An LTE over Wi-Fi spectrum grab is coming

Pundits say spectrum demand will overrun supply by 2018 or 2019. Grabbing someone else’s frequencies would be one solution.

Unlicensed spectrum would be the logical place to expand traffic if, as mobile networks are finding, their licensed spectrum is running out.

Why not shift over to unlicensed spectrum? It's unlicensed, after all, so anyone can use it. Who would object?

Well, the answer to that question may be a bunch of Wi-Fi users, like you and me, if it doesn't work as promised and stomps on existing use, such as Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi at 5 GHz
The new piggy-backing technology uses the same Wi-Fi band that mobile device users are beginning to take advantage of in the home and workplace. That is 5 GHz—the free-to-use band you'll find in newer routers and mobile devices, like tablets and recent phones.

Five GHz Wi-Fi is underused, fast, and well-suited to media delivery in small spaces, like the home. That's why new mobile devices use it.

And it appears Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have taken a fancy to it too. But in that case it's likely for paid-for use in phones.

License Assisted Access
The new technology works by combining existing mobile network spectrum with low-power Wi-Fi spectrum to create a bigger pipe. The technology uses micro-cell-like mini antennas.

It's interchangeably called LTE-U, which stands for LTE-Unlicensed, or its new name LAA, or License Assisted Access.

Remarkably, that new name sounds more like an altruistic, social government program. The new moniker even manages to change elements of the name from "unlicensed" to "licensed." There's a reason marketing experts get paid what they do.

Interference
And there's a reason LAA needs to tread lightly. Wi-Fi Alliance, the Wi-Fi trade body, says LAA poses a risk that could negatively impact "billions of Wi-Fi users who rely on 5 GHz," and that "more work needs to be done."

Ericsson has just said its LAA roll out will begin in Q4 2015.

Algorithms
Wi-Fi band rules say users can't cause interference. It's not allowed. The MNOs and equipment makers insist that LAA won't cause interference.

And maybe that indeed will be the case. Radio signals are better aimed these days, and interference minimization does in fact tie in with an industry trend where frequency waste is increasingly minimized through algorithms and other beaming techniques. Ericsson and Qualcomm are innovative leaders in RF technology.

Interference has historically been created by frequencies stepping on each other—a kind of overlapping caused by a lack of targeting. Clean it all up and there's more capacity through less interference.

Deployment
Ericsson says it can obtain speeds of 450 Mbits using both the LTE spectrum that the carrier has paid for at great expense, usually at a government auction, and this unlicensed band it's plucked for free.

Initial users will be Verizon and T-Mobile, among others, says Sarah Thomas in LightReading, a telecom publication.

"Rude" technology
The big question, of course, is the interference issue. If Qualcomm and Ericsson, the two main players, can get LAA to work flawlessly on the increasingly popular public frequencies they're purloining, as they say they can (and have shown in the lab), then kudos to them. They've improved society.

If, on the other hand, LAA "takes over the band it operates in" and causes Wi-Fi devices to "experience degraded service, service interruptions, and/or complete loss of their connections," as an article by Tinaya in the blog WorldTVPC described as a worst-case scenario, then there'll be trouble. Not least from me. I live on a hilltop, and microwave 5 GHz can travel a long way via line-of-sight with no obstructions.

To add insult to injury, we may all be paying for that stomping in our wireless bill too.

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Why Microsoft’s HoloLens is the next big enterprise thing

HoloLens could be the next big thing in business computing and can be used in some way to provide a better customer experience, improve business collaboration and so much more.

If you had followed along on Twitter or gone straight to the source and listened to the live streaming version of the big Microsoft Windows 10 event on Jan. 21, you probably felt the excitement. That energy was not just about Windows 10: Yeah, that operating system seems nice, and the fit and finish will probably make it the next Windows 7 — you know, the version of the product that corporations land on and run for a decade or more because it is just solid, reliable, and compatible. Everyone who skipped Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 will certainly gravitate toward a major migration toward Windows 10, and Microsoft understands this. It looks like a solid release.

But what folks were really pumped up about was the introduction of a technology and a prototype that was completely out of left field to basically anyone who watches Microsoft on a regular basis: the HoloLens.

