A virus masking itself as the 'Facebook Password Reset Confirmation email' is on the prowl
Facebook can also ruin fun. Saikat Debnath, a resident of Rohini in Delhi, learnt this lesson the hard way. The 23-year-old Engineering student's life turned upside down when he could not access his Facebook and email accounts. This is not all. He also had to spend big bucks to repair his laptop.
One wrong click on an email that appeared to come from the social networking site Facebook landed Debnath into this mess.
According to cyber experts, a new virus is spreading on name of the social networking site. Facebook. The virus Bredolab disguised as a "Password Reset Confirmation Email," appears to come from Facebook, which makes it easy fool netizens.
Delhi-based cyber crime expert Vivek vohra said, "Bredolab attaches a file that purports to contain a new password. That file is a trojan horse that will download a host of nasty files from the Web."
"I got an email with the subject "Facebook Password Reset Confirmation". The email read: to provide safety to our client, passwords have been changed. You can find your new password in the attached document. After opening the file, I realised it was a spoof email," said the disappointed Debnath.
Later, Debnath was taken aback when he couldn't access his email and Facebook accounts.
"My accounts have been disabled. Every time I try to log in it tells me 'wrong password'. Even my operating system collapsed. When I took my laptop to the technician, he told an infected file has corrupted the system," he said.
Talking about the new ways of attacking innocent users, Vohra said, "Cyber crooks are coming up with new viruses to steal email id and all the personal details of netizens. It is always suggested to check every link and attachment before opening them." "Unlike the Facebook phishing attacks last year, when bad links were distributed through hacked user accounts, now the name of social networking sites are being used."
According to the Facebook team, the spoof email containing the virus wasn't coming from the social networking site.
Facebook said that this virus is being distributed through email. We never send users a new password as an attachment.
"We're educating users on how to detect this through the Facebook Security Page," the company blog post added.
"To avoid getting the virus, do not open a "Password Reset Confirmation E-mail" if you didn't request a password from Facebook," the cyber expert said.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Change facebook password at your own risk
Saturday, October 3, 2009
IBM Aims To Undercut Gmail
Big Blue's new $3 a month enterprise e-mail service could steal market share from Google.
IBM's brand may not stand up to Google's in terms of inspiring excitement. But when it comes to the reliability and security of a service like e-mail, Big Blue is hoping to sell the good kind of boring.IBM ( IBM - news - people ) on Monday is expected to release its first Web-based e-mail offering, an enterprise-focused addition to Lotus Notes it calls iNotes. The service will let users pick their domain name and will debut at $3 per month, a price aimed directly at undercutting Google's ( GOOG - news - people ) $50 per year and the $10 to $12 per month that Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) charges for its Webmail services. Though Microsoft offers one version of Webmail for $2 a month, IBM says it will offer 1 gigabyte of storage, twice the amount of Webmail.
IBM's e-mail gambit stems from its acquisition of the messaging assets of Outblaze; the deal closed in April and IBM will inherit 18 million customers.
But the service's timing may be based on more than the mere integration of IBM's Outblaze buyout: Google has spent the year trying to recoup from repeated outages of Gmail, including its own enterprise email service--the online applications have been unavailable for multi-hour windows three times so far this year.
IBM is hoping to tap into its reputation as a trusted outsourcer to show that it can do better. "We run the world's most mission critical systems for banks, telcos and utilities," says Sean Poulley, IBM's vice president of online collaboration services. "It's fair to say we're pretty trusted."
Dave Girouard, president of Google's enterprise division, defends Gmail, saying that it still offers 99.9% reliability--far greater than the average e-mail service many companies run themselves. As for competition with Google, he points out that IBM's 1 gigabyte of storage space is far inferior to the 25 gigs that Google offers.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Digital ants to the rescue!
Swarms of digital ants may soon crawl all over the internet, scouting not for food, but computer worms and self-replicating programs designed to steal information or facilitate unauthorised use of machines. Security experts have successfully deployed a new type of network security software which mimics the habits of real-world ants.
Ants on earth, for instance, wander randomly but return to their colonies when they find food. But on the way back, they leave behind pheromone trails.
If other ants find the trail, they follow it and reinforce it. The idea of the ant colony algorithm follows this pattern. The digital ants wander through computer networks. When an ant detects a threat, other ants converge on the scene, drawing the attention of human operators who step in to investigate.
"In nature, we know that ants defend themselves against threats very successfully," Wake Forest Professor of Computer Science Errin Fulp, an expert in security and computer networks, said in a press statement, adding: "They can ramp up their defence rapidly, and then resume routine behaviour quickly after an intruder has been stopped. We were trying to achieve that same framework in a computer system."
Digital ants are an application of Swarm Intelligence or SI. Examples of this concept abound in nature, and include ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, and fish schooling. SI, which refers to a general set of algorithms, was made popular in works of fiction like Prey from Michael Crichton, where a swarm of nano-robots attacks humans as experiments go wrong, and robotic sentinels in movies like The Matrix.
