CES 2012: New tools for a better home network

Connected devices were a top trend at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, as they have been for several years. But there's no point in having a television that displays Twitter feeds or a refrigerator that can send recipes to your oven if your home network is barely functional. Here are my favorite networking gadgets and technologies from this year's show, based on the dangerous assumption that they all will work as advertised when they actually hit the market later this year:

D-Link showed off several intriguing products, including a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can share files on a thumb drive with the entire network and a sub-$50 router that's designed to bring home monitoring to the masses (by making it easy to access one's home network from anywhere via the Internet). But the one that I liked the most was the DHP-1565 router (shown at right), which offered a novel pairing of wireless and powerline networking. Other Wi-Fi routers have included powerline networking too, but this one monitors the signal quality on each side and automatically shifts data to the less noisy pathway. Nice.

It's due in stores in January at a suggested price of just under $160.

Netgear has been selling "network attached storage" devices -- hard drives that can be accessed from anywhere on your home network -- for years, but the category hasn't caught on with the masses. Still, I like the idea of consolidating all the pictures, videos and music scattered around the computers and smartphones in my home, and now Netgear has made the idea more appealing by integrating 2 Terabytes' worth of storage into a router, the WNDR4700. Not only can the router store and deliver all sorts of media to computers, smart TVs, tablets and other devices on a home network, the files on its hard drive can be read or played remotely through the Internet. It also acts as a backup device for the digital home.

Netgear said the router will arrive in the summer at an as-yet undisclosed price.

Qualcomm's Skifta is the software equivalent of a network attached storage device. Its software finds the music, video and image files that are stored on the devices connected to a home network, then enables you to play them on the connected device or devices of your choice. For example, you could use Skifta to create a slideshow on your TV of photos on your smartphone, or to have computers around your house play the same MP3 playlist. At CES, Skifta announced that it will offer manufacturers development kits for modules that can be used to turn products into Skifta-ready wirelessly connected devices. It also showed a reference design for an adapter that could connect existing stereos to the home network so they, too, could play the digital song files stored on other devices. That solves the biggest problem for the connected home: Many of the devices that people own weren't built for connectivity.

Skifta didn't announce a price for the module kits, which are expected to be available in the first half of the year.

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Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division. Follow him at @jcahealey.

Credits, top to bottom: D-Link, Netgear and Qualcomm

Apple issues iOS 5's first over-the-air update, with battery fix

Apple has released its first over-the-air update for iOS -- known officially as iOS 5.0.1 -- that promises to bring relief to iPhone owners who have been complaining about terrible battery life.

To get the iOS update, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners have to go into their "Settings" app, select "General" and then select "Software Update." From there, the device will ping Apple to see whether an update is available -- and it should be available for everyone at this point -- and then the iOS 5.0.1 prompt appears.

Once a user initiates the software download, the device will ask the user to plug the gadget into a power adapter.

I ran the update on an iPhone 4S without connecting any cable of any sort, and the whole process took about five minutes over Wi-Fi to download before my phone restarted itself with the update in place. However, the update at first said it would take about an hour to download, so download times may vary.

As the first over-the-air update for iOS, users can get the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system without having to plug their device into a computer to download the software from iTunes. As long as users have at least 50% battery life and are on a Wi-Fi connection, they should be good to go, cable free.

In addition to a fix to the battery life problem, Apple said the software update will add multitasking gestures to the original iPad, fix bugs that have to do with syncing documents to iCloud and improve voice recognition for Australian users using dictation.

The update is available for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, first-generation iPad and third- and fourth-generation iPod Touch.

Feel free to sound off in the comments about your experience downloading iOS 5.0.1 and whether the battery life of your device improves.

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Images: Screen shots of Apple's iOS 5.0.1 update process on an Apple iPhone 4S. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles/Los Angeles Times

MLB strikes deal to stream live games on flights

Pilots may never have to give passengers score updates on baseball games again.

At least not on Southwest Airlines flights.

Westlake Village-based Row 44 Inc., an in-flight broadband Internet provider for Southwest, said it signed a deal with Major League Baseball to deliver live streaming video and audio broadcasts to passengers' smartphones, laptops, tablets and other Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Southwest is currently in the process of wiring its entire fleet with Row 44’s in-flight broadband system. The carrier is offering the service for a introductory rate of $5.

