Yahoo confirmed it will buy the blogging website for $1.1 billion cash, in a bold move to make itself more relevant amid the explosion in social media on the Internet.

It [...]]]> Yahoo and Tumblr made their wedding vows Monday with the stumbling Web search giant publicly announcing its promise not to “screw up” the relationship.

Yahoo confirmed it will buy the blogging website for $1.1 billion cash, in a bold move to make itself more relevant amid the explosion in social media on the Internet.

It was old new media hooking up with new new media. Even as Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer took to social media to announce the deal, promising “not to screw it up,” David Karp, the 26-year-old wunderkind who heads Tumblr celebrated the acquisition with a blog post that signed off with “F*** yeah, David.”

Perhaps trying to assuage Tumbler users who are concerned that Yahoo would irrevocably alter the blogging site’s edgy image, Yahoo said Tumblr will operate independently as a separate business.

“David Karp will remain CEO. The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators,” the statement said.

Marissa Mayer’s own Tumblr post showed some of that irreverence with a GIF that seemed to poke fun at all the worries about the deal. “Now panic and freak out,” “Keep calm and carry on,” “Yahoo,” “Tumblr” the GIF said in successive, pastel-colored panels. Mayer also posted a tweet that had the Internet buzzing a bit with some mild ribbing.

“Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing,” Karp, who dropped out of high school at 15 to start the company, said in his blog post.

News of the deal was widely leaked Sunday. Talk of a deal began circulating Friday, after the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D reported that the two companies had been in talks for several weeks.

Since Marissa Mayer became CEO at Yahoo, the company has acquired several companies that appeal to younger audiences, including Summly, Astrid and Jybe. Yahoo has also been rumored to be eyeing Hulu.

Observers say Mayer is making these deals to attract a younger audience.

The basic idea here is that the act of measuring a quantum object, such as a photon, always changes it. So any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum [...]]]> One of the dreams for security experts is the creation of a quantum internet that allows perfectly secure communication based on the powerful laws of quantum mechanics.

The basic idea here is that the act of measuring a quantum object, such as a photon, always changes it. So any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum message cannot fail to leave telltale signs of snooping that the receiver can detect. That allows anybody to send a “one-time pad” over a quantum network which can then be used for secure communication using conventional classical communication.

That sets things up nicely for perfectly secure messaging known as quantum cryptography and this is actually a fairly straightforward technique for any half decent quantum optics lab. Indeed, a company called ID Quantique sells an off-the-shelf system that has begun to attract banks and other organisations interested in perfect security.

These systems have an important limitation, however. The current generation of quantum cryptography systems are point-to-point connections over a single length of fibre, So they can send secure messages from A to B but cannot route this information onwards to C, D, E or F. That’s because the act of routing a message means reading the part of it that indicates where it has to be routed. And this inevitably changes it, at least with conventional routers. This makes a quantum internet impossible with today’s technology

Various teams are racing to develop quantum routers that will fix this problem by steering quantum messages without destroying them. We looked at one of the first last year. But the truth is that these devices are still some way from commercial reality.

Today, Richard Hughes and pals at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum internet, which they say they’ve been running for two and half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub.

This is not the first time this kind of approach has been tried. The idea is that messages to the hub rely on the usual level of quantum security. However, once at the hub, they are converted to conventional classical bits and then reconverted into quantum bits to be sent on the second leg of their journey.

So as long as the hub is secure, then the network should also be secure.

The problem with this approach is scalability. As the number of links to the hub increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to handle all the possible connections that can be made between one point in the network and another.

Hughes and co say they’ve solved this with their unique approach which equips each node in the network with quantum transmitters–i.e., lasers–but not with photon detectors which are expensive and bulky. Only the hub is capable of receiving a quantum message (although all nodes can send and receiving conventional messages in the normal way).

That may sound limiting but it still allows each node to send a one-time pad to the hub which it then uses to communicate securely over a classical link. The hub can then route this message to another node using another one time pad that it has set up with this second node. So the entire network is secure, provided that the central hub is also secure.

