After analyzing the unencrypted WiFi payload data captured by its Street View cars, Google now admits that the system captured entire e-mails, URLs and even user passwords.
The admission came in the form of a blog post by Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research at Google:
It’s clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords. We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place.
“We’re acutely aware that we failed badly here,” Eustace added.
Eustace said the company was “mortified” by the discovery that sensitive information was collected when the Street View cars drove through neighborhoods around the world and said Google was making major changes internally to deal with user privacy, security and compliance.
Google had previously admitted to spying on users’ WiFi networks and collecting MAC addresses and SSID information. Some of the data has already been deleted and Eustace said Google will delete the rest of the data “as soon as possible.”
Ryan Naraine is a journalist and social media enthusiast specializing in Internet and computer security issues.
There is never a shortage of Apple-versus-Microsoft yammering in the blogosphere, but I haven’t seen much in the way of actual data. Is Apple really making a dent in Microsoft’s long-standing Windows monopoly? Are mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad taking over tasks that used to be done by PCs? Sales figures tell part of the story, but in my opinion the best data comes from analyzing how devices are being used in the real world. I went off in search of hard numbers, and I found them at the same source I used earlier this year to measure Windows 7 adoption rates (see When will XP finally fade away?).
Net Market Share publishes snapshots of PC usage based on data from 160 million visits per month to its large collection of sites (the exact methodology is here). Its monthly reports on operating system versions contain a wealth of detailed information about even the most obscure OSes, and they’ve tracked the performance of mobile platforms consistently for the past three years. To compile the charts in this post, I went beyond the simple summary reports and dug deep into the details, recording and cross-tabulating data for desktop and mobile OSes from November 2007 until October 2010. I found four unmistakable trends.
Windows XP continues its steady decline. In early 2008, more than a year after Microsoft launched Windows Vista, Windows users had emphatically rejected that upgrade. Fewer than 10% of Windows users had switched, and nearly 5% of all Windows PCs in use were running Windows versions older than XP. The Windows 7 story is very, very different. One year after the release of Windows 7, it has made a significant dent in the Windows user base, and those diehards holding on to pre-XP versions have mostly surrendered. XP’s share of actual usage has declined more than 20 percent in two years, and that trend is accelerating.
Data provided by > Net Market Share
There’s no evidence that the marketplace is abandoning Windows to any significant degree. The overall share of Internet traffic from Windows PCs has dropped slightly in the past two-and-a-half years, from 95.4% to 91.1%. But that’s true across the board for competing desktop OSes as well. Linux usage is down dramatically in 2010, to 0.85% from an all-time high of 1.08% in early 2009. Interestingly, OS X usage is also down, dropping by roughly a quarter of a percentage point since a year ago, from 5.26% to exactly 5.00%. In relative terms, that’s almost exactly the same overall drop as the Windows platform has seen in the same period.
Apple is still gaining on Microsoft, thanks to iOS-based devices. There’s no doubt that the Mac has been a big success for Apple over the past couple of years. While Microsoft was stumbling with Vista, Apple used a very aggressive advertising campaign that resulted in considerable growth of OS X usage, at least in relative terms. The Net Market Share stats confirm that OS X’s share of Internet usage rose from 3.45% in early 2008 to more than 5% last year. As I noted earlier, the Mac’s momentum has stalled (which might explain Apple’s sudden “Back to the Mac” event last week). But Apple’s overall share of the Internet continues to go up steadily, thanks to mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. Added together, Apple’s one-two punch of OS X and iOS has been a clear winner. It will be interesting to look at these figures again in a year.
Data provided by > Net Market Share
The mobile Internet is growing at an astonishing rate. This was the most fascinating set of numbers to me, and they’re also the ones that should have Microsoft most concerned. Back in 2007, Internet traffic from mobile devices was nearly nonexistent; today, mobile operating systems account for nearly 3% of all Internet traffic. The percentage of Internet usage on mobile devices has been doubling every eight months or so. If you extrapolate that trend, it’s easy to imagine a world in which mobile devices consume 20% or more of total Internet usage within the next two or three years.
