Firefox add-on encrypts sessions with Facebook, Twitter

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Tor Project have released a public beta of a new Firefox extension that lets people encrypt their communications with Facebook, Twitter, and other sites.

The HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extension was inspired byGoogle's encrypted Web search option, the EFF said in announcing the tool on Thursday.

In addition to Facebook and Twitter, the Web sites that the software works on are Google Search, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Washington Post, PayPal, EFF, Tor, and Ixquick.

The tool works by creating an HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) connection to the sites. But even if "https" is used, unless the address bar is colored and an unbroken lock icon is displayed in the bottom right corner, the page is not completely encrypted, EFF says.

Our colleagues over at ZDNet's Zero Day blog point out that using HTTPS doesn't hide a computer's IP address and users are still susceptible to tracking from broken SSL sessions displaying unencrypted third-party content.

"Forcing a full session on a popular social-networking service such as Facebook for instance, without taking into consideration the fact that SSL would not magically make all the personally identifiable information, including your IP, disappear, is wrong," writes Dancho Danchev on the Zero Day blog. "Full-session SSL, in combination with tools such as Vanish, next to Tor-like/VPN based anonymity network, are great for a fresh start."

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Apple quietly adds anti-malware in Snow Leopard update

Apple has updated the file that contains signatures of malware that targets the Mac in its Snow Leopard update.

(Credit: Sophos)

In the latest update to Snow Leopard, Apple included software to protect Mac computers from a Trojan horse that has been distributed by attackers disguised as iPhoto, but which opens a back door on the machine, security firm Sophos said on Friday.

When Apple released OS X 10.6.4 on Tuesday, the company said it addressed certain compatibility issues with VPN connections and other things, but failed to mention anything about adding an anti-malware update.

But buried in the code is an update to the XProtect.plist file, which contains signatures of malware written to target the Mac. The signatures now detect malware dubbed "HellRTS," Graham Clulely of Sophos wrote in a blog post.

HellRTS, which Sophos detects as "OSX/Pinheard-B," is a Trojan that has been around several months. It lets attackers use infected computers to send spam, take screenshots, access files, and pretty much take control of the computer, Sophos said.

"Unfortunately, many Mac users seem oblivious to security threats which can run on their computers. And that isn't helped when Apple issues an anti-malware security update like this by stealth, rather than informing the public what it has done," Clulely writes. "You have to wonder whether their keeping quiet about an anti-malware security update like this was for marketing reasons. "Shh! Don't tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!"

Representatives from Apple did not immediately return e-mails seeking comment late on Friday.

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Charge Phone For just Walking

I really want a pair of Orange Power Wellies, largely so I can say that I'm wearing "wellies," a word we just don't use enough on this side of the pond. But also because they're terribly cute thermoelectric rubber boots that charge your mobile phone using heat from your feet. These could come in very handy when hiking, camping, or engaging in other activities that lend themselves to wellie wearing but not to power outlets.

(Credit: Orange)

U.K. mobile operator Orange teamed with renewable-energy companyGotWind to create the boots, which feature a power-generating sole that converts feet heat into an electrical current. This "welectricity," as they're calling it (geddit?), can then be used to recharge a phone, which you plug in to the top of the wellie for a recharge.

The prototype Wellington boots will make their debut at the U.K.'sGlastonbury performing arts festival, a huge open-air entertainment blowout that this year runs from June 23 through June 27. Many festivalgoers camp out, making it a smart spot to show off a prototype eco-friendly kinetic charger. We wish we knew how much the Orange Power Wellies will cost if they hit the broader market.

We do know that 12 hours of stomping through the fest's muddy grass in the boots will keep your feet dry and supposedly give you enough power to charge a cell phone for one hour. In other words, these wellies were made for walking--and you're gonna have to walk plenty if you want to talk and text.

We've come upon other kinetic methods of charging gadgets, of course, including a "piezoelectric" rubber material out of Princeton and Caltech that produces electricity when flexed and could one day find its way into shoes that power cell phones and other mobile electronic devices as the user walks or runs.

In the case of the Orange Power Wellies, power is collected via the so-called Seebeck effect, in which a thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there's a different temperature on each side. The soles of the wellies house an array of semiconductor materials sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers; when heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side (from the cold of the ground), electricity is said to be generated.

This isn't the first time Orange has conceived of sustainable technologies for the Glastonbury Festival. Last year, the company unveiled a concept solar tent in conjunction with the opening of the event.

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Samsung Galaxy models sparkle through FCC

The Samsung Galaxy S: Coming to an FCC near you.

With all the Samsung Galaxy news this week it's no surprise that Galaxy models are beginning to sneak through the Federal Communications Commission's certification process. In the last few days we've spotted the Galaxy 3, theGalaxy Beam, and what should be an upcoming Galaxy model for T-Mobile.

Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its SAR rating, the agency's online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here are a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report.