The big advantage of this system is that it makes the technology required at each node extremely simple–essentially little more than a laser. In fact, Los Alamos has already designed and built plug-and-play type modules that are about the size of a box of matches. “Our next-generation [module] will be an order of magnitude smaller in each linear dimension,” they say.

Their ultimate goal is to have one of these modules built in to almost any device connected to a fibre optic network, such as set top TV boxes, home computers and so on, to allow perfectly secure messaging.

Having run this system now for over two years, Los Alamos are now highly confident in its efficacy.

Of course, the network can never be more secure than the hub at the middle of it and this is an important limitation of this approach. By contrast, a pure quantum internet should allow perfectly secure communication from any point in the network to any other.

Another is that this approach will become obsolete as soon as quantum routers become commercially viable. So the question for any investors is whether they can get their money back in the time before then. The odds are that they won’t have to wait long to find out.

The firm said global PC sales suffered one of their steepest drops in decades over the past three months, the first full quarter since Windows 8 went on sale last [...]]]> Microsoft and Windows 8 are squarely blamed in a new report from top research firm IDC for a startling plunge in PC sales last quarter.

The firm said global PC sales suffered one of their steepest drops in decades over the past three months, the first full quarter since Windows 8 went on sale last fall.

Declines were expected since PC sales have fallen during the past year, and the leading manufacturers are casting about for new strategies. But the severity of the drop was unexpected and Microsoft’s radically new operating system is the most obvious target for blame.

Yet it’s still too early to write the PC’s epitaph. It will take another year or so to see whether Windows 8 is accepted by business users, who drive most PC sales.

The quarterly statistics are also an imperfect gauge of the evolution of the PC beyond laptops and desktops into tablets and other new devices. Research firms have made this more confusing by issuing contradictory reports, using different definitions of what’s a PC.

Gartner, the other major research firm tracking PC sales, simultaneously issued a report saying PC sales fell 11.2 percent during the quarter. It said PC shipments fell below 80 million units for the first time since the second quarter of 2009, in the depth of the recession.

IDC said sales in the U.S. fell 12.7 percent from the same period last year and 18.3 percent from the previous quarter. Global sales were down 13.9 percent, almost double the 7.7 percent drop the firm had predicted.

IDC doesn’t count Windows 8 tablets or laptops with detachable keyboards in its PC count. Research vice president Bob O’Donnell said including them would change the numbers by less than 2 percent.

Gartner’s report said consumers are continuing to “migrate content consumption” from PCs to other devices, such as phones and tablets, leading to a full year of declines in PC shipments. Yet the firm saw growth in business sales of PCs, which account for more than half the market.

Generally, even with the sharply declining numbers, people are still buying a lot of PCs. Gartner said 79.2 million systems were sold last quarter, while IDC said 76.3 million units were sold.

IDC’s report came with an unusually sharp critique of Microsoft and its approach with Windows 8.

“At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market,” O’Donnell said in the IDC release. “While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI [user interface], removal of the familiar Start button and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices. Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market.”

Asked for a response, Microsoft provided a statement saying that the PC market “is evolving and highly dynamic” and that today’s PCs “come in multiple forms” that “revolutionize the desktop PC.”

“Windows 8 sold over 60 million licenses in its first few months — a strong start by any measure,” it said. “Along with our partners we continue to bring even more innovation to market across tablets and PCs.”

HP remained the top PC maker, but Lenovo closed the gap by holding sales steady while HP’s sales fell nearly 24 percent, according to IDC.

Tablets such as Apple’s iPad were partly to blame. Even sales of Apple PCs suffered from competition with iPads, IDC said in its release. O’Donnell said the cycle will continue, as tablets are going to see sales siphoned off by mega-sized phones or phablets.

Still, IDC research found that most consumers aren’t buying tablets to replace PCs, but to supplement their computers. They’re still interested in PCs but the strikingly different tiled interface of Windows 8 and the higher price of touchscreen PCs showcasing the system are keeping them away, O’Donnell said in an interview.

