Jason Yow

Have some extra USB hard drives you'd like to put to a good use? Though marketed primarily as a media-sharing device, the forthcoming second-generation Pogoplug is a cool and useful tool for sharing business information as well. How using them to create an Internet storage cloud for your company, yourself, or your family? The device was introduced earlier today.

It provides a hardware device and online service that together provide secure file access and sharing. Here's the pitch: For $129, Pogoplug gives you the ability to connect USB hard drives directly to the Internet. Scheduled to ship next month, Pogoplug 2 (as I am calling it) is optimized for Internet viewing and sharing of multimedia files. Because the Pogoplug service keeps track of stored files-indexing across multiple hard drives-it allows users to share files without having to upload them. It can, for example, stream video to an iPhone, which can also upload and download files from the storage cloud the Pogoplug creates.

Optional Windows and Mac desktop apps provide local access to Pogoplug-managed storage. The new model offers four USB connections, allowing multiple drives to be connected without the need for a USB hub. There is no monthly charge for the online service, included in cost of the device. Other new features include better transcoding and wider support for streaming movies on the Web or to an iPhone app. There is also tighter integration with Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, as well as automatic organization of your music, photos, and videos. The new software also provides the ability to automatically sync photos, music, videos, and other content from apps such as iTunes and iPhoto.

An address book remembers e-mail addresses with which you've shared content for future sharing. If not, Seagate's DockStar is a somewhat less expensive device, based on Pogoplug technology. The first version, introduced in January at CES, had but a single USB connection and was pretty utilitarian in appearance. (Here is our review). The new Pogoplug is fairly attractive, if you like bright pink. The hitch? Storage is, after all, a terrible thing to waste.

After the first year, Pogoplug service will cost Seagate customers $29.95-a-year. (The DockStar is one of our "25 Top Tech Gifts" for 2009). Meanwhile, Pogoplug's maker, a company called Cloud Engines, said it will "soon" enable additional features, such as "backup, file synchronization, photo printing and more." My take: I didn't think the first Pogoplug was useful enough the buy one, but having recenty discovered a half-dozen extra USB drives around my office, the device suddenly seems almost necessary. I will probably order one online, that is if I can get past the obnoxious self-starting music and videos on the Pogoplug Web site. With the product features now improved, maybe the site can be fixed, too. It keeps repeating over and over. David Coursey tweets as @techinciter and can be contacted via his Web site.

Nominum is hoping that the second time is the charm in the outsourced DNS market, as the maker of high-end DNS software announces a hosted service on Tuesday. Slideshow: How DNS cache poisoning works On Tuesday, Nominum will reenter the outsourced DNS market with the announcement of SKYE, a separate business unit that will offer its software as a cloud-based service to smaller ISPs and enterprises. Nominum had a managed DNS services operation earlier this decade but sold it to rival UltraDNS in 2002. Nominum has since focused on its DNS and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server software, counting among its customers many of the world's largest carriers including Verizon, Sprint and NTT Communications. Jon Shalowitz, vice president and general manager of SKYE, says the new venture's biggest differentiator is the underlying Nominum software, which is higher performing and more reliable than open source alternatives such as Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND). "This is the same software running in the top 100 ISPs around the world," Shalowitz says. "It handles two to three trillion transactions or queries per day.

Rodney Joffe, senior vice president and senior technologist at Neustar, says hosted DNS is a big enough market to support multiple vendors. "Despite the fact that it's been a pretty awful recession, we've continued to grow very effectively in our area of managed DNS for enterprises," Joffe says. "There is definitely a market, and we're nowhere near saturation." Nominum has set up SKYE as a separate organization, with 30 full-time employees and five data centers to run Nominum's software. "Enterprises need to wake up to the risks associated with ignoring their DNS and assuming that if it's not breaking all they time [they] can ignore it," Shalowitz says. "There are still a lot of organizations running legacy DNS and open source DNS that are fraught with vulnerabilities." SKYE is offering four hosted services: SKYE Core recursive DNS service; SKYE Secure authoritative (or external) DNS services; SKYE Search redirection service; and SKYE Trust, a blacklist service for malicious Web sites. "Our target customer is anyone who has a strong Web presence: E-commerce companies, banks, anyone that has regulations for protecting data such as hospitals and healthcare companies; and any other company where breaches of personal information could be catastrophic such as credit card companies," Shalowitz says. We're leveraging that same technology in a cloud model." SKYE's main competitor will be UltraDNS, now owned by Neustar. Nominum says the time is right for hosted DNS services because of a broader push by corporate IT departments toward cloud-based services. "Part of the reason why cloud is becoming the rage is because of its operational benefits," Shalowitz says. "When companies look at the cost/benefit analysis, they'd much rather have [DNS] being done by experts and run in the cloud." Abner Germanow, director of enterprise communications at IDC, says enterprises are realizing that DNS is a critical service and are paying more attention to it. Most of them are buying DNS appliances from vendors such as Infoblox or hosted DNS services such as the ones being offered by SKYE. "We've seen a fair amount of growth in hosted DNS services," Germanow says. "There are a whole slew of companies offering a variety of DNS services both for internal, recursive DNS services and external, authoritative services…This is something that's clearly rising in popularity." Joffe said new entrants into the enterprise DNS space such as SKYE and OpenDNS, which announced an enterprise offering earlier in the month, will face difficulties if they can't deliver top-notch service level agreements. "Companies that have tried to get into this market have been burned not because having DNS servers and networks is that hard but because making them work in a carrier-like way is not easy," Joffe said, adding that UltraDNS also runs its own DNS software rather than BIND. "The ability to do DNS in a really reliable way turns out to be hard."

