By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

If you have ever heard of Robert Alan Soloway, and looking at a Google search for his name, lots of you probably have, you’ll be happy to know that he is under arrest after a jury returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

On just two groups of servers, in just a few months, federal investigators found more than 200 million spam messages linked to 27-year-old Robert Soloway.

The online empire was run from Soloway’s high-end, Harbor Steps apartment on the Seattle waterfront, investigators said. Wednesday, he appeared in court unshaven, wearing loafers with no socks, to hear Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Warma announce that if he’s found guilty of the fraud, money laundering and identity theft charges in the 35-count indictment, he could spend decades behind bars.

“The amount of damage he does to the Internet — the fraud thing to innocent people who think they’re hiring some Internet person — is awful,” said John Reid, a volunteer with The Spamhaus Project, an anti-spam group.

He said Soloway preyed on computer-gullible business owners who thought they were hiring a legitimate company to help increase traffic to their Web sites — only to discover that Soloway sent waves of spam in their name. Source: Seattlepi.com

We Say: Woo hoo, another dirt bag bites the dust. What’s funny is he was using a public defender in his hearing and the judge told him that even though the government has seized four of his bank accounts, he was still able to pay for his defense. Anybody feel sorry for him?

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Purdue University, prestigious right? You’d expect someone going to there to be proud and want to learn, and also to show some respect to his professors. Well, nowadays too many people have a ’sense of entitlement’ about things, and this qualifies.

A university student, whose name was not released, was in Les Meade’s class when his cell phone started ringing. Meade told him to turn it off but the student did not comply, leading Meade to take the student’s phone, telling him he could pick it up the next day from the dean’s office.

The student called the police after class and accused Meade of stealing. Meade, an adjunct instructor who also serves as a superior court judge, was then forced to return the phone. Source: TG Daily

We Say: The case was dismissed. Frankly, IMHO, the student was being a big baby. I’m sure this instructor, who was a superior court judge mind you, told the students what the rules were prior to the first class. He asked him to turn it off, he wouldn’t, live with the consequences.

Of course, what was funny was that as the special prosecutor was reading the ruling, in a courtroom plastered with signs demanding cell phones be turned off … his phone rang.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I’m a little stunned here. Jeff Hawkins is a hero of mine. He designed the Palm Pilot and made the PDA a viable product category after scores of failures. Even the Treo at one point had many corporate users under its spell. And today when we were told of a new breakthrough announcement and product demo from Jeff himself to tech heavyweights Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, it just had to be good.

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff
A lot will be written about the specs and so on, so I will just cut to the chase. Here are Five reason why Jeff and Palm have really veered into outer space with the ill-fated Foleo:

1. It’s a $499 sub-notebook that runs Linux
2003 is calling on line one. It wants its hardware back Psion on line two: it wants 1996 back.

2. It’s meant to be paired with the Treo
We want to break free of pairings. We want our smartphones smarter, not some 1990s version of hot syncing. So you drag this around to give yourself a larger screen and keyboard.

3. 5 hour battery life
My tiny Sony gets nearly 8 and runs all my office apps, has integrated wireless (cellular and WIFi) and even sports a DVD burner all at about 4 lbs. True it was not $499, but my Audrey was and I can always dust it off and get to work if I have to.

4. You have to press a button to retrieve your email
Hawkins loves one button access. Why it is that most laptoip users acan simply flip open their laptops in hibernate mode and ytsrt getting email without doing a thing. Look Jeff, no hands!

5. Doesn’t Play YouTube Videos or do PowerPoints
But it’s billed as “simple and fun.” Some fun.

We Say: Wow. Palm really blew it. Even the Sony Mylo was better. Source: Palm

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

I was told this was a “Smartphone Companion.” “What the heck is that?” I thought. Then I heard it described as a “Laptop for your Smartphone.” Now that kinda clicked with me, especially after I got a look at it. It has a 10-inch screen, a full-size keyboard, runs Linux, even has Opera as a browser.

With its 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard, the Palm Foleo mobile companion connects wirelessly with your smartphone to help you do more on the go. Unfold it, press a button, and it’s on instantly—while just one touch brings your email to the big screen. Use your Foleo to view attachments, type longer emails, or to get a bigger look at web pages and photos you’d normally view on your smartphone. And with up to five hours of battery life packed into such a compact design, you’ll do big things wherever you go. Source: Palm, Inc.

We Say: It’s only 2 pounds, but it’ll be $499 with an introductory offer when it ships (scheduled for the summer). I like the battery life and the weight, but why do I need a relatively expensive add-on to a Treo when free wi-fi is becoming more and more prevalent. It’s got 256MB of RAM, but I found a laptop with 512MB of RAM, Vista (though just Basic) and wi-fi for $599, only $100 more … and that was without really trying (ask my friends; they know I can find the best deals if I try).

Finally, I understand that part of the rationale behind this is “making the mobile device in my pocket my primary PC” (from the video on Palm’s site), but I’m really not convinced. As I said, with wi-fi so rampant … and Vista laptops so cheap … and listen … if I can’t play Guild Wars on it, it can’t be my primary PC.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Remember ‘Minority Report’? Tom Cruise movie, based on a Philip K. Dick short story, and one of the cool things was interfacing with a computer using gestures only. It was a vertical interface, and it was virtual. What we have here is a table-top (shades of old-style video games in pizza parlors!) interface, no keyboard, no mouse, dubbed ‘Surface’, and supposedly, opening the doors to ’surface computing.’ Surface will be demoed today at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference.

“With Surface, we are creating more intuitive ways for people to interact with technology,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror. Surface is the first step in realizing that vision.”

In its current form, Surface is incorporated into a 30″ display mounted into a table. This allows user involvement to expand beyond just one person. Surface is capable of recognizing input from not just one finger, but multiple up to dozens of inputs simultaneously. Source: DailyTech

We Say: It’s cool that multiple users can interact with the screen at once. Though of course, at about $10K a pop, the price isn’t so cool. But initially the target is places like casinos, hotel lobbies, and restaurants. There is a demo available for viewing here.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

You may recall the HP pretexting scandal from last year. In response to that, last year CEO Mark Hurd said to Congress “There is no excuse for this aberration. It happened, and it will never happen again.” One definition of aberration is “a state or condition markedly different from the norm.” Hmmm.

HP is suing Karl Kamp, a former VP, for stealing trade secrets. He countersued, and in his brief he stated that a) HP pretexted him (no!), and b) HP spied on Dell, finding out amazingly accurate information about their just-starting printer business.

As outlandish as Kamb’s charges seem, however, independent evidence suggests that the wildest of his accusations - that HP sleuths obtained confidential information about Dell and that HP pretexted him - are true. Says Dell spokesman Bob Pearson, referring to the charges that HP spied on his company: “The more we look into it, the more concerned we become.” Source: CNNMoney

We Say: Like I said, it doesn’t sound like, based on the definition, taht last year’s pretexting scandal was really an aberration. Prior to last year’s scandal, I probably wouldn’t have thought HP capable of this sort of stuff (though knowing corporations, that was probably a fantasy ).

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

When you think about it, this should probably not be a shock to anyone. I mean, the temptation is there. And I’ve often wondered about how many passwords and how much access IT personnel have. But still, one-third?

According to a new survey, a third of IT staff take advantage of their position to look through private files, wage data, personal emails, and HR details.

Access to special administrative passwords means that IT department workers can rifle through confidential information with privileged and anonymous access to virtually any system within an organisation, the survey said. Source: PC Pro

We Say: One of the respondents said “Why does it surprise you that so many of us snoop around your files; wouldn’t YOU if you had secret access to anything you can get your hands on?” Thinking about it, as much as I hate to admit it … I probably would, at least a little. But what really surprised me the most was that the survey also revealed that more than 50% of them keep their administrator passwords on a Post-it (something I definitely would not do).

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

I suppose I should be happy with what I have, but still. Generally I get 5Mbps and sometimes up to 12Mbps from Comcast. But compared to average speeds of 61Mbps from Japan and 7.6Mbps from Canada … it’s really annoying.

The organization conducted its own download/upload speed tests online, which were taken by roughly 67,000 people across the country, and concluded that the average download speed in the US was 1.9Mbps. According to CWA president Larry Cohen, “the results are deeply troubling.”

The data, says the CWA, is in in stark contrast to broadband speeds available in other countries. The organization compared its own survey data to numbers provided by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s “Assessing Broadband in America” (PDF) report, which showed that countries such as Japan and even our closest neighbor of Canada have significantly higher broadband download speeds—61Mbps and 7.6Mbps, respectively. Source: Ars Technica

We Say: Well, of course, if you ask someone else you get different numbers. The ITIF report, which gives the Canadian and Japanese numbers, says the US average is 4.8Mbps. That doesn’t really make me less annoyed, when I notice that besides Japan at 61 there’s Korea at 45.6Mbps (now we know why they love MMORPGs).