Glen White

New tweaks to the Facebook homepage have been spotted in the wild that may make it easier to see what's going on within your network. Screenshots of the new homepage first appeared on The Next Web, and Inside Facebook. New features include improved filters for the newsfeed, a revised right-hand column and a new Publisher box reminiscent of Facebook Lite. A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the social network is currently testing a new homepage designs.

Facebook Publisher The most obvious change of the proposed redesign is the disappearance of the "Publisher" box where you post status updates, Web links, photos, videos and events. Still, without explicit confirmation the new features should be considered rumor. Instead, you would simply have an "Update Status" button on the far right side of the news feed. News Feed Filter Where the Publisher typically sits, Facebook has placed a filter for your News Feed called 'View Top News.' The new filter looks like it functions similarly to the 'Comments' link now sitting in the left-hand column of your Facebook homepage. There are no screen shots showing how this button works or if it contains the same functionality as the Publisher, but I would assume it would do the same job. Next to the top news filters is a title that looks like it alternates between headlines like 'Evening News' and 'Recent Stories' depending on the time of day you're viewing it.

Although the new filter is just a minor tweak, this may be the first visible sign of FriendFeed-like features on Facebook. The central placement of the top news filter may make it a more popular feature by helping users keep tabs on any Facebook activity they may have missed. As Mashable points out, the new filter is similar to FriendFeed's Best of Day feature. This brings the 'Events' feature closer to the top of the page making it easier to see upcoming birthdays, parties and other events within your network. Right-Hand Column Another interesting tweak is the removal of the 'Highlights' section in the right hand column. This is a welcome change since it moves more useful information to a place where you might actually see it.

Facebook's Dark Past with Redesigns Until Facebook makes an announcement about new features, it's hard to know what new redesigns users will see. It's interesting to note that this tweak would make the Facebook home page closer to the failed redesign that Facebook users revolted against back in March. It should also be noted that the rumored tweaks look similar to features found in Facebook Lite, which makes me wonder if this just isn't a revision of that format. When Facebook caved to its user base earlier this year over a significant homepage redesign, I thought the social network made a huge mistake. Of course, even if Facebook rolls out some new homepage features, there's no guarantee they'll stick around.

I, for one, actually like the failed redesign, and the hodgepodge revision we ended up with had some serious flaws, like the poor placement of the 'Events' section. If users revolt once more, which I'm sure they will, Facebook should grow a pair and stick to its redesign plans.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Monday, that the FCC would prevent broadband carriers from limiting your access to high speed Internet for things like Internet-based voice calls, video streaming, and legal file sharing (that carriers might wish to block or at least charge extra for). In a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Genachowski said the FCC will begin to formalize net neutrality rules in the United States. This is particularly important with the emergence of data-intensive smartphone handsets, 3G netbooks, and wireless broadband cards. Genachowski also wants to have a public discussion about how net neutrality regulations would apply to mobile broadband providers. As expected, not everyone is happy with Genachowski's concept of what a free and open Internet should be.

To keep the Internet neutral, Genachowski wants the FCC to formally adopt six principles, four of which have been employed by the FCC on a case-by-case basis since 2005. 1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice. 2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement. 3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network. 4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. Here's what's going on: The FCC's Four Freedoms Grow to Six On Monday, Genachowski described the Internet as a "blank canvas" that has inspired "innovation and ubiquitous entrepreneurship." He cited online success stories like Netscape, Facebook, and eBay, arguing that businesses like these could not have been successful without a free and open Internet. The two additions: 5. Broadband providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, favor certain content or applications over others and cannot "disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider." 6.Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks. In a blog post entitled "Does the Internet Need More Regulation? Don't force us to be free While the principle of net neutrality has been embraced for years by many Internet advocates including Craig Newmark of Craig's List, Google, and Microsoft; broadband providers and mobile operators aren't so sure about Genachowski's plan. FCC to Decide," David L. Cohen, executive vice president of broadband for Comcast - one of the largest broadband providers in the United States - points out that net neutrality debates have been going on for years.

Wired's Dylan F. Tweney has an interesting take on the FCC's net neutrality moves, arguing that intervention will actually stifle your Internet access. During that time, however, the "Internet has enjoyed immense growth... [and the] Internet in America has been a phenomenal success." With that in mind, says Cohen, it is "fair to ask whether increased regulation of the Internet is a solution in search of a problem." Despite Cohen's questions about government intervention, he says Comcast is committed to working with the FCC on this issue. Tweney's three-point argument suggests that broadband providers may be forced to give up on flat-rate Internet service in favor of bandwidth caps. Tweney believes formal net neutrality will cause problems in broadband that we've already seen with iPhone users' inconsistent service from AT&T. Enforcement may also be difficult for the FCC to carry out, according to Tweney, because it will be hard to prove when a service provider has run afoul of neutrality regulations. Bandwidth, Tweney argues, is not unlimited - especially for mobile providers - and therefore must be managed. Tweney also says an open and free Internet has already won out over closed networks, and points to the failures of services like AOL and CompuServe as examples.

