IBM's Watson: Now for 'Top Chef'?

Watson in his "Jeopardy" days.

(Credit:
IBM/YouTube; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Great chefs are crazy.

There are many kinds of crazy. Some of these culinarians rant, rave, and spit fire and brimstone. Some pore over their ingredients like scientists: quiet, brooding, and deeply serious.

All believe they can create their own particular gastronomic dreams, ones nobody else can copy. Especially not a computer.

IBM thinks different.

Having seen its Watson computer crush mere humans at the trivial game of "Jeopardy," the company is now setting the machine's sights on bigger business.

According to The New York Times, the world of haute cuisine is one in which IBM would like to make a robotic incursion.

Indeed, Watson has already put a tiny part of his mind into creating something called the Spanish Crescent.

This breakfast pastry comprised cocoa, saffron, black pepper, almonds, and honey -- but not butter. Oh, yes, Watson is a very California chef.

More Technically Incorrect

This little pastry was served only to insiders. And the cooks who had to execute it had to battle with the idea of using vegetable oil rather than butter.

So one can only imagine what the exalted palates of chefs like Jose Andres, Eric Ripert, and "Top Chef"'s Tom Colicchio might make of Watson's recipes.

However, what if the Watson name was put behind a restaurant concept? Wouldn't that be something that would fascinate?

Imagine the restaurant's interior design. There'd be servers all around the room. Large, lumpy computers, that is.

As for human servers, perhaps there'd be little need. Perhaps you'd just order on an
iPad and the food would shoot up from below your table on a futuristic dumbwaiter.

And the food at Chez Watson? His handlers believe one of Watson's great strengths is to know very quickly what the wrong answers are.

So one can only hope that he would create inventive but wonderful combinations that would then be executed by compliant cooks who would bow to his HALness.

One can also hope that Chez Watson would get a better review in The New York Times than did Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar In Times Square.

But in case it didn't, IBM's engineers have already taken precautions. They discovered earlier this year that Watson had memorized the Urban Dictionary. Like so many chefs, he had a proclivity for profanity, which has now been dampened.

So Chez Watson's kitchen will be, in every sense, pristine.

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Yahoo axes more products to 'sharpen focus'

Yahoo Avatars didn't make the cut and will be shut down on April 1. (Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is honing the product focus of the company she has been running for seven months, eliminating several products that were deemed insufficiently popular with the company's 700 million users. Yahoo is discontinuing development and support of its mobile app for Blackberry and Yahoo Clue, a tool introduced in Nov. 2010 that shows detailed search trends, for example.

Mayer has described Yahoo's core business as personalizing content, and the company goals as increasing user engagement, boosting the company's international audience and broadening its demographic base. Products that don't fit into that agenda won't get the resources to stay afloat.

A blog post by platforms chief Jay Rossiter about the product eliminations indicated that Yahoo is going to focus only on core products and experiences, meaning those that are daily habits for users, such as the Yahoo home page, Flickr and Mail, all of which were recently updated.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in January, Mayer outlined the "daily habit" business model: "So the nice thing at Yahoo is that we have all of the content that people want on their phone, we have these daily habits. And I think that whenever you're dealing with a daily habit and providing a lot of value around it there is an opportunity not only to provide a lot of value to the end user but to also create a great business."

Below is the list of the products from Yahoo that will cease to exist in April:

Yahoo! Avatars

Effective April 1, 2013, we will no longer support Yahoo! Avatars across our properties. If you like your existing avatar and want to keep it, please go to the Avatars download page, pick a picture size and format, and click the appropriate download button. Similarly, if you want to edit your avatar, you can download the image and then use a photo editing service of your preference. If you want to continue using your avatar with our products, go to Yahoo! Profile and upload the avatar you downloaded. For more details, please click here. Additionally effective April 1, we will no longer support the Avatars YQL table.

Yahoo! app for BlackBerry

Effective April 1, 2013, the Yahoo! app for BlackBerry will no longer be available for download. For those of you who have already downloaded the app, you can continue to use it but it will no longer be actively supported.

Yahoo! Clues (beta)

Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! Clues (beta) will shut down.

Yahoo! App Search

Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! App Search will shut down.

Yahoo! Sports IQ

Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! Sports IQ will shut down. Your final lifetime Sports IQ score and rank will be automatically transferred to and preserved within your Yahoo! Fantasy Profile.

Yahoo! Message Boards website

Effective April 1, 2013, the Yahoo! Message Boards website will shut down. Our message boards on individual properties (like Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports) will remain active. We also encourage you to ask and answer questions on Yahoo! Answers, and discuss issues in the comments section on Yahoo! News.

Yahoo! Updates API

As of April 16, 2013, we will no longer support the Yahoo! Updates API.

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Pope's tweets dissolved

The Catholic Church is one of the few remaining organizations that believes in absolutes.

Sometimes, though, this gives an impression of harshness.

No sooner had the pope bid farewell to his flock than his tweets were summarily removed from Twitter. Pope Benedict XVI officially left office today.

It's true that last week the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI's last tweet would be on February 27.

Yet to see the @Pointifex account deserted feels a little severe.

