COMPUTER SECURITY. Norton 360 ‘aims to cover all the bases’ with one product

Jim Jamieson
Province

What is it? Norton 360 Internet security package

Price: $89.99

Why you need it: Everyone needs some kind of security suite if they are on the Net.

Why you don’t: You’re too busy e-mailing the final details of a business deal with a nice gentleman from Nigeria.

Our rating: three mice

The consumer PC security business has become a challenging field of play for Symantec Corp.

Once the big kahuna in the struggle with online malware, Symantec and its Norton line of products have had their supremacy threatened by Microsoft Corp.’s move into the market and the entrenchment of other competitors such as McAfee.

The company recently pledged to cut $200 million in costs and lay off five per cent of its workers.

Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare, launched last year, offers multi-level protection and Norton 360 is Symantec’s attempt to trump that.

Meant for the typical home user, Norton 360 aims to cover all the bases in one comprehensive product. It offers:

– The usual PC protection against malicious code.

– Transactional security, including anti-phishing and website authentication;

– In-computer and online backup and restore capabilities, including two gigs of online storage;

– PC tuneup, which removes unnecessary files and defragments the hard drive;

– A free add-on offers anti-spam and parental controls.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Consumers given reason to choose Canpages

Jim Jamieson
Province

Convinced that Greater Vancouver residents want everything in one big phone book, Coquitlam-base Canpages Inc. has begun distributing a directory that covers the entire area.

This week, as well, Canpages launched online and wireless services it believes will give users — and advertisers — a reason to choose it over rival Yellow Pages Group.

Canpages, which publishes more than 70 telephone directories across B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Yukon and the Northwest Territories with a total circulation of 5.6 million, has included Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Richmond, North Vancouver and West Vancouver in its latest phone book.

Yellow Pages Group breaks its directories into smaller geographical areas.

“The world of phone directories in Canada has been a monopoly for many years,” said Olivier Vincent, president and CEO of Canpages.

“Directories’ [area of coverage] has narrowed and content become boring. There is a need for an alternative.

“Our company is focused on delivering products that are better designed for users, but also more friendly for advertisers.”

The Greater Vancouver directory consists of about 2,000 pages of business phone numbers, listed alphabetically and by type of business. Vincent said 615,000 directories will be fully distributed by the end of the month.

Canpages also launched a comprehensive local search engine (www.canpages.ca) to help consumers connect to Vancouver-area products and services. The search engine features interactive maps, multiple searching and even videos of local businesses.

Also new is a texting-based wireless directory assistance for the Lower Mainland, so users can find listings on their mobile phone.

The service cost 50 cents per listing.

Vincent said his company believes that the print medium is just as important as the growing online product.

“Our usage surveys tell us that print is not disappearing,” he said.

“We are linking buyers and sellers and we’re doing it whether you are at home or on the go.”

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Jefferson Graham
USA Today

LAS VEGAS — This year you’ll finally be able to get the digital camera you’ve always wanted, but couldn’t afford.

Popular digital SLR cameras from Canon and Nikon generally set you back around $1,000. But discounters will likely drive that down to $299 by year’s end, says Chris Chute, an analyst at researcher IDC. That’s just a tad higher than most people pay now for compact point-and-shoots. “This will dramatically reshape the digital camera market,” Chute says. “It will give consumers a reason to jump into features they’ve always wanted, but didn’t know they could get.”

Professional-looking digital SLRs (single-lens reflex) can stop action on a dime, without annoying shutter lag. They produce better-looking photos in low light and are much simpler to use than novices might think.

Chute says the point-and-shoot market peaked in 2006 at 29.8 million cameras. He expects flat sales this year. Meanwhile, 1.7 million digital SLRs sold in 2006, which he expects to jump to more than 2 million for 2007.

At the Photo Marketing Association trade show that concluded over the weekend, Olympus and Nikon introduced new SLRs for $799 that are expected to greatly fall in price in the coming months.

They compete with Canon’s market-leading $799 EOS Digital Rebel XTi, which has a 10-megapixel sensor (a megapixel is a measurement of a camera’s resolution).

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Smith | Canon | Olympus | Nikon | Jefferson Graham | EOS | Sally

Nikon’s lineup includes the $599, 6-megapixel D40. Its new $799 D40x matches Canon’s 10 megapixels. Olympus’ 10-megapixel Evolt E-410, also $799, offers built-in image stabilization, which helps make shots steady for those with shaky hands.