What Is Hololens?
Think of HoloLens as a better version of the Oculus Rift, which is now owned by Facebook, and a much better and more applicable to reality product than Google Glass, which was just abandoned — or, rather, put on hiatus until the fall. (Three guesses as to how long that hiatus actually is.)

HoloLens is a wearable device that takes the real world and inserts into it virtual objects; it is augmented reality at its cutting edge now. It is a pair of glasses through which you can see the real world, but it also has a unique display element that lets the computer paint images on top of that reality, in color and with an apparently astonishing closeness to reality.

No additional devices, like a smartphone or another computer, are necessary, although you have to wonder how long the battery that powers the unit will last. In any event, since this device is not yet in production, there is time to figure out the details. Let us focus on the bigger picture.

The demos that the company allowed some press to walk through were scenarios where putting virtual elements within the physical world really improves the end user experience. For example, a “father” was connected with his “daughter” via a Skype call, and the daughter was using the HoloLens while her father walked her through how to repair a plumbing issue with her sink — he was able to draw arrows basically right on top of her field of vision directing her where to put the replacement part, how to install it, what tool to use to perform each task and so on.

Rather than having to rely on only words to describe the procedure, he was able to guide the daughter through the repair easily. Another demonstration involved actually using one’s hands to interact with the virtual objects projected into the physical field of vision.

People are excited about the gaming aspect of HoloLens. Building Minecraft structures on Mars, or immersing yourself into first person shooter games in a way even the Oculus Rift did not allow you to experience. The technology is amazing; Microsoft Research has long been on the forefront of cutting-edge technology, almost to the point that their projects can sometimes seem indistinguishable from magic. Microsoft Research is a group of highly talented, intellectually gifted, top quality researchers and academicians that really develop some of the most interesting and bleeding edge technologies around.

HoloLens Is Huge for the Corporate Crowd
HoloLens has a future that not everyone quite grasping at the moment. That is, its future in business. Gaming is fun, sure, but these devices can be used in almost any business in some way to provide such a better experience for customers that I suspect they will be throwing money at you.

This device can be used in business collaboration settings, too. Imagine an interactive business review, where you literally move numbers around on a page. Imagine an earnings presentation where you can actually transform bar and pie charts to answer questions and derive insight. Even consider an analytics angle: What if you can take a virtual walking tour of all of your New York customers’ buying habits in a certain Brooklyn location?

Also, consider the potential of HoloLens alongside the absolutely gorgeous and eminently usable Surface Hub product, which was also announced at the event. Surface Hub (no, not the utility installed on all Surface Pro 3 tablets — kudos go to Redmond for yet another product naming clash) is the premium office conference room display with a reasonably powerful computer included at no additional charge — 4K resolution with a couple of display sizes, with the largest reaching a giant 84 inches diagonal, a Windows 10 computer, Office, Cortana and more, and it is touch sensitive and you can use pens on it, too. It is, literally, meant to be the hub of the conference room.

Consider what types of applications you could have while teaming up with colleagues or having a product design review on an 84-inch screen with everyone in the room using HoloLens, able to make design changes in 3D (and perhaps 4D by the time this all makes it to the market) or change the colors on parts.

Imagine how a large airplane manufacturer might use HoloLens together with the Surface Hub—or even just HoloLens by itself—to walk airframe customers through choosing interiors, which they can see virtually installed instantaneously. Imagine how large homebuilders can revolutionize their design centers by walking customers through the empty shell of a house with a couple of HoloLens units and show all sorts of upgrades, custom features, structure changes and more.

Think of hospitals revolutionizing medical and surgical training and minimizing error rates and patient deaths even further by always having a second experienced surgeon on hand virtually during difficult procedures.

If you take a couple of minutes, you can imagine many scenarios within your day where you can enhance your productivity and your business by immersing yourself into an experience.

The Last Word
Resist the strong temptation to relegate HoloLens into the category of devices that computer gaming enthusiasts and Dungeons and Dragons players use in their spare time, with not much practical application. This is anything but a toy.

The possibilities that HoloLens enables to transform the way businesses show their employees and customers their products, and the new items, services, and businesses this sort of augmented reality device can create based on those new experiences, are pretty much endless.

When HoloLens actually hits the market, expect developers to start writing apps that make these wearables sing. This kind of technology, marketed and productized appropriately, is what makes the technology field so exciting.