Acer S100 Android phone
Huawei C6100
LG C305
LG D570
LG GS170
LG GW370
LG JS750
LG T300
LG T310
Motorola
Motorola i680 Brute
Samsung Galaxy Beam GTI8520 
Samsung Galaxy 3 GTI5800
Samsung GTC3510T
Samsung GTS3370B
Samsung SCH-B209
Samsung SCH-R880
Samsung SGH-T669B
Samsung SGH-T959 (Galaxy S model?)
ZTE A410
ZTE CR200

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GuitarJack puts studio in your pocket

GuitarJack looks to be one of the highest-quality solutions for recording instruments with your iPhone or iPod Touch.

(Credit: Sonoma Wire Works)

Recording with your iPhone's built-in microphone is a quick and easy way for musicians to sketch out song ideas. But if you're really bent on transforming your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mobile, multitrack recording studio, you'll need to drop some money on a quality recording app, and some kind of adapter for connecting instruments or mixers.

Fortunately, the folks at Sonoma Wire Works are working on one of the best solutions we've seen yet. The GuitarJack ($199) is due out this fall, and offers a 1/4-inch instrument input, stereo line input, and headphone output, all in an adapter that fits in you palm. More importantly, the line and instrument inputs offer selectable gain pads, 60dB of continuous analog level control, and can be separately assigned for simultaneous dual-mono recording.Professional, affordable apps such as FourTrack and FiRe recorder solve the first half of the equation, but shrinking a professional audio interface down to a pocketable iPhone adapter is a tall order.

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best Free Chrome add-on turns Web into music library

ExtensionFM is a free Chrome add-on that catalogs every free MP3 file you run across and builds a virtual library. It's an amazingly convenient way to discover and catalog new music without waiting for downloads, and may convince me to use Chrome on a regular basis.

Chrome has always seemed like a solution in search of a problem: I've had Firefox installed on my PCs and Mac for years now and it works fine 99 percent of the time. If I need an alternative I can always go with the built-in Internet Explorer (Windows) or Safari (Mac). Chrome may render some pages more quickly, and I like some of its user interface features, but not enough to switch.

The ExtensionFM music library contains links to MP3s from sites that you surf with the Chrome browser.

(Credit: Screenshot)

But ExtensionFM actually changed how I think of Web browsing, blurring the line between offline and online in a very seductive way. The basic idea is straightforward: install the add-on, and from that point on, any time you run across a page that has a link to a downloadable MP3 file, ExtensionFM will add a permanent link to that MP3 to its library, which looks a lot like iTunes (or just about any other music player). The ExtensionFM library is always accessible from Chrome--just click the icon in the upper-right corner of the browser, and you'll launch a tab with the library. The library itself lets you organize all the MP3 links by source, artist, or album, and you can stream any song on demand or add it to a queue. If you don't like a song, you can delete it from the library.

The experience is a lot like surfing the Web for free MP3s and downloading every single one of them, except without waiting for downloads. I installed it and after about five minutes of surfing I had an on-demand library containing more than 100 songs from music blogs like Spinner and Brooklyn Vegan, as well as from a couple of Seattle bands that have made free MP3s available on their sites. ExtensionFM will continue to feed new links from these pages into its library with no further intervention on my part--every time the Spinner home page is updated with more free MP3s, they'll appear in my library.

The experience isn't perfect. Some of the listings in the library didn't link to a real sound file, and I had to delete them manually. Some listings had wrong or missing data (no artist name, or a title like "Free download"). It doesn't work at all with files that require you to launch a mini-Flash player to play. And the library could get large and cluttered quite quickly. Nonetheless, if you're constantly on the hunt for new music, this is a great way to access large volumes of free music without having to download each file yourself.

It's also the first really great example I've seen of how Google envisions the future of the Web, in which the lines between offline and online blur and the Web browser becomes the only application you need. Sure, there are plenty of Web apps today--I spend a large part of my day in them, including Google's Gmail service. But most Web apps run inside a browser window and disappear as soon as you close that window, and the application itself is responsible for storing data (usually in a back-end database, sometimes in the browser cache). ExtensionFM is a persistent application that runs in conjunction with the browser regardless of where the browser's currently pointed, and it stores only the links to data, which can come from multiple sources around the Web--the data themselves never leave their original spots. It's a subtle but fascinating difference.

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Google still trying to meet your shopping needs

Google wants shoppers to think of its search engine as the entire mall, rather than just the directory.

Google is trying to get people to think of Google Product Search as a shopping destination, but it has a long way to go.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Millions of people already use Google as a resource when getting ready to buy something, whether that's to double-check their instincts against professional or user reviews, compare prices across different retailers, or figure out whether it will fit in that spot under the window. This search category is an essential part of Google's oft-stated mission to organize the world's information and one that makes it quite a bit of money: product-related search results pages are clustered with ads.

But one thing Google doesn't do very well is provide the shopping-as-adventure experience that fills real-world malls and shopping Web sites like Amazon on a daily basis. You might go to the mall with a specific product in mind, but a well-designed mall or department store forces you to discover--and hopefully purchase--other products that you might not have even known you wanted: the marketing types like to call this "serendipity."