The E-410 is small and an ultralight 10 ounces. “Portability is the key for the female demographic,” says Olympus product manager Sally Smith Clemens.

On the other end of the spectrum, Canon unveiled its latest super-high-end SLR. It’s a $4,000 model aimed at professionals, mostly sports and news photographers.

The EOS-1D Mark III is “the fastest camera we’ve ever had,” says Chuck Westfall, a Canon customer service executive. The Mark III can shoot 110 pictures in 11 seconds.

Now that’s fast.

The new SLRs are expected in stores later this month. Elsewhere at the PMA show:

•So many cameras. In the heyday of SLRs, iconic cameras such as the Nikon F and Nikkormat were around for decades. Now Nikon, like its rivals, introduces about 20 cameras a year, only to kill them off the following year with new ones.

The average Nikon camera lives on for just six to eight months, says Nikon senior product manager Steve Heiner.

Why the constant reshuffling? “The stores demand it; the consumer demands it. They want to see ‘what’s new,’ ” Heiner says.

Olympus‘ Smith Clemens says that unlike the film era, when cameras rarely changed, “In electronics, the technology is constantly evolving, and we want to bring the new innovations to our customers as soon as we can.”

•Big zoom, small size. Most compact cameras come with a 3X zoom, which brings you a little closer to the action from your seat. A new breed of “super zoom” tried to bring people even closer, with a 10X zoom. The drawback was that these cameras were big and bulky and couldn’t fit into your pocket.

Not anymore. Panasonic’s Lumix TZ3 is a typical compact size, but also has a 10X zoom. The $349, 7-megapixel camera is expected in stores later this month.

Sun

1 CANON PIXMA IP90V PORTABLE PHOTO PRINTER, $375.

If you’re looking for a portable printer — small enough to fit into one of the larger laptop bags — with high print quality, then the stylish new Canon Pixma iP90v could fit the bill. Its print head has 1,088 nozzles, which allows for high-speed printing in a single pass. The unit’s maximum colour resolution is 4800×1200 dpi with droplets as small as two (count ’em, two) picoliters. Speed is 12 pages per minute in colour and 16 ppm in black. If you want to you can get (for $130) a Bluetooth unit and (for $175) a portable kit that includes a lithium ion battery.

2 EPSON STYLUS PHOTO R1400 PRINTER, $500.

With this offering from Epson, photographers don’t have to confine themselves to prints the size of a sheet of standard printer paper. Its 13-inch-wide capability lets you print in 11×14, 12×12 and 13×19-inch sizes, which means that if you’re using a six-megapixel or higher camera, your enlargements will have greater impact. The printer’s inks — in six high-capacity cartridges — resist fading for up to 98 years under glass and 200 year in an album. Epson claims good quality (not draft) print speeds as fast as 108 seconds for an 8×10 photo.

3 KODAK EASYSHARE DIGITAL PICTURE FRAMES, from $150 for a 7-inch to $330 for a 10-inch frame. Available in April.

You can view a continuous show of your favourite photos in any room in your house with these new frames from Kodak that also include speakers so that you can play MP3 music to provide background. The top-of-the-line EX811 and Ex1011 models are also WiFi enabled so you can send the photos wirelessly straight from your computer’s hard drive to the frame.

4 OLYMPUS E-410 DIGITAL SLR, $800, for body; $900 with the ED 14-42mm Zuiko digital zoom lens: $1,000 with both the 14-42mm and 40 to 150mm lens. Available in May.

When Olympus’s E-400 digital SLR, noted for its small size and easy handling, first came out it was not available in Canada. The good news is that its 10-megapixel successor, the E-410, with its live-view LCD — which lets you see what you’re snapping without looking through the lens — is available here. Also, the Olympus can be bought with two new lightweight, compact lenses that make toting an SLR around a little less of an effort.

 The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Lowell Conn
Province

We can’t help but feel snookered by Mio, a company that got its foot in our door by offering great car GPS systems.

Now, it’s created the P550 PDA with embedded GPS antenna, preloaded maps and wireless connectivity. The device comes bundled with an in-car charger and mount, making us think it is a car gadget. But it will also fit in your pocket and purports to be a PDA.

Either way, it is a nice entry into the PocketPC and the GPS craze, running Windows Mobile 5.0 and featuring Bluetooth, WorldMate information software and, of course, coast-to-coast navigation. It sells for $470.

Visit www.miogps.com.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Marke Andrews
Sun

Back in 1999, Babak Maghfourian was watching television at his parents’ Paris apartment, when he clicked on Fashion TV.

