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Barnes & Noble Offers Wi-Fi Only Nook

Barnes & Noble pushes pressure on ereader market with $149 Wi-Fi Nook: The Nook is a ebook reader that’s gotten mixed reviews. Although B&N keeps upgrading the firmware, the device hasn’t reached the maturity of a Kindle or Sony Reader. However, B&N made a number of interesting choices about the device and its software features that may bear fruit.

In the latest twist, B&N has released a $149 Wi-Fi–only Nook, $50 less than the repriced 3G flavor (formerly $259). The Kindle omits Wi-Fi, which would make the Nook’s service an advantage, except that B&N will only be enabling AT&T hotspot automatic logins in the 1.4 firmware release, several months after the device’s introduction. That’s obviously a more critical feature in a device that only connects via USB or Wi-Fi.

Like Amazon, B&N is building an ecosystem of ereading that allows the same content to be read on proprietary hardware devices, and mobile and desktop operating systems using reader software. B&N’s Reader app for the iPad is quite marvelous, better for reading (and formatting to your liking) than Amazon’s Kindle app or Apple’s iBooks program.

Later in the day, Amazon dropped its Kindle reader price to $189 (down from $259).

Copyright ©2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.

Google Experiments with Sponsored Airport Wi-Fi in Orlando

Google is underwriting Orlando’s existing free airport Wi-Fi: Google will pay Orlando International Airport $155,000 per year for two years, plus a split of advertising revenue in what Google describes as “in the spirit of experimentation.” Orlando already offers free Wi-Fi, so this pilot project–so called to avoid bidding requirements during the test–supplements existing budgets rather than replaces paid session fees.

It’s a neat partnership. Google will scatter “as many as” 50 kiosks for free Internet access around the airport, and put what the Orlando Sentinel describes as “faux-British telephone booths” for free international long-distance calls using Google Voice (with some limits).

The Wi-Fi service’s splash page would promote and link to Google services focused on the airport. Google told the newspaper it’s also developing mobile apps for airport information.

The fee structure is a guarantee of $125,000 per year for the first two years to cover session-based access, and Google advertising of at least $30,000 per year. Income from ads shown on pages over the Wi-Fi network and kiosks would be split with the airport as well. (Thanks to reader Herbert for the tip!)

Copyright ©2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.

Microsoft Research has its head in the clouds, too

It’s not just the Microsoft product groups that are charging ahead with getting Microsoft “All In” with the cloud. Microsoft Research seems to be stepping up its work on a variety of cloud-related projects, and plans to share details about several of them during the 2010 Usenix Federated Conferences shows in Boston the week of June 21.

Demystifying Microsoft’s mobile operating system roadmap

Microsoft announced Windows Embedded Handheld on June 17, bringing the company’s mobile OS count to six (or more) different offerings. How many is too many?

About that 1 billion Microsoft Office figure …

One statistic that Microsoft officials cited on June 15, the day Office 2010 began selling via retail, seemed off to me. According to Microsoft (based on comScore numbers), there are 1 billion copies of Office installed across the globe. Here’s the fine print behind that figure.

Creating a Mobile Version of Your WordPress Site – Webinar Today!

Want to look cool but also help mobile readers of your blog get your content on their iPhone or BlackBerry? Join iThemes founder Cory Miller and designer Brad Ulrich for a free webinar on Friday, June 18 from 11 am.-Noon on Creating a Mobile Version of Your WordPress Site.

Cory and Brad will walk through how to use PluginBuddy Mobile to easily create a mobile-ready versions of your site, including live demonstrations of creating mobile versions of some pretty cool and famous sites!

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/518100906

Why NetBeans IDE 6.9 Is An Awesome Editor

Say Goodbye to WEP and TKIP

The Wi-Fi Alliance has a timetable for eliminating outdated WEP and TKIP security from certified Wi-Fi devices: A couple of news sites ran unsourced stories yesterday and today about a roadmap from the Wi-Fi Alliance for eliminating older encryption methods from the certification process for new hardware.

I picked up the phone (yes, crazy, I know!), and confirmed it: TKIP and WEP won’t be allowed in new devices with the Wi-Fi stamp in a staged elimination over three years starting in 2011.

Anyone reading this site should be well aware that WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), the original local-link encryption standard in 802.11b, has been broken since 2001, and horribly so since 2003.

TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) was a backwards compatible replacement introduced in 2003, and intended to work with older silicon that didn’t have either the circuits or computational muster to handle WEP’s real replacement, AES-CCMP (you don’t want to know what that stands for, honestly). AES (also from 2003) is often called WPA2 encryption, although it’s more particularly an encryption type that’s part of WPA2.

While TKIP hasn’t been broken, it has known vulnerabilities, such as a susceptibility to dictionary-based attacks for short keys (eight characters), and some very clever ways to insert packets through manipulating a flaw in the packet integrity protocol. (See my 2008 Ars Technica article, “Battered, but not broken: understanding the WPA crack,” and my article on this site, “Another, Better TKIP Attack That’s Still Limited” from Feb. 2010. It’s likely more will be found.)

The 802.11n standard only allows the use of AES keys, which sometimes provokes confusing statements about its capabilities. Apple updated a support note on 3 June 2010 which stated that 802.11n with WEP or TKIP could only operate at 54 Mbps, when it’s perhaps more accurate to state that 802.11n drops down to 802.11g to handle these older security types.

Kelly Davis-Felner, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s marketing director, said, “We had a process within our membership to say we have a few aging security mechanisms, one of which is known to be obsolete – and that would be WEP, of course – and we wanted to define what the roadmap would look like to get the whole industry to end of life” the technology.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a membership trade group that sets certification standards for products that bear the Wi-Fi seal. As such, its efforts are driven by what the members want, and the group allows a typically consistent approach across the entire industry.

The alliance’s product manager for putting WEP and TKIP out of their misery, Sarah Morris, said that TKIP and WEP will be phased out in stages starting 1 January 2011 until 1 January 2014. Changes affect only new devices seeking certification. Companies can also release 802.11 equipment without the Wi-Fi imprimatur, although that’s extremely rare, and essentially unheard of among any major equipment maker.

At the start of 2011, access points will no longer be certified with TKIP as an option by itself, commonly revealed as WPA-PSK, WPA-TKIP, or WPA Personal. Mixed modes, in which an AP can accept either TKIP or AES keys, will still be allowed.

But also starting in 2011, manufacturers can opt to ship Wi-Fi hardware preset to use WPA2 out of the box. Currently, Wi-Fi-certified access points have to be set to open, and a purchaser configures it to use security. This is an interesting change, and part of what Davis-Felner said will be greater efforts in the coming year to promote security.

In 2012, new Wi-Fi adapters (so-called stations in 802.11 parlance) won’t be allowed to support TKIP.

In 2013, WEP is finally disallowed for APs. While that seems incredibly late, its inclusion is there only for certain categories of legacy devices for which no other option is available. WEP is used by point of sale systems and older hardware that can’t be upgraded. It’s perhaps too kind to leave it as an option for that long, but it’s also a membership decision, so clearly justified by a remaining installed base.

In 2014, the mixed TKIP/AES mode for access points can no longer be included in certified devices, and WEP cannot be available to new client devices.

The move to an all-AES world is long in coming. “You’ve heard us say for a long, long time that WPA2 is the recommended configuration for any Wi-Fi network or enterprise,” said Davis-Felner. “This is a strong expression of that position.”

Copyright ©2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.