CHICAGO (Reuters) - Adults who play a lot of action video games may be improving their eyesight, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
They said people who used a video-game training program saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, a finding that may help people who have trouble with night driving. "Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery—somehow changing the optics of the eye," said Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York, whose study appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."
For the study, the team divided 22 students into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye coordination.
The two groups played 50 hours of their assigned games over the course of nine weeks. At the end of the training, the action game players showed an average of 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray, while the Sims players showed none.
Bavelier found very practiced action gamers became 58 percent better at perceiving fine differences in contrast.
"When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it," Bavelier said in a statement.
Senin, 30 Maret 2009
Action-Oriented Video Games Can Aid Eyesight
Google Starts Free MP3 Service in China
BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc on Monday launched free downloads of licensed songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with major music labels in a market rife with online piracy. Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China, said one reason Google lagged in the mainland search market was because it did not offer music downloads, the missing piece to its strategy in a market where it trails leader Baidu.com Inc.
"We are offering free, high quality and legal downloads," Lee told reporters. "We were missing one piece ... we didn't have music."
The service offers downloads of some 350,000 songs—from Chinese and foreign artists—a number that will rise to 1.1 million in the coming months, said Gary Chen, chief executive of Google's partner www.Top100.cn, a Chinese music website co-founded by basketball star Yao Ming.
Music from artists signed by Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music will be available on the service, which Google has no current plans to expand beyond China, said Lee.
"This is the first serious attempt to start (monetizing) the online market in China. I can't overestimate how important this is," said Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific and Asia chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Users will be able to search by musical measurements such as the level of "beat" in a song and "instrumentality," as well as by artist and song name.
IFPI said last year that more than 99 percent of all music files distributed in China are pirated, and the country's total legitimate music market, at $76 million, accounts for less than 1 percent of global recorded music sales.
The new service will attract users away from illegal download sites because the music and service will be of a higher quality, said Warner's Rutherford.
Downloads of unlicensed music and videos are rampant in China, the world's biggest Internet market by number of users.
While Google dominates the global web search market, in China Baidu holds more than 60 percent of the market, more than double Google's share.
CTIA: AT&T Announces Six Phones with Keyboards
The new keyboarded phones range from the $49.99 Samsung Magnet to the long-awaited Nokia E71x Symbian-powered smartphone and the nation's first phone with a super-bright AMOLED display, the Samsung Impression.
AT&T rolled out a half-dozen new phones with full QWERTY keyboards in advance of this week's CTIA Wireless trade show today, saying in a press release that text messaging and e-mail were the "killer apps" for mobile-phone data use.The new keyboarded phones range from a $49.99 budget device, the Samsung Magnet, to the long-awaited Nokia E71x Symbian-powered smartphone and the nation's first phone with a super-bright AMOLED display, the Samsung Impression. The new rollout of products immediately solidifies AT&T as the U.S. carrier with the widest range of keyboarded phones for text-messaging addicts and occasional e-mailers.
From most powerful to least, here's what AT&T put out today:
The Nokia E71x is AT&T's version of the Nokia E71, which was PCMag's Editors' Choice for keyboarded smartphones when the unlocked version came out last September. The E71 has been my personal choice for a phone, on and off, for months. It looks a lot like a BlackBerry, but it's slimmer, with an all-metal body; AT&T's version is black anodized stainless steel rather than the silver version we tested.
The E71x offers 3G, Wi-Fi, and GPS, and runs the Symbian smartphone operating system, allowing things like full Microsoft Exchange synchronization and Microsoft Office document editing. AT&T loaded on its own software: the E71x works with AT&T's one-way Video Sharing service, streams clips from AT&T's CV video service, supports MobiTV live streaming TV, and streams XM radio channels. The phone has a 3.2-megapixel camera as well.
The E71x will cost $149.99 and be available in late April or early May.
The Samsung Propel Pro resembles last year's Propel slider, but it's a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone. The Propel Pro is a silvery slider with a full QWERTY keyboard but no touch screen—you navigate around the relatively standard Windows Mobile interface with a joystick. The device has a fast 528 MHz processor, which should feel especially speedy on a non-touch-screen phone; a 3-megapixel camera; tri-band 3G including the 2100 band for international roaming; Wi-Fi; and a 2.55-inch, 320-by-320-resolution screen.
