HTML5 adoption might hurt Apple's profit, research finds

The widespread adoption of HTML5 for Web apps could cut Apple's operation profit growth by 30%, with Microsoft, Google and carriers benefiting, Bernstein Research predicted.

The financial researchers envision widespread adoption of HTML5 will affectiPhones and iPads, reducing margins for the former and lowering market share for the latter.

"Rough scenario analyses says that even a modest impact in each of these areas could cut our estimated Op. profit growth forecast for Apple through 2015 by about 30%," senior analyst Toni Sacconaghi Jr. wrote in a research paper issued last week. This could reduce the compound annual growth rate (CGAR) from roughly 19% today to 13%.

According to Sacconaghi, the emergence of HTML5 apps is "an important, longer-term issue for Apple investors to monitor." HTML5 technology has the potential to undermine profit margins and market share in Apple's iPhone and iPad franchises.

HTML5 is appealing to developers and businesses because it can be used to build Web apps that target all mobile platforms at once. This is more cost-effective and less labor-intensive than building different native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

It also allows developers and publishers to circumnavigate the 30% commission charged by Apple and Google for selling apps through their app stores. Furthermore, Apple also takes a 30% cut on subscriptions sold through the App Store. Both cuts could be obviated with HTML5-based apps, the report pointed out.

These are the main reasons why Amazon, the Financial Times and Twitter have each announced Web apps. Executives from Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have all praised HTML5's virtues, Bernstein Research noted.

Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester Research, also thinks HTML5 will have an impact on the mobile ecosystem: "With more and more companies investing in HTML 5 clients -- or even hybrid apps that combine HTML 5 and native code -- what you will see is a reduction in porting costs to support other platforms like Android and Windows 8. This will erode, but not eliminate Apple's first mover advantage," he said in an email responding to questions.

"The primary beneficiaries will be Microsoft and Google and their OEMs. Examples of companies taking this approach include LinkedIn, Salesforce, the Financial Times and Amazon. There are many others as well," Hammond said.

Bernstein's research also painted a possible rosy future for Microsoft and Google. HTML5 apps could help to neutralize Android's advantage in third-party developer support. Also, "commoditization could lead to lower pricing, which could in turn cause some unit elasticity, potentially benefitting Google," according to Bernstein's research.

Carriers in turn could benefit from reduced handset prices and as a result, lower handset subsidies. The researchers expect that HTML5 apps would also cache data, which means that data usage is not likely to increase and the average revenue per user (ARPU) would not be affected. The increase of HTML5 usage would, however, have an overall negative impact on mobile device makers.

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Hack brings down Linux websites

A number of Linux websites, including LinuxFoundation.org and Linux.com, have been pulled offline after a security breach.

The breach is believed to be related to the hack of the Kernel.org website that is home to the Linux Project, nearly two weeks ago.

In a holding message on its website, the Linux Foundation said that it had discovered a security breach on Sept. 8, which led to its taking down the Linux websites and their subdomains for maintenance.

The Linux Foundation infrastructure also supports services such as Open Printing and Linux Mark. However, it does not house the Linux kernel or its code repositories.

"The Linux Foundation made this decision in the interest of extreme caution and security best practices.

"We believe this breach was connected to the intrusion on kernel.org," the statement on Linux Foundation said.

While the Linux Foundation is restoring services, it warned users that their passwords may be compromised, and advised them to change them urgently:

"As with any intrusion and as a matter of caution, you should consider the passwords and SSH keys that you have used on these sites compromised. If you have reused these passwords on other sites, please change them immediately."

The foundation added that it is auditing all its systems, and will provide an updated statement when it has more information.

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Google lets Wi-Fi hotspot owners opt out of location service

Bowing to pressure from European privacy regulators, Google will soon allow owners of Wi-Fi access points to opt out of a Google service that allows smartphone owners to identify their location without using GPS (Global Positioning System), it said Tuesday.

On the same day, Google announced it will not appeal an order from the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) requiring it to destroy records of 3.6 million Wi-Fi SSIDs (service set identifiers) it collected in breach of Dutch privacy laws, IDG's Dutch news site Webwereld.nl reported.

By detecting the identity of a nearby Wi-Fi access point and looking up its geographic location in a database, Google can tell a smartphone owner roughly where they are. But so far, the owners of those Wi-Fi base stations haven't had a say in how their location information is used.

Now Google plans to build an opt-out service so that access point owners can ask that their data not be used to determine the location of smartphones, it said Tuesday.

The opt-out service will be available globally, although it was created at the instigation of European privacy regulators, Google Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer wrote on a company blog.

The company will release details of how to opt out of the service by the end of the year, when the service is ready, he wrote.

Google collected the disputed geographic Wi-Fi data by having its Streetview vehicles scan for Wi-Fi signals at the same time as they recorded panoramic images for its mapping service, an action that some European data protection regulators condemned as an invasion of privacy.

Part of the reason for the regulators' anger was that Google collected far more information than it needed simply to identify the Wi-Fi base stations.

The French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL), discovered that Google had also recorded private communications being transmitted over unencrypted Wi-Fi connections, including usernames and passwords. The Commission fined Google 100,000 ($142,000) for that.

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Linux Google Chrome Shines

The Google Chrome browser is still available as a stable build only for Windows, but it turns out that youcan get a dev build for Linux and also for Mac OSX. I've been curious about this browser for a while, so I tried out both.