We may be on the cusp of the next big thing in business computing. Who would have thought it would be a pair of computerized glasses?

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Windows 10 Start menu secrets every desktop pro should know

We dig deep into the Windows Technical Preview Start menu to fine-tune it so that you don’t have to

Windows 10 Start menu secrets every desktop pro should know
Windows 10 promises to bring back the Windows 7 Start menu for those of us who still slavishly utilize a keyboard and mouse -- you know, the people who try to get "real work" done with Windows.

Windows Technical Preview build 9860 shows a Start menu that's familiar on the left and Metro-esque on the right. While Microsoft is likely to change the Start menu substantially before the final version of Windows 10 ships in the second half of 2015, the plumbing's in and working, and it holds a lot of new possibilities.

Here's a guided tour the Win10 Start menu and how to make the most of it. It’s light on the easy stuff -- pinning, resizing, and so on -- and heavy on the deeper fare you probably haven't seen yet.

I also point out some of the obvious Start menu shortcomings and bugs as we step through the details. If you encounter other bugs, report them to Microsoft via the Windows Feedback app -- which you’ll find in the Windows Start menu, of all places!

Basic actions on the left side
If you've played with the Win10 Start menu at all, you probably know you can drag and drop items in the pinned part, at the top of the left side. You can't drag and drop items in the lower part, though. As with Windows 7, that lower list is supposed to be your most frequently used programs, although also like in Win7, Windows manipulates the list, favoring some programs over others.

You can remove items from either the top or the bottom of the left side: Right-click and choose “Remove from this list.”

If you right-click on an item on the left side and choose Pin to Start, Windows creates a new tile and sticks it on the Metro-tiled right side of the Start menu. Usually you can drag the item from the left side to the right and accomplish the same thing.

The only way I've found to add items to the top of the left side is to drag and drop them. It's easy to drag from Explorer, the desktop, the right Metro side of the Start menu, or nearly anywhere else. In Win7, you could Pin to Start, and the chosen entry would end up in the top list. Not so in Win10: Pin to Start means "Make a tile and Pin it to the Metro tile list."

Independent control over the top of the Start menu
While you can drag and drop items to the top of the left side of the Start menu, you can also independently tell Windows what you'd like to see up there. To do so, right-click on any empty part of the taskbar, choose Properties, pick the Start Menu tab, and click Customize at the bottom.

There you'll see listed the items that, if checked, will always appear at the top of the Start menu. If you accidentally right-clicked and unpinned an item from the Start menu list, this is where you go to get it back. If you lament the passing of Control Panel, Music, Network, or the others, you can bring them back to the top of the Start menu with a couple of clicks.

The Start Menu tab of the Taskbar Properties dialog is also where you go if you want to kill the Start menu entirely and revert to the Windows 8-style Metro Start screen. I think of that as the Windows 10 equivalent of going feral.

Get rid of apps on the All Apps pane
When you click on All Apps at the bottom of the left side of the Start menu, you'll be overwhelmed by the huge number of Metro apps (and possibly desktop programs) that appear in a large, alphabetized list, with folder names at the bottom and all other items at the top.

If you find any third-party Metro apps (that is, Metro apps not originating from Microsoft) on the list, it's easy to uninstall them and thus take them off the All Apps list. To do so, right-click on the All Apps item and choose Uninstall. Windows will terminate with extreme prejudice, as shown in the screenshot.

While it's possible -- even easy -- to eliminate built-in Metro programs with a right-click and Uninstall, I'd avoid doing that, at least for "important" Metro apps. You can shoot Sound Recorder that way and nobody will know the difference, but it isn't advisable to uninstall, say, Store or Windows Feedback. If you accidentally uninstall a built-in Metro app that you later discover you need, the only recourse I know at this point is to perform a System Refresh (Start, PC Settings, Update and Recovery, Recovery, Refresh).

You may find some links in the All Apps list don't have a right-click Uninstall option. If you want to get rid of one of those, look in the folder C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms or in the folder C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms. Shortcuts there (other than Documents and Pictures, which appear for every user) can be deleted with impunity: Delete the shortcut, and the associated entry disappears from All Apps.

