Microsoft: This Is How We Design Today

Microsoft has never been cool and its product have never looked cool. The 38-year-old company was founded on 1s and 0s. Design was never in the company's DNA. It was never about aesthetics and it didn't have to be. But its plain to see that the Microsoft of today is a little bit hipper, a little bit cooler and a heck of a lot better looking. They even had their very first "Snow Fall" today! (Update: This was actually Microsoft's second, not first Snow Fall.)

In a piece titled "Modern design at Microsoft: Going beyond flat design," Steve Clayton, editor of Microsoft's Next blog, takes us on a cursory journey of how Microsoft thinks about design today. Which is basically rooted in a handful of design principles that have been around for more than a century. Better late than never, right? Right.

Function Over Form

Before everything went mobile and ecosystems were a thing to contend with, Microsoft built products that worked but generally looked ugly by today's standards and benchmarks. The original Xbox looked nothing like Windows, they didn't talk to each other, and Windows Mobile was a bastardized version of its desktop counterpart. Now all three look, feel and work together.

Clayton points out that the company finally "started to think differently about design" three years ago when its "brilliant community of designers" established a design ethos that eventually came to light when Windows Mobile turned into Windows Phone 7. But that shift in thinking probably happened well before that. Remember Courier? It was so drastically different in terms of what Microsoft's UI and UX was that it freaked Ballmer out. But like anything else that is so the opposite of Microsoft, the Courier was built in a tucked away lab where both the Xbox and Surface were also conceptualized and executed upon. So it wouldn't surprise me if this drastic change in appearance and experience started in an off-the-beaten-path area known only to a few.

Modernity

But Clayton says otherwise. In February of 2010, the design leads from across Microsoft gathered to figure out just how to make design more consistent across all of its products. Drawing upon three centuries old principles, "these external influences are foundational to design at Microsoft both today and tomorrow."

The Modern Design Movement (The Bauhaus), with its focus on making the ?function? beautiful is the first influence. At the heart of the Bauhaus philosophy is stripping away superfluous decorations to focus on the essence of the functional. There are many parallels in today?s computing world. The practice of mimicking real-world materials such as glass, brushed metal or leather, and effects such as drop shadows, reflections and lens flares, are an attempt to adorn experiences without being functional. When Sam Moreau, design director for Windows, says, ?The content is the interface,? he?s channeling his inner Bauhaus.

In other words, focus on making the product actually work because adding superfluous crap is basically an admission that it doesn't work in the first place.

International Typographic Style (or Swiss Style) is the second influence. It?s a graphic design style that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. The hallmarks of Swiss Style are great typography, a focus on layout and grid systems, and the use of bold, flat color. It?s a style that is seen in way-finding signage at airports and other transportation hubs, which are by their nature busy and information-dense environments ? hence why it works so well in our busy, digital world. When this approach is infused with the things people love (their photos, their people, their apps), you end up with something as personal and unique as Windows Phone.

Ah, the KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid. Tell me what I want to know when I want to know it.

The field of Motion design is the third influence. Early pioneers such as Saul Bass used great graphic design, typography and motion to create title sequences that set an emotional stage for films. In creating a stage for creativity, expression and productivity in products such as Windows, Office, Bing, Visual Studio and Xbox, designers understood that not only could motion support those activities, it could also aid usability and create a positive emotional impact.

Typography has a way of influencing us on a subconscious level. Sometimes you just see a typeface and it elicits an emotional reaction.

Five years ago none of this would've seemed possible, and it's still very possible that none of this will have any affect on the products, since Microsoft's longstanding record of screwing things up still holds true. You need only go as far back as the Surface to realize that. Or even more recently, Windows 8.1 and the return of the start screen. Or even the Xbox One kerfuffle over used games. But at least it still looks cool?and if they really are implementing functional changes based on these principles, it could start being cool, too. [Microsoft]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/microsoft-this-is-how-we-design-today-511913156

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Global netizens worried over US spying

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? News that the U.S. government has been snooping on Internet users worldwide came as little surprise to global netizens, who said Friday they have few expectations of online privacy as governments increasingly monitor people's digital lives, often with Internet companies' acquiescence.

Privacy activists concerned over the U.S. National Security Agency's selective monitoring of Internet traffic called on people to take measures to better protect their digital data ranging from emails to photos to social network posts. But most people eschew encryption and other privacy tools and seemed resigned to the open book their online lives have become.

"It doesn't surprise me one bit. They've been doing it for years," said Jamie Griffiths, a 26-year-old architect working on his laptop in a London cafe. "I wouldn't send anything via email that I wouldn't want a third party to read."