Indian outsourcer Wipro has designed a gateway that uses GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) wireless technology to collect data remotely from medical devices such as blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, pedometers, and weighing scales available with patients. The design, which will be customized by Wipro for its clients in the medical devices business, has been designed using Intel's Atom processor. In remote areas in India, GSM coverage is better than that of broadband or fixed-line dial-up connections, said R. Manimaran, general manager of the medical devices unit of the Wipro Technologies business of Wipro.

Using a standard platform like the Atom platform for embedded applications has helped drive down costs, making the technology affordable in emerging markets, Manimaran said. Indian outsourcers are increasingly focused on the development of intellectual property (IP) and reference designs that they expect will give them an edge in delivering product design and IT services to customers. The final price of the product will, however, be decided by the vendors, he added. Another Indian services company, MindTree, said in September that it was acquiring the Indian development subsidiary of Kyocera Wireless to do mobile handset design for Kyocera and other clients. It also supports video and audio conferencing for interactions between the patient and the doctor, and between doctors consulting with each other. The medical gateway designed by Wipro allows the transmission of real-time medical data to application servers, physicians' handheld devices, and hospital systems through GSM, broadband and dial-up connections.

In rural areas, where sometimes individual patients may not have the connectivity, they can come to rural health care centers where the information can be collected and communicated to larger hospitals in the city, Manimaran said. Medical devices can connect to the gateway through both wired technologies and wireless technologies such as Bluetooth to provide real time medical data, video and image transfer from a patient to doctor, and in turn from a doctor to doctor, Manimaran said.

Avaya has emerged as the winning bidder for Nortel's enterprise business, reportedly beating out Siemens Enterprise Communications over the weekend. Avaya will also contribute an additional pool of $15 million for an employee retention program. The firm will pay $900 million for the unit, Nortel's Government Solutions group and DiamondWare Ltd., a Nortel-owned maker of softphones.

That price is nearly twice what Avaya was initially said to be buying the enterprise business for back in July before auction bidding kicked in. Telecom carrier Verizon, however, is expected to contest the sale on the grounds that Avaya does not plan to retain customer support contracts between Nortel and Verizon. Slideshow: The rise and fall of Nortel Avaya has sought Nortel's enterprise business in hopes of boosting its share of the enterprise telephony and unified communications markets, and getting more customers to migrate to its IP line of communications products.  The sale, expected to close later this year, is subject to court approvals in the U.S., Canada, France and Israel as well as regulatory approvals, other customary closing conditions and certain post-closing purchase price adjustments. Nortel is confident the sale will go through without any snags. "We do not expect the Verizon interaction to impact court approval or the close of this deal," said Joel Hackney, president of Nortel Enterprise Solutions. "We will continue to go forward in supporting customers." Hackney would not say whether Nortel is engaged in the negotiations between Avaya and Verizon on the future of certain customer support contracts, mentioning only that Nortel supports Verizon as a customer as well as the carrier's customers. Nortel customers hope the deal works out in their interest. "Nortel earned the trust of our user group members by delivering innovative, reliable communications solutions and ensuring high-levels of service and support, " said Victor Bohnert, Executive Director of the International Nortel Networks Users Association, in a prepared statement. "With the announcement of today's purchase by Avaya, we look forward to extending that relationship forward to serve the business communications needs of our constituency base across the globe." Nortel will seek Canadian and U.S. court approvals of the proposed sale agreement at a joint hearing on September 15, 2009. The sale close is expected late in the fourth quarter.