Currently, the account is open, but is marked simply with the words "Sede Vacante," the Latin for "vacant seat."

It's hard not to think that the decision to remove Pope Benedict's tweets was taken by a vacant seat, an apparatchik of absolutism.

The pope's tweets had always been reverential. Would it have truly hurt to leave them there until the next European came to take his place?

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The tweets have not entirely disappeared. They have been archived by the Vatican here.

The pope currently has 1,613,653 followers. Which, to my eyes, is a surprisingly small number for such a universal religion.

But there's a curious sense of discomfort to this action that might disturb some.

It's odd enough that Pope Benedict is the first pope to resign in around 600 years. Rumors -- some concerning his health, some even more concerning -- have been rife over this peculiar departure.

Forbes reports that it will be up to the next pope to decide whether to tweet. This seems curious in itself. If he didn't, many would imagine this was the Church taking a retrograde step at a very difficult time.

Currently, it may well be that the church is still relatively new to social media. But one might have imagined that leaving Pope Benedict's tweets be would have offered some sense of both pride and continuity.

Instead, they leave a tinge of dark mystery.

Thin is the line between absolution and absolutism.

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Physics and Oreos go together like cookies and cream

The video below describes separating an Oreo cookie as a "basic human desire." While it may not be quite as fundamental as all that, separating cookie from cream has become a ritual for Oreo lovers around the world.

But why must we use our soft, weak human hands to pry these cookies apart? Why can't someone invent a hilariously overcomplicated machine to do this painstaking work for us?

Luckily, someone did.

Physicist and "cookie-part preferrer" David Neevel is the mind behind the Rube Golberg-style machine. He describes his automated separator as "entirely based on the dislike of cream." Which is crazy, of course. But it takes a certain kind of mad genius to create a machine as delightfully inefficient as this one.

The video is part of an online marketing campaign for Oreo. You can see more of its work on its YouTube page.

This story originally appeared on CBSNews.com.

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Day 2 at MWC: What you may have missed

Yes, Fujitsu really made a cane with integrated GPS.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Though most of the big players chose Sunday or Monday to make news and drop their newest devices, Day 2 of Mobile World Congress didn't slow down in the least.

Mobile operating systems have long been a popular theme at the word's biggest wireless trade show and the 2013 confab is no exception. Sunday brought us the announcement of the new Firefox mobile OS and today the Tizen Association entered the game, as well. The group showed its new operating system at a press conference that closed the day. CNET's Luke Westaway and Rich Trenholm got their hands on an early device so check out their First Take and photo gallery for a short tour. As Roger Cheng wrote yesterday, Japan's NTT Docomo will the first carrier to sell a Tizen smartphone and Samsung will be the first carrier to make such a device this summer.

Tizen OS gets early walkthrough in hands-on video

Checking back with the
Firefox OS, Andrew Hoyle and Stephen Shankland took a test drive with the Geeksphone Keon. That's the fourth Firefox handset we've handled in Barcelona, Spain after the ZTE Open, the Geeksphone Peak, and the Alcatel One Touch Fire (LG and Huawei sneaked in a couple of Firefox models, as well). The Keon is a lot like the One Touch Fire, actually. Both have 3.5-inch displays and they're wrapped in a bright "Firefox orange" casing. This new family of smartphones is winning a lot of attention, though CNET's Brian Bennett thinks that it's one mobile OS too many.

Day 2 is a great time to prowl the show floor in search of unique and noteworthy handsets that we may have not seen before. That's just what Aloysius Low did with the NEC Medias W N-05E. With two full-sized screens it reminds me of the YotaPhone and the Kyocera Echo. Aloysius doesn't see a bright feature for the Medias, but it is worth seeing for yourself.

Full Mobile World Congress coverage form CNET

The Fujitsu F-02E is a powerful
Android phone that has an exquisite screen, a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, a 16.3-megapixel camera, a fingerprint scanner, and a water- and dust-resistant shell. And speaking of phones that can take a beating, check out Jessica Dolcourt's encounter with the Cat B15. Bearing the name of the same company that makes industrial forklifts, tractors, and mining equipment, you'd expect the B15 to durable. In fact, Cat says that it can operate in temperatures from -20 to 55 degrees Celsius (-4 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit) and can withstand up to 6-foot drops (1.8 meters).

Go ahead, throw the Cat B15 against the wall.

(Credit:
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Fujitsu also brought the Stylistic S01, which is aimed at seniors. The feature set for the Ice Cream Sandwich device hits a bit lower than most Android phones, but it has access to all of the Google's apps that you'd expect. Sweden's Doro showed the PhoneEasy 622. Launching in Europe, the 622 has a flip design that's smaller than what we've seen from the company before, and it's the first Doro to feature video recording.
>

Hands-on with Qualcomm's Wi-Fi coffee machine

Of course, Mobile World Congress isn't just about phones. Indeed, CNET's team on the ground also spied a Samsung home theater hub for getting content from your Android device to your TV, a quirky power plug adapter that controls your gadgets when you're away, nano-SIM cards made from paper for going green, a GPS-enabled cane (yes, you read that correctly), LG's LG WCP-300 wireless charger, and a coffee machine with Wi-Fi (get me to the store!).