Watching the women parade up the catwalk, Maghfourian — an expert in interactive technology and a graduate of the B.C. Institute of Technology — wondered what would happen if you created an interactive technology so a viewer could click on items in the catwalk show and get information on the model, the dress, the hat, the shoes, the camera of the ringside photographer.

Is there money to be made from such a technology?

Oh yes, there is. With an initial $50,000 investment by an ex-classmate, and another $1.1 million raised from family and friends (and, later, several more millions of dollars from venture capitalists), Maghfourian created VideoClix, an interactive video system that allows viewers to access information as they play a video on their computers.

Take a look, for example, at the James Bond GoldenEye segment on the VideoClix website at www.videoclix.com.

You can click on the actors, their clothing, the car, the car’s global positioning system, the helicopter, and find out where to buy them.

This all happens to the right of the video, which keeps playing in real time.

In another video on the site, clicking on items directs you to where to find them in stores.

Basically, you select what you want to know about, without having to sit through 30-second commercials.

“Nobody watches commercials,” says Maghfourian from his Water Street office in Vancouver. “People switch the channel on TV, and on computers people have learned to ignore banners and flashing graphics.”

In 1999, the world wasn’t ready for this technology, because there wasn’t a lot of video online. Back then, most of the software made by Maghfourian, CEO, and business partner Alex Curylo, CTO, was for educational institutions.

But the field has exploded in the last three years, with Google, Yahoo, YouTube spreading digital content to broadband and mobile devices. All of these big players have sought ways to earn income from advertising, but YouTube did a survey and found that two-thirds of viewers would watch less if they had to watch advertising pre-rolls with the videos.

The trick is to find a non-intrusive form of advertising, which is exactly what VideoClix provides: the viewer is in control of what ads he or she wants to see.

VideoClix really got off the ground when it licensed its technology to Disney, Lucasfilm, Dreamworks Interactive and Sony BMG. Apple started streaming VideoClix content on its website, which has 5.5 million viewers, and to Apple’s iTunes.

Other companies have tried similar technologies in the past, but they failed because they used proprietary technology that forced the viewer to download the software. VideoClix has caught on because it uses existing QuickTime and Flash players, so you don’t have to install additional software.

VideoClix has three ways it makes money from its service. The first is licensing its technology, selling an annual or per-project licence to new media companies and advertising firms which integrate that technology into their own content. The VideoClix technology allows licensees to see how many times their product was clicked on, how long it was looked at, and where the viewer lives. Annual licence fees range from $49 to $5,000, depending on the use of the technology.

VideoClix also gets paid on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, which ranges from one to five cents a click.

The second money-earner is content production. VideoClix will create original content (fashion shows, trade show highlights, music videos) or “re-purposing” existing content. In the latter case, it can take an existing music video and then cite objects in the video (musical instruments, headphones, clothing, hair products). VideoClix earns initial revenue from companies that want their product included, and further revenue on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis; getting a two-to-five per cent share of sales of products in the video.

The third business unit, which VideoClix will launch in the next few weeks, is video auctioning, whereby a video owner can upload a segment to VideoClix, which tracks and lists objects in the video and then offers that list to potential advertisers to sponsor. Revenue from this would be a shared with the content owner.

“Once this third business unit is launched, we foresee that will be one of our most profitable producers,” says Maghfourian, 40. “We believe this is the right time and the right place to market a different viewing experience . . . to change the status quo.”

Microsoft estimated the online advertising business is now worth about $14 billion US, a figure that is sure to rise.

“We have to focus on what’s the most profitable channel that we can go after,” says Maghfourian, who identifies entertainment, fashion, real estate and U.S. military computer-based training systems as the most lucrative.

VideoClix has contracts with Apple and Yahoo, and is negotiating with YouTube and Google. Maghfourian says it has not yet earned back its startup capital, but thinks that will come soon enough.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Jefferson Graham
USA Today

Digital camera makers are rolling out innovations — including high-definition video clips and pictures, face-detection technology and infrared picture-zapping tools — to stoke sales in a maturing market.

Chris Chute, an analyst at IDC, says 29.8 million cameras were sold in the USA in 2006, up 5% from the prior year. IDC projects sales of 30 million for 2007. “We estimate that 85% of sales last year were to people who already had at least one digital camera. So 30 million more cameras this year would be damn good,” Chute says.

The photo industry converges in Las Vegas on Wednesday for the Photo Marketing Association convention, which runs through the weekend.

