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Motorola Unveils World’s First Mobile Phone Made Using Recycled Water Bottle Plastics and New 3G Touch Tablet with Customizable Home Screen

Today Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced two new mobile devices that will make social responsibility and social connectivity even more accessible to people everywhere. MOTO™ W233 Renew is the world’s first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles, and MOTOSURF™ A3100 - a high-speed touch tablet with a fully customizable home screen - will debut this week at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) Central Hall booth #8545).

MOTO W233 Renew: Environmentally Responsible Design with Uncompromised Quality
MOTO W233 Renew delivers the quality you expect from a Motorola device while empowering you to make a positive impact on the environment by reducing your carbon footprint. Not only is the plastic housing of Renew made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles and 100 percent recyclable, but it is also the world’s first carbon neutral phone. Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Product Certification after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.

We developed the MOTOSURF A3100 as a true social smartphone
“Today, natural resources, energy and time are more precious than ever before,” said Jeremy Dale, corporate vice president, marketing, Motorola mobile devices. “From the product’s design, to the packaging to our partnership with Carbonfund.org, we wanted to ensure that this device makes the right impact with consumers and the environment.”

When designing the packaging, Motorola was able to reduce its size by 22 percent and the box and all of the materials inside are printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. In addition, a postage-paid recycling envelope in box makes it easy to return your previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost.

Renew was designed for eco-conscious consumers as well as the millions of people who put making phone calls as their number one priority in a mobile phone. With nine hours of talk time, CrystalTalk technology and messaging capabilities, Renew makes environmental responsibility affordable for consumers everywhere. Renew will first be available at T-Mobile USA in Q1 2009.

The state of spam - what to expect in 2009
see also Berkeley study on spam

Spam, oh spam — can we ever get rid of you? 2008 saw a promising blow to the endless sea of junk mail, but the relief didn’t last for long. Now, spam experts say new forms of annoyances are on the way for the new year.

“Some battles have been won in 2008, but the war is far from over,” says Martin Thornberg, co-founder of SPAMfighter, a software development and spam research company.

Minimizing the Risk of Information Security Breaches: Best Practices for SOA Governance and Compliance: View nowSo far, junk mail has managed to infiltrate only about 22 percent of its potential Internet territory, Thornberg says. That means more methods — and, yes, more headaches — are bound to be on the horizon.

The Spam Forecast

They may not have a doppler radar, but the SPAMfighter team has a full forecast — and it doesn’t look pretty. Here’s what’s topping the junk mail outlook for 2009:

• More social network spam. Spammers started bringing their ways to networks in increasing numbers throughout ‘08, and that trend is expected to climb quickly in the coming months.

• More complex networks behind the efforts. The shutdown of a Colorado hosting company in November had a significant effect because of its configuration: That single company served as the control center for the majority of botnets that were propagating unwanted messages. Researchers think as much as 75 percent of all junk mail was tied to that one place. Spammers will be smarter in 2009, SPAMfighter says, building more resilient and less centralized systems.

• More combined methods. Spam will be partnered with spyware and phishing tactics to create new kinds of “blended threats,” SPAMfighter says.

• An increase in “spear phishing,” or spam campaigns targeted to specific groups and interests. These might include messages tailored to employees of a particular company or organization, or even just to members of certain online networks. The messages are designed to look like official communications.

• A general rise in creativity. In 2008, SPAMfighter observed things like phishing attempts disguised as warnings against phishing. As even novice Internet users become more savvy, the disguises are likely to expand.

The bad news? That tiny percentage is enough to generate $7,000 a day, or $3.5 million a year, for a decent-sized spam network, the study says. What’s more, the activity could add as many as 8,500 new bots into the spam network every 24 hours.

