Welcome

Welcome to another edition of the Prompt Communications newsletter. Latest figures show that while the number of reported IT security breaches is decreasing, the severity and cost of breaches are increasing significantly. It may be true that the only thing you can be sure of in the IT industry is change, but we think it’s safe to say that you can also be sure that security is always going to be one of the biggest challenges our industry faces.

For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, social media and blogging consultancy, copywriting or surveys, please email me at hbutters@prompt-communications.com. We are always delighted to hear from you.

Best regards,
Hazel Butters
Prompt Communications

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Enterprise Technology News

By Dave Wilby and Lance Concannon

Google fights Microsoft at the inbox and on the desktop

Search giant Google has beefed-up the capacity and security features of its corporate e-mail service in an effort to lure businesses away from Microsoft Outlook. According to TimesOnline, Google this week increased the storage capacity of each individual corporate mailbox offered under its paid-for Google Premier Apps bundle of services to 25 gigabytes, up from 10 gigabytes, while the new security features arrived through the acquisition anti-spam specialist of Postini, earlier this year for $625 million (£305m). Google has also added a new Powerpoint-like presentation app to its Google tool package, which already includes a word processor and spreadsheet to compete with Microsoft’s Office software.

Corporate security breaches getting worse

According to the Computing Technology Industry Association, the severity of IT security breaches has doubled despite a fall in the number of reported incidents. The association’s annual survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals found that the number of organisations reporting security breaches fell from 38% in 2005 to 34% in 2006. When asked to rate the severity of these incidents on a scale of 1 to 10, the average figure for 2006 was 4.8 compared with 2.6 for the previous year.

The survey also found that security spending has increased, accounting for 20% of security budgets in 2006, compared with just 15% the year before. The good news is that 78% of respondents said that their organisation’s management considers IT security to be a top priority. The association said that the average cost of a security breach in 2006 was $369,388 and by providing IT security training to staff, organisations could expect to save $352,000 on average.

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US Media News

By Tarryn Morley

US

CMP Media recently launched Internet Evolution, a website which explores the constant evolution of the Internet. Features of the site include expert analysis, broadband video documentaries and interviews, investigative reporting and user-generated content. The site also makes use of the latest Web 2.0 technology to create features like the thinkerNet blogsphere, a message board shared by experts and site visitors.

Erik Larkin recently resigned as associate editor for PC World, although he will continue to write the Privacy Watch column on the magazine's website. No replacement for Larkin has been announced as yet.

Time Inc. is closing Business 2.0 after its October issue instead of selling the publication. Although the magazine has suffered from a decline in advertising revenue, there were several offers from prospective buyers for the Business 2.0 brand. Joshua Quittner, the editor of Business 2.0, and nine other editorial staff members will be reassigned to Fortune magazine, and will help with Fortune's technology coverage, conference business and Web site.

BusinessWeek will launch its first major editorial and layout redesign in four years in the Oct. 12 issue. The Executive Life column has been eliminated in the new format and the magazine's news and global coverage have been increased.

UK Media News

By Tarryn Morley

UK

Technology news site Silicon.com has hired Toby Wolpe as associate editor. Wolpe was previously editor of Computing and IT Week.

The Financial Times recently announced a plan to make more of its website open to non-paying visitors, including bloggers, news aggregators and other websites. From mid-October, users will be able access 30 articles a month on FT.com, including some premium paid content. To access more than 30 articles a month, users will have to subscribe to FT.com. There are currently around 101,000 FT.com subscribers.

Richard Addis, a former Daily Express editor, has confirmed his plans to launch an upmarket freesheet newspaper in London called The Day, although he declined to divulge any further details about the publication. The Day is one of four projects currently in the works at Addis' company, Shake Up Media, which he founded earlier this year. He also plans to launch an ultra-local weekly title using paid-for user-generated content that is posted online and published as a newspaper.

Consumer Technology News

By Dave Wilby, Lance Concannon and Duncan Heaney

30 Years of Continuous Power in one Radioactive Laptop Battery

Nextenergynews.com is reporting that scientists in America have developed new power cells that could be used to power technology for literally decades. These innovative new cells, known as betavoltaic power cells, use radioactive isotopes as an energy source. The radioactive material decays, creating beta particles that transform into electric power, which can then be used to power energy-hungry equipment like laptops. The batteries produced are allegedly safe, producing no radioactivity or hazardous waste. The story reports that these high-tech batteries could be commercially available in as little as three years' time.