“While people like the general look and feel of the tiles, they’re also very confused and frustrated by the lack of start menu and spend a lot of their time in [traditional] desktop mode,” he said. “So the bottom line is I think they have created a situation where it’s very difficult for people and people who have a PC that works just fine are saying it’s confusing, it costs more money and I don’t really need it.”

O’Donnell said Microsoft isn’t entirely to blame. The economy still isn’t great, sales in China were particularly weak and reorganizations and strategy shifts at top PC vendors Dell and HP have created uncertainty, particularly for business customers.

But he and other IDC researchers believe the Redmond company must make changes to revive the industry built around its software.

“Although IDC had not expected Windows 8 to be a significant driver to help stem the tide of PC volume decline, it now appears that without a course correction from Microsoft, the PC market is headed toward an even worse contraction for 2013 than previously thought,” Jay Chou, senior research analyst on IDC’s quarterly PC tracking service, said in the release.

O’Donnell said he’s suggested to Microsoft that the company give Windows 8 users the option to make the traditional desktop the default setting, and restore the old fashioned “start” button, but he’s not counting on a change.

“I think this is the pride before the fall – because they are unwilling to make those changes, because it would show them as having given up or lost on their radical new vision,” he said.

The “flaw” – which appears to be by design – was discovered this morning by Sydney app developer, Dan Nolan who told news.com.au that he was uncomfortable being the custodian [...]]]> EVERY time you purchase an app on Google Play, your name, address and email is passed on to the developer, it has been revealed today.

The “flaw” – which appears to be by design – was discovered this morning by Sydney app developer, Dan Nolan who told news.com.au that he was uncomfortable being the custodian of this information and that there was no reason for any developer to have this information at their finger tips.

You may remember Mr Nolan as the creator of the Paul Keating insult generator all that hit number one in the Aussie App Store last month.”

“Let me make this crystal clear, every App purchase you make on Google Play gives the developer your name, suburb and email address with no indication that this information is actually being transferred,” Nolan wrote on his blog.

“With the information I have available to me through the checkout portal I could track down and harass users who left negative reviews or refunded the app purchase.”

Harrassment aside, the problems posed by malware – “virus” programs that infect your phone, or computer and steal your personal details – are far more serious.

With Google customers’ details just sitting in developers accounts, all it would take is a half decent piece of malware software for that information to be accessed. These personal details could then be used to access the users’ bank details. That’s also more than enough information to be able to access your other devices which could also be mined for more data – insurance information, other credit cards – which could then be used to access your banking credentials.

Mr Nolan told News.com.au that tens of millions of Google customers could be affected.

“As far as I can tell this impacts every person who purchased an App on the Play Store,” he said.

“I can’t see any way to opt out of providing that information and it seems to be a feature of the Google checkout process. I don’t know whether it applies to free apps, but there are hundreds of thousands of apps that are available for pay on the play store and there are millions of people who buy Android apps out there, I’d say easily millions or tens of millions of people.

“It’s active in every market that Google accepts payment for apps. That’s a lot of people having their personal information handed over without them knowing.”

Mr Nolan told News.com.au that user information has always been provided to developers, “as far as he could tell and that the reason it hadn’t been discovered until now was because the people who would have paid attention to it were likely exploiting it and selling users’ personal information, it using it as an extra source of revenue on top of what they were making off their Google Play / Android app.

“In comparison to the information you get from Apple which is just a quantity of sales in a Country and then a cheque three months later, this is absolutely absurd,” he said.

“I doubt anyone expects to have their contact information, name and suburb sent to a developer purely because they decide to buy an app off the Play Store. ”

Google’s terms of service state that it may store your personal information including your name, address and billing details, but nowhere in its privacy statement does the company explicitly state that it passes on your personal information to developers, every time you purchase their app.

The terms of service state that Google will share your address and personal information if you purchase a magazine subscription through Google Play, but it makes no mention of other apps.

“This is a massive oversight by Google,” Nolan wrote on his blog.

“Under no circumstances should I be able to get the information of the people who are buying my apps unless they opt into it and it’s made crystal clear to them that I’m getting this information. This is a massive, massive privacy issue Google. Fix it. Immediately.”