So that's the best of Day 2. Mobile World Congress continues through Thursday so expect a lot more coverage from CNET. You can catch it all here.

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Myo gesture-control armband uses muscle power

The Myo armband uses your muscles for gesture control.

(Credit:
Thalmic Labs)

From "Minority Report" to the Kinect, we've been on a tech quest for touchless gesture control that frees us from the shackles of mice and old-style controllers. We want to get in on the action and use movement to command our digital devices.

Myo from Thalmic Labs takes that gesture-control desire and builds it into an armband you wear on your forearm.

The Myo is available for pre-order. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit:
Myo)

The Myo uses a combination of motion sensors and muscle activity sensors to track gestures. When you snap your fingers, wave your hand, or point your finger, it translates that movement into a gesture based on the muscles used. An ARM processor and rechargeable batteries power the armband, which communicates with devices using Bluetooth low energy.

The Myo team suggests using the armband to "unleash your inner Jedi," an enormously appealing idea. It could potentially be used to not only control your computer, but also to fly quadrocopters, interface with iOS and
Android, and play video games. The potential is limited only by what developers can create.

The armband will work from the get-go with
Mac and PC computers, enabling control of popular activities like Web browsing, media content, and watching videos. I, for one, am eager to see the gaming abilities showcased.

The Myo can be preordered for $149 and is expected to ship in late 2013. Its success may well depend on the number of applications it will work with.

Details on the device are still pretty thin, but a promotional video shows the direction Thalmic Labs is taking. What do you think? Is this a more appealing technology than existing options like the camera-based Kinect?

(Via Reddit)

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YouTube code refers to paid channel subscriptions

Paid channel subscriptions on YouTube may be closer than previously thought.

After reports last month that YouTube was considering offering channels that would require a fee to access, code has now appeared that suggests Google is already laying the software foundation for subscription channels.

According to Android Police, the latest version of YouTube for
Android includes two lines of code that refer to paid channel subscriptions. The code, apparently intended to generate messages on users' screens, say:

You can only subscribe to this paid channel on your computer.

You can only unsubscribe from this paid channel on your computer.

YouTube had approached a handful of producers about developing content for a subscription platform that might the Google-owned video-sharing site hoped to launch this year, according to an AdAge report in January. YouTube was also mulling a plan to charge for other items, such as entire libraries of videos, live events, and even self-help or financial advice shows, AdAge reported.

A paid content platform would offer viewers an alternative to traditional TV, as well as deliver new revenue streams through subscriptions and ads placed in the channels.

YouTube has floated the idea of launching subscription services in the past but has so far balked at the idea. YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar said in February 2012 that his company was considering allowing content providers to create their own, unique subscription-based video service on the site.

CNET has contacted YouTube for comment on the code and will update this report when we learn more.

(Via The Verge)

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Google laptop shows Apple a thing or two

The 3.3-pound Google Chromebook Pixel sports a 12.85-inch, 2,560x1,700-pixel display and an Intel Core i5 processor.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook.

Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G.

What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close to matching the MacBook's aesthetics. (I'm focusing strictly on the hardware for the moment.)

Google is saying, at least in the case of touch, hey Apple, you don't get it.

Not everyone may agree with that. Take the laptop flat-earthers. They will say touch is stupid (or "pointless" as one columnist said) on a laptop. Yeah right, just like the mouse was a stupid idea.

Then there's Apple's your-arm-wants-to-fall-off on vertical touch surfaces excuse. That will eventually give way to a touch-screen MacBook of some sort. You heard it here first.

The point is, Google knows (they're not stupid) that touch is important on a laptop. As does Microsoft (Windows 8 and Surface). That leaves Apple in Luddite land.

4G: And some might say that a Chromebook needs 4G more than a MacBook because the Chromebook is so immersed in the cloud. Hmm, my MacBook spends lots of time in the cloud too. And the last time I used it on the road, I was constantly hauling out my Verizon MiFi or running down my iPhone's battery with the Personal Hotspot. Come on, LTE belongs in a laptop.

And the operating system? I believe that cool hardware is the first step in luring consumers to a new operating environment.

While Chrome OS is still a work in progress (and lacks key features that many users need), with the success of
Android, I do think it's possible that an improved Chrome OS combined with a second-generation Chromebook Pixel could reel in more consumers.

Google certainly has my attention.

Google Chromebook Pixel.

(Credit:
CNET)

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Google talking with labels about streaming music service -- report

When your market cap is north of $263 billion and the company's stock price is hovering around the $800 level, the prevailing question du jour becomes "well, why not?"

So it is that we learn, courtesy of the Financial Times, that Google has been talking with the major music labels about a possible streaming music service. The Times report said that "it is expected that the streaming service will offer a subscription model as well as free unlimited access to songs, supported by advertising, mirroring models adopted by Spotify and Deezer."

What with everyone seemingly talking with the labels these days, this is hardly a surprise. And as the Times correctly notes, Google has operated a music download store in the U.S. which started in 2011. It has since expanded the service to five European countries.