Hackney also said there were two bidders for the enterprise unit but would not identify the second suitor. In some EMEA jurisdictions this transaction is subject to information and consultation with employee representatives. As previously announced, Nortel does not expect that its common shareholders or the preferred shareholders of Nortel Networks Limited will receive any value from the creditor protection proceedings and expects that the proceedings will result in the cancellation of these equity interests.

Almost as soon as it was launched, in only nine hours in fact, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the $40,000 cash prize in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that required participants to locate 10 large, red balloons at undisclosed locations across the United States. Bots, bombs and weird science: The wackiest stories of 2009 "The Challenge has captured the imagination of people around the world, is rich with scientific intrigue, and, we hope, is part of a growing 'renaissance of wonder' throughout the nation," said DARPA director,Dr. Regina E. Dugan in a statement. The MIT team received the prize for being the first to identify the locations of all 10 balloons.

DARPA last month offered up the rather interesting challenge: find and plot 10 red weather balloons scattered at undisclosed locations across the country. According ton the agency, the balloons were in readily accessible locations, visible from nearby roadways and accompanied by DARPA representatives. The first person or team to identify the location of all the balloons and enter them on the challenge Web site will win a $40,000 cash prize. All balloons are scheduled to go on display at all locations at 10:00AM (ET) until approximately 4:00 PM on Saturday, December 5, 2009. Should weather or technical difficulties arise with the launch, the display will be delayed until Sunday, December 6 or later, depending on conditions. Latitudes and longitudes are entered in degree-minute-second (DDD-MM-SS) format as explained on the website Coordinates must be entered with an error of less than one arc-minute to be accepted.

If, for any reason, the balloon is displayed in one location then moved to a second location, either location will be accepted. 12 mad science projects that could shake the world Entrants were required to register and submit entries on the event website. The DARPA Network Challenge is designed to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet. "It is fitting for DARPA to announce this competition on the anniversary of the day that the first message was sent over the ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet," said Dr. Regina E. Dugan, who made the announcement at a conference celebrating the anniversary. "In the 40 years since this breakthrough, the Internet has become an integral part of society and the global economy. The Grand Challenge competitions were started in 2004 to foster the development of autonomous robotic vehicle technology for use on the battlefield. The DARPA Network Challenge explores the unprecedented ability of the Internet to bring people together to solve tough problems." This is the latest example of DARPA's interest in reaching nontraditional sources of ideas and talent. The competition model for stimulating technological development enabled significant strides that will someday keep our men and women in uniform out of harm's way. DARPA has held a number of challenges including one that featured robot cars and another that seeks to develop lunar spacecraft.

A look back at the week's biggest Google-related news stories:   Google, Verizon unite on Android devices  Verizon and Google have entered into an agreement to jointly develop wireless devices based on Google's open source Android mobile platform. Verizon says that it will have two Android-based handsets on the market by year-end with more to come by 2010   Google celebrates anniversary of bar code patent  Google's "doodle" on its search home page Wednesday was a bar code that presumably translated into the word "Google". It also said happy 57th anniversary to the awarding of a patent for the bar code by Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver. During a teleconference Tuesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam and Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined the companies' new strategic partnership that will see them working together to develop Android-based smartphones, PDAs and netbooks, and to deliver users with applications sold through the Android Market app store. It also coincided with the announcement earlier this week of the Nobel Prize for Physics to Charles Kao for his work on fiber-optic communications and Willard Boyle and George Smith, who invented imaging technology using a digital sensor dubbed a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD has enabled developments such as bar codes/bar code readers to come along.   Gmail, other webmail passwords stolen  In the wake of the posting in online forums of stolen account and password information for thousands of Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo e-mail accounts, evidence emerged of yet more abuse that entails attackers exploiting that information to hack into compromised accounts over the last few days to send spam aimed at stealing credit cards.