Custom folders on the All Apps list -- not yet working correctly
Microsoft has yet to bring full Windows 7-level support to customizing the All Apps list, but most of the meat is there and operational.

In the screenshot shown here, I created a folder called AskWoody in C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms, and put four more folders inside the AskWoody folder. (…Start MenuPrograms is the location used in Windows 7 for All Users additions to the All Programs list.) I then logged out and logged back in; as you can see, the folder structure is faithfully replicated in Windows 10's All Apps list, as any Win7 guru would expect.

The same procedure works with C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms, which is the Win7 "this user only" location.

Programs, shortcuts to programs, and shortcuts to folders placed inside the homegrown folders appear on the All Apps list, and they function exactly as they do in Win7.

Unfortunately, files placed inside the homegrown folders don't appear on the Win10 All Apps list -- at least, not in Build 9860. Files in that location appear in the All Programs list in Win7. My guess is we'll see the functionality restored in a later build.

For those of you who have asked, I tried and tried but couldn't figure out how to stuff all of those Metro app icons into different folders. (Ping me in the comments if you've figured it out!) Microsoft will certainly give us tools to manage all of those All Apps entries by the time Win10 ships, I assume.

Basic actions on the right side
In many ways, the Metro tiles on the right side of the Start menu behave much like their counterparts on the Metro Start screen we've all come to love and admire in Windows 8 and 8.1. You can drag them around, and they'll bump other tiles to line up in a rather strict formation: Small tiles go next to each other, new columns show up automatically, you can't create your own new columns unless the other columns are full. Any -- but not all -- of the tiles can be resized, to one of four sizes. (The screenshot shows four Small, six Medium, one Wide, and one Large tile.)

Some of the apps change what's displayed on the tile, and if that activity bothers you, then you can right-click and choose “Turn live tile off.”

Don't want to see any tiles? Easy: Right-click on each, one at a time, and choose Unpin from Start. Right-click and choose Uninstall, and the app is uninstalled. Want to pin an app that appears in the Metro tile portion of the Start menu to the left side of the Start menu? No sweat: Drag it from right to left.

You can drag a Metro tile from the right side of the Start menu to the desktop and create a shortcut. The shortcut is like any other shortcut; right-click and choose Properties to change the name or the icon -- the default icons look like ghostly apparitions, if you can see them at all. It's not as cool as a Win7 gadget, but we're getting there.

To date we haven't seen any intelligent tiles -- ones with interactive controls on the face, like a Play button on the Audio tile -- but many people figure that will come when the Win10 consumer beta version hits early next year.

Make the Start menu taller or shorter
You can drag the top bar on the Start menu and make the entire menu taller or shorter, within the confines of your screen. But you can't adjust the size left to right. The Start menu gets wider and narrower to accommodate the tiles you've pinned in it. If you have too many tiles, they flop over to the right, and you can scroll to see them.

Make File Explorer open to This PC
Many of you have complained to me (and to Microsoft) that you don't want File Explorer to open to the new, made-up Home. In Windows 7, Explorer opened to the Libraries folder. In Win8/8.1 it opens to This PC, which shows your main folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures Videos), drives and devices, and network locations.

Here's how to create a Metro tile on the Win10 Start menu that opens to This PC and how to pin that tile to the desktop's taskbar. (I believe this trick is previously undocumented.)

1. In the Start menu's “Search everywhere” box, type This PC (note the space). This PC appears as the first item on the search results list.

2. Click and drag that This PC item to your desktop. You get a shortcut to This PC.

3. Right-click the new icon and choose Pin to Start. That puts a tile on the right, Metro side of the start menu.

4. Left-click the new Metro tile and drag it to the taskbar.

You end up with a This PC Metro tile on the right side of the Start menu and a This PC icon on the taskbar.

You can use that new Metro tile, or the new icon in the taskbar, to open File Explorer at This PC. Removing it is as easy as right-clicking and choosing either Unpin from Start and/or Unpin this program from taskbar.

Make a shortcut to show your printers
Here's another tune to the same theme, using an old Control Panel hack.

Do you remember the Windows 7 Devices and Printers list? It's still around in Windows 10, but you have to dig for it. There's an easy way to stick a link to the Devices and Printers list on your desktop, and from there move it into the Start menu. Try this:

1. Right-click the Start button and choose Control Panel.

2. In the Hardware and Sound section, left-click the line marked View Devices and Printers and drag it onto your desktop.