However, the FCC Chairman did say he wanted the regulatory body to "analyze fully the implications of the principles for mobile network architectures and practice." Cell phone companies were not too thrilled to hear about this. "We are concerned the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America , wireless services," AT&T said in a statement. Mobile Provider Backlash In his speech, Genachowski didn't lay out any specifics for how net neutrality would apply to mobile providers. Verizon also spoke up, saying the FCC should not start regulating the Internet and arguing net neutrality would "limit customer choices and affect content providers, application developers, device manufacturers and network builders," according to the BBC. Republicans Move Against Net Neutrality Reacting to the FCC's announcement, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson from Texas, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would deny the FCC any funding for "developing or implementing new Internet regulations," according to Eweek. The amendment was co-sponsored by four other Republicans. Republican objections to the FCC proposal include concerns that government intervention would stifle innovation.

What's next for the FCC Genachowski said he wants to initiate a public discussion about net neutrality that is "fair, transparent, fact-based, and data-driven." The FCC Chairman says nothing is predetermined, and will schedule public workshops as well as online discussion. Watch Julius Genachowski's Introduction to OpenInternet.gov: To that end, the FCC has launched a new Website called OpenInternet.gov, where, you can submit comments, view Genachowski's speech, and connect with the FCC through social networks and new media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Research firm Gartner is projecting that 20% of households worldwide will be connected to the Internet through a broadband connection by year-end. Following behind South Korea in broadband penetration rate are the Netherlands (80%), Denmark (75%), Hong Kong (72%), Canada (69%) and Switzerland (69%). Gartner says that the United States lags behind many developed countries with a 60% broadband penetration rate, although this still ranks the United States ahead of countries such as Japan (58%), Germany (55%), Australia (55%) and Sweden (54%). Over the next four years, however, Gartner expects broadband penetration in the United States to rise rapidly, as it is projected to add 27 million new connections and hit a penetration rate 78% by 2013. If the United States is successful in adding these new connections, Gartner projects that it will leapfrog several countries that it now trails in terms of broadband penetration rate, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Norway. WiMAX changes lives in rural Thailand In all, Gartner projects that 422 million households worldwide will have a fixed broadband connection by the end of this year, an increase of 10.5% from the 382 million households that had a fixed broadband connection at the end of 2008. Looking further down the road, Gartner projects that 580 million households worldwide will have a fixed broadband connection, an increase of 37% over the number projected to have broadband by the end of 2009. South Korea is currently the leader in household broadband penetration, Gartner reports, as 86% of South Korean households have broadband connections.

South Korea is still projected to be the king of broadband penetration, however, as Gartner predicts that 93% of South Korean households will be connected to the Web via broadband in 2013. Gartner also predicts that developing countries will add 135 million new broadband connections over the next four years, with Brazil, Russia, India and China accounting for more than two-thirds of new connections in the developing world and nearly half of all new connections worldwide.

Criminals have poisoned major search engines for terms related to the new MMS capability of Apple's iPhone, and are using the results to steer users to fake Windows security software downloads, a researcher said today. "Up to the top six results for search phrases about iPhone and SMS are poisoned," said Stephan Chenette, the manager of security research at Websense. "This obviously has to do with the iPhone's new MMS feature," he added, referring to the launch last Friday by AT&T of its Multimedia Message Service for the popular iPhone. "The hosts involved were registered just three or four days ago," Chenette said. When users click on one of the poisoned search results, they're redirected to a malicious site promoting "scareware," the term used to describe phony security software that claims a PC is heavily infected. Late Friday morning, Pacific time, AT&T fired up its MMS service , one of the most long-awaited features for the iPhone.

The software duns users with bogus pop-up warnings until they fork over up to $50 for the useless program. Attackers poison search results by creating massive numbers of useless Web sites on the bots they control, or by using previously-hijacked sites. It's all too easy for cyber criminals to poison search results with links to malware or other malicious content, said Chenette. "They have millions of bots at their fingertips," he said, "and with that control, they can sway the results of any search engine at any time." This campaign, however, was clearly aimed to coincide with AT&T's launch of MMS for the iPhone. "People want to know how to use [MMS], how to send multiple pictures at the same time, things like that," said Chenette. Those sites are all packed with credible content, news and headlines in many cases, that has been copied from legitimate sites. When the search engines' spiders crawl the Internet, and index the fake and real sites that have the landing page URL, their algorithms are essentially tricked into pushing it to the top of any search result for the key phrases in the stolen content. "The botnets give them much more power this way than if, say, they were just using them for spam," he added.

All such sites point to a single "landing page" URL, which in turn sends users to a number of different, and often shifting, servers hosting malware, in this case Windows scareware. The only defense is to be wary of what's clicked in a search result. "This isn't going away, it's too successful of a tactic," said Chenette. "[Attackers] are taking the way that engines are populating their results and using it to their advantage. In February, for example, they used Google's own Trends, a tool that highlights the most popular searches of the past hour, to dupe users into clicking on rogue security software downloads. There's nothing search engines can really do about it unless they redesigned how they create results from the ground up." As Chenette hinted, this is far from the first time that scareware makers have poisoned search results to shill their worthless software.