Sounds too good to be true? There's a good chance it is. Rupert Goodwins, editor of ZDnet.uk, has written an article on his blog that debunks the idea that betavoltaic batteries will become commercially available for laptop use. The batteries, Mr Goodwins claims, are not as safe as the original article claims. Although the radioisotopes will eventually expire, making the battery harmless, damage to the battery during its lifespan could release the hazardous material. Goodwins also suggests that the batteries would become almost unbearably warm, and are likely to be significantly heavier than modern laptop batteries.

The idea of a battery that produces three decades worth of continual power is a seductive one, but it is perhaps best approached with a degree of scepticism. There is little evidence to corroborate the original article, and Goodwins makes a compelling argument against it. Whether the batteries are a reality or not remains to be seen. Let's hope we don't have to wait thirty years to find out.

Ceatec gadget fest lives up to hype

Each October, the cream of the Japanese tech industry comes together to wave gadgets and gizmos at each other at CEATEC, one of the maddest cutting-edge consumer electronics orgies on the planet. This year's expo showcased the usual slew of sexy shiny things, including: BluRay everything, zillions of iPhone beaters, scary gesture recognition software, all-new IVDR, slimmer TVs, working fuel cells, next-gen Dolby doodads, and um, dancing eggs. Check out the excellent round up from the good people of CNET or brave the official CEATEC website.

$1 million if you can prove expensive hi-fi cables are worth the money

James Randi, who normally spends his time doing admirable work debunking the paranormal and other hocus-pocus through his educational foundation, this week turned his attention to sellers of expensive hi-fi cables. After some reviewers gave glowing endorsements to a new set of $7250 cables, Randi challenged them to prove, under scientific conditions, that the cables delivered better results than a more modestly priced set.

To make things juicy, Randi is offering the $1million award currently available to anybody who can prove the existence of paranormal phenomenon, and argues that if the reviewers' claims regarding the cables are true, then they would break the known laws of science and therefore qualify as paranormal. It's just like Ghostbusters, only much, much geekier.

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Web 2.0 Watch

By Fiona Blamey

Bloggers strike for Burma – but what did it achieve?

You may not have realised it, but yesterday there was a worldwide bloggers’ strike.

Orchestrated by a group called Free Burma, the aim of the strike was to show support for the Burmese people protesting against their country’s ruling military junta. Free Burma called on bloggers to ‘refrain from posting to their blogs’ on Thursday 4th October, and instead to display a single banner image reading ‘Free Burma’.

The exercise seems at first like a nice case study in the use of social media to organise and stage a global event. Free Burma used the ‘events’ feature of Facebook to spread the word quickly about the strike, relied on bloggers recruiting other bloggers in their social networks, and made it easy for people to participate by giving them a piece of code to paste into their blogs to display the banner image.

By 8pm yesterday, more than 10,000 bloggers had apparently taken part. By some measures, this would be classed as an enormous success and a testament to the word of mouth marketing power of social media. Most marketers I know would give anything to attract 10,000 people to an event without printing a single flyer, making a single call, or renting a single list.

But what has actually been achieved? Those 10,000 blogs displaying the ‘Free Burma’ banner can’t be seen by the Burmese people, because their government has blocked internet access. As a gesture of solidarity, then, it’s all but useless. As some bloggers have noted, by encouraging bloggers not to post, Free Burma effectively shut down a potentially powerful worldwide lobby for 24 hours, creating ‘dead air’ in the blogosphere and nothing of note for the mainstream media to report. Which is why you probably weren’t even aware the strike was happening.

And by ‘making it easy’ for people to participate, the group may inadvertently have made it too easy. Cutting and pasting a piece of javascript into a blog takes seconds. Joining a protest group on Facebook only takes a single click. People are being made to feel that by pasting and clicking they’ve done something to help, but in reality I doubt they have done anything to affect the situation on the ground in Burma.

But there’s one way the strike might have been successful: by using social media to raise awareness of important political events among the growing number of (mostly young) people who don’t watch television news or read newspapers. And if that motivates people to explore the world around them and to try to make a positive difference, then social media will indeed be fulfilling an important role in society.

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Website of the Week

By Duncan Heaney

Addictinggames.com

Work can be stressful and sometimes it's good to relax with a few simple games. Addictinggames.com gathers simple flash based games and animations, perfect for relieving tension and wasting a few minutes. Some content is gathered form other sites, such as the Simpsons Movie flash games, while others have been created by enterprising users. Special mention must go to Pendulameca, an infuriatingly addictive little game in which you must swing a robot along an endless corridor without it falling off the bottom of the screen. Be aware that the site has few restrictions to submissions, meaning that some animations or games could potentially offend.

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