3. Drop it on your desktop, and you have a new shortcut into the Devices and Printers list. Right-click on the icon and choose Pin to Start. It'll show up as a tile on the right (Metro) side of the Start menu.

4. From there you can click and drag the tile over to the left side of the Start menu, and/or right-click and choose Pin to Taskbar.

Many of the old Control Panel applets can be pinned in a similar fashion.

Create a Start menu entry for any drive or folder
Generally, pinning a drive or folder to the left side of the Start menu is pretty easy. I say "generally" because I've hit situations with network drives where the general approach doesn't work.

Most of the time, you can left-click and drag the folder or drive to the Start icon, then place it on the Start menu.

If that doesn't work, navigate to the drive or folder, right-click on it, and choose Pin to Start. That puts a tile on the right side of the Start menu. Click and drag that tile to the top of the left side of the Start menu; the resulting pinned item will sweep you directly to the chosen drive or folder.

In either case, you can right-click on the tile or the Start menu item and choose "Pin to taskbar" if you'd like to see it down at the bottom.

If you ever want to remove the Start menu item, right-click on it and choose "Remove from this list."

Make File Explorer open to any location
There's another way to skin this cat -- an approach with additional options. Nothing like an old trick with a new twist. Windows shortcuts have the power to launch File Explorer and have it start off in the directory of your choice. Here's how:

1. Right-click any open spot on the desktop and choose New, Shortcut. You’ll get a properties dialog like the one in the screenshot.

2. In the Target box, type explorer.exe followed by the switches that tell Explorer to open the right way, in the right place. There's a full list of valid switches in Microsoft's KB 152457. In this case, I want Explorer to start "rooted" at the location C:UsersWoodyDocumentsInvoices. I type: explorer.exe /root,C:UsersWoodyDocumentsInvoices

Note there is no space to the right of the comma. (Use quotes around the folder name, if it has spaces.)

3. Click the General tab and give the shortcut a name. You can also click the Change Icon button on the Shortcut tab and pick a different icon. (Tech Republic has a good overview of files with icons.) When you're done, click OK.

4. Click on the icon and drag it to the Start button. When the Start menu unfolds, drop the icon onto the top of the left side of the Start menu.

5. If you want a Metro tile on the right side of the Start menu, drag the new Start menu item over to the right. If you want a taskbar icon to match, right-click the Start menu item and choose “Pin to taskbar.”

I believe that trick's previously undocumented in Windows 10, too.

Change the Start menu's background color
You can change the background color on the Start menu, but in doing so, you change the background color on the taskbar and the title bar of all of your windows. Knock yourself out: Right-click on an empty spot in the Start menu (either side) and choose Personalize.

By default, Windows adapts the background color to make it stand out -- that's the default setting, in the upper-left corner. You can choose from the offered colors or mix one of your own, manually adjusting intensity, hue, saturation, and brightness.

Pin the Recycle Bin to the Start menu and the taskbar

Probably more effort than it's worth, but you can (finally!) pin the Recycle Bin to the taskbar and/or the right (Metro) side of the Start menu. That way you can avoid digging all the way down to your desktop to empty the Recycle Bin. I figure I do that once every six months.

Right-click the Recycle Bin on the desktop and choose Pin to Start. Then in the Start menu, right-click on the new Recycle Bin tile on the right and choose “Pin to taskbar.”

Keyboard shortcuts for Start menu apps
Several people have complained that they can't set up keyboard shortcuts for their programs. In Windows 7, you could right-click on any entry in the Start menu, choose Properties, and assign a shortcut key to the program. Typing the shortcut would invoke the program.

In Win10, you have to be a little more devious. Here's how.

You have to keep track of your own shortcut keys. Win10 inherits Win7's inability to warn you about duplicated shortcut keys, and if you assign the same key combination to two different shortcuts, heaven only knows which one will respond first. Caveat emptor.

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Gmail users urged to change passwords after apparent attack

Hackers compromised nearly 5M Gmail passwords

Security experts are urging Gmail users to change their passwords amid reports that hackers gained access to the credentials of 5 million users of the free email service. Some password combinations have been spotted on Russian cybercrime forums.