The Propel Pro will be available on April 14 for $199.99.
The Samsung Impression is the first U.S. phone with an AMOLED display. I've handled this phone before, and the screen is eye-popping: colors just jump out at you from the 3.2-inch, 240-by-400-resolution screen. The phone isn't a smartphone, but the screen slides to the right to reveal a full four-row QWERTY keyboard for texting and limited e-mail use.
The Impression also has a 3-megapixel camera, 3G on AT&T's 850/1900 bands, GPS, and all of those AT&T services I mentioned above, such as video sharing and MobiTV. It's a bit heavy, at 5.3 ounces.
New technology costs money, of course—in this case, the Samsung Impression will sell for $249.99 when it becomes available on April 7.
The LG Xenon is like a less-expensive, scaled-down version of the Impression. Just like the Impression, it's a touch-screen sliding phone with a full keyboard that isn't a smartphone. It features 3G, Wi-Fi, video sharing, and a 2.8-inch, 240-by-480-pixel touch screen—higher resolution than the Impression's, actually. But the screen is a standard LCD, not an AMOLED, and the Xenon's camera is just two megapixels, letting LG deliver this phone for $149.99, on sale April 8.
AT&T knows we're in a recession, so the company is supplying two budget-priced keyboarded phones as well.
The LG Neon is a lurid green-and-white messaging phone with a sliding screen that reveals a keyboard of round, candy-colored keys. It has a 2.4-inch, 320-by-240 touch screen and a 2-megapixel camera, but no 3G or Wi-Fi. The Neon will cost under $100 when it goes on sale in late April or early May.
Finally, the Samsung Magnet will retail for less than $50 with a new contract. The Magnet is a basic quad-band EDGE phone with a slab-style design and a keyboard of small, sculpted keys below the main screen. It looks a little like a Palm Treo or BlackBerry, though it isn't a smartphone. The Magnet has a VGA camera and no real Web browser, but it has text, IM, and e-mail support. The Magnet joins the Pantech Slate as an affordable texting phone from AT&T.
NEC Pulls Out of PC Market, Except Japan
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's NEC Corp will halt production and sales of personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region around July, a spokesman said on Saturday, in a move that would see it pull out completely from the loss-making PC business overseas. NEC, which has the top PC market share in Japan, last month signaled a withdrawal from the PC business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East amid slumping demand and tough competition.
NEC has warned it would post a net loss of 290 billion yen ($2.96 billion) for the business year ending this month, and is accelerating restructuring efforts, which include pulling out from weak businesses and cutting more than 20,000 jobs worldwide.
Competition with rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc has been fierce and NEC sold its retail PC business in Europe in 2006.
NEC sells about one-sixth of its annual global sales of 3 million PCs outside Japan.
Skype To Launch for iPhone, BlackBerry
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc, is planning to launch its service for iPhone users on Tuesday and for BlackBerry in May as part of its effort to expand beyond desktop computers.
Skype has been pushing to make its service work on the most popular advanced phones with an aim to expending its more than 400 million users who were mostly lured by the promise of cheap and sometimes free calls made using its computer application. Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag said he has high hopes for the application's success on Apple Inc's popular iPhone as he expects Skype's most feature-rich mobile offering to appeal to new and existing customers.
"The No. 1 request we get from customers is to make Skype available on iPhone. There's a pent-up demand," Durchslag said in an interview before the CTIA annual mobile showcase in Las Vegas, where Skype plans to launch the service on Tuesday.
In May it will launch Skype for Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices, which popularized mobile email. It has already announced Skype for Nokia phones and for phones based on Android, Google Inc's mobile system, and Windows Mobile, from Microsoft Corp.
CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood said the new applications give Skype a chance to boost its mobile phone position, which has been weaker than that of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter or News Corp's MySpace.
One of Skype's unusual iPhone features is the fact that it allows subscribers use to the phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book so they do not need duplicate lists.
"Whether you're Twitter, MySpace or Facebook you want to be embedded in the address book," said Wood. "This puts Skype firmly into the game."
Skype's iPhone application will be free to download and will allow free calls between Skype users. As with Skype on the desktop, fees will be charged for calls to traditional phones.
The service will also work on later versions of Apple's latest iPod Touch device, which has Wi-Fi links but no cellular connection. The iPod Touch launched September 2008 has a microphone, unlike the first iPod Touch launched in 2007.