The most unusual new camera offering: a $499 digital still model from market leader Canon that also can take high-definition video. To date, high-def video has been offered only on video camcorders selling for more than $1,000. “Now, consumers have the option to really consider a single device for still images and high-quality movies,” says Chuck Westfall, a Canon customer relations executive.

Canon’s PowerShot TX1, in stores later this month, looks different: It’s held vertically and has fewer buttons. The high-def video files are huge, so you’ll need high-capacity memory cards for your productions. You can fit 6 minutes of video onto a 2-gigabyte memory card, which sells for about $30 to $50. On a high-def video camera, by comparison, you can fit up to an hour on a $5-to-$10 mini-DV tape.

 

More high-def. Sony is looking to goose camera sales with high-def stills. Seven new Sony Cyber-shot models have outputs that connect to a high-def TV. Sony says it’s the only camera maker offering this option, which adds more color and brightness to your normal digital images. The cables and docks range from $39.95 to $79.95. The new crop of Cyber-shots range from $249 to $479. They are expected in stores this month.

Face-detection. New cameras from Canon, Kodak, Sony and Fuji say they can now help you make better pictures of humans. The idea is that the camera can recognize the face, eyes and nose and will adjust focusing and lighting accordingly. For instance, the face-detection will know that a person is standing in front of a bright window and light the picture for the face, instead of the window.

Face-detection “is the feature manufacturers are most heavily pushing,” Chute says. “It’s really easy to articulate and strikes a chord with the consumer.” Face-detection began showing up in cameras late last year, and its popularity is spreading. The new models are expected in stores this month.

Infrared. Fujifilm is looking to whet consumers’ appetites with infrared technology. It is bringing a feature to U.S. cameras already popular in Japan. Instead of e-mailing a picture to a friend, two owners of these Fuji models could just zap the picture directly to the other camera.

Fuji introduced one model with what it calls IrSimple Technology earlier this year. It will have four more models in stores this month, starting at $179.95.

Fusepoint’s data expands into another Harbour Centre floor

Peter Wilson
Sun

As visitors often note ruefully, the computer servers in Fusepoint Managed Services’ Vancouver data centre look out — unseeing — on a magnificent panorama of Burrard Inlet.

And the precious electronic files stored within the banks of computers on a top floor of downtown’s Harbour Centre are even more cosseted than Vancouver executives with a similar view.

They’re likely a lot more secure, too.

Not surprising, because this is what Fusepoint’s major clients — including Tim Hortons, the Royal Canadian Mint, Maple Leaf Foods, Mountain Equipment Co-op and Air Transat — demand for their information.

The servers inside this 5,000-sq.-ft. area sit on racks bolted to a floating steel frame built to withstand an earthquake rated at eight on the Richter scale.

Walls surrounding the computers are reinforced with steel mesh. Vibration sensors and fire-suppressant nozzles are everywhere. The climate-controlled environment is backed with four air-conditioning units with 20 tons of cooling power.

The information that flows to and from client networks is carried through data lines from three separate Internet service providers, in case one of them should go down.

Not only are they monitored around the clock from a control centre but they never need fear they’re going to lose electricity. Fusepoint relies initially on three separate BC Hydro power feeds coming into the centre. Should these fail, it can turn to two uninterrupted power systems — one of which could use a quarter of its power to keep the centre operating for eight hours. These are backed up by a diesel generator on a nearby rooftop that has a 24-hour supply of fuel. That fuel comes from both union and non-union suppliers, in case a labour dispute might cut off the flow.

And that’s to say nothing of the security in place to keep intruders from gaining physical access or hackers from coming in through the Net.

And now privately held Fusepoint — which began its life in 2001 as a Vancouver-based company called RoundHeaven Communications — is duplicating that environment in a $2-million second data centre on another Harbour Centre floor to keep up with customer demand for its services.

“So many companies [that] came out around the 2000 and 2001 time frame went down,” said Dickson Au, co-founder of the company. “Yet we managed to survive and even thrive.”

Today Fusepoint has offices in British Columbia, headquarters in Ontario, a data centre in Montreal as well as access to available space, through partners, in Calgary and Quebec City.

This success is a result of the maturing nature of the information age, said Fusepoint’s CEO George Kerns

“As more and more things have been deployed on the Internet, people are looking for a highly secure, highly available infrastructure to operate on,” said Kerns.

Most companies, he added, don’t want to spend their money on or worrying about a data centre.