And like Apple, Google can leverage its
tablets and smartphones as well as its
Android operating system to make a go of it. Actually, file this one under the "nothing new under the sun" category. Indeed, the very same Financial Times reported as far back as 2006 that Google was chatting up music industry executives about "new digital music services that could break Apple's grip on the fast-growing market for legal downloads." Since then, Google's ambitions have grown along with its rivalry with Apple.

It must be fascinating to be a fly on the wall listening to the negotiations as they take place against the background of the music industry's chief lobbying group accusing Google of failing to crack down on pirate music sites. Noting Google's pledge half a year ago to do more, the Recording Industry Association of America said earlier this week that "six months later, we have found no evidence that Google's policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy. These sites consistently appear at the top of Google's search results for popular songs or artists."

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PS4 and the Vita: the multi-screen dream...again

Can the Vita be revitalized by the PS4? Sony hopes so.

(Credit:
Photo by Sarah Tew/CNET)

The PlayStation 4 is Sony's last great hope in keeping control of the gaming industry. It's also the best chance at turning the PlayStation Vita into a more relevant piece of gaming hardware.

At last night's PlayStation 4 event in New York, many hew tidbits of hardware magic were discussed, and a good handful of them involved the Vita: as a remote-play device and additional controller like the
Wii U's GamePad, and maybe even as a functional second screen. It's encouraging, but not surprising. I bet it would happen long before last night's event even started. That's because the PlayStation and Sony's PlayStation handhelds have been doing this dance for years.

The PlayStation Vita debuted just one year ago, but it feels like a lot longer than that. Time moves fast in tech, but commercial reception and game support for Sony's advanced piece of handheld hardware has been tepid, to say the least. The Vita needs a shot in the arm. Its potential with the PlayStation 3 was never realized--at least, not as a second-screen satellite experience. Can the PS4 and the Vita be a dream team at last? Here are the best bets for how a PS4 could be a Vita's best friend.

Multiplayer gaming

Nintendo's Wii U might have a lot of strikes against it, but one thing it does exceedingly well is leverage a second-screen controller as a multiplayer game accessory. You can grab the
Wii U GamePad and have someone else use the TV, and play a two-player game together very easily.

Last E3, the Vita and PS3 promised similar connectivity.

(Credit:
CNET)

There are already games that accomplish this cross-controller play feature between PS3 and Vita--in fact, Sony's been rolling out this feature slowly over recent games. But the support and ease-of-use has never made the concept anything more than a novelty.

There's no reason why a Vita can't accomplish a similar goal with the PlayStation 4, but Sony hasn't gone into great detail over how this will work. but the PS4 could pull this trick off with a greater supported library and with faster, more lag-free processing.

Remote play: Off-TV

Imagine if the Vita could access and play the PS4's game library via localized streaming: you could play Killzone--the console version--in your bedroom. That's exactly what Sony plans to do, according to last night: a large portion of the PS4 library will theoretically stream and play on a Vita in your home, much like the Wii U's GamePad handles games like New Super Mario Bros. or Madden. On the PS4, this localized streaming will be powered by Gaikai.

Will it work as seamlessly? Sony's presser promised greatly-improved transmission times between the Vita and PS4, but what Nintendo's made possible with the GamePad isn't that easy a feat. Then again, the appeal of the Vita as a stand-alone device that can play another console's games locally feels like something the Wii U GamePad could only dream of being.

Yet, the Vita lacks something the Wii U GamePad has: truly comfortable analog pads and rear analog triggers. The Vita's controls may resemble a PlayStation DualShock, but they don't match it perfectly (and, it lacks rumble). It won't be as seamless a gaming controller as the GamePad, especially for first-person shooters that heavily rely on both dual analog sticks and trigger/shoulder buttons.

The Nvidia Shield will work with Steam for remote play, too.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

Also, Sony won't be the only company out there trying this trick. Nvidia's Project Shield, unveiled at CES in January, hopes to do the same thing with Steam-playable PC games on an Android device later this year. And one can only guess that Microsoft's planning a similar feat with
Windows 8 devices and the "Xbox 720."

Vita as remote
The Vita's somewhat big and bulky compared to a phone, but it has front and rear touch panels and plenty of buttons to have it serve an easy purpose for remote control duties. Sony didn't detail this functionality per se. Of course, with a full touchpad on the DualShock 4 controller and Sony's announced support for a Smart Glass-like PlayStation App for phones and tablets, the need to use a Vita like this shrinks.

Phone and tablet competition: PlayStation App
Speaking of phones and tablets: Sony's announced that its forthcoming PlayStation App will work on both iOS and Android, and looks like it'll work as a social PlayStation Network browser, means of buying games, spectating game footage online, and even being a second screen for game maps or other in-game features, much like Microsoft's Smart Glass.

If that's true--and cleverly done--than where does that leave the Vita?

Sony has made its own Vita competition, in a sense. Even if the Vita is the only way to play locally-streamed games on a second device using Gaikai technology, which hasn't been determined, many people might prefer using a phone or tablet out of sheer convenience. The accessory of choice for the PS4 might already be in your pocket.