While Skype video is very popular with desktop customers, Durchslag said that the company is still considering whether it will offer video for the iPhone or other phones.
"We're considering video carefully but we have a really high bar on the quality," and how the user interaction will work with other applications on iPhone, he said. "If we do it we will have to do it incredibly well."
CCS's Wood said that if Skype can replicate the popularity of its desktop video feature on the cellphone it would help a mobile category that has been slow to take off, as well as boost its own status in cellphones.
"I'm firmly convinced that if Skype could find a way to bridge all those cellphone cameras and laptop cameras it might kick start a video telephony opportunity," he said.
While mobile Skype has been available for some time in other countries such as the United Kingdom, it has been slow to catch on in the United States partly due to carrier concern that it would cannibalize their phone call revenue.
In the United States for example, AT&T Inc has had a monopoly on calls made from iPhones, as it is the exclusive carrier here.
But Wood said that Skype has actually shown that it can boost consumer spending on cellphones as it encourages use of the phones for other services such as data.
For example he said that its success on networks such as 3 UK, owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, suggests that carrier fears have been unfounded.
"The only area where I think there are some question mark is that it could erode roaming revenues," he said, noting that some consumers particularly in Europe hesitate to use their phones while outside of their carrier territory because of notoriously high roaming fees.
Nvidia's Future Isn't Graphics?
What's the future of graphics? Well, to hear Nvidia tell it, it's almost anything but.
In a presentation Friday, Nvidia recapped all of its twelve hours or so of presentations made at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC 2009), covering the technologies that the company is working towards with its graphics chips and related technologies. If there was a trend that Nvidia emphasized at the show, it's that the company hopes that graphics is moving away from individually created objects and art to more of a procedural model, where the GPU acts as sort of a location director, creating vegetation, directing AI actors, and and costuming characters in dynamic materials.
The foundation for this, of course, is two initiatives; its programming language, CUDA, which governs the use of the GPU as a general-purpose computing engine, and PhysX, its Ageia-born technology of using the GPU as a physics engine.
Over 150 games across both the PC and game console platforms use PhysX; far fewer, however, use the GPU-powered PhysX version. Those include a new game from a Russian developer, "Cryostasis," which includes particle effects; GRAW 2, which includes destructible objects and kinetic damage from those objects; "Star Tales," a Chinese game combining Sim-like aspects, which models falling objects; and "Sacred 2," which launches next week and uses physics-based spell effects.
But Nvidia's next initiative may also be its most vague: artificial intelligence, or AI. "Doing AI is a totally feasible goal," Tony Tamasi, the senior vide president for content and middleware, said in a small press conference on Friday. "For the next few months, we'll be working with third-party middleware guys to develop this" for Nvidia's hardware, he said.
For whatever reason, AI seems to be the natural extension of physics developers; rival Havok, which uses the CPU as a processing engine, unveiled its latest toolset with support for AI. But AISeek, a dedicated AI choip company which was founded in 2005, is essentially on life support, Tamasi said. (A Google cache of AISeek.com reported a dispute between the company and its hosting provider, which had taken down the page and replace it with its own as of March 22. At press time, AISeek.com was live with its own content.)
Nvidia also launched APEX (Adaptive Physics Extensions) this week, a method for generating physical interactions. The company unveiled several plug-ins, including procedural models for rendering clothing, hair, the destruction of walls and other surfaces, and turbulence, such as in smoke or water. The destruction model either could be used to destroy the entire geometry of walls and other objects (a concept first introduced in the PC game, "Red Faction") or could be used to "slough off" rubble from walls or ceilings, which would remain as persistent objects in the game world.
T-Mobile Improves App Store Plans
With Apple's app store running at full steam and RIM and Microsoft primed to release theirs, T-Mobile wants subscribers to know that it's building an app store for everyone, not just smartphone owners.T-Mobile first announced its devPartner program last September. Since then, its made the program simpler for developers, changed the name to the T-Mobile Partner Network, and launched the first few apps, said Ian McKerlich, T-Mobile's director of mobile content and services.
"We want people to talk about us in the same positive breath that they would an Apple or an Android," he said.
Apps from the Partner Program are designed to work on T-Mobile's range of feature phones, such as the Sony Ericsson TM506 and Nokia 5310. T-Mobile also has BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile smartphones, which will use their own operating systems' app stores.