With the deal, Major League Baseball has become the first sports league to offer in-flight live streaming video of its games, Row 44 said.

“This partnership is the first in a series that underscore Row 44's commitment to creating a unique broadband entertainment experience for our airline partners and their customers," Howard Lefkowitz, the company’s chief commercial officer, said in a statement.

Row 44, named after the last row on a DC-10 commercial jet, uses a network of telecommunications satellites belonging to Hughes Network Systems. By tapping into Hughes' network, Row 44 has the potential to provide worldwide Internet access.

The company has more than 40 employees spread across offices in Westlake Village, Las Vegas and Lombard, Ill.

"The integration of live baseball games into Row 44's in-flight broadband entertainment experience ensures our traveling fans won't have to miss a pitch," Bob Bowman, chief executive of Major League Baseball advanced media, said in a statement.

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Photo: Row 44 Chief Executive John Guidon, left, and President Gregg Fialcowitz on the wings of the company's 1950 Grumman Albatross Seaplane that it uses for equipment testing. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Microsoft bringing Streetside maps to Europe in challenge to Google Street View

Microsoft is taking Streetside, it's rival to Google's Street View, to the streets of Europe.

According to the BBC, cars fitted with 360-degree panoramic cameras have hit boulevards, roads and avenues in London, snapping scenes to be used in Microsoft's Bing Maps, which competes with Google Maps.

And Microsoft is planning to map out images of other roadways in other English cities and European countries next month, the BBC said.

No date was offered as to when Streetside scenes would go live for Europe on Bing Maps, and Microsoft officials were not available for comment on Wednesday morning.

Streetside is already available in most major U.S. cities and is an effort Microsoft is continuing to expand in America as well.

Google's Street View efforts have run into a bit of trouble due to the wrongful collection of private data from unsecured W-Fi networks while its photo-taking cars and bikes cruised around the U.S. and Europe over the last few years.

Last week a Swiss court ruled that Google must guarantee that faces and license plates are unrecognizable before publishing street scenes from Switzerland in its Street View maps. Google said it was considering its appeal options for the court order.

Last month Google was fined 100,000 euros by France for improperly gathering and storing data collected by its Street View cars and bicycles.

Google has apologized for wrongfully collecting Wi-Fi data with its Street View vehicles multiple times over the last few months and promised to delete the data it has collected.

It may then come as not much of a surprise that Microsoft is saying it won't make the same errors when collecting Wi-Fi data on its Streetside routes, which will be less ambitious than Google's Street View routes, for now.

"We're not setting out to record every street. We believe it is most valuable in urban centres where people want to find services," Dave Coplin, Microsoft Corp.'s director of search, told the BBC.

Microsoft is collecting some Wi-Fi data, which will be used to pair Streetside with "location-based services," Coplin told the BBC.

Among the data being collected while snapping photos will be the "unique number that identifies the location of a hot spot," along with the hot spot's signal strength and what type of Wi-Fi signal is being used, the BBC said.

But, while Microsoft has already taken some Streetside photos, it has so far collected no Wi-Fi data, the report said.

"We took the decision to postpone Wi-Fi data collection," Coplin told the BBC. "We'd like to do it the right way."

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Image: A screenshot of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles as depicted on Microsoft's Streetside view on Bing Maps. Credit: Microsoft Corp.

Google fined 100,000 euros by France for Street View's private data collection [Updated]

Google has received its first penalty for improperly gathering and storing data collected by its Street View cars and bicycles, and more sanctions could be on the way.

A 100,000-euro fine, equivalent to about $141,300, was handed down to Google by the French government's technology and privacy group CNIL on Monday, according to the Associated Press.

The fine was levied against Google for acquiring personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks from 2007 to 2010.

The private data -- which included passwords, personal e-mails, online banking information and Web browsing histories -- was siphoned by Google's Street View cars and bicycles, which photograph 360-degree images of streets for Google's online maps.

So far, the CNIL is the only agency to fine Google over the improper data collection, but more than 30 nations have criticized the search giant for it, and at least two other countries in Europe could also issue fines, the Associated Press said.

Google has admitted to the wrongful data collection in the past and on Monday e-mailed the Technology blog a statement apologizing for the fiasco.

"As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks," said Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google. "As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities. Deleting the data has always been our priority, and we're happy the CNIL has given permission for us to do so."

Google officials declined to comment further.