Sony has supported tablet and phone PlayStation compatibility, at least nominally, via PlayStation Mobile. Maybe PlayStation App is just an extension of PlayStation Mobile...but if it takes away part of the Vita's appeal to a PS4 owner-to-be, what then? It certainly hampers the "Vita as ultimate PS4 accessory" argument a little bit.

The Vita needs its killer app, and so does the PS4. The two could use each other a lot. Whether or not the PS4 makes good on the previous promises made with on the PS3, of course, hasn't been proven yet. I want to believe--really, I do--that the Vita will find its way and blossom with the PS4. It's just that I've heard this pitch before.

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FCC takes first step toward allocating more Wi-Fi spectrum

FCC Commissioners L to R: Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Ajit Pai.

(Credit:
FCC)

The Federal Communications Commission took the first steps today toward freeing up more wireless spectrum to boost Wi-Fi data speeds and ease congestion on Wi-Fi networks in hotels, airports, and homes.

During its meeting today, the five-member commission approved a proposal that will allow 195 megahertz of additional wireless spectrum in the 5GHz band to be used for unlicensed Wi-Fi use. This will increase the amount of available unlicensed spectrum by 35 percent. This is the largest block of wireless spectrum the FCC has freed up for unlicensed use in 10 years.

The commission also agreed to create rules that would streamline the process to use more devices in this upper 5GHz band of spectrum.

What this additional spectrum means for average consumers is that they will eventually get faster uploads and downloads in Wi-Fi hot spots. And the additional capacity will also help alleviate congestion in major hubs, such as airports, convention centers, and other places where large numbers of people congregate.

The 5GHz band of spectrum that the FCC has targeted for unlicensed use is already being used by federal and non-federal users. And the agency will have to work with these other agencies to either free up the spectrum or share it with these other users.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski talked about freeing up this spectrum for unlicensed use last month at the Consumer Electronics Show. Today's vote means that the proposal is now open for public comment. At the end of the process, the FCC will write up official rules and regulations, which the agency will once again vote on.

The FCC has been working the past few years on freeing up additional wireless spectrum for wireless broadband use. The agency is currently writing rules for a wireless spectrum auction of lower frequency spectrum that broadcasters are voluntarily giving up. And the commission has also worked to reclassify spectrum designated for satellite use so that it could be used for wireless broadband services.

Chairman Genachowski has said several times publicly that it's also important to free up more unlicensed wireless spectrum. The commission has already taken steps in recent years to free up unlicensed spectrum in lower frequency bands. Lower frequency spectrum allows signals to travel longer distances and to penetrate obstacles like walls more easily.

In 2010, the FCC allocated unused spectrum between broadcast TV channels, called white spaces, for unlicensed use. And as part of the upcoming incentive broadcast wireless auctions, the FCC has also proposed to set aside some low-band spectrum for unlicensed use.

But the idea of setting aside spectrum for unlicensed use has been controversial. Some lawmakers would like to see the FCC auction as much spectrum as possible instead of allocating it for free unlicensed use. The thinking is that this spectrum can generate revenue to help pay off the national debt or fill budget deficits.

But FCC commissioners believe that freeing up more spectrum for unlicensed use will lead to innovation, as it has in the past. Commissioner Ajit Pai said:

Flexible unlicensed spectrum use was one of this country's great innovations in the 1980s...The Commission expanded several so-called junk bands to permit additional unlicensed uses and streamlined the Part 15 rules accordingly. Unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands is now some of the most valuable spectrum in the world for broadband. And consumers are the ultimate beneficiaries of unlicensed-use technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The commission also approved new regulation that will allow consumers to use approved and licensed signal boosters to fill gaps in wireless coverage. The new rules create two classes of signal boosters. One will be for consumer use while the other will be used by businesses. Each will have their own set of requirements to minimize interference with other wireless networks. The move is expected to alleviate dead spots in cellular wireless coverage.

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Apple issues Java update after security breach

Following recent security breaches that led to computers at Apple and other companies being compromised, Apple has issued an update for Java on OS X to close the hole.

The update went live this afternoon through Apple's Software Update service, which can be accessed from the Apple menu, and also available as a standalone update for
OS X Snow Leopard or later from the following locations:

According to the update's release notes, it will disable all versions of Java that are supplied by Apple and will encourage users who need Java to download the latest version from Oracle.

---

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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EU regulators threaten privacy crackdown against Google

Google may face a coordinated crackdown by privacy regulators in Europe before this summer unless the Web giant makes dramatic changes to how it manages user data.

France's privacy watchdog said today that Google had yet to respond with "precise and effective" answers to a dozen recommendations unanimously adopted by 27 national regulators last October and as a result could face a coordinated "repressive action." The Article 29 Working Party, a group of data protection officials from each member states, is expected to vote on the proposal at the end of the month.

"European data protection authorities have noted that Google did not provide any precise and effective answers to their recommendations," the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL), the organization that has aggressively led the probe against Google, said in a statement today.

"In this context, the EU data protection authorities are committed to act and continue their investigations. Therefore, they propose to set up a working group, lead by the CNIL, in order to coordinate their repressive action which should take place before summer," the CNIL said.

