Bluetooth RFID reader increases mobility

Cathexis Innovations Inc. , a Canadian provider of Radio Frequency Identification products and services, has launched the first mobile, integrated Bluetooth-enabled RFID reader. The pen-sized reader increases mobility and use for close-proximity RFID applications.

The product, called IDBlue, has the ability to read RFID tags without ever being linked to a computing device. The Bluetooth was designed to track and identify specific items, such as drug doses and trials in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.

Cathexis claims that IDBlue eliminates the need for human intervention in theses processes. The company says IDBlue can safely monitor patients, medication and equipment in real-time while eliminating concerns about counterfeit prescription drugs.

"Typical RFID handheld readers are bulky, heavy and cumbersome, while the IDBlue is small and lightweight enough to fit in your pocket," said Steve Taylor, CEO of Cathexis. " We are offering a solution that is perfect for those jobs that require a high degree of mobility and accuracy from the reader."

WaveMark Inc. , a provider of clinical inventory management products to hospitals, currently offers IDBlue. WaveMark’s says that their technology enables hospitals, surgical centers and manufacturers to control and manage the flow of high-value, consumable medical devices. The use of RFID allows the company to collect and report real-time information in a hands-free environment.

"The IDBlue reader from Cathexis is a perfect match for WaveMark,” said John Wass, CEO of WaveMark. “The technology has the potential to help unleash a whole new generation of RFID applications. The product's unique form factor is ideal for applications like our RFID inventory management system, which is also available on the mobile platform.”

Hack-A-Mac contest and the Mac faithful

There is plenty of righteous indignation around the blogosphere this week in response to the CanSecWest "hack-a-Mac" contest. Of course, the inevitable happened, and a software engineer named Shane Macaulay, along with his associate Dino Dai Zovi, won the prize, hacking into a MacBook through a zero-day security flaw in Safari. The response varies from "say it ain't so!" to just plain "it ain't so."

Unfortunately, regardless of platform, denial is the biggest security flaw of all. Corporate America is full of IT managers who put up a firewall and some anti-virus software then forget they exist, believing that's all they need. Managers sometimes get lulled into a false sense of security because they think their platforms are unhackable, or they think their firewall will provide absolute protection under all circumstances, or that their internal users are trustworthy when they are not. Security czars will tell you, the best policy is to trust nothing and no one. That means Macs, too.

Some Windows cheerleaders are blowing raspberries to Apple cheerleaders, noting that just before the contest, Apple released a security update that repaired 25 vulnerabilities, and that this was the fourth security update for the Mac OS this year. In all fairness, I can't fault Apple for releasing the security updates. Operating systems are huge monstrosities of code, and it's virtually impossible to foretell all possible flaws and vulnerabilities ahead of time. Flaws are inevitable. They are inevitable on Windows, and they are inevitable on the Mac. I am not worried that Apple released security patches. On the contrary, I would be very worried if they had not. Macaulay agrees. In an interview with eWeek, he said, "there's nothing special about one platform that makes it impervious to vulnerabilities." In fact, Macaulay said in the interview that he is primarily a Mac user.

That there have been security patches simply means that the Mac engineers are doing their jobs. The Mac marketing people on the other hand, trivialize security, which can be dangerous. If you believe your platform is impenetrable, you will get lazy. You'll create simple passwords that can be guessed. Maybe you won't bother to tighten up your firewall policies, or won't bother to get the latest antivirus updates. And once you go down that slippery slope, you're going to get hacked. Yes, even if you're running a Mac.

The chatter in response to the CNet blog on the contest is regrettably, full of denial, with participants claiming that it was not a legitimate flaw, it didn't happen, and Apple is God and therefore infallible.

There are fewer attacks against the Mac than there are against Windows PCs. And while it's fair to say that Apple does a good job on security, the main reason that there are fewer attacks on the Mac OS is that there are fewer Macs. Attackers are for the most part, in it for the money. They are opportunistic, and will go for the biggest return, and there's simply less financial reward involved in hacking Macs. If Macs were the dominant platform in business, they would be the primary target, and the illusion of airtight security currently enjoyed by the Mac, would fall to Windows PCs by default.

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Microsoft Siemens Partner on Auto Entertainment, Navigation

Microsoft and Siemens have teamed up to develop in-car entertainment and navigation products, a market expected to grow by about $16 billion by 2012, reports Reuters.

The companies said their first effort will be a multimedia platform to make it easier for consumers to connect devices such as mobile phones and music players. And they said they will deliver products faster than the normal product development cycle in the automotive industry, according to an Associated Press story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In other Microsoft news:
The Redmond, Wash., software maker also is taking up residence in Seattle in a Paul Allen project on Lake Union. Frustrated with the area’s transportation woes, it’s also starting its own employee bus service, the Post-Intelligencer reports. Interestingly enough, the buses’ Wi-Fi system will feature Linux routers.
For its Patch Tuesday update, Microsoft will issue five bulletins to fix flaws in Windows Vista, MSN Messenger and Visual Studio, reports InformationWeek.
And the South African site IOL reports Microsoft has partnered with Japanese humanoid maker Tmsuk to develop cutting-edge robots. Originally focused on factory automation, Tmsuk also has developed robots for other uses, such as the disaster relief robot that helped clear rubble after a powerful earthquake hit Japan in July.