WiMAX Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) (X.509 certificates)

A PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) enables users of a basically unsecure public network, such as the Internet, to securely and privately exchange data and money through the use of a public and a private cryptographic key pair that is obtained and shared through a trusted authority. The public key infrastructure provides for a digital certificate that can identify an individual or an organization and directory services that can store and, when necessary, revoke the certificates. The WiMAX Forum® has defined the policies and profiles for the WiMAX Public Key Infrastructure (“PKI”) which utilizes X.509 certificates and their associated keys to identify and authenticate the identity of devices and servers in a WiMAX network.

WiMax vs. LTE: Which Will 'Win' in a Fast Deployment Cycle?

One of the biggest stories during the next year or so will be the rollout and subsequent marketing of 4G wireless networks.

It will be an interesting process as the two approaches – Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMax – vie for supremacy. The die already seems to be cast, however: WiMax, through Clearwire and its Clear service, is first out of the gate. LTE, however, through its use by Verizon and AT&T, seems positioned to be the dominant player when the dust settles.

WiMax suffered a bit of a blow earlier this month when Cisco decided not to build radios for the platform:

Technology is not an either/or game.The Cisco move clearly is not good news for WiMax, both in terms of image and because the vendor brings a lot to any table at which it chooses to sit. It’s also clear that WiMax will not be as big as LTE. All that said, however, it is apparent that WiMax remains a significant wireless networking force.

Review Command & Conquer 4: A new way to command & conquer

Kane has returned for his grand finale in this revamped version of Command & Conquer.

CONSIDERING the popularity of all the previous versions of the Command & Conquer series (including Red Alert), the hype surrounding C&C4 was subdued at best.

There was no grand launch, no lines of people queuing up on release day. When we received our copy of the game on the day of its release (March 16), we found it was almost an entirely new game with very few similarities to previous C&C titles and even took some features from Red Alert and Generals.

Seagate unveils HD media player

Now you can easily view your photos and HD videos with the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player.

The player supports HD videos (up to 1080p) and Dolby Digital and DTS 2.0 + Digital Out surround sound.

It is able to play a myriad of multimedia files and connects to a TV via composite, component video or HDMI connection.

For movies, the media player supports MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX HD, Xvid HD, AVI, MOV and more.

Song formats supported include AAC, MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG. And for images, the player supports JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF formats.

It also has a special docking system for Seagate FreeAgent Go portable drives which allows the external drive to slide into the media player.

Other brand of external drives, thumdrives and digital cameras can be hooked up to the player thorugh its two USB2.0 ports.

FreeAgent Theater+ HD also has an Ethernet port for connecting it to a network for accessing media files located on a PC or notebook.

Also, the media player is bundled with a remote control.

Source: ERM Blog

What is new in Windows mobile 7

After bulks of complaints and dissappointment on WM6, Microsoft is seems to walk out with their new game plan, Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7s). So, whats new in WP7s? According to Xbox Live general manager Ron Pessner and XNA Game Studio manager Michael Klucher, the new WP7s platform will be integrated with XBox and ZuneHD. Hence the users will have a new experience in gaming experience and more advanced graphical interface compare to the slumpy WM6. The important facto is to maintain a consistent gameplay experience amongst different hardware, and the reasoning behind limiting devices to asynchronous multiplayer.

Windows Phone 7 Series prototype device with accelerometer and touch controls, and the Xbox 360 with the Xbox gamepad. Interestingly, not only is the development cross-platform friendly, but the game itself (a simple Indiana Jones platformer was demoed) saves its place and lets you resume from that spot on whichever platform you happen to pick up. Pretty impressive stuff, and while the words “Windows Phone 7 Series” weren’t spoken by Eric Rudder, in TechEd Middle East,  the use of the prototype ASUS device and the clear emphasis that this would place on Xbox Live for making the magic happen make it obvious that this is the “wave of the future” for all three platforms — at least for casual gaming.

Review God of War 3: Epic showdown

Can anything stop Kratos from getting his revenge in the final chapter of the God of War series?

IT is the beginning of the end for the God of War series as the venerable PlayStation exclusive title draws to its epic conclusion.

Fans have been waiting for three long years for the final chapter of the trilogy, so let's not waste any time and get right to the review of GoW3.

Cisco makes companies more smartphone friendly

CHANGING WORLD: The popularity of smartphones like the Nexus One and iPhone is prompting Cisco to build systems that can be accessed easily and securely from almost any kind of smartphone. — AP

SAN FRANCISCO: Cisco has unveiled a way for businesses to feel comfortable about letting workers use whatever smartphones tickle their fancies.