Using SI, these digital ants adapt to the variations of viruses that hackers routinely introduce. This is critical since security programs gobble up more resources, and antivirus scans take longer and machines run slower when anti-virus packages discover new threats and issue updates.
Glenn Fink, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, came up with the idea of copying ant behaviour. PNNL, one of ten Department of Energy laboratories, conducts cutting-edge research in cyber security.
Fink was familiar with Fulp's expertise developing faster scans using parallel processing – dividing computer data into batches like lines of shoppers going through grocery store checkouts, where each lane is focused on certain threats.
He invited Fulp and Wake Forest graduate students Wes Featherstun and Brian Williams to join a project there this summer that tested digital ants on a network of 64 computers. SI, the approach developed by PNNL and Wake Forest, divides the process of searching for specific threats.
"Our idea is to deploy 3,000 different types of digital ants, each looking for evidence of a threat," Fulp said. "As they move about the network, they leave digital trails modelled after the scent trails ants in nature use to guide other ants. Each time a digital ant identifies some evidence, it is programmed to leave behind a stronger scent. Stronger scent trails attract more ants, producing the swarm that marks a potential computer infection."
Fulp says the new security approach is best suited for large networks that share many identical machines, such as those found in governments, large corporations and universities.
And computer users need not worry that a swarm of digital ants will decide to take up residence in their machine by mistake. Digital ants cannot survive without software "sentinels" located at each machine, which in turn report to network "sergeants" monitored by humans, who supervise the colony and maintain ultimate control.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Google Injects Search Savvy Into Display Ad System
Google Draws Upon Expertise in Search Advertising to Sell More Visual Marketing Messages
Google Inc. is counting on the crown jewel of its online advertising empire to burnish a diamond in the rough.
The long-awaited combination poses another threat to Yahoo Inc., whose profits have been sliding the past three years. Yahoo is the Internet's largest seller of display advertising, a mantle that Google has set its sights on. Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL also operate large exchanges that help manage display ads.
The upgrade announced Friday has been something Google has been working toward since it bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion a year-and-a-half ago. Google prized DoubleClick largely for its tools for selling and serving display ads.
Although they are more dynamic, display ads so far haven't proven to be as popular as the text ads that appear alongside search results. Last year, online search advertising sales in the United States totaled $10.5 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, with most of that money going to Mountain View, Calif.-based Google. The Internet's U.S. display ads totaled $7.6 billion.
"The display market today is probably not really living up to its full potential," said Neal Mohan, a Google vice president of product management.
Google is betting it can sell more display ads by drawing on the science, simplicity and ease-of-use that has made its search advertising system so profitable. The marriage will open DoubleClick's display advertising system to hundreds of thousands of advertisers and Web sites that belong to AdWords and AdSense — the cornerstones of Google's commercial search.
"We are going to be bringing a lot of the know-how and a lot of the efficiencies of the search market to the art of display," Mohan said.
NEXTSTEP.TCS.COM SERVER ERROR
Buddha govt offers 45 acres each to Wipro and Infosys
West Bengal government on Thursday offered 45 acres each to Wipro and Infosys for setting up units at
Rajarhat, said Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
"I'm proposing today (Thursday), through the media, that we are ready to give 45 acres of land each to Wipro and Infosys. If they agree to the proposal, they can come and immediately take possession of the land and start new centres," Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a press conference at the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) state headquarters.
"These companies can create 16,000 jobs in two years. I already had a talk with my cabinet colleagues, IT Minister Debesh Das, Housing Development Minister Gautam Deb and others about the proposal. We will start talking to the companies. The price of the land will be negotiated with them," Bhattacharjee said, adding that the land will be given on lease to both the IT giants.
On the infrastructure, he said that Rajarhat area already had housing, market complexes and road facilities.
"Now the state government will talk to these companies with the proposal. We can immediately hand over the proposed land to them (Wipro and Infosys).
"A few months back we'd identified land near Vedic Village area to set up an IT township there. But we didn't have any idea that they were acquiring land with muscle power and also with the help of some anti-social elements. Some unfortunate things also happened there... I was little upset with that," the chief minister said.
He said that the state government immediately dropped the project and decided not to go ahead with it as it was not morally correct, following the trouble that erupted over Vedic Reality - a joint venture between the private party and state's key IT agency Webel.
The proposed IT township at Rajarhat near Salt Lake had become controversial following allegations that land sharks - allegedly backed by promoters of Vedic Realty - had been involved in land acquisitions.
The state government depended on Vedic Realty to get land for the 1,600-acre IT project.
Both Infosys and Wipro had sought 90 acres from the state government for their ventures. ITC Infotech was also eyeing space in the IT hub.
Bhattacharjee said the land was already with the state government and they would just have to change the land map at Rajarhat slightly to accommodate the IT players.
Dell Introduces Servers, Storage for SMBs
To help growing businesses achieve greater IT efficiency, Dell has introduced a range of enterprise products designed specifically to meet the needs of SMBs. These products are designed to simplify operations, reduce downtime, enhance information security and reduce operating cost.