SAN DIEGO - One of the most striking enterprise products on display at this year's DEMOfall show has been HP's Skyroom videoconferencing software that combines instant messaging capabilities with high-definition video streaming. Even more interesting was the software's ability to create windows on their desktops where they can drag and drop pictures, audio files and video files that the person on the other end of the videoconference will then see on their own screen. During the product's demonstration at DEMOfall Tuesday, HP workstation global business unit vice president and general manager Jim Zafarana showed how users can simply click on names displayed on their Skyroom buddy lists to start impromptu HD videoconferences. During the demonstration, Zafarana received a streaming trailer for the film "Monsters, Inc." after his friend dropped it into the Skyroom conference window.

So when I purchase HP Skyroom, I'm not paying for any additional equipment? Slideshow: 13 hot products from DEMOfall '09 After his presentation, Zafarana sat down with Network World to discuss Skyroom's system and bandwidth requirements, its security features and its ability to integrate with existing enterprise chat protocols. I'm only paying for software? You have to meet the minimum system requirements of having a 2.3 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, and your machine has to run on Windows XP or Vista. Yes.

We're planning on having a version that runs on Windows 7 out in November. One of my colleagues in Boston, for instance, has fiber-to-the-home and he uses a VPN to hook onto the HP network and conference with us using Skyroom. We're targeting business customers and this software can really be optimized through company networks, whether it's an onsite network or a VPN with a good network connection. How fast of a data connection do you need to make Skyroom effective? If you have a one-on-one conference, then it's a 1Mbps requirement for high-quality video and you can dial down the quality to make it work at around 500Kbps. It depends on what you're doing.

If you do things such as video and picture sharing it'll take up more bandwidth. Is this designed for people who want to talk to people in other companies, or is it just for coworkers who want to collaborate? With the Monsters, Inc. video clip I shared today during the demonstration, for instance, I was probably adding 5Mbps to the requirements. At this point it only allows for intra-company conferencing. The bits traveling over the network are encrypted at 256Kbps and they can only go through a VPN or a secure corporate network, so it's pretty secure.

What are its security features? How much does Skyroom cost? Additionally, every new HP desktop workstation will ship with Skyroom as a complementary part of the entire package. The pricing model we have now is $149 per user for a license to use the software and there's no subscription fee. How do I add "buddies" to my Skyroom videoconferencing list? If you have corporate Microsoft infrastructure with Office Communicator, for instance, it will pull your Office Communicator buddy list into Skyroom and all your colleagues on that list will show up as available for you to connect to as long as they have Skyroom installed.

There are multiple ways for you to populate your buddy list. You can also use other communication software products such as Jabber Server, to leverage you buddy list into HP Skyroom. Any plans on expanding that? And finally, Skyroom currently limits that number of people who can participate in an HD videoconference to four. Obviously we could do that in the future but we're not talking about that at this point.

Internet-enabled TV sets could see wider adoption in the next few years as viewers get comfortable with the idea of running widgets on TV screens, according to a study released by Ernst & Young on Thursday. TV widgets are designed to pull selective content from the Internet to complement TV watching. Widgets - or mini-applications - are already being used in devices like mobile phones and computers to run light applications, and those applications could reach TV sets, the analyst firm said in the study. For example, users can view weather information on TV or buy products advertised on TV from online stores.

Web-connected TV shipments could total less than 500,000 in 2009, but top 6 million by 2013, E&Y said in the study, citing statistics from Parks Associates. Many consumers consider it an "appealing" idea to mesh TV with information from the Internet, according to the study. Widgets could also be the glue that brings together Internet and TV content. Many Web sites and technology companies are developing an ecosystem to bring content from the Internet and TV together. Broadcast TV is already competing with the Web for viewership, and widgets could facilitate content searches through both mediums, giving more entertainment options to viewers.

Myspace.com, for example, has developed a widget that blends TV with its social-networking offerings. Users don't need to rely on a browser to access MySpace content. TV watchers could exchange e-mail messages or browse photos on MySpace by activating a widget at the bottom of the TV screen. TVs and chips, for instance, are also being developed to build Web-enabled TVs. Sony, Samsung and LG have said select flat-panel high-definition TV models would be able to run widgets or download movies from online entertainment services like Netflix. Intel is also working with companies like CBS and Cinemanow to bring widgets to TVs. Web-enabled TV has struggled over the past 15 years since Time Warner Cable launched the iTV service in Orlando, E&Y said. Intel last week announced the CE4100 media processor, which enables the use of Internet and multimedia applications on TVs, Intel said.

Ever since, it has seen many iterations, with companies like AOL, BSkyB, RespondTV, Hewlett-Packard and Apple trying to bring the Internet to TV through devices like set-top boxes or adapters. Widgets for TV use also need to be adopted by television programming and cable operators. The success of widgets depends on applications that users will want to have on their TVs. For example, one-click access to on-demand content from online movie stores is well-suited for widgets. The operators will look to monetize widgets by developing an ad sales model around it, which could face some challenges, the study found. Conflicting advertising could also appear on a TV screen and widget at the same time, which could affect ad sales models.

For example, viewers could migrate their attention from TV shows to widgets, which could affect the ratings of a program.