From Baghdad, to Bogota, Colombia, many said they already carefully censor what they write online and assume governments are regularly spying on online activity, be it as part of global counter-terrorism or domestic surveillance efforts.

"The social networks and email have always been vulnerable because tech-savvy people know how to penetrate them," said Teolindo Acosa, a 34-year-old education student at Venezuela's Universidad Central who was leaving a cybercafe in Caracas.

Leaked confidential documents show the NSA and FBI have been sifting through personal data by directly accessing the U.S-based servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, Skype, PalTalk, Apple and YouTube.

Following Thursday's revelation, U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that the surveillance did not "target" U.S. citizens or others living in the U.S. ? which does not mean their communications were not caught up in the dragnet.

But that didn't dampen the outrage of people who resent what they consider Washington's self-anointed role as the world's policeman.

"To the United States, everyone is suspicious, even the pope!" said leftist Colombian Sen. Alexander Lopez. "Everyone is under observation these days and this should be taken up by the United Nations."

Lopez said he has no plans to close his Google and Microsoft email accounts. He figures he'll be spied on no matter what he does.

The revelation of global data vacuuming could hurt U.S. technology companies if Internet users become disillusioned and abandon them in favor of homegrown alternatives that offer greater security.

U.S. privacy activist Christopher Soghoian said he finds it "insane" that so many politicians outside the United States use Google gmail accounts.

"This has given the NSA an advantage over every other intelligence system in the world. The Americans don't have to hack as much, because everyone in the world sends their data to American companies," he said.

Hossam el-Hamalawy, a blogger with Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists, one of the Egyptian groups that helped spearhead the 2011 uprising, said the dearth of locally developed Web tools means many around the world are simply stuck with U.S. sites, even if they know the government is monitoring them.

"The problem is that there is no alternative," he said. "If you don't use Facebook, what is the alternative social network available for the Internet user who is not an IT geek?"

Soghoian predicted an increasing push by governments and companies in Europe in particular, where privacy has been a much bigger issue for voters than in the United States, away from storing data in U.S.-based server farms.

Indeed, under U.S. law it is not illegal for the NSA to collect information on foreigners.

The disclosure of the NSA data-vacuuming program known as PRISM is only the latest "of many U.S. government programs created to infringe on personal freedoms," said Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, a technology policy professor at FGV think tank in Rio de Janeiro.

Going back well into the 20th century, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand ran a secret satellite communications interception network that became known as Echelon and searched information including telexes, faxes and emails, according to experts including U.S. journalist James Bamford. The system was the subject of a 2001 European Parliament inquiry.

According to a U.N. report released this week, such surveillance has been on a global upsurge with governments increasingly tapping into online personal data and even discouraging online anonymity by passing laws prohibiting it.

The governments of China, Iran, Bahrain are among other nations that already aggressively oversee online activity, in many cases putting people in prison for political blog posts and other messages.

Israel's attorney general in April upheld a practice allowing security personnel to read email accounts of suspicious individuals when they arrive at the airport, arguing it prevents militants from entering the country.

The U.N. report said such activity has been expanding as technology advances, and that countries should prioritize protecting people's online rights.

"In order to meet their human rights obligations, States must ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and privacy are at the heart of their communications surveillance frameworks," the report reads.

Its author, Guatemalan Frank La Rue, calls for legal standards to ensure "privacy, security and anonymity of communications" to protect people including journalists, human rights defenders and whistleblowers.

Civil libertarians in the United States were much more upset about a different revelation published Wednesday, that the NSA has been collecting the phone records including the calls, numbers, times and duration of all U.S. citizen customers of the telecommunications giant Verizon.

___

Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, Jill Lawless in London, Bradley Brooks in Sao Paulo, Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas, Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and Tony G. Gabriel in Cairo contributed to this report. Jack Chang contributed from Mexico City.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-netizens-worried-over-us-spying-211114986.html

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Mobile Miscellany: week of June 3rd, 2013

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought additional peeks at the purported Nokia EOS cameraphone, leaked screenshots of the BlackBerry OS 10.2 update and the arrival of a new budget smartphone from Huawei in the UK. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of June 3rd, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xsp3-83mCgg/

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OnlyMyEmail Personal (2013)

What do I want to see when I look at my Inbox? Only my email, of course, not any spam, phishing scams, or other trash. For $19.99 per year, OnlyMyEmail Personal (2013) offers exactly that. It's not as flexible as some antispam solutions, but in my real-world tests its accuracy was nothing short of astounding.