The new portfolio includes four 11th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers, Lifecycle Controller 1.2 embedded systems management, the PowerVault NX300 network attached storage (NAS) device, Dell Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and Dell ProConsult services to help growing businesses achieve greater IT efficiency.
The new Dell PowerEdge servers enable businesses to monitor, and maintain with the inclusion of advanced systems management technologies. While the Dell Lifecycle Controller 1.2 simplifies deployment and saves time and money by pre-loading the correct drivers for all the operating systems and components on Dell PowerEdge servers.
The new Dell servers are engineered to save energy and save money. The PowerEdge R210 is 88 percent more energy efficient than the previous generation, and the PowerEdge T310 is 65 percent more energy efficient than its predecessor.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
TCS to hire more trainees than pros
Tata Consultancy Services which is on a cost control drive plans to optimise cost through hiring mix with inducting more number of trainees compared to professionals.
The expenditure on human resources works out to 50 to 55 per cent of the reveneus of the company and it expects to optimise its cost through a proper mix of hiring trainees and profesionals.
Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Vice-President and Head, Global HR of TCS told reporters in Mumbai [ Images ] on Thursday in the first quarter last year, the company had a hiring mix of 62 per cent professionals and 38 per cent trainees.
Whereas in the first quarter of this year, out of every 100 employees hired, 61 were trainees and 39 were professionals.
He said the trend will continue in the rest of the year as well with at least 60 per cent of new recruits being trainees.
He said the company also plans to use employee referral system to reduce cost while hiring new people.
He also informed the attrition in the company is leveling out with the company focussing on retaining high performers.
Meanwhile, the number of foreign nationals working with TCS has crossed the 10,000 mark which is a record for any Indian IT company.
The company which had only 3,691 employees in the year 1990-91 today has over 1,16,000 employees on its roll making it the largest employer in the IT industry in the country, according to a company handout.
No variable pay for TCS campus hires in training
Close to 1,500 trainees who will join India's largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) , by the end of September, will not be eligible for variable pay till they complete their six-month training period.
Campus hires, till date, got an annual package of around Rs 3.2 lakh (around Rs 26,670 per month) of which Rs 60,000 (or Rs 5,000 per month) comprised the variable component. However, the trainees who join TCS now will not get this component for the first six months.
"We took this decision from a productivity point of view. While this will result in cost savings, it is more of a mindset change," said Ajoy Mukherjee, Vice President and Head of Global Human Resources.
TCS gave offer letters to 24,885 students. Of this, 18,000-19,000 are expected to join the company in batches by the end of the current financial year. The number of trainees joining will depend on the training capacity of the organisation and the business demand environment. The company also said its lateral (experienced hands) hiring would be tightly controlled.
The change in salary structure, however, will not be applicable to the 250 trainees being hired by TCS for its Cincinnati centre. "The reason being, there is no variable pay component applicable in the US. We have made campus offers to 160 students, of which 120 have joined the centre," added Mukherjee.
For the next financial year (FY2011), the company will visit campuses only in January 2011. However, Mukherjee wouldn't give any details on the number the company was looking to hire for FY2011.
TCS, said Mukherjee, will continue with its stand of no increments for this financial year. "While the bad news this year is that there will be no increments, we will be promoting over 9,000 employees, which was held over last year," he said
Monday, September 14, 2009
Emotional intelligence - a new hiring criterion
In this job market, it's not just who you know, or even what skills you've mastered. It's how well you understand other people that will get you ahead.
This is the age of emotional intelligence, often called EQ, and today's hiring managers want proof you've got it.Do you have the maturity and independence to follow a project to completion? Can you motivate and lead a group of your peers? Do you genuinely care about the company's values and goals? Are you the type to be sensitive to the needs of a troubled co-worker? Can you control your anger when a supervisor is rude to you?
Employers are looking for better-rounded workers these days," said Marilyn Edelson, founder and chief executive of Newton-based OnTrack Coaching and Consulting Inc. ``If you're just a grabber, looking for what you can get for yourself, you might be seen as a bright spark in the beginning, but it won't carry you through a career.
EQ comprises a collection of so-called ``soft" skills, including self-awareness, an understanding of how your mood and behavior affect others; impulse control, including how you manage stress on the job; initiative, whether you can be counted on to report to work on time, manage your own time, and meet expectations; and the ability to motivate and lead others.
But empathy -- the ability to understand and acknowledge another person's point of view -- is ``the big enchilada in my mind when it comes to emotional intelligence," said Nancy Mobley, CEO of Dedham-based workplace consultants Insight Performance.
``If you are an employer looking to hire for a leadership position, you want to know whether they can put themselves in someone else's shoes," she said.
For companies, emotional intelligence is not just some trendy HR phrase. It's costly for employers to replace managers who fail to connect emotionally, and to regain the trust of burned subordinates. Moreover, the ever-increasing business emphasis