapped up sapphire glass supplies. Unless the competition is actively investing in sapphire production, Apple might build a significant lead. Either way, you can bet that we'll be seeing some sort of cool promotional video at iPhone 6 launch time.

While we're at it, here's something I haven't heard anywhere else: When the iPhone 6 ships with a bigger, easier-to-use screen, it'll give Apple's App Store and iTunes ecosystem another boost, too -- simply through a better customer experience.

So the Apple Money Machine -- the iPhone -- will rev up to the red line this year and coast through 2015 ... that's it?

No way.

Enter the iWatch

While everyone has been talking up the mythical iWatch as competitors deliver new smartwatches and exercise bands, Apple has remained behind closed doors. Instead of getting here first, Apple has quietly been hiring medical, exercise and engineering talent, as well as patenting potential innovations that could be applied to an iWatch.

Will Apple actually deliver a wrist-worn device this year? It's hard to imagine that it will sit out 2014. Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted at new product categories, and an iWatch seems to be a slam dunk.

There's more, though. Longtime fitness partner Nike just dropped Fuelband manufacturing in favor of working on software only. This is a big signal that Nike knows the iWatch is on the way this year and is making a business adjustment for it.

The New Mac Experience This Fall

The PC-decline-defying MacBook Air just got a teeny processor update. That's not a big deal now -- it just makes room for a more expensive MacBook Air with Retina Display to have a profitable spot come fall.

More to the point, the MacBook Pro is ready for an update, too, but the key action will likely center around the redesign of Mac OS X. While iOS got its refresh last year, OS X 10.10 is ready for 2014.

One report now suggests that OS X 10.10 will take center stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

September is the traditional time of year that Apple releases new iPads. Bare minimum, we can expect an A8 generation of Apple's own processors, which should bring better performance and battery life. I would not be surprised if Apple finally came up with a new keyboard or keyboard/case option, both because there is an industry demand for it and because there've been multiple rumblings about it.

Meanwhile, while Microsoft Research has posted a video of an augmented mechanical keyboard that can sense gestures both on and above the device, AppleInsider found an AppleU.S. patent application for a multifunctional keyboard assembly, too.

Will the keyboard tech show up in Macs this year? In a keyboard available for pairing with an iPad? If so, this is like extra frosting on a cake.

What About the Apple TV?

While rumors of a full-size Apple-created HDTV have faded away, pretty much everyone expects a major Apple TV set-top box update. Not only did Cook publicly remove the Apple TV from "hobby" status this year in a quarterly financial report, but Apple also threw down the gauntlet with its own Amazon Fire TV unit.

The Fire TV lets you search for content with your voice, and the remote control is smart enough to let you play Android-based games on your HDTV. Plus, Amazon is actively building its own ecosystem of content and games, even going so far to develop a game and create a dedicated console-style game controller.

Will Apple sit on its hands here? Doesn't seem likely.

Apple can jump out ahead with a wicked-fast new processor, Siri integration, and by opening up the Apple TV to developers for new apps. If Apple delivers on its own gaming controller specifications -- with or without third-party controllers -- then the company can make a stronger move to capture game time in the living room.

All of these moves are totally doable for Apple this year. Might we get a taste at WWDC in June? I hope so, but rumors are trending toward an OS X fixation. A new Apple TV world in time for fall programming and holiday sales could technically work better anyway. Wild card? Some sort of broadcast or cable-TV content deal.

Apple Is 'On the Prowl'

As revealed at Apple's quarterly conference call with investors last month, Apple bought 24 companies in 18 months -- several of which are secret, and therefore important to new products or services.

"Obviously," Cook noted, "We're on the prowl."

What might these new companies offer Apple? If it is attempting to keep their identities a secret, it's for a good reason -- one that usually leads to a new product or service.

Speaking of financial reports -- until now, Apple has weathered months of getting beat up by Wall Street analysts for a slowing rate of growth in both its iPhone and iPad sales. It has started to manage Wall Street expectations more proactively by doing things like increasing its dividend payments and buying back much of its own stock.

Plus, Apple will issue a 7-for-1 stock split that should drop the price of a single share to under US$100, making it more accessible to a broader range of buyers -- and potentially get Apple added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The point?

As Apple starts releasing a large batch of products and upgrades this year -- and as relatively new ones like CarPlay start hitting the streets -- public perception will rocket even higher. What might that stock split mean then? I don't play on Wall Street, but I have some guesses.

Any way I look at it -- and this is even if Apple does not release any new game changer product category that is off the radar -- Apple seems to be orchestrating a huge 2014.

Snapchat's Antidisappearing measures

Snapchat Adds New Features to Keep Users From Disappearing

Snapchat has expanded its feature set, letting users actually chat with one another instead of just trading images. It not only wants to attract more users -- its estimated 26 million pales in comparison to Facebook Messenger's 200 million -- but also to get them to spend more time there. "Engagement is what advertisers are looking at now," said tech analyst Rob Enderle. "It has massive value

Snapchat built its popularity on pictures that disappear, but new features added to the latest version of the program shows its creators want it to be more than a one-trick app.

Both text and video chatting on Thursday became available in the mobile app for Android and iOS devices. "Until today, we felt that Snapchat was missing an important part of conversation: presence," reads the company blog. "There's nothing like knowing you have the full attention of your friend while you're chatting."

With the app's new Chat feature, you can right-swipe a contact's name in the program's inbox and start text chatting. True to its ephemeral roots, when you leave the chat session, its content disappears, although you can save it with a tap or screen grab before it self-destructs.

Chat also includes a "Here" button that lights up when the person you're communicating with is participating in the chat. When both parties in a Chat session tap Help at the same time, a video chat session is opened up.