When you sign up for the service, you get a brand-new email address within the onlymyemail.com domain. You're perfectly free to use this as your sole email address, but the company recognizes that most people would rather have a root canal than change email providers. So, with your subscription you get the ability to filter any two POP3 email accounts.

OnlyMyEmail has existed in more-or-less its current form for over ten years. It doesn't change, because it doesn't need to change. As with other products that don't use traditional version numbering, I've added "(2013)" to the name to distinguish this review from others.

Getting Started
To set up a POP3 account for filtering, you log in to your OnlyMyEmail account and enter the account's username, password, and mail server. There's a link to test your information, to make sure that OnlyMyEmail can access it.

Next, you must reconfigure your regular email client so that it downloads mail from your onlymyemail.com account. You can download mail via POP3 or IMAP, whichever is more convenient. Once you've completed this simple configuration, you'll get your email as usual, but you won't see any spam, just a daily report of messages deleted by the service.

When someone sends you a message, the OnlyMyEmail service receives and processes it before passing it along to you. According to the FAQ, this can take from two to ten minutes, a fact worth remembering when you're awaiting an important message.

Some Limitations
As noted, the only type of external email account that OnlyMyEmail can filter is a POP3 account. The free Cloudmark DesktopOne Basic 1.2 will filter one account of any type: POP3, IMAP, Exchange, even Web-based mail. If you need antispam for multiple accounts, Cloudmark DesktopOne Pro 1.2 will do the job.

Users of OnlyMyEmail Personal are limited to filtering 400 external emails per day. That's not much of a limit. I'm on email all day, every day, and I rarely receive over 200 messages. Note that this limit does not apply if messages are sent directly to your onlymyemail.com account.

Typically you'll keep sending outbound messages through the same SMTP server you've always used. If you do choose to send via OnlyMyEmail's SMTP server, there are a few limits. You can't sent to more than 25 recipients at once, and you can't sent more than 100 messages per hour. OnlyMyEmail CEO Stephen Canale points out that this limits the flow of email from compromised accounts and makes OnlyMyEmail "a very unattractive target for spammers to subscribe or hack." Canale went on to say, "We're effectively useless to spammers, and very proud of it."

All of the service's activity happens online, with nothing at all installed on your system. Because of this, it doesn't need a help system or a tech support team. Users are encouraged to read the online FAQ and troubleshooting tips, with an option to submit bug reports and feedback.

Simple Configuration
You don't necessarily have to perform any configuration beyond the initial setup, but there are a few areas to explore, starting with your preferences for what sort of mail should be deleted. The service always deletes spam; turning off that feature isn't optional. By default, it also deletes viruses, virus alerts, and mail from foreign domains.

You can also configure it to delete direct marketing mail, newsletters, chain letters, and mail from listservs or Yahoo groups. If you find that you're missing mail that you actually want, you simply whitelist the sender. There's also an option to manually create a list of senders to always allow or to always block.

An unusual feature called OME Passcode gives you a way to ensure specific messages will always get through. Your passcode must be 8-15 characters, no spaces, with at least one letter and one digit. If a sender includes the passcode as the very first word in the message subject, OnlyMyEmail will always let it through.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/aJsfSQFPZUo/0,2817,2420091,00.asp

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Dissecting Big Tech's Denial of Involvement in NSA's PRISM Spying Program

The National Security Agency and the FBI have been tapping into the servers of nine technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, to collect audio, video, photographs, e-mails and other documents under a program code-named PRISM, according to a report in the Washington Post. But the tech companies named have responded to questions about the story with statements that may leave out as much as they say.

All the major technology companies named in the Post's report have adamantly denied that they have given the government full access to its servers in similar prepared statements.

President Obama said today that members of Congress have repeatedly been informed of these programs. "The relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad, bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006. And so I think at the outset, it's important to understand that your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing," he said.

Still, while Obama says that data being collected on emails and Internet activity is targeted at foreign nationals and not U.S. citizens, the tech companies have all released similar prepared statements to the media denying involvement in this program.

The Statements

Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."

Google: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data."

Google's CEO Larry Page released a blog post on Friday again denying knowledge of the program. "We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law," said Page.

Facebook: "Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook. We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released an additional statement on Friday, saying Facebook "hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday."

Yahoo: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."

Paltalk: "We have not heard of PRISM. Paltalk exercises extreme care to protect and secure users' data, only responding to court orders as required to by law. Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers."

AOL: "We do not have any knowledge of the Prism program. We do not disclose user information to government agencies without a court order, subpoena or formal legal process, nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers."

Dissecting The Wording and What They Can't Say
The similarity in all the statements is clear. All mention that they would only comply with orders for requests to access information if forced to do so under the law and that they do not provide "back door" or "direct" access to their servers and to user account information.