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Saying that the Web giant was not in compliance with European law, the group suggested that Google should strengthen the consent sought for combining data for the purposes of service improvement and advertising; provide a centralized opt-out solution; and adapt the combination rules to distinguish between security and advertising. Google was also warned about not clarifying how long it stores user data.

After issuing its recommendations in October, regulators gave Google four months to amend its privacy policy to address issues that could violate member countries' laws.

Google raised the ire of privacy advocates in January 2012 a privacy policy rewrite that would grant it explicit rights to "combine personal information" across multiple products and services. The simplified privacy policy, which would replace 60 privacy policies for different services, would only improve the user experience, Google argued.

Opponents of the change sued, saying the move was designed to increase the company's advertising effectiveness. EU officials asked that Google delay implementing its new policy until the privacy implications can be analyzed, but the Web giant declined, saying it had it extensively pre-briefed privacy regulators on the changes and that no objections were raised at the time.

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Why Google's stores shouldn't look so much like Apple stores

Is this really different enough?

(Credit:
Crave CNET UK)

Some engineers have never dated a real person.

They've tried to, but it's hard for them to appreciate that real people don't necessarily use data to make decisions -- especially when it comes to love.

Perhaps their most embarrassing moments come when they try to mimic what non-engineers do in order to make themselves more attractive.

This mirrors some of the little issues that the Google brand has had over the years in becoming, well, human.

When you've spent you life believing that facts are everything, it's hard to imagine that people might prefer, oh, rounded corners or that ephemeral thing sometimes known as taste.

Google has made progress through some of its advertising. The "Jess Time" ad for Chrome was one of the very best tech ads of the 2012.

Yet when Google has wandered into retail, it has either believed that all you need is online or that an offline store ought to look rather like Apple's.

This is something against which Microsoft also struggles. It was almost comical when one Microsoft employee explained to me that its store looked -- at first glance -- a lot like the Apple store because the company used the same design firm.

This week, rumors surfaced that Google wants to make the next step in coming toward humanity by having its own shopping-mall retail presence.

The evidence so far from its pop-up stores -- as the picture above shows -- is that Google isn't thinking different. Or, at least, different enough.

If it fully intends to come out to the people -- to be itself-- then instead of having nice, clean retail staff in blue T-shirts (what brand does that remind you of?), it should embrace its true heart.

It should have real house-trained nerds, replete with bedhead and bad taste clothing, there for all to see. Yes, you could have nice, normal members of staff there to translate for them.

But the purpose of a retail store isn't merely to sell. It's to create street theater. Apple has its own version. Google must find its own too.

Instead of the now almost cliched clean lines and permanent white, it should make its stores look like excitable, sophisticated college playrooms, where books about dragons and vast Hulk hands are lying about and episodes of "Star Trek" and "Game of Thrones" are playing on huge screens.

More Technically Incorrect

It should expose itself fully as a brand that came out of nerdomania by parading its nerdomanic tendencies for all to see and making it lovable.

You might think this marginally insane. You might think that I am suffering from delusions of brandy.

Yet "The Big Bang Theory" has proved to be one of the most popular TV shows, not because the nerds are hidden away, but because they are in full view, with a beautiful counterpoint in a real person called Penny.

Imagine taking your kids, your lover, or your granny into a Google store and having them actually enjoy learning something about, say, comic books or Hermann von Helmholtz.

Imagine walking in and one of the Google nerds has dressed as The Flash, Batman, or Wonder Woman for the day, yet still finds a way to sell you a fascinating
Nexus 7.

In fact, wouldn't it be an excellent human resources idea, as well as a stimulus to make more uplifting products, if every Google engineer had to spend a certain period working in a Google retail store?

Mountain View should surely mine the more lofty, fantastic elements of its reality in order to create something unique and dramatic.

Otherwise, its stores might simply be accused of being Apple rip-offs.

And you know where that will ultimately end up. Yes, in front of Judge Lucy Koh.

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PlayStation 4 to stream games in real time over Net, says report

At the end of January, Sony announced a PlayStation event but gave few details. We'll get the 411 this coming Wednesday in New York.

Sony's acquisition last year of cloud-gaming company Gaikai may be reflected in a big way in the upcoming PlayStation 4.

The Wall Street Journal is citing inside sources in reporting that Sony's new gaming console, expected to debut Wednesday at an event in Manhattan, will let people play games streamed in real time over the Internet.

The report says the streams will involve games designed for the outgoing console, the
PlayStation 3. That could be an effort to deal with backward compatibility: last month the Journal reported that for the PS4, Sony would "likely" go with chips from AMD, rather than the Sony-IBM-Toshiba-developed Cell chip that's in the PS3 -- a move that could cause compatibility issues with current games. The new report from the WSJ says the PS4 will be able to accommodate new games stored on optical discs. It's not clear if new games would be streamed as well.

Streaming could also help Sony go at least some way toward addressing the popularity of simple games on smartphones and other devices. As CNET's Rich Brown mentioned when Sony bought Gaikai, the acquired firm seemed to offer potential in terms of enabling higher-end mobile gaming: "Imagine playing a core PlayStation...[game] on your console, then picking the game up exactly where you left off on your cell phone or
tablet," he wrote.