Peter Kruse, head of the eCrime unit at CSIS Security Group in Copenhagen, told Computerworld that most of the nearly 5 million stolen Gmail passwords are about three years old, but many are still legitimate and functioning.

He said that CSIS experts suspect that several hackers worked on an endpoint compromise to exploit vulnerable network protocols.

Google did not respond to a Computerworld request for comment but has told other news outlets that it has found no evidence that their systems have been compromised.

Google’s cloud-based email service is used by individuals as well as enterprises.

Russian media outlet RIA Novosti reported that hackers have stolen and published a database containing the Google account logins and passwords to a Bitcoin Security online forum.

The database reportedly contains 4.93 million Google accounts from English, Russian and Spanish users.

Kruse said the discovery of the hack comes just days after more than 4.6 million Russian-based Mail.ru accounts and 1.25 million Yandex e-mail boxes were reportedly compromised. Yandex is the largest Russian-based search engine.

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Quick look inside IBM’s snazzy new mainframe

What did IBM do to celebrate the mainframe’s 51st birthday? Reinvented the Big Iron basically.

Happy 51st
What did IBM do to celebrate the mainframe’s 51st birthday? Reinvented the Big Iron basically. The z13 models announced this week are the result of a $1 billion, five-year development cycle that resulted in the most powerful, feature-laden mainframe to date. Here we take a quick look at some of the more interesting features of the new system.

Legendary scalability
The z13 promises to build upon the mainframe’s legendary scalability: the big z13 is capable of running up to 8,000 virtual servers -- more than 50 virtual servers per core and z13 is able to process 2.5 billion transactions a day - equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day of the year, IBM says.

Real-time encryption
IBM says the z13 will make practical real-time encryption of all mobile transactions. The z13 speeds real-time encryption of mobile transactions to help protect the transaction data and ensure response times. The system includes 500 new patents including cryptographic encryption technologies that enable more security features for mobile initiated transactions. Support to allow a cryptographic coprocessor to be shared across more than 16 domains, up to the maximum number of logical partitions on the system.

Embedded analytics
The z13 is the first mainframe system with embedded analytics providing real-time insights on all transactions. This capability can help guarantee the ability of the client to run real-time fraud detection on 100% of their business transactions, IBM says.

Cascade of events
On the mobile front, each transaction triggers a cascade of events across computing systems. These events include comparisons to past purchases, data encryption and decryption, bank-to-bank reconciliations, and customer loyalty discounts. This cascade of events causes what IBM calls a “starburst effect” – where a single transaction can trigger as few as four or as many as 100 additional system interactions. IBM says the z13 in such situations can protect and watch over these threat points.

zAware
BM’s zAware program has been improved. The system uses near real-time continuous learning algorithms, providing a diagnostics capability intended to help customers quickly pinpoint problems. IBM zAware uses analytics to intelligently examine z/OS or Linux on z Systems messages to find unusual patterns, inconsistencies, and variations. Large operating system environments can sometimes generate more than 25 million messages per day. This can make manual analysis time-consuming and error-prone when exceptional problems occur. IBM zAware provides a simple graphical user interface and APIs to help customers find message anomalies quickly, IBM says.

Fiber channel connectivity
IBM significantly bolstered the Fiber channel connectivity for storage area networks. IBM said the z13 will support a new release of IBM’s Fiber Connection or FICON. FICON Express16S features a link data rate of 16Gbps and auto-negotiation to 4G or 8Gbps for interaction with existing switches, directors, and storage devices.

Memory
The z13 supports 10TBytes of main memory, up from 3TB on the previous generation. The z13 is based on an eight-core processor made in the same 22 nm process as IBM’s Power 8 processors. A fully configured system sports up to 141 of these cores, all running at 5 GHz. The z13 supports 10 TBytes main memory, up from 3 TB in the previous generation.

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Coming soon: Better geolocation Web data

The W3C and OGC pledge to ease the path for developing location-enriched Web data

From ordering pizza online to pinpointing the exact location of a breaking news story, an overwhelming portion of data on the Web has geographic elements. Yet for Web developers, wrangling the most value from geospatial information remains an arduous task.