While hip new mobile devices such as Apple iPhones or Google’s Nexus One smartphones have captured people hearts, businesses have been averse to such change out of concerns for network security and compatibility.

US technology titan Cisco believes it can put the minds of corporate IT managers at ease with a new “Security Without Borders” platform that lets networks be accessed easily and securely from almost any kind of smartphone.

“Mobile devices are like jewelry; it is a fashion item,” Cisco vice-president of security products Tom Gillis said while demonstrating the new platform slated for release by July.

“For me to tell you what kind of jewelry to wear is just not possible. I need to be able to give you the ability to use whatever device you want.”

Cisco built the system on top of its widely used virtual private network (VPN) software used by companies to establish protected links between internal networks and outside computers.

Cisco struck partnerships with handset makers to get hardware compatible with the Borderless platform.

“There is an explosion of new mobile devices and this is spilling into the enterprise,” Gillis said, referring to how workers increasingly want to be able to pick the smartphone they use for business.

Real smart

The Cisco platform is crafted to instantly establish secure VPN connections for work programs and scan files or links for computer viruses of other hacker mischief.

The system even allows for Web conferencing on smartphones, with connections seamlessly switched to laptops or desktops by a wrist-flick gesture command, Gillis showed while demonstrating with an iPhone.

People’s taste in gadgets in their personal lives is beginning to change workplaces, with iPhones cracking the business market with help from high-ranking executives that insisted on using the smartphones.

“You can’t tell executive vice-presidents they can’t have an iPhone,” said Cisco chief security officer John Stewart. “It was a very clever way to inject yourself in the enterprise.”

Cisco is aiming the Borderless platform at businesses interested in protecting their networks while allowing workers to chose smartphones that will hopefully make them more productive at their jobs.

“You can embrace it instead of trying to hold the water at bay,” Stewart said. “I’m actually kind of excited; massive diversity usually ends up making healthy environments.” — AFP/Relaxnews

CPU battle - is AMD really going to die?

I still remember somewhere in middle of 2000 when I bought my first PC with my own money ( still 19 that time), the latest AMDk6-II 500 MHz. Really awesome. And I ran it with Windows 2000 (Win2k) since I still blind with Linux during that time. That was my first PC and I really love it. I don`t care if the blower make jumbo jet sound or even the CPU can cook egg 2 or 3 times as long as I can get rid of Intel PC (bad experience when my father bought me stupid 486 with win 3.1).  As the time goes along, so do my PC as well, from Thunderbird to Sempron and the latest AMD Athlon X2-dual  core (waiting for phenom X4 series ). All generation dammed good. Even the market penetration done by AMD (Anti- Microsoft Development ….heheheh)  was very very great until the middle of 2006.

The AMD performance start shrinking. Why?..People say it is because of the huge debt due to big acquisition of the Fat Uncle Bob maker, ATI  Company, and some from other side claim that AMD fail to deliver Barcelona or Opteron Quad-core processor on time. Not even that, AMD also now suffer of the battle among the Top Management due to their performance recently. Poor Ruiz. Undoubtedly, for me, AMD really need ATI in order to boost their track on the game-line compare with Intel. But, is it really a right time just to get the uncertain result from the acquisition together with a bulk loan from Ah Long (shark loan)? Just to remind, Not all PC user are gamers and not All are really highly dependent to great workstation. Most are simple user. And they really not bother about highly giga performance PC.

Another de facto is that most of the users are really comfortable when they heard about intel, compared to AMD. From day one, everybody knows that AMD is an electronic boiler, able cook while operating. And most still think of that till now even though AMD has made a great step to overcome the ‘boiling CPU’ issue.Why?because AMD really not get close to the simple users to sell their new ‘chilled’ CPU series, instead they fight for high end performance features. That is the problem actually. Just do not expect users to go to amd website or anandtech or even tomshardware website to read about new AMD ‘chilled’ CPU series.

From the bottom of my heart, I do believe that AMD will sustain to compete the giant shrek, Intel.  But how long they can survive is depend on their road-map. Whether they really want to gain on gamers and workstation segment, which is really niche market or they have to do something to change people`s mentally about their product performance and quality (if they really have).

Why Dell, or HP, Acer, IBM, Compaq really hard to change to AMD processor? Just think - Politics? performance? friendship? monopoly?…

‘The future is fusion’ - and a lot more confusing……..