Sony announced the Gaikai deal in July of last year. The cloud service allows for the streaming of beefier games than those commonly played on iPhones and the like (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and so on). Company co-founder David Perry told CNET back in 2010 that the service was a bit like game arcades back in the day: "You wanted to play the latest machines, but they were $5,000 to $10,000. So you stuck your quarters in." Gaikai created data centers designed to run any modern-day game, at any settings, and then focused on piping streams to the end user.

The Journal said it's not clear how Sony might charge for the streams.

For more on the expected PlayStation 4, check out Jeff Bakalar's overview, here.

Also, CNET will be live at the Sony event in midtown Manhattan next week. Be sure to follow along with our live blog to get the very latest on all the announcements.

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Report: Google to open U.S. retail stores later this year

Google Chrome Zone section of PC World on London's Tottenham Court Road.

(Credit:
CNET Crave U.K.)

Google plans to open its own retail stores across the United States, according to a new report, giving the increasingly hardware-focused company a place to show off its growing number of physical products.

Citing "an extremely reliable source," 9to5Google says the company "hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas."

The report says Google accelerated plans to build physical stores because customers are unlikely to buy expensive hardware, including the upcoming Google Glass, without first having a chance to try it for free.

Google already has set up Chrome mini-stores inside U.S. Best Buy locations and electronic retailers in the United Kingdom. From the start, those stores have prompted speculation that Google will open a full-scale retail presence. Google Stores could help bolster the company's brand image, showcase new products and win over
Android skeptics.

Still, Google is on the record denying any move into retail. In December, Google Shopping head Sameer Samat told All Things D that the company "had no aspirations to open a store."

"We aren't planning on being a retailer," he said. "We don't view being a retailer right now as the right decision."

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

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Obama: We're only halfway there on patent reform

President Obama answers questions today during a Google+ Hangout.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Casey Newton/CNET)

Patent reforms passed last year don't go far enough to fully protect entrepreneurs from software patent holders who try to exploit them, President Barack Obama said today in his fourth annual appearance on YouTube following the State of the Union address.

"We passed some legislation last year, but it hasn't captured all the problems," Obama said in response to a question about what the government was doing to promote innovation -- and protect against what the questioner called "patent trolls."

"The folks that you're talking about are a classic example," Obama said. "They don't actually produce anything themselves. They're trying to essentially leverage and hijack someone else's side and see if they can extort some money out of them."

In 2011, Obama signed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which changed the U.S. patent system into a "first-to-file" patent system as opposed to a first-to-invent system. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's previously awarded patents based on when inventors had the idea, instead of when they filed a patent application.

During the Hangout, where he was joined by a handful of U.S. citizens selected by Google, Obama said that entrepreneurs' ability to build software without being blocked by frivolous patent suits had to be balanced against the rights of intellectual property holders.

"But I do think that our efforts at patent reform only went about halfway to where we need to go," Obama said. "What we need to do is pull together additional stakeholders and see if we can build some additional consensus on smarter patent laws."

Obama went on to say that he was committed to efforts to protect individuals' privacy, their civil liberties, and keeping the Internet "open" -- though he didn't elaborate on what precisely that meant.

"Whether it's how we're dealing with copyrights, how we're dealing with patents -- what we've tried to do is be an honest broker between the various stakeholders," Obama said.

The president also described a conversation he had with Mark Zuckerberg about why the Facebook founder decided to learn programming -- Zuckerberg wanted to write games. Elementary and high school students need more access to classes that teach them fundamental programming skills, the president said.

"I want to make sure they know how to actually produce stuff using computers, and not just consume stuff," Obama said.

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A startup takes on publishing, with help of Atari's founder

Atari's Nolan Bushnell.

(Credit:
Courtesy of Nolan Bushnell)

If there's an industry more stuck in the past than the music industry, it has to be book publishing.

It's with that in mind that a Pasadena, Calif. startup is trying to upend the traditional, often unpleasant publishing model that's more like a gauntlet than a process.

An author typically has to beg an agent for representation, then has to beg a publisher to take their book, hopes for an advance that covers expenses, writes the book, in many cases finds his or her own editors because the publisher's editors are too busy to pay attention, do his or her own marketing and promotion if they're not a big name, and, at the end of all that, hope to make a little money from sales since the publisher will take the bulk of money from sales.

Net Minds, which is make the rounds with press this week, is sort of an Amazon self-publishing service on steroids. A prospective author, say, an executive, creates a project file on Net Mind's system. On that, the author explains the book and, if they are looking for a ghost writer, shop it to roughly 500 freelance writers who have joined. They can also also find editors, designers for the cover and illustrators, a sales and marketing team for promotion, while publishing of the actual book is outsourced. The physical books are distributed through a partnership with the publishing giant Ingram.

The author starts with 80 percent to 90 percent of the royalties and sets up his or her own publishing team from that list of prospects. They can be paid a flat rate or through a share of the royalties.

"It's your show," said Net Minds CEO Tim Sanders.