Want to compare security products? View our IT Product Guides now.While we’d love to track down those imbeciles actually ordering stuff from spam — if you’re one of them, please leave a comment below with your contact information — the more realistic action is just to spend a few minutes talking about proper cyberprotection. So, if you’re confident in your spam-fighting abilities, relax and enjoy a complimentary pumpkin muffin.* Otherwise, read on and reinforce your knowledge.

*Complimentary pumpkin muffins available only for PC World staff

Your Spam Protection Plan

• The same goes for “delivery failure” messages. If you don’t remember sending the message being referenced, hit delete and move on.

• Avoid giving out your primary e-mail address on any forum or blog site that you don’t absolutely trust. Set up a secondary “junk” account for public distribution instead.

• Similarly, don’t post your primary e-mail address on your own blog or Web site. Bots will find it and add you to their lists.

• Never send money, either for a purchase or donation, to any entity you learned about through an unsolicited message.

• This is old, but it still hasn’t hit home for some folks: DON’T CLICK ON LINKS IN UNSOLICITED E-MAILS. If a message from your bank tells you to click to confirm your account, ignore it. Open up your browser and type in the bank’s legit URL manually, then see if there’s any real issue to be addressed.

Simple enough? I thought so. And, not to leave anyone out, we’ve arranged to commend your continued reading with a warm cinnamon sticky bun, on the house.** You’re a strong soldier in the war against spam, dear friend. Welcome to the team.

Joint Board Universal Service Monitoring Report Released in U.S.
see also full text of the report

The Twelfth Universal Service Monitoring Report has been released by the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, using information available as of June 2008. This 600-page report details information gathered to monitor the collection and disbursement of funds under the USF programme and gathers together data from sources including the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) and the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA), which it describes as the “only comprehensive data on all incumbent local exchange carriers”, including number of lines, call volumes and costs. Data is detailed to the state, and in some cases company level, and the effect of these support mechanisms, including subscribers and penetration, rates and price indices, network usage and growth, quality of service, infrastructure and revenues, expenses and investment, is also provided.

BT To Launch Carbon-Footprint Assessment Service to German Clients

The German branch of BT Global Services has launched a “Carbon Impact Assessment” service on the local market, according to a company press release. The service is aimed at large corporate and public-sector organisations with large IT functions, providing them with a new means to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. When measuring a client’s carbon impact, the BT’s team takes into account the employees’ work patterns—in terms of e.g. commuting, business travel, and use of IT—as well as how the organisations business operations and building infrastructure adds to the emissions.

Significance: By assessing clients’ energy efficiency, BT Germany will provide itself with a new channel through which it can offer its IT solutions. According to the company, possible means for reducing the carbon footprint may include, for example: further consolidation and virtualisation of data centres; increased flexibility on working locations, as a way to enable employees to work more from home or on the move; and cutting down on business travels by replacing physical meetings with audio and video conferencing. Besides contributing to its own corporate PR, all these areas work as sources of revenue for the British company.

Police ‘encouraged’ to hack more

The Home Office has signed up to an EU strategy against cybercrime that “encourages” police across Europe to remotely access personal computers.

The plan has sparked fears that the government is looking to increase police powers to hack into people’s computers without a court warrant.

UK police already do a “small number” of such operations under existing law.

However, the Home Office said the EU agreement would not affect police behaviour and was not legally binding.

The plan, drawn up by the Council of the European Union, makes broad statements on how to improve European cyber crime-fighting, including inviting countries to introduce remote searches if they are already provided for under national law.

In a statement regarding the agreement, the Council stated that “the new strategy encourages [the police and the private sector] to…resort to remote searches.”

British law already allows police to remotely access computers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which allows surveillance to “prevent or detect serious crime”.

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) told The Times newspaper that police were already carrying out a small number of these operations among the 194 clandestine searches last year of people’s homes, offices, and hotel rooms.

“The UK has agreed to a strategic approach to tackling cybercrime with other EU member states, but this is separate from existing UK laws,” the Home Office said in a statement, adding that the plan is not legally binding and there is no timescale for implementing the strategy.