“So, we’re the boiler room of the computer age,” said Kerns. “We sweat the details”

The Vancouver operation employs 20 people out of the company’s 160 employees.

“They form the core of our technical team, and include a lot of the original people,” said Kerns, who added that Fusepoint is now competing with giants like IBM.

“There are a lot of companies out there that haven’t had a lot of options on who they deal with. And they’d like to have some alternatives.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Jim Jamieson
Province

What is it: Kodak EasyShare EX1011 Digital Photo Display

Price: $149 to $329

Why you need it: You love your digital camera, take a million snapshots, but nearly all of them sit on your computer’s hard drive.

Why you don’t: A wireless

digital picture frame just seems a little too geeky for you, and the price a little steep.

Our rating: 3 (out of 5)

With digital cameras becoming nearly as commonplace as microwave ovens, the sheer number of photos taken every year is mindboggling.

Take into account the fact that the vast majority of snapshots — many of them great pictures — never make it to the printer and end up living on a computer’s hard drive and you begin to get the idea of the market Kodak and others are trying to tap.

While a picture frame seems pretty low-tech and humdrum, Kodak’s new line is anything but.

Its WiFi-enabled models are very cool, as they can display photos from anything connected to a wireless home network or even show your online photo albums.

Of course, this uber-frame can also accept photos directly from a digital camera or a memory card for storage in its 128-MB memory. The frame can also accommodate most video formats and has built-in speakers to play the audio.

The wireless models come with a screen resolution of 800 by 480.

Besides the EX1011, whose frame is 25 centimetres diagonally, Kodak also has a 20-centimetre version that is WiFi-capable ($299).

Completing the new line are two non-WiFi frames, 20 and 18 centimetres, which will sell for $229 and $179.

All models come with a wireless remote, and interchangeable faceplates are available.

They are expected in elecronics and camera stores in March.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Kensington Computer Group opens a research and development lab that’s state-of-the-art

Peter Wilson
Sun

From in-car FM transmitters for your iPod to mice and keyboards and laptop locks, Kensington Computer Group makes them all.

The 60 to 70 new electronic products that Kensington sells around world each year are created and perfected in Burnaby where the California-based company opened its new state-of-the-art $1 million research and development centre Friday.

“We’re one of the very few companies in Canada that’s actually doing consumer electronic products,” said Dave Dobson, Kensington’s director of product development, who heads the centre. “And there are very few companies that are growing in the field because it’s very competitive. You can’t just put a me-too product into the market these days and be successful.”

At the moment, the lab — part of a $220-million-a-year business with headquarters near San Francisco — has a staff of 25 and is looking for three more engineers.

“We built our labs to accommodate up to 55 staff and so over the next two or three years we’re going to, hopefully, hit that number,” said Dobson. “We’re on a growth spurt right now, so we are ramping up, although Kensington has been around for 25 years. So it’s not a start-up business. It’s a very stable technology business.”

The lab takes Kensington products from the brainstorming stage right through to final development before they’re manufactured in factories around the world. The exception is some of the earliest design work done in California because it’s closer to computer manufacturers such as Apple.

“We have the mechanical design people who take the designs and the innovative side to it and also make them manufacturable,” said Dobson. “And then we have the electrical engineers who work on the technology that goes into the different types of tracking mechanisms . . . . And we have RF [radio frequency] specialists. And we have a quality engineering group that develop full specifications and make sure they work with Apple products and Microsoft products.”

The whole effort is a collaborative venture, Dobson added.

“We have regular brainstorming sessions here and in California, but equally here, where we talk about what we want to do for the next two or three years in different categories.”

For example, a new set of mice and keyboards from Kensington is just about to hit the market, along with new locks for laptops.

“And there are always new iPod accessories we’re working on,” said Dobson.

He said it’s no longer a big cost saving for companies like Kensington — owned by giant ACCO Brands with $2 billion in revenues a year — to do their research and development in Vancouver.

“It’s more about the fact that there’s a good body of people here.”

While the Lower Mainland is not a major technology hub, said Dobson, it’s a good size and has people working in the disciplines that Kensington needs.

“There’s the Sierra Wirelesses and the Broadcoms and there are others in the area. There’s a core of highly educated people. There are a couple of good universities graduating some kids that we can bring into our business and train. And we’re close to Asia, which is important.”

And then there’s the lifestyle, said Dobson. “We can get engineers to come and live here and stay here, so [Vancouver] provides a lot of the right ingredients for an engineer to thrive in a career and also have a decent personal life.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007