Attackers have been taking advantage of the exposed account information for Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo to break into the victim's e-mail accounts and send out deceptive messages to the victim's contacts to promote the scam.   Google Voice in the middle of things AT&T buoyed the spirits of Google Voice fans this week by saying it would allow the application to run on its network, but later in the week word emerged that lawmakers want the FCC to look into whether Google Voice blocks calls to people in rural areas because they are expensive to connect. According to Patrik Runald, senior manager security research at Websense, the security firm noticed about a 40% surge in spam related to Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail accounts in recent days, with some of the spam being a phishing scam related to a fake Chinese electronics shopping site. And guess which big carrier is encouraging the lawmakers in this pursuit?   Google Squared freshens up  PC World's David Coursey writes that "Google Squared, the ambitious project that delivers search results as a table, has received an update that improves both the quality and quantity of the information it presents." He cites a post on Google's blog that the update results will allow up to four times as many facts to be squeezed into a square.   Google, Microsoft woo Twitter  Various reports (All Things Digital, Reuters, etc.) had Google and Microsoft chatting with Twitter separately about how to best integrate Twitter with outside search engines.   Google: DRAM, DRAM, DRAM!  Computerworld reports that Google and the University of Toronto released a study of tens of thousands of Google servers showing that "data error rates on DRAM memory modules are vastly higher than previously thought and may be more responsible for system shutdowns and service interruptions." For more on Google, visit Network World's independent Google community, Google Subnet.

Lawmakers called upon the Transportation Security Administration and private sector companies to quickly re-establish a nationwide registered traveler program to help frequent travelers get through airport security checkpoints faster. Both lawmakers and vendors said the TSA had not done enough to support the registered traveler program and in fact distanced itself from the effort over the past year. The calls came after the abrupt closure earlier this year of Verified identity Pass Inc. (VIP), the largest provider of registered traveler services, and the subsequent shutting of services by two other vendors that offered the same service. The TSA, meanwhile, insisted that the program did little to improve security.

At a hearing on the future of the registered traveler program Wednesday, members of a House subcommittee on Homeland Security urged the TSA and private vendors to work together to quickly restore the service. The agency said that just because members of such programs had been pre-screened didn't eliminate the need for them to go through airport security checks like everyone else. The hearing came on the same day an investment banking firm, Henry Inc., said it had signed a letter of intent to buy VIP's assets and relaunch the service by the end of the year." U.S. Rep. At the same time, private sector companies need to find a model "that can support a security benefit, but which does not rely on one," she said. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), the subcommittee chairwoman, expressed hope that the TSA would make a "good faith effort" to explore a security benefit, or an additional layer of security vetting, for the registered traveler program. Even if passengers must still go through a security screeening, these companies can still offer the convenience of getting their customers through the process quicker, such as using a separate member-only line at security checkpoints.

Since 2005, the TSA has piloted several iterations of the program with private sector companies. The registered traveler program was established under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA). It authorizes the TSA to implement trusted passenger programs to speed up the security screening of passengers who have submitted to comprehensive background and security checks. The biggest of them was VIP, which offered a registered traveler service called "Clear" at 21 major airports. The announcement raised immediate concerns about the data that VIP had collected as part of its Clear service, including Social Security and credit card number and home address. The company, which had signed up more than 200,000 subscribers, stopped service in June saying it had run out of money.

The company had also collected fingerprints, iris scans and digital images of customers' faces. Soon after Clear stopped its service, rivals Fast Lane Option Corp . (Flo) and Vigilant Solutions also shut down their services. Many who had paid a $199 annual fee were unable to get refunds. During the hearing, U.S. Rep. Going forward, the TSA needs to take the lead in supporting the program, Thompson and others said. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said it is Congress' intent that such "a quick closing of business" does not happen again. "The traveling public deserves better," Thompson said.

Much of the reason the program is in disarray is because the TSA failed to support the effort, witnesses said. Despite the mandate from Congress, the TSA has not fully implemented the use of biometrics as a primary form of identification, Fischer said, nor has it used background screening to vet those using the RT lanes as it was supposed to. While the registered traveler program at one time was expected to provide add an additional layer of security at airports, today it is little more than a convenience for travelers willing to pay for it, they said. "To date, while the private sector has invested over $250 million and upheld its side of the partnership, the TSA has not," said Fred Fischer, managing partner at Flo Corp. Though the TSA at one point collected $28 per passenger to do a so-called Security Threat Assessment (STA) of passengers who had signed up for registered traveler programs, not one applicant was ever vetted using a criminal history records check, he claimed. John Sammon, an assistant administrator at the TSA, said that based on the pilot programs and the agency's own insight, registered traveler programs do not offer any additional security. As a result, the promised security benefits of the registered traveler program have yet to be realized, he said.

He said the TSA stopped doing security threat analysis for registered traveler programs because there was little value to be gained. "The prospect of a terrorist not identified on a watch list raised questions about the viability of a registered traveler program," he said. Going forward, the TSA will work with private vendors to identify programs that will support registered travelers programs, he said. After an evaluation of the pilot programs, the TSA concluded that registered traveler programs "do not provide any additional levels of security," he said. However, from a security standpoint, such passengers will still be subject to the same security checks as other ticketed passengers, he said.