News: The Sim Franchise Rolls On

By | November 24, 2011
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 I don’t know whether to be excited or appalled at how Electronic Arts have turned the Sim thing into such a money-making business. Purists weren’t that enamored of Sim City 4, and my computer is not really powerful enough for it to be fun, and The Sims Online has not been the great follow-up to The Sims that it was expected to be, but you’ve got to admit EA know how to keep the buzz going. Here’s their latest announcement (and note this is an announcement about something that’s going to happen two or three months down the track…)
 
 
Electronic Arts have announced plans to release this September the SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition in North America. Players can now make the biggest cities with the most comprehensive and exciting SimCity ever. SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition includes SimCity 4 and the franchise’s first expansion pack, SimCity 4 Rush Hour, that focuses on the no.1 most requested feature among fans, transportation. SimCity 4 Rush Hour also is scheduled for release September 2003. The SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition will be available for a suggested retail price of $39.99.
 
This follows on the heels of an announcement yesterday that said Electronic Arts plans to release this October The Sims Makin’ Magic, a new expansion pack to The Sims, where “Sims are granted magical powers with the ability to cast spells that are playful or deviant”. Oh my God. And if that’s not enough: The Sims Makin’ Magic will be the final edition to The Sims original series and prelude to the highly anticipated launch of The Sims 2.  The expansion pack will be available for the Halloween season and has a suggested retail price of US$29.95.

Update: X1 Improvements On Their Way

By | November 24, 2011
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 Further to my posting about X1, the indexing program, X1’s chief cook Mark Goodstein says they are promising an update soon that includes:
  • PDF (Acrobat_ and Zip contents indexing.
  • Attachments indexing and display (for Outlook and Eudora).
  • Tighter Outlook integration (responding, moving, etc., from within X1).
  • Some improvements in the interface and performance stuff.
Sounds good. It’s good to see new stuff being added so fast.

Mail: Is X1 Really A Rat?

By | November 24, 2011
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 A reader wrote the following about X1, an search and indexing program which I reviewed recently:
 
I read your article, liked what I heard, and installed the product.  It is as good as you described. However, I had reason to run PestPatrol, due to some weird behavior against my ZoneAlarm Pro firewall. The run of PestPatrol identified a program named UPX.exe (in the X1 install directory) as a RAT (remote administration tool) or a Trojan in other words.  Their description was:  ?provides an attacker with the capability of remotely controlling a machine via a ??client?? in the attacker?s machine and a ??server?? in the victim?s machine.?
 
I queried their help site (email came back from idealab.com) and the QA person indicated the program was used to unpack the installer file.  He/she also indicated they were aware that Pest Patrol identifies it as a rat.  The email finished with ?But I don?t think that is what is making your system feel under the weather.?
 
No comment about whether it is a rat, just that they knew PestPatrol called it one. I still don?t know if my system behavior was due to X1, but thought their tech support would have strongly denied it if it was not a rat.
 
Here’s the response from X1 chief Mark Goodstein:
 
UPX is a benign wrapper program, just like a self-extracting zip file, and we use it to install X1. We will probably move away from it because of this problem, though…  It just happens that some virus writers use UPX to wrap their illicit programs.  Pest Patrol deals with this by classifying anything that uses it as a possible virus carrier (a RAT or Trojan in their terminology).  That’s a bit careless on their part — what they ought to be doing is automatically uncompressing the UPX files and running their virus checker on what’s inside.  Then they could give an accurate diagnosis and unclassify the 99.9% of UPX-using programs as trojans.
 
In simple terms — X1 is NOT a virus, and pest patrol knows this, as it’s easy to determine by simply un-UPXing our exe.  Even if Pest Patrol doesn’t want to add the proper feature to their product, at least they ought to mark X1 as a non-RAT after they examine it, to put it in a safe category even though it uses UPX.
 
There you go…I hope that’s clear enough.

Column addon: RFID

By | November 24, 2011
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  Further to my column in today’s FEER (subscription required) about the possibilities and pitfalls of Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, here’s the full text of answers from Alan Melling, Symbol Technology’s Senior Director, of EPC Solutions.
 