Sanders knows a little bit about publishing. A former Yahoo exec who came into that company through the acquisition of Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com, he's written four business-related books. He said his experience in the publishing industry made it clear just how ripe book publishing is for disruption through Amazon, other self-publishing outfits, and his own, self-financed startup.

"I really keep thinking that what's really lacking in publishing is transparency at every level," he said. "It's a big old black box." His company, he believes, could put control in the hands of the writer.

That appealed to Nolan Bushnell, the founder of gaming pioneer Atari and a serial entrepreneur whose other businesses include Chuck E. Cheese's.

"I am and I am not a control freak," Bushnell said. "I like to understand all the moving pieces. If people are screwing up, I like to be able to fire them. You have no recourse in traditional publishing."

Bushnell is also known as the guy who gave young Steve Jobs a job. Bushnell's first book, Finding the Next Jobs, which he said collection of personal anecdotes and discussion on innovation, will be available next month.

"Too many people believe innovation is about a thunderclap and a light goes on...It's not that at all," Bushnell said. "It's about putting together an environment and an ecosystem in a company that fosters and nurtures creative ideas wherever they come from."

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Mayer: Yahoo's future is personalization for content, ads

SAN FRANCISCO --The future of Yahoo will be providing personalized user experiences both on mobile and the desktop, according to the company's chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer.

Speaking at the 2013 Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this morning, Mayer offered another glimpse into the search company's evolving mobile strategy, which will include some consolidation for the existing product portfolio.

Marissa Mayer

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

"The core of Yahoo's business is to personalize content," affirmed Mayer. But within that content, she continued, is also advertising, which she said can improve the experience when done right.

Mayer suggested that smartphones offer a better glimpse at user context (i.e. where they are, where they have gone in the past) better than anything else.

She explained simply that if users are willing to make that data available through signing up with a mobile app or logging into a service, then Yahoo can use that information -- with permission, she specified -- and deploy it in a way that makes sense to the individual user.

While Mayer touted some of the more consumer-related features and partnerships (i.e. Facebook, ABC News) funneling content, she briefly hinted at some potential business use cases, highlighting that mobile devices are much more "ideal" for group communication and collaboration.

But while Mayer repeatedly discussed new growth opportunities for Yahoo -- especially when it comes to mobile -- she acknowledged that there will need to be some trimming too.

Citing that Yahoo has 200 million monthly active mobile users, Mayer also noted that the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation has "a scattered product portfolio" with "somewhere between 60 and 75 mobile apps."

Mayer admitted that some of those apps will "go away" because "they don't make sense for us" and some don't have enough users on them. She added that the goal is to narrow that portfolio down to just 12 to 15 apps.

However, Mayer refrained from naming any specific apps or products that might be affected.

To get an idea of where Yahoo might be making cuts and consolidating resources, Mayer said that Yahoo's product portfolio is reflective of Internet users' "daily habits." That includes e-mail, online news, checking stocks, and more.

Remarking that search -- Yahoo's backbone -- is integrated with all of this, Mayer said that Yahoo will be working heavily on the design of Yahoo's products and interface for both mobile devices and PCs.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Marissa Mayer: Yahoo's future is personalization for content, advertising."

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Charge your smartphone, become a cyberspy

Don't charge it where you keep your secrets, OK?

(Credit:
U.S. Army)

There's just never enough battery life on your smartphone, is there?

You need it for so many things, like informing yourself, informing others and informing some mythical creature that you're about to kill it.

This might be especially true if, say, you happen to be in a U.S. Army garrison in South Korea.

Everyone in South Korea is on smartphones nonstop. It's de rigueur.

Now, efficiency is very important to the Army. Which means it's always tempting to charge a smartphone by plugging it into a computer.

The small drawback at a U.S. Army outpost is that these would be government computers. Which may have all sorts of secrets within, some that Julian Assange has never seen or even heard of.

As the U.S Army itself informs us on its Web site, these heedless smartphone owners have become the most virulent cybersecurity violators in the whole of South Korea.

You see, in a recent seven-day period alone, there were 129 such cyberviolations detected by the Korea Theater Network Operations Center. That's far more than the whole cast of a Bourne movie.

Most apparently charge up innocently. It's a reflex reaction, like not thinking straight.

More Technically Incorrect

As Lt. Col Mary M. Rezendes, 1st Signal Brigade operations officer-in-charge, said of these scofflaws: "They don't realize that computers recognize their phones as hard drives and that their software puts our network at risk."

It's not as if soldiers and their civilian cohort don't get cybersecurity training. It's not as if it isn't explained to them that USB devices can't come near a government computer.

But these people are human and they make mistakes, somewhere on the spectrum from silly to sinister.

Surely everyone has to be on heightened alert now that it has been revealed that Kim Jong-un is in possession of his own smartphone.

The sanctions can be quite severe. Civilians get a reprimand. Military personnel are subject to those kinds of military law punishments that can never, ever be all that pleasant.

Being of a disciplined mind myself, I want to find a good, humane solution.

Perhaps the U.S. Army might provide special charging stations, so that confusion can be kept at a minimum.

Perhaps a picture of General Patton, open-mouthed, with the caption "CHARGE!" might be placed above them, just to make their purpose entirely clear.

It was just a thought.

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