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Google will institute Bouncer without disrupting the Android user experience or requiring an Apple-like approval process. The tactic that Google is using focuses on the cloud and identifying malware as opposed to checking each app’s credentials at the door. Furthermore, Google said that Android malware is actually decreasing, contrary to prior reports.

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Here is how Bouncer will work, according to Google’s blog post on the initiative.

“The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts… (O)nce an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags. We actually run every application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulate how it will run on an Android device to look for hidden, malicious behavior. We also analyze new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.”

Google claims that Bouncer has been searching for malicious apps “for a while now.” The company claims that between the first and second halves of 2011, Android malware decreased 40%.

But, how can that be, you ask? We see reports of the exponential growth of Android malware almost every day. In late October and early November of 2011, there was supposed to have been a huge spike in Android malware.

Not so, says Google.

“This drop occurred at the same time that companies who market and sell anti-malware and security software have been reporting that malicious applications are on the rise,” wrote Hiroshi Lockheimer, VP of engineering for Android. “While it’s not possible to prevent bad people from building malware, the most important measurement is whether those bad applications are being installed from Android Market – and we know the rate is declining significantly.”

Juniper reported that Android malware had increased 472% between July and November 2011. That would correlate with Google’s proclaimed decrease in malware downloaded to user devices. Somebody is lying right?

Not quite. There is a distinct difference between malware that is created and exists in the wild and what actually makes it to users’ phones. Google is focused internally on the Android Market. It is not scanning the globe for malware signatures and behaviors that could potentially make it to user devices.

Google’s Bouncer is not actually all that different from what a lot of third party Android security apps do. Lookout has an API that scans the download point of the Android Market, effectively scanning the store itself before and app is actually put on a device. Almost all device-level security apps function through the cloud because there is not enough free computing space on smartphones to handle the type of computations needed to identify malware. What Google has in terms of an advantage over the third party security apps is unadulterated access to the Android Market as well as one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world to run applications on.

What Google cannot control, however, is malware from third-party app stores. If you are a frequent user of third party app repositories, it is important to know what you are downloading and keep a third party security service on your device.

It is good to see Google taking these steps, even if it is a touch overdue. Hopefully Bouncer will be effective in wiping out malware from the Android Market. Will it work? Let us know in the comments.

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Its not the first video-editing app for the iPad, but Avid Studio, which was released earlier today, stands out as one of the more sophisticated offerings out there. Its interface will be familiar to anybody who uses Avid’s desktop video-editing suite, or even products like iMovie or Final Cut Pro X.

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When launched, the app starts by scanning your iPad’s media library for video clips, photos and audio files. Thus, if you want to work on a specific project, you’ll need to load that content onto your iPad first. From there, simple editing is a matter of touching elements, dragging them and then dropping them onto the storyboard. In addition to loading and sequencing media files, the app comes equipped with a few transitions, montage effects and text frames. Simple editing tasks like splitting a clip and reordering it are done with just a few taps and drags.

At the end of the day, any professional-quality video editing is going to be done on a desktop suite like Avid Pro or Final Cut Pro X. Avid realizes this and, in addition to Facebook, email and YouTube exports, it lets you push projects to their desktop application to take things to the next level.

But if you have basic or even somewhat sophisticated editing needs, this app will do it. For second generation iPads that come equipped with a camera, it offers a great way to shoot a few basic angles of video, cut it up and patch it all together on the go.

Very seldom is the raw video you shoot on an iOS or Android device ready for prime time once the record button stops. The ability to edit it directly on the iPad offers a nice middle ground between uploading junk and importing everything to the desktop for more extensive modifications.

At $4.99, Avid Studio for iPad is much more affordable than its desktop counterpart, although clearly Avid hopes you’ll spring for that too if you like the tablet version. The company plans on raising the iOS app’s price to $7.99 in a few weeks.

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According to a FAQ from Red Hat, the move is in response to customer requests. Many of the customers adopting RHEL 5 were doing so mid-cycle, and were looking at dealing with upgrades sooner than what’s desirable. With the extension, RHEL 5 support will be carried through 2017.

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Note that customers already had the option of an “extended” life cycle support for three years after the “regular” cycle. In other words, customers could receive support for 10 years already, but after the seven year window no new hardware would be enabled for the release. Red Hat isn’t promising support for all new hardware with RHEL 5, for example, but this does at least provide the possibility for new hardware support in RHEL 5 for a longer period.

Customers still need to upgrade to minor releases, eventually, to continue receiving support as well. For example, the support for RHEL 5.2 ended six months after 5.4 became available. The RHEL 5.6 release was initially supposed to end support six months after 5.8. However, support will be extended for six months after the availability of 5.9. See the updates policy page for full details.

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SEO Positive Gets Aristopaws Contract
Private Equity Hub (press release)
SEO Positive has taken on a contract with Cheshire, UK-based online pet boutique Aristopaws. The team approached SEO Positive, as they were concerned about their presence within the major search engines and worried that their website wasn't converting …
SEO Positive Extends Copywriting TeamPR Web (press release)

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This kind of personal broadcasting is something YouTube is known for, but now informal video updates can be shared straight to Google+ circles. The Google+ stream allows all kinds of in-your-face content, including animated GIFs and Google Music players, and now it adds impromptu video updates to the mix.

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These video status updates bypass YouTube and go straight to the stream. Google+ Hangouts, the live video chat feature, uses YouTube for recording and also allows group watching of YouTube videos. Google began integrating YouTube and Google+ last October, and YouTube’s new homepage now features Google+ prominently. There’s also a floating YouTube tab on the right side of Google+ pages allowing for quick video searches.

Would you post a video update to your circles?

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Today’s update also stores attachments for offline use, enables Gmail keyboard shortcuts offline, improves performance and fixes bugs. The Gmail offline app is available in the Chrome Web Store, and existing users will be updated automatically.

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Offline Gmail first became a standard feature in 2009, but it used Google’s in-house (but open-source) plug in technology called Google Gears.

In April 2010, Google shut down Gears, disabling offline storage for Google services as the company transitioned to HTML5, a more standard solution. That transition took until August 2011, when Google released the offline storage apps for Chrome.

Do you use any Google services offline?

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