Google wants to be known as a destination for that kind of experience, said Sameer Samat, director of product management. That means shoppers will spend more time on Google's pages, encouraging retailers and advertisers to share more data and spend more money with Google.

After years of trying and failing to reach that goal, Google plans to give it another go over the coming months. Don't expect Google to turn into a full-blown online retailer among the likes of Amazon.com or Buy.com just yet. But the combination of personalized features for product search pages and what Samat thinks is "the largest database of products that has been created" could entice people to actually shop on Google: assuming they get past any privacy concerns.

On back order
Google has been chasing this dream almost since its inception. It initially started in 2001 by letting searches browse the pages of retail catalogs that uploaded their data to Google, and announced Froogle, a price-comparison site, in 2002.

But since puns are indeed the lowest form of humor, Froogle's name was not a hit and neither was the site.Google finally pulled the plug in 2007, integrating product-related search results into its main search pages through the universal search strategy it rolled out that year. The current "Google Product Search" site, confusingly, is the destination when one clicks on "shopping" at the top of Google.com.

The idea so far has been to give shoppers as much information as they could possibly want on a given product, Samat said, going beyond prices to highlight features, pictures, and specs. About 100,000 retailers eagerly send Google updated data each night on the products they have in stock in order to have that information listed on the product page, he said.

In recent months Google has quietly increased the amount of information that can be found in an individual product page, adding details such as user reviews gathered from the Web, pictures, videos, and even information about products in stock at nearby stores. But that hasn't turned Google into a shopping destination.

Shopping as fun, not a task
Google's current approach works best for those who are on a mission when they shop, shoppers who already know what they want and are just looking for additional information before sealing the deal. Perhaps it's not that surprising that a company driven by (mostly) male engineers wound up on that path.

There are millions of other people who treat shopping as leisure, rather than a simple transaction. These are people who shop online and offline but prefer browsing to targeted shopping, knowing that every now and then they'll discover something totally unique or completely unexpected.

Google wants to serve more of those people, as they could go a long way toward improving the time spent on Google's shopping sites as well as clicks through to ads or Google retail partners. It has two ideas in mind:

Google already offers mobile users a chance to see what products are in stock near their location: what if it linked that service to a user-generated list of favorite products?

(Credit: ZDNet)

The first idea--which is already live--is the use of the mobile device as the bridge between the online data-rich world and the offline visually rich world. For example, mobile searchers can see what stores carry a certain product near their current location, and Google offers an Android applicationthat lets shoppers scan the bar codes of products they see in stores to get other prices, reviews, and the rest of the information available on Google's product pages.

The second idea is still a concept as opposed to a product under development, but it gives an idea of where Google wants to go with its shopping services.

Google is intrigued by the idea of offering shoppers a chance to build "shopping lists" of products they are thinking about buying, Samat said in a recent interview with CNET. For example, you could maintain a list somewhere on Google that with a push of a smartphone button could tell you which products on that list are available near your current location, and at what prices. Likewise, it could make recommendations based on that list of products and lists submitted by others to help you discover new products: sort of like Amazon's recommendations page meets Pandora's radio stations meets Google.

"Shopping is not just about search, it's not just about intent, it's about discovery," Samat said. "If we can do it, and do it well, we will have built something that's really amazing; it should be the most comprehensive experience for shopping you could ever find."

Just one second...
There's something about the combination of the words "comprehensive" and "Google" that sets off alarm bells around the world.

Should consumers flock to Google's shopping service, the search giant could be poised to create the most wide-ranging merchant-loyalty service we've ever seen, taking the data submitted by retailer partners and its already existing treasure trove of search queries and combining that with actual user preferences. Retailers and product companies would love to get their hands on that kind of data on consumer behavior gathered, processed, and analyzed at Google-scale.

Samat is aware of these concerns. "We need to be careful about what information is shared with whom," he said, saying Google wouldn't share information with advertisers or partners unless the user gave his or her approval.

However, he also noted that shoppers at grocery stores or electronics retailers are all too happy to share information on what they are buying and when they bought it in order to earn instant or future discounts. Samat would not discuss whether Google had specific plans for such a service, but promised that changes would be coming to Google Product Search over the next several months, especially as we draw closer to the holiday shopping season.

As with any major Google expansion, such a move could be instantly subject to scrutiny from regulators prompted by complaints from other online retailers such as Amazon, Buy.com, or the granddaddy of them all: Wal-Mart. The major difference between what Google is pondering and what those other companies offer is that Google does not appear ready to take the next step and actually sell these products through its site, even though that would have meant it had finally figured out a way to get people to use the much-maligned Google Checkout service.

But Google has long claimed that it already competes for "search" attention with places like Amazon, since people often search for product information on Amazon knowing they can go ahead and buy it should that information pass muster.

At this point, it all depends on how--or if--Google chooses to roll out such a service. While shopping online has become very old news in 2010, it remains one of the more elusive parts of Google's mission to be at the center of the Internet.

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