The AP said that the CNIL has given Google a window of two months to appeal the fine, though the company hasn't yet decided if it will or not.

CNIL officials said Google wasn't always forthcoming during its investigation into the Street View data collection, which began in 2009.

"They were not always willing to cooperate with us, they didn't give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars," Yann Padova, CNIL's executive director, told the AP. "They were not always very transparent."

Between 2007 and 2010, Google collected more than 600 gigabytes of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks before realizing there was a problem, according to the AP.

[Updated at 9:55 a.m. with a statement from Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google.]

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Photo: A Google employee drives a Street View car around Palo Alto. Credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press

Wi-Fi-only Motorola Xoom tablet to reach stores March 27, cost $599

A Wi-Fi-only version of the Motorola Xoom is finally hitting stores on March 27 –- but don’t expect to pay any less for the 3G-free tablet.

Motorola announced the Xoom Wi-Fi on Wednesday morning and said the iPad competitor would be sold at Amazon.com, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Staples and Wal-Mart stores.

The Xoom was first released on Feb. 24 in a Wi-Fi and 3G version through Best Buy and Verizon stores, selling for either $799.99 for the device free of contract, or for $599.99 with a two-year data plan.

The Wi-Fi-only model of the Xoom will sell for $599.99.

Both the Wi-Fi and 3G model and the Wi-Fi-only unit feature 32 GB of memory, a 10.1-inch touch screen, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM and run on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system. Honeycomb is the first version of Android designed for tablet use.

As of now, Motorola has announced no other memory options or price changes for the Xoom Wi-Fi or the Xoom with Wi-Fi and 3G.

The Xoom is considered by many to be Android's best shot at competing with the Apple iPad, which sold more than 15 million units last year and resulted in a sellout this weekend at many retailers with the release of the iPad 2.

The iPad lineup starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi-only, 16 GB model. A Wi-Fi-only 32 GB iPad sells for 599.99 -- the same price as the Xoom Wi-Fi.

So far, the Xoom is the only tablet running Honeycomb, though many manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and HTC are promising to release tablets in the coming months that will also run the tablet-tailored version of Android.

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Photo: A Motorola Xoom tablet. Credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press

Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account gets hacked, Punk'd, at TED Conference

Ashton Kutcher has been Punk'd -- on Twitter.

While at the TED Conference in Long Beach on Wednesday, someone hacked into Kutcher's @aplusk Twitter account.

Once hijacked, the hacker wrote just two messages from the actor/producer/tech fan's account. The first of which said:

Ashton, you've been Punk'd. This account is not secure. Dude, where's my SSL?

And minutes later:

P.S. This is for those young protesters around the world who deserve not to have their Facebook & Twitter accounts hacked like this. #SSL

The line, "Dude, where's my SSL?" and hashtag #SSL, point out a possible absence of SSL encryption, according to Graham Cluley, a consultant at the IT-company Sophos, who wrote about the Twitter hack on the company's Naked Security blog.

Cluley said in his post that he suspects someone sitting near Kutcher hacked in to the @aplusk account using software called Firesheep, or something similar, to perform what is called a sidehack.

Such a sidehack can take place when two people are using social media apps or websites such as Facebook or Twitter over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, he noted.

The second tweet during the apparently temporary hack seems to make a reference to the youthful, tech-saavy protesters in Arab countries who've been recently calling for democratic governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other countries -- many of whom have used technology and social media in varying ways to help organize their demonstrations.

Also worth noting for fans of the man married to Demi Moore, the line "Dude, where's my SSL?" looks to be a nod to Kutcher's year-2000 film, "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "you've been Punk'd" is a nudge to the Punk'd series that used to run on the cable network MTV.

Kutcher created the Punk'd TV show, which ran from 2003 to 2007, and in each episode he'd pull pranks on other celebrities, such as towing their cars, staging fake police standoffs in their homes, or ruining their parties and dinners.

The hack took place almost 18 hours ago and, as of about 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Kutcher had yet to send out any new messages on his Twitter account.

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Former Southwest Airlines senior manager joins Row 44

Westlake Village-based Row 44 Inc., an in-flight broadband Internet provider for airlines, said that it has brought aboard longtime Southwest Airlines senior manager Doug Murri as a technology director to work with carriers.

Murri will be working with airlines on the logistics of outfitting Row 44’s Wi-Fi technology on commercial jets. It was a role that he played with Southwest and its decision to wire its fleet of more than 540 planes with Row 44’s in-flight broadband system.