T-Mobile has dramatically simplified its revenue-sharing system, McKerlich said. Initially, the program had a complicated series of carrots and sticks that would reward developers who did things like adhere to UI standards and penalize developers whose apps used too much data. That turned out to be hard for developers to work with, so T-Mobile went to a simple, industry standard 70/30 revenue split.
"We had a pretty sophisticated model that was elegant, but was a little too complex," McKerlich said.
T-Mobile now sells third-party applications through its Web2Go WAP page on phones such as the Sony Ericsson TM506. To help users pick apps, T-Mobile lets them rate apps on a 5-point scale. But the carrier still has a long way to go in terms of making the catalog easily accessible, sortable, and searchable, and McKerlich knows that.
T-Mobile is looking at social ranking systems, a "people's choice" category, and finding a way to get rid of the slow response times inherent in WAP catalogs, McKerlich said. The company is also trying to find a way to make its Web-based app catalog more visible; it's currently buried deep within T-Mobile's Web site.
T-Mobile's partner program has one big built-in disadvantage compared to smart phone app stores, McKerlich said: the fragmentation of Java. Java programs work a little differently on almost every phone, making it very difficult to build and sell Java programs that work on a wide range of handsets.
T-Mobile is making it "job one" to create a "homogenous development environment" on its Java phones, and its working with OEMs to try to find a way to standardize Java implementations, McKerlich said.
While a few apps such as Pelago's Whrrl and JuiceCaster made it into the partner program in 2008, T-Mobile users should expect to see a lot more activity in 2009 as the carrier works out the kinks.
Fact-checking Microsoft's Latest Anti-Apple Ads
Is there really only one Apple laptop under $1,000? 'Fraid so. But there is more to it than that.
Microsoft's latest, subtly anti-Apple ads are all over the Web and broadcast TV. The new Microsoft "Laptop Hunters-Lauren" commercial suggests that there is only one Apple laptop under $1,000 and it has a 13-inch screen. For the same money, it claims, you can get a better Windows-based laptop with a 17-inch screen. True? It is, but that isn't the whole story.In the 60-second ad, Lauren is looking for a new laptop, one that has "speed, has a comfortable keyboard, and a 17-inch screen" for under $1,000. An on-screen card and the voiceover drives home the point that Microsoft is giving her the money to buy the system: "You find it, you keep it." She goes shopping, first to a "Mac Store," where she can find only one computer for under $1,000, a MacBook with a 13-inch screen. Is this possible? Fraid so.
The only MacBook you can afford for under $1,000 at the Apple Store is the 13-inch MacBook for $999. New MacBook Pro 17-inch models are way over Lauren's budget starting at $2,799, and pre-owned 17-inchers are still going for over $1,000 at places like smalldog.com, powermax.com and usedmac.com. You can get a used PowerBook G4 17-inch for under $1,000, but you wouldn't necessarily want that when those PowerBooks have less than 2GB of RAM and small hard drives. Sure, she could get a Mac mini for $599, keyboard, mouse, and an external 20-inch display for under $300, but somehow I don't think she would be interested, since it's not portable.
Back to the ad: Lauren then goes to a Best Buy, where she quickly dismisses ultraportables. She checks out various laptops, including a $949.99 model from Sony (looks like the Sony VAIO VGN-FW351J/H to me), and a Gateway FX laptop that's above her budget, before honing in on two 17-inch laptops—a $749.99 Dell Studio 17 laptop and an HP Pavilion. Cue stereotypical shopping decision squeal, and she decides on the HP. The balance due is shown on screen as $699.99.
The online version of the ad has a direct link to the model in question; it's a HP Pavilion dv7-1245dx. It comes with an AMD Turion X2 RM-72 processor, 4GB of memory, 320GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, DVD burner, and the all-important 17-inch WXGA+ (1,440 x 900) screen. I wanted to check this system out so I asked PCMag's laptop lead analyst, Cisco Cheng, if we have a HP Pavilion dv7 on the shelf somewhere. He said "DV7? That's an old laptop."
What is Microsoft getting at?