The Linux build is easy to install if you're running current versions of Debian or Ubuntu. It may also be possible to install on other distros, but it's untested — the available version is .deb. Once installed, it's pretty fast — faster, I think, than Firefox on my machine.

Install is also easy on the Mac (.dmg available), but on initial startup, it hung when importing settings from Firefox. The second time around I did get a window, and all seemed to work well. It does start fast. Once up and running, Chrome is noticeably faster than Firefox (although perhaps this was a slightly unfair test, as I have about 20 open tabs in my Firefox right now!)

I quite like how the server address in the address box is bolded, with the rest of the URL left light gray. The address-and-search-box is also nice, although you get this functionality in practice in Firefox these days as well. I also like the minimalism of the address/button bar. I certainly intend to keep experimenting for a while.

Note that these are dev builds (not even beta!), so they may be significantly unstable. In the case of the Mac build, various privacy settings are unavailable.

Juliet Kemp has been messing around with Linux systems, for financial reward and otherwise, for about a decade. She is also the author of "Linux System Administration Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach" 

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8 Great Uses for Old Wireless Routers

Don't throw away your old 802.11g routers just yet. The new slick-looking 802.11n routers may provide higher speeds and performance, but there are still many ways your old gear can help out, including extending your wireless coverage, improving a new network, assisting in offering public Wi-Fi, providing network authentication, or enabling secure remote or site-to-site VPN connections.

Some of these ideas consist of moving the old router around to serve a different purpose. However, most make use of the neat features that replacement firmware projects offer for the popular WRT series from Linksys and many other vendors and brands. Nevertheless, all the ideas can be quite helpful and save you a lot of money.

1) Extend coverage by using it as an AP

Though wireless routers are designed to connect to and distribute an Internet connection, they can be used just for their Wi-Fi capabilities. In other words, you can use it as an access point (AP) instead of a wireless router. If you have a small network with only a single wireless router, this can just about double your wireless coverage—and it's essentially free.

Like a regular AP, you want to place the makeshift AP in a thoughtful spot to provide the best coverage. You want the wireless coverage boundaries of each router to overlap some. Then you have to run an Ethernet cable from the network's router or switch all the way to the makeshift AP.

The trick to turn the router into an AP is to turn off the router's DHCP server and to hook the Ethernet cable to one of the switch ports instead of the old router's WAN port. 

2) Relieve 802.11n routers from supporting 802.11g

When using 802.11n (or Draft N), it's best to allow only 802.11n connections on the router. If 802.11g clients connect, they can slow down the newer clients. However, you can set up the old router again, just to support the old clients. You'd use the router as an AP, such as discussed above, except you could place it right next to the new router since you aren't trying to get more coverage.

So you can better differentiate between the 802.11g and 802.11n signals, you should use different SSIDs or network names. To make sure someone loaded with a 802.11g card doesn't accidentally connect to the new router, you can change the default wireless mode to 802.11n only.

3)Make it a repeater to take the signal further

Another way you can use an old router to extend your Wi-Fi footprint is to turn it into a repeater. Instead of having to run an Ethernet cable out to an AP, a repeater gets its network connection by listening to the airwaves and retransmitting the Wi-Fi signals between the existing wireless network and the users out of the main coverage area. This is great if you can't or don't want to run wires.

Though this range-extending technique doesn't require running cables, it does require flashing your router with replacement firmware. That's because routers don't come with the repeater feature out of the box. If you have a supported router, you can use the DD-WRT, Tomato, or Sveasoft firmware replacement.

4) Use it as a wireless bridge

If you have computers or other network devices that need to be connected to the network but only have an Ethernet port and aren't close enough to the router, you could convert your old router into a wireless bridge. In bridge mode, the old router would communicate with the new router via the airwaves. Any computers connected to the old router's Ethernet ports would be just like they were wirelessly connected with the new router themselves.

Like with the repeater mode, to get this bridging capability, you'll have to use a firmware replacement: DD-WRT, Tomato, or Sveasoft.

5) Offer VPN connections or connect offices together

Another feature provided by some firmware replacements is a built-in VPN server and client. This lets you set up the router for secure remote connections, so you can access files and services or secure your Wi-Fi hotspot connections. Plus if you have multiple locations, you can securely connect them via the Internet. You can find this functionality in the DD-WRT or Sveasoft firmware replacements.

6) Turn it into a hotspot

If you have a business, you could convert your old router into a hotspot gateway. Though you can simply plug in a regular wireless router to offer wireless Internet, you should implement the hotspot features. A captive portal makes users see a disclaimer or advertisements, or make payment, before getting Internet access. Plus some hotspot gateways can manage user accounts if login is required.

Both DD-WRT and Sveasoft include hotspot features. You might also want to check out the CoovaAPfirmware replacement and all their free services. Sputnik offers a modified version of DD-WRT along with their paid services.

7) Make it a RADIUS server

If you want to use the enterprise mode of WPA or WPA2, but don't have a RADIUS server to do the authentication, you may be able to convert your old router into one. If you have a supported router, you can flash it with the TinyPEAP firmware replacement.

8) Do your own brainstorming

We've discussed many ideas on how to use your old gear. Now you can review the features and documentation of the firmware projects to see if there are even more features that interest you. If all else fails, list your equipment on eBay…

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