What are the real benefits of this technology? 
 
Without a doubt, the ability to achieve 100 percent real-time asset visibility without the cost of human intervention to perform tracking activities. This visibility and the information it generates translates directly into supply chain efficiencies – such as lower stock-out rates and fewer rush orders – that go directly to both the top and bottom lines of traditional retailers.
 

 
Inventory tracking/retail behaviour/product theft/non-retail fields?
 
Inventory tracking at the pallet and carton level are almost certain to be the applications that “prime the pump” for RFID in retail. There are a lot fewer pallets than individual items, less cost sensitivity – and pallets have no privacy concerns.
 
Once the tags make it to the item level, their primary function will still be for inventory control – quickly detecting that a particular brand of shampoo is out of stock, for example.
 
However, the technology can also be used in the store for theft detection and identifying shopping patterns, but consumers will first need to be educated on the benefits TO THEM of the technology when used this way. For example, if RFID could be used to let you know when you pass your favorite brand of peanut butter in the supermarket aisle, and it is on sale, would that perceived as plus? For some consumers yes, and for others no. The key to success will be to put the control where its belongs – in the hands of the consumer.
 
What’s your view on privacy concerns about RFID? 
 
Privacy is a very real issue. To a certain extent the fears expressed to date are somewhat overblown – the technology simply does not support doomsday scenarios such as the government scanning the books you just purchased from a truck in the street – the tags just are not capable of it. What is very real, however, is every consumer’s right to understand and be comfortable with technologies applied to products they may buy. Everyone involved in the RFID industry understands and respects this – which is why the most popular tags – EPC tags – have an in-built “Kill” command that can and will be used to render them inoperative before they leave the store.
 
Are there issues which have not been addressed?
 
There are many issues that are still in the process of being addressed. Standards need to be finalized, costs need to come down further, reading equipment and systems need to be made more reliable, more RFID software solutions need to be developed, and privacy concerns need to be addressed to name a few. However, with the emergence of a strong new standard for retail and supply chain applications – EPC (Electronic Product Code) – the general tone of converstion has switched from “if” to “when” the technology will make its mark in retail. There is a general sense that the remaining issues are all very solveable, and that it just a matter of time.
 
How do you see the future of this technology?
 
The future of RFID in retail and supply chain applications is a bright one, but one that will perhaps be slower and more incremental in approach than many suppose today. In particular, some have positioned RFID as an immediate “replacement” for bar code. The reality is that it is not designed as a one-for-one bar code replacement – it does more than a bar code, but also costs more than a bar code. The companies that benefit from RFID will be those that successfully integrate RFID and bar code technologies – using each where it is the most cost effective.
 
Almost certainly, the first broad applicatiions of RFID will be in the backroom of stores and distribution centers – on relatively unglamorous items such as pallets, crates, cartons, and plastic containers. Over time it will become more visible on individual items on the retail floor, but this will take time – years – and will require that concerns about privacy are effectively addressed.
 
 
 
 

News: Your Remote Can Now Make Coffee

By | November 24, 2011
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  It’s inevitable, I guess, but your remote now looks more like a PDA than a PDA does. RCA have just released three new “universal learning remotes” which can control multiple components and can implement multiple commands with the SmartMacro? feature. “The new line of RCA LCD remote controls reflects a shift in the remote control business to higher end, fuller featured models,” explained David Geise, Vice President, Consumer Solutions, Thomson. “As consumers enhance their current home entertainment setups with more advanced products, they are seeking more sophisticated remotes that are easy to program and these three new models meet these requirements.”
 
 
Now, being a guy with a dozen remotes around the house, I can see the advantages of all this. Indeed, the SmartMacro feature, that enables consumers to program a series of events to occur in sequential order — for example, set up the remote to turn on the TV, set it to input one, turn on the satellite receiver and then set it to a specific channel — sounds kinda useful. It just seems kinda sad that the device to run our TV is more sophisticated than a computer was about three weeks ago.