Experts believe that commonality in statements could mean a few things. The first is that the companies simply can't talk about this to begin with.

"If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.

John Black, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, shared a similar opinion. "Many times these laws say they have to comply and they can't disclose their compliance," Black said.

However, the companies are talking about it, they aren't simply saying "no comment." Apple and Paltalk are even specifically saying they have never heard of PRISM.

Rumold says that could be a technicality. "Apple might have had no idea of the government's codename for the program, which was PRISM. What Apple didn't say is that we have never given the NSA access to our data." Rumold went to Berkeley Law and is involved with lawsuits with the NSA and the Department of Justice about some of the other wiretapping cases.

Google, on the other hand, said there was no backdoor to its servers. "Back door at Google might have one meaning, but what they didn't say is they aren't giving the NSA widespread access to data, which they could potentially say if they had not received an order and given the NSA access to their data," Rumold said.

Black echoed a similar thought about the wording "direct access" and the back door phrase. "They seem consistently careful in saying we don't give back door access to the government servers. That's not the same thing as saying the government has no way to access any of our data." Black suggested that maybe the NSA doesn't have far-reaching or direct access to the servers, but the companies don't deny that the government can get information when they have a court order through some sort of shared servers.

Marc Ambinder, author of Author of Deep State: Inside The Government Secrecy Industry, told ABC News something similar. PRISM is in part a software system that allows the government to sift through large amounts of data in different formats, he explained. When the Internet companies came on board, as the leaked document shows, it required them to make their data compatible with the system.

That doesn't mean all data coming from, say, Apple or Google, would be readable through the PRISM system. It just means that when a court order was granted, there was a system already in existence that allowed the government to intake and immediately use the data Apple or Google provided in compliance with a FISA court order.

James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a written statement that the Post report and another on phone surveillance by The Guardian contained "numerous inaccuracies," and that the data collection only targets non-Americans outside the United States.

President Obama today stressed that members of Congress have repeatedly been informed of these programs."The programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified, but they're not secret in the sense that when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program," he said.

Still, both Black and Rumold say it is highly unlikely that the technology companies wouldn't have been informed of these programs.

"Google is probably the biggest collection of information on earth. It would be shocking to me that the NSA wasn't attempting with all its power to get access to Google," Rumold said. "Google might have very well fought a valiant and difficult fight to keep the NSA away from it, but there is only so much it can do as an American company if you get a valid United States court order."

And that's where Google CEO Larry Page makes the point about making these programs more transparent. "Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed?there needs to be a more transparent approach," he said in the blog post released Friday. "Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive."

ABC News' Abby Phillip contributed to this report.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dissecting-big-techs-denial-involvement-nsas-prism-spying-220514258--abc-news-tech.html

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Browns WR Josh Gordon suspended for 2 games

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon (13) works on a drill during minicamp practice at the NFL football team's practice facility in Berea, Ohio Thursday, June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon (13) works on a drill during minicamp practice at the NFL football team's practice facility in Berea, Ohio Thursday, June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon has been suspended without pay for the first two games next season for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy.

Gordon also was fined two additional game checks on Friday. He will be eligible to return for the third week of the season.

It's the second year in a row that the Browns have a key player suspended early in the season. Cornerback Joe Haden was suspended four games last season for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing substances.

Gordon, a second-round pick in the supplemental draft out of Baylor, caught 50 passes last season for a team-leading 805 yards and five touchdowns, developing into the Browns' best deep threat. Gordon was dismissed from Baylor's team after being twice suspended for marijuana use.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-07-FBN-Browns-Gordon/id-af6f0b2d08b64192a57269be1645fa13

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DNA on beer cans leads to NY suspect's arrest

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) ? Authorities say a burglar's decision to knock back a couple of beers during a break-in at an upstate New York home led to his arrest.

Onondaga (ahn-uhn-DAH'-gah) County prosecutors tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse (http://bit.ly/14vfeMo ) that 29-year-old Moses Wilson was stealing copper piping from a vacant rental home in Syracuse in early February when he found an unopened case of beer in the basement.

Officials say he drank some of the beer during the burglary. Prosecutors say police were able to match Wilson's DNA to DNA found on the cans.

Wilson was arraigned Tuesday in Onondaga County Court on charges of burglary and petit larceny. He is being held in jail on $10,000 bail. It couldn't immediately be determined if he had a lawyer.

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Information from: The Post-Standard, http://www.syracuse.com

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-05-Beer%20Can%20DNA-Arrest/id-852fbbc7f3284d7d8b514e45df2d55b5

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