"They're finally putting the chat in Snapchat," Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.

A Road More Traveled

In adding the new features to Snapchat, its developers appear to be following a traditional trajectory.

"Any communication platform always relies first on growing users and then expanding the communication experience for growth once user growth slows down," explained Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.

"Niche, single-mode communication platforms don't tend to last very long, and they almost always end up turning into something more," he told TechNewsWorld. "Snapchat is following a well-trodden path previously followed by Skype and others."

Although there are no apps that squarely compete with Snapchat, competition may have contributed to the app's expansion.

"When you look at all the messaging providers, one of the things you see is they start off with a very basic set of features and they hook users that way," Gartner Research Director Brian Blau told TechNewsWorld.

"Ultimately, a lot of these apps start to look the same over time and they have to expand. The types of features that Snapchat added are that kind of expansion and something we'll see more over time," he said.

"Adding these really brings Snapchat up to a similar level with its competitors," Blau added.

Gold in Engagement

Future expansion of Snapchat's feature set will be necessary for its survival.

"If they don't expand, over time people will come to like the other features they see in their competitors," Blau said. "So it's a bit of a features race."

With the new features, Snapchat is creating a distinctive app that could draw users from competitors and improve the engagement of its existing fans.

"It's primarily used by people with a very specific use case in mind -- sharing pictures in an ephemeral way -- and there's not much else like that out there," Jackdaw's Dawson said.

"But this expands that experience into other spheres," he continued, "and as such may capture some usage from other apps and strengthen the core Snapchat experience. It also provides fresh reasons for people to use the service."

Snapchat not only wants more users -- one estimate pegs its user base at 26 million, which is considerably smaller than Facebook Messenger's 200 million -- but also wants them to spend more time with the app.

"Engagement is what advertisers are looking at now," Enderle said. "It has massive value."

Accumulating such value could be important to Snapchat down the road. Although it already has spurned one suitor -- Facebook offered Snapchat's cofounders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy US$3 billion for the company -- that doesn't mean a sellout might be off the table in the future.

"They still generate little revenue at this point," Julie Äsk, a vice president and principal analyst for e-business at Forrester Research, told TechNewsWorld, so "an exit through purchase may be their revenue plan."

AOL Users Waiting to Exhale

AOL has admitted it was hacked but is reassuring users that there's no evidence that its encryption has been broken... yet. "I find it very hard to believe that financial information wasn't compromised," said John Pirc, chief technology officer at NSS Labs. "If [the hackers] have access to reset password information, they can have full account access ... . We'll just have to wait and see

AOL on Monday disclosed that a "significant number" of user accounts had been hacked, confirming rumors swirling around the issue for a week and denying its week-ago statement that users' email accounts were being spoofed.

The hackers stole users' email and postal addresses, address book contacts, encrypted passwords and encrypted answers to security questions, and "certain employee information."

However, the data encryption has not yet been broken, and there is no indication so far that users' financial information, which also is encrypted, has been disclosed, the company claimed.

"It is possible that attackers gained access to systems containing subscribers' personal data but not financial data, [which] is generally kept on separate financial systems in large enterprises," Joshua Goldfarb, chief security officer at nPulse Technologies, told TechNewsWorld.

Encryption on stolen data can be broken offline, although some encryption is easier to break than others, Goldfarb said. "I suspect we will hear more on this in the coming days and weeks."

What AOL Has Disclosed

AOL is working "with best-in-class external forensic experts and federal authorities" to investigate the breach, which it calls a "serious criminal activity."

The company claims to have launched the probe immediately following a "significant increase" in the amount of spam appearing as spoofed emails.

About 2 percent of AOL's subscribers have been hacked, it said.

That means more than 600,000 accounts have been hit, if Quantcast's estimate that AOL has more than 32 million subscribers is correct.

Reacting to the Breach

AOL advises users and employees to change their passwords and the security questions and answers for any of its services that they use.

It has "put enhanced protective measures" in place and is notifying potentially affected users.

AOL also put out the standard advice: Do not click on any links within suspicious emails or open any files attached to them; contact the sender of any email that looks suspicious to verity they did send it; never provide personal or financial information in an email to strangers; users who suspect their email accounts have been hacked should notify friends and warn them not to click on links or open attachments.

The company also has updated its DMARC policy and published advice on its help pages on what users should do if they suspect they've been hacked.

The update does prevent further spamming from those compromised accounts.

"I've seen compromised email accounts sign up to various Web forums with the intent to spam," Kenneth Bechtel, malware research analyst at Tenable Network Security, told TechNewsWorld. "It's very difficult for a forum owner to reject new members if the email [address] is legit, and then the spammer posts links to porn ... or compromised websites."

Breach? What Breach?

"At AOL, we care deeply about the safety and security of your online experience," the company said Monday.

That claim might ring somewhat hollow for those who were flooded by spam from their AOL user buddies that contained links for diet pills and malware for Android, among other things, and were told by the company last week that their emails were being spoofed.

More Trouble in the Offing

AOL's DMARC update doesn't stop hackers from selling the information stolen from AOL users.

"Identity theft and user accounts are very lucrative trade items on the black market," Bechtel pointed out.

Further, "I find it very hard to believe that financial information wasn't compromised," John Pirc, chief technology officer at NSS Labs, told TechNewsWorld.

"If [the hackers] have access to reset password information, they can have full account access," Pirc continued. "It's still early in the disclosing period, so we'll just have to wait and see."

While upgrading systems will decrease the risk of a breach, it's not likely to prevent one, Pirc said.

Companies should focus on cyber-resiliency, Pirc stated. "The adversary is persistently targeting corporations, and all organizations need to be hyper-aware of their risk profile and have a strong process in place for continuous monitoring."