Now the standards body for the Web has partnered with the standards body for geographic information systems (GIS) to help make better use of the Web for sharing geospatial data.

Both the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) have launched working groups devoted to the task. They are pledging to closely coordinate their activities and publish joint recommendations.

Adding geographic elements to data online in a meaningful way "can be done now, but it is difficult to link the two worlds together and to use the infrastructure of the Web effectively alongside the infrastructure of geospatial systems," said Phil Archer, who is acting as data activity lead for the W3C working group.

A lack of standards is not the problem. "The problem is that there are too many," he said. With this in mind, the two standards groups are developing a set of recommendations for how to best use existing standards together.

As much as 80 percent of data has some geospatial element to it, IT research firm Gartner has estimated. In the U.S. alone, geospatial services generate approximately $75 billion a year in annual revenue, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Making use of geospatial data still can be a complex task for the programmer, however. An untold amount of developer time is frittered away trying to understand multiple formats and sussing out the best ways to bridge them together.

For GIS (geographic information system) software, the fundamental units of geospatial surface measurement are the point, line and polygon. Yet, people who want to use geographically enhanced data tend to think about locations in a fuzzier manner.

For instance, say someone wants to find a restaurant in the "Little Italy" section of a city, Archer explained. Because such neighborhoods are informally defined, they don't have a specific grid of coordinates that could help in generating a definitive set of restaurants in that area.

"That sort of information is hard to get if you don't have geospatial information and it is also hard to get if you only have geospatial information," Archer said.

Much of the work the groups will do will be centered around bridging geolocational and non-geolocational data in better ways -- work that the two groups agreed needed to be completed at a joint meeting last March in London.

The groups will build on previous research done in the realm of linked open data, an approach of formatting disparate sources of data so they can be easily interlinked.

The groups will also look at ways to better harness emerging standards, notably the W3C's Semantic Sensor Network ontology and OGC's GeoSPARQL.

The working groups plan to define their requirements within the next few months, and will issue best practices documents as early as by the end of the year.

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Alleged tech support scammers come up with all kinds of alibis to counter complaints

Better Business Bureau records show companies blamed scammers, customers' Internet connections and new software for consumer grievances

Companies sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft for allegedly defrauding consumers with worthless Windows technical support have spun tales involving flakey Internet connections, it's-not-us-it's-scammers, new management software and unanswered emails to counter hundreds of consumer complaints this year, Better Business Bureau (BBB) records showed.

The four companies sued by the FTC in November and by Microsoft this month were reported to the BBB at least 318 times in the last 12 months, according to the organization's website.

Two of those companies accounted for the majority of the complaints: Customer Focus Services, a California company that operates a number of sites, including omnitechsupport.com; and Inbound Call Experts, a Florida company that ran advancedtechsupport.com and others. The BBB closed 124 complaints against Omni Tech Support in 2014, and 158 against Inbound Call Experts. The number of actual complaints filed may have been considerably larger, as the BBB only reports cases it considers resolved.

Consumer Focus Service was one of two technical support firms Microsoft sued in federal court earlier this month -- the other was Anytime Techies of Florida. Microsoft accused the two of infringing numerous Microsoft trademarks and practicing false advertising as they tricked consumers into paying for bogus help.

Inbound Call Experts, along with Vast Tech Support, both of Florida, were shuttered by a federal judge in November after the FTC filed complaints claiming they bilked Americans of more than $120 million.

All four allegedly operated telemarketing scams where consumers were told that their Windows PCs were infected with malware or needed to be optimized to work properly. Some consumers had contacted the companies themselves after seeing their websites or search result ads, while others had been cold-called by the firms.

The "help" provided was largely worthless, and in some cases the companies' representatives planted malware on the victims' PCs, the FTC and Microsoft charged. Customers were charged hundreds for the calls or fast-talked into expensive multi-year service contracts.

Such scams have become almost routine because the practice is extremely lucrative: Microsoft estimated that losses to U.S. consumers run $1.5 billion annually, and that a third of those contacted by scammers fall for the ploys.

While accounts of victims are easy to find -- Computerworld receives scores of emails each week about scams that readers fell for or narrowly avoided -- the alleged scammers' side is not. But their replies to customer complaints on the BBB website -- some, like Customer Focus's Omni Tech Support are actually members of the business trade group -- were illuminating, to say the least.