Murri was not a decision-maker in that process, rather he helped integrate the technology on the planes, Southwest said.

"As I worked with the Row 44 team from within Southwest on the passenger Wi-Fi initiative, I became convinced that this company’s in-flight broadband platform is the most innovative and robust on the market," Murri said in a statement. "I am eager to help push Row 44’s technology into new uses for our airline customers around the world."

Row 44 hopes Murri can build on business connections that he made during his 16-year tenure designing, leading and implementing several key technology initiatives at Southwest.

One of those intiatitives, called the onboard performance computer, provided the company more accurate readings on aircraft performance. Southwest said the technology was "analogous to the transition from long-hand multiplication and division to a calculator."

Row 44, named after the last row on a DC-10 commercial jet, uses a network of telecommunications satellites belonging to Hughes Network Systems. By tapping into Hughes' network, Row 44 has the potential to provide worldwide Internet access.

The company has grown to about 40 people spread across offices in Westlake Village, Las Vegas and Lombard, Ill.

Row 44 made another key hire last year when former Vegas.com Chief Executive Howard Lefkowitz joined the company as chief commercial officer.

Last year, Row 44 landed the contract with Southwest. The company said it has already finished work on about 60 jetliners and plans to have the full fleet wired by 2012.

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Photo: Row 44 Chief Executive John Guidon, left, and President Gregg Fialcowitz on the wings of the company's 1950 Grumman Albatross Seaplane that it uses for equipment testing. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Google reaches deal with Connecticut in Wi-Fi probe

Connecticut Atty. Gen. George Jepsen said Friday his office has entered into settlement negotiations with Google over private data its Street View cars collected from unsecured networks there.

As part of the deal, Google acknowledged that its Street View cars gathered information including partial or complete e-mails and addresses of requested Web pages, Jepsen said.

The agreement will allow the Internet search giant and a 40-state coalition led by Connecticut to engage in talks "without the need for a protracted and costly fight in the courts," he said.

Jepsen said he is prepared to file a lawsuit if settlement talks break down.

Connecticut had issued a civil investigative demand, which is similar to a subpoena, to obtain the data Google collected. Google rejected the demand from Connecticut's then-Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal.

The Federal Communications Commission said in November it was probing whether Google broke federal law in collecting consumer data via Wi-Fi networks. The Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of Google's data collection in October.

For years, Google's fleet of Street View cars have compiled images of streets that are displayed in its online mapping service. At the same time, the vehicles scanned wireless networks to better pinpoint the location of users on mobile phones. Google said the vehicles inadvertently collected personal information.

In a statement Friday, Google said it was "profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from encrypted networks."

Consumer Watchdog spokesman John Simpson objected to the settlement talks. 

"The details of the biggest privacy breach in history shouldn't be settled in secret," he said.

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Verizon says iPhone will pause Web for calls: 'a phone is only as good as the network'

Verizon has confirmed to The Times that its Technology blog's earlier Wi-Fi tethering report is correct -- the Verizon iPhone 4's Personal Hotspot feature will pause Web data when a call is taken on the handset.

Ken Muche, a Verizon spokesman, said that the company has a policy of pausing any Web data on any phone with Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities when a call comes in and is answered, so as to maintain the call's quality.

"If you do two things at once and you do both of them poorly, what's the point?," Muche said. "That's part of the reason we don't have the same dropped call issues that other carriers do.

"We really do believe that a phone is only as good as the network it's on and this is the way we have always looked at it and that's why we aren't willing to sacrifice call quality."

While using the Personal Hotspot on the Verizon iPhone, or anyother phone with the feature; if a call isn't answered Web data will go on uninterrupted, he said. If a call is answered, the Web data is paused and the Wi-Fi signal returns when the call is done, Muche said.

AT&T's iPhone can receive Web data while taking calls, but cannot as of yet broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot signal to other devices using the phone's 3G connection. AT&T, the second-largest mobile carrier behind Verizon, said it is looking into adding Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities to the iPhone.

Verizon will begin selling the Apple iPhone 4 on Feb. 10, starting at $200.

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Photo: An Apple staff member demonstrates a new Verizon iPhone 4 at Verizon's iPhone 4 launch event in New York on Jan. 11. Credit: Brendan McDermid/Reuters