If Microsoft's point is to stick it to Apple and claim that there's only one Mac laptop for under $1,000 and it's got a small 13-inch screen, they're absolutely correct. You can't walk out of an Apple Store with (any) laptop for under $1,000 after tax. Certainly you can't walk out of an Apple Store with a 17-inch laptop for under $1,000. Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro is a professional product for people like pro photographers and videographers and is marketed and priced as such.
So should the Mac faithful get in a tizzy over this imagined slight? Nope. Apple's strategy has never been about taking a majority of market share over Windows. It's been about increasing profit margins ever since the second coming of Steve, when they cleaned out all the "cheap" Macs they were selling at Sears. At the prices Apple charges for Macs (and iPods, and iPhones), Apple is making a healthy profit margin on every product they sell (and they still sell a lot). Apple's control over its ecosystem, innovation, and design are its hallmarks, not its cheap prices.
Selasa, 10 Maret 2009
Hands On with the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR
Dell may not be as seasoned as Panasonic or GeTac in the fully rugged space, but when opportunity knocks at your front door, you greet it with open arms.
The Latitude E6400 XFR is still relatively new to what might be called the "practically indestructible laptop market", as the notebook was launched a year ago. Despite flying under the radar during that time, however, Dell is by no means holding back. Dell has upgraded the ruggedized Latitude line to the Latitude E6400 XFR with Ballistic Armor, which supposedly can withstand hurricanes and desert storms.As with all fully rugged laptops, the frame is built like a safe, and is just as heavy. The E6400 XFR tips the scales at 8.5 pounds, although the heft was absolutely necessary from a design standpoint. The previous version was surrounded by a thick magnesium alloy frame; the new XFR shows off a new armoring technology, a Dell-exclusive, PR481 material that Dell refers to as its "Ballistic Armor." It's a similar polymer hybrid base to that used in cryogenics and the automotive industry, with a high strength-to-weight ratio.
In addition to meeting MIL-STD 810F and IEC specifications – in each case, military certified tests rated for scenarios such as 3-foot drops, extreme temperatures, and high dust and moisture levels – the E6400 XFR takes it beyond the standard tests: It achieved a 5 rating in independent specifications such as IP64 and IP65, in which water, for instance, is jetted into the XFR at 50 MPH. Not only can it withstand accidental drops and spills, but it can also last through a hurricane and a desert storm, according to Dell.
Other cool design features include a single Dell Quadcool fan, at the base of the system, that pulls heat from a series of metal pipes that run through the motherboard. The notebook's hard drive hard drive (either a solid-state disc or standard hard drive) is also protected in three layers: by a thermal elastomer material located on the corners of the laptop, a hard case shock mount, and by rubber shock mounts within the chassis. Like almost every fully rugged laptop, a carrying handle, equipped with zinc anchors, is fused with the XFR's front bezel.
Naturally, with an outdoor machine, you'll need an outdoor screen. The 14-inch LED widescreen is different from a typical one in that it's three times as bright (750 cd/m2 ) and uses a special anti-reflective surface. It even features a resistive touch-screen option, so that your fingers can do the walking in times when they're needed.
The XFR's features are basically the same as the non-ruggedized Dell Latitude E6400. You'll receive the standard array of connectivity ports, including three USB and FireWire connectors, an eSATA port, an ExpressCard slot, and a multi-media card reader. In addition, wireless technologies such as WWAN, WLAN, and Bluetooth, and a SIM card reader are included. Also present is an illuminated keyboard, which is one thing no outdoor laptop should be without.
Performance parts also reflect the entire Latitude line in that an assortment of Intel processors, up to 8 Gbytes of memory, and an Nvidia Quadro graphics card can be ordered with the system. Though the $4,200 Latitude E6400 XFR isn't cheap, the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR caters to a specific market, and it ships today.
Symantec Support Gone Rogue
I've praised Symantec's support, especially the integrated chat-based support introduced with Norton Internet Security 2009. Their support agents did a great job handling some problems that came up during my evaluation of that suite. Lately, though, a number of readers have reported problems with chat support. One asked for help because he was concerned that the threats Norton found were merely quarantined, not removed. The chat agent could have explained how to delete items from quarantine, or even demonstrated how using remote control.Instead, this agent insisted that the only recourse for full removal was an extra-cost session with a consultant. Another reader got worried when a chat agent performing remote-control cleanup used an unfamiliar non-Symantec program.
I didn't get a lot of detail from these readers. Based on my own previous, positive sessions with chat support, I wondered if they might have just misunderstood the situation. But my new experiences while evaluating Norton 360 version 3.0 opened my eyes to the magnitude of the problem. Did Symantec switch outsourced support companies? Has the chat support team gone rogue? I can't say for sure what's at the root of the problems, but here's what happened.
For my evaluation and review of Norton 360, I installed the product on a dozen malware-infested systems. Most installed and ran flawlessly, but one system had a blue-screen crash during installation. On restart the Norton 360 installer gathered and analyzed error logs, then offered a link to support. I was impressed—most products don't have such resilient installers. I followed the link and initiated a conversation with chat support agent Mohanakrishnan (at least he didn't claim his name was Bob).
Mohanakrishnan asked some questions and (with my permission) took a remote-control tour of the system. He pointed out one blatant malware symptom: a big screen from a rogue antispyware program claiming it had found terrible problems and offering to fix them, for a price. He escalated me to another support agent in the Virus Removal Department, after verifying that I had a valid registration key. Sorry, if you get stuck during a trial installation, chat support is not available.
Prajith, the second agent, asked a lot of questions about my online activities but didn't bother to remote-control the system. He suggested I "remove the infection immediately." I pointed out that was my intention—I'm trying to install Norton 360 so it can remove the infection. He continued that "expert consultants will do a complete diagnosis of your system, and troubleshoot any malware present on your computer." Only after I agreed did he add that this is a for-pay service and ask if it would still be OK. He didn't state the price, but later research revealed that it would have been $99.95 to get this $79.99 product installed.
Naturally I said no, I already have a license for the software, I just want to install it. He declared that I had only bought "the software, updates to the software and for the virus definitions," not a guarantee that the software would install. I asked repeatedly for a solution other than paying extra but never got anything resembling an answer. Eventually, I ended the chat, carefully saving the transcript and a screen-capture movie I had made of the entire interchange.Norton User Forums to the Rescue
Simultaneous with the release of the new Norton 360, Symantec brought its Norton User Forums Web site out of beta. The company was anxious for me to try it, so this seemed a perfect opportunity. I registered and posted a description of my problem in the user forums. Within an hour I had the correct answer from a forum volunteer: If Norton 360 won't install due to malware, use the Norton Recovery Tool to clean up the system first. Those who've bought the boxed product can just boot from the disk. Others can download an ISO image of the tool, burn it to a disk, and boot from that.
I downloaded, burned, booted, supplied my product key, and let it run its scan. It detected and removed many threats, and reported that a couple couldn't be removed. A second scan cleaned those up and I was ready to boot back into normal Windows. Now that's the right solution! Symantec confirms that the chat agent's behavior was incorrect. "The support agent should have directed you to the free Norton Recovery Tool as a first step. It was an error on his part." The company went on to say "We have shared this situation with executives on our support team, and we will ensure all customers are informed of these free options [Norton Recovery Tool and Norton User Forums] with regard to virus removal." To prevent such errors in the future, the team is "increasing agent training and creating stricter instructions for agents to better communicate free malware removal options." I hope so!
Taking Unfair Credit
As it turns out, the story doesn't end here. The Norton 360 installer still wouldn't complete its job. On every reboot, the app went through its whole rigmarole again, collecting and analyzing log files and sending me to tech support. It wouldn't complete the process and I couldn't uninstall the incomplete program. Once again, I followed the links to chat-based tech support.
Murugash, the chat agent, remote-controlled the system and verified that the Norton 360 installation was stuck. No problem. He downloaded the Symantec Norton Removal Tool (SYMNRT) to my test system. This is Symantec's answer to uninstallation problems that were common with older program versions. It removes all trace of all Symantec products. After running it he offered to "run a scan from the Norton security scan" to make sure all threats are gone. I asked if this is necessary, given that I've already scanned the system with the bootable Norton Recovery Tool. He said "it is a deep scan just from a online Norton program," so I let him do it.
To my surprise, he downloaded and ran the free Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware utility. This is, of course, not a Norton program by any stretch of the imagination. It did find a few traces of various threats left behind when the CD-based scan wiped out the executable parts. Now, don't get me wrong. I have no grudge against tech support using free tools from other sources for cleanup. It's a fairly common practice. I just resent it when they pass those tools off as their own.