"The defense given by Omni over, and over and over again (it was given to me at least 12 times during my 6 1/2 hour 'chat' with them, as I was trying to set up services with them and had already paid their fee) ... is 'unstable Internet connection' or 'fluid Internet Connection,'" wrote Jane D. in a Nov. 30 complaint.

By Jane D.'s account, when she asked questions about Omni's extended service, the company representative balked at answering, instead telling her, "Just sign the contract." After she pressed for answers, Omni dropped the connection.

"It is my strong opinion that they use this 'poor Internet connection/fluid Internet connection' excuse as a way to wear you down, tire you out, and get your money," Jane D. said, referring to the numerous times she connected to the company's chat service and the several technicians she had to speak with.

Computerworld found several instances in Omni Tech Support's replies to the BBB complaints where it blamed customers' Internet connections for its inability to provide the services those people had already paid for. "Her Internet connectivity was weak and the chat session were getting disconnected, it was taking a longer time than expected," Omni said in response to a different complaint filed on Feb. 10.

InBound Call Experts, one of the two companies whose assets were frozen last month after the FTC lodged complaints, told a different story.

In a long reply to the BBB, which in February had asked Inbound for their "voluntary cooperation" in resolving complaints, Inbound threw its new computer software under the bus.

"The new [software] interface had new buttons that [representatives] were not used to and certain parts of the CRM [customer relationship management software] were in different locations," Inbound told the BBB. "With that said, our average handle time went from 19 minutes per call to 25 minutes per call. Because of this, our phone lines got backed up as we were not able to answer as many phone calls and many customers were calling back over and over because they were unable to reach us."

Inbound also claimed that its automated tools had a bug and so technicians had to "manually do some of the work that our automated tool normally did."

Vast Tech Support, the other company closed in the FTC-initiated action, blamed email when a customer said she had not received a promised refund earlier this year. "We have been communicating through email," said Katie M., a supervisor at Vast Tech Support, in a reply to an August BBB complaint. "The customer has not responded to my last email."

Not true, the customer countered. "I replied to each response this woman sent. I told her in our last email that I would update status [of the BBB complaint] upon receipt of refund."

But the most cynical defense by the alleged scammers was that they had not called people and pressured them into buying software and services. Who had? Well, other scammers.

In a familiar-to-victims account, one consumer wrote, "I do not use Omni Tech Support, terminated support more than 1 yr year ago. [But] for 4 months I have received multiple calls alleging that my computer is infected by virus. I have asked numerous times for supervisor to cease any calls because I am not interested in their product. These calls occur 2 and 3 times a day, including evening hours."

Omni Tech said it wasn't them. "It was a scam call. It was not us. We simply don't call people and tell them they have a virus," the company replied.

The it's-not-us-it's-them comeback was used by several of the firms in their responses to complaints registered with the BBB.

One grievance filed with the BBB said that the consumer had contacted Inbound Experts for technical support, which was provided. But just six hours later, the customer was called by someone claiming to work for Microsoft, who said that the Redmond, Wash. firm knew the user's PC was in trouble. In other words, a classic scam call.

"Obviously, since [Inbound Experts] knew when my computers were worked on, my name and phone number, this appears to be [an] inside issue," the complaint read. During a conversation with an Inbound Experts supervisor, the complaintant continued, "He said he was sorry about this and that many other customers have complained about this also, and supposedly the FBI was working on it. He was quick to end the phone call which made me even more suspicious. When I told him that this appeared to be an inside problem, he said it was possible."

Inbound's official response? "I can assure you that Advanced Tech Support [one of the names that Inbound used, the FTC said last month] is not a scam."

Neither Omni Tech Support's parent company or Anytime Techies have replied to Computerworld emails asking for comment about the Microsoft allegations. The two companies have until Jan. 8 to respond to Microsoft's lawsuit.

Omni Tech is a member of the BBB, but the organization did not give the company a grade-style "A" through "F" ranking. Anytime Techies is not accredited by the BBB, but has been given a "C" rating. Both Inbound Call Experts and Vast Tech Support were graded "F," and their BBB accreditation was revoked Nov. 26, a week after the FTC announced that they'd been closed by court order.

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