Windows CE .Net ready for January launch
Posted by configure on 28 December 2001 - 11:28 · no comments & 36 views
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Formerly code-named Talisker, Windows CE .Net is an embedded operating system designed to be used in mobile devices, such as smart phones and personal digital assistants (PDA), said Eddie Wu, senior director of Microsoft's Embedded Systems Group in Asia.
Windows CE .Net, which includes support for Bluetooth and 802.11b wireless networking protocols, can also be used in a variety of other applications such as digital cameras, thin clients, set-top boxes and automotive computers, among others, Wu said. Windows CE .Net offers a "big improvement" in power management compared with Windows CE 3.0 and supports Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.5 and Windows Media 8.0, he said.
The operating system is designed to provide support for the delivery of Web-based services and content to mobile devices. "For example, [with] a PDA, if [the manufacturer] can adopt Windows CE .Net then it can provide the connectivity to transfer Web services," Wu said.
Like Windows XP Embedded, which is designed for use in high-end embedded applications such as residential gateways and kiosks, Windows CE .Net is broken down into components. Developers are able to pick and choose among these components to customize the operating system based on the specific application they are developing. "It can be as small as 250K [bytes]," Wu said.
But Microsoft isn't just pushing its operating system as a stand-alone product to hardware makers. Microsoft hopes to lure companies away from using rival operating systems such as Linux by providing tools and other applications that allow hardware makers to get products to market faster.
"Besides providing the operating system platform, we realized there are some devices [where] we need to provide more complete solutions. For example, like Pocket PC, if we just provide Windows CE, it is not enough," Wu said. Instead, Microsoft will provide hardware makers with a more complete package, including tools to customize Windows CE .Net to a specific device type and software applications such as Pocket Office.
Windows CE .Net also allows device makers to customize the operating system's user interface. "You can configure your own user interface. That's very important. For different kinds of PDAs you can choose what kind of user interface is best for your customer," Wu said.
Hack attacks
Atri Chatterjee, a spokesman for McAfee, said although a lot of people used stand-alone anti-virus programs many forgot to update them regularly, leaving them vulnerable to viruses that exploited recently found loopholes.
Even those who used a personal firewall to protect themselves and their computer from unwelcome intruders could be caught out by the sheer number of security vulnerabilities and patch programs that were reported every week, he said.
A study by anti-virus company MessageLabs found that the number of viruses circulating on the net has leapt in the last year.
In 2000, MessageLabs was stopping a virus every 700 e-mails. Now, the figure is one virus in every 370 messages.
Research has found that those who use broadband net connections are at real risk of attack from malicious hackers and computer vandals.
Because broadband connections are "always on", attackers typically have more time to find and try to penetrate computers linked to the net in this way.
Computers online via a broadband link have proved very popular with vandals who use them as proxies to carry out "denial of service attacks" in which a target machine is bombarded with bogus data packets.
Remote control
For £17.95 a year, McAfee will take on the burden of updating anti-virus software for customers to ensure that they stay protected against viruses.
For an extra £20.95 per annum, subscribers get a firewall managed remotely by McAfee that keeps out those that want to harvest personal information from a computer or recruit that machine for a future attack.
Both programs are updated, managed and monitored via the web by McAfee.
"Three out of four people are surfing naked and are open to all kinds of hacking attempts," said Mr Chatterjee.
The McAfee security subscription service has been running in the US since April 1999 and now has more than 1.2 million customers.
The service is available now in the UK and Germany and will be rolled out to 12 more countries in 2002.