Data provided by > Net Market Share
So where is all that traffic coming from? Not surprisingly, Apple’s iOS-based devices are the leader in the mobile category, as measured by usage, accounting for 42% of the total traffic from mobile sources. The very close runner-up, at 37%, is a big surprise: Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), presumably running mostly on Nokia feature phones. Symbian is a distant third at 11%, with Android in fourth at 8%.
We are indeed moving rapidly into a world where mobile devices are taking over many tasks that were previously handled by PCs. The big question is whether (and if so, when) that growth curve levels off. This is a market that is only beginning to explode, which means things can change very quickly. I’ll be looking closely at these monthly numbers over the next year, especially with Microsoft jumping into this space so aggressively with Windows Phone 7.
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
Dell and Google have already teamed up on a number of devices, so Chrome OS laptops wouldn’t be a huge stretch. Earlier this year, Dell brought its first smartphone to the US – the Aero – which runs on Android. The Android-based Dell Streak tablet is also expected to debut next month.
Having Dell on board at launch would clearly be a big win for Google, though, things have shifted significantly in the computing space since Chrome OS was first announced about a year ago. For one, the market appears to be shifting towards tablets – a market Google also plans to play a big role in. Second, Android is surging in popularity, leading some to wonder if Chrome OS is even really necessary.
Nonetheless, we’ll soon have a better idea of what Google’s planning to do in this space – recent reports indicate Chrome OS will debut this fall.
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by our experts and delivers a I thought this week was going quiet down after the HTC DROID Incredible announcement, but then I just read about the seven new Dell devices over on Engadget.
The folks at Engadget were given details for one Windows Phone 7 smartphone, four Google Android smartphones, and two Android tablets that should be released from this summer to 2nd quarter of 2011.
I never thought Dell would jump into the smartphone game after all of the rumors over the years never produced a smartphone here in the US so I was quite surprised by the news of some pretty compelling devices.
Let’s take a look at these possible new devices.
Image courtesy of Engadget.com
I agree with the guys at Engadget and think this device looks like the best device of the bunch. This Windows Phone 7 device rocks a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G (not sure if there are two devices or if Dell solved the US GSM carrier issue with a single device), 1GB of flash, 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of storage on an internal microSD card, GPS, FM radio, and more. I like the form factor where the display slides up to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, similar to the way the Palm Pre Plus works. There is also word it may be upgradeable to LTE in 2011. Check out the post on Engadget for all the slides and details.
The Dell Thunder looks similar to the Lightning, without the keyboard. It also has a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, Android 2.1, an integrated Hulu app, 8 megapixel camera, AT&T 3G support, availability in Q4 2010. There are some great images of the Thunder on Engadget.
The Dell Smoke has a rather unique form factor for a Google Android smartphone with a Palm Pixi look of the front facing QWERTY keyboard. This device may be running Froyo (later version of Android) with a 2.8 inch QVGA display, 800MHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, 14.4Mbps HSPA, microSD slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. According to Engadget you may have to wait until Q2 of 2011 to get your hands on this slim device.
Another Froyo-based Google Android device may be coming from Dell. This model sports a 3.5 inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, TV-out, Bluetooth 3.0, and 800MHz Qualcomm processor. It may be coming to AT&T in Q1 of 2011. Visit Engadget for the slides and more details.
The Dell Aero is available now in China and we previously heard it would be coming to AT&T so it was no surprise really to see this one eventually coming out from Dell. This is a lower end device that may be running Android 1.x with an older 624MHz Marvell processor, 3.5 inch display, and 3 megapixel camera. Engadget has more details and images.
The Dell Streak (aka Mini 5) is a tablet device with 5 inch WVGA (800×480) display, 5 megapixel camera on the back and VGA camera on the front, microSD card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and support for AT&T 3G. Check out the Engadget post for more details.
The Looking Glass is a bigger brother to the Dell Streak with a 7 inch WVGA (800×480) display, Tegra 2 processor, 1.3 megapixel camera, 4GB RAM, 4GB flash storage, and SDHC slot. According to Enngadget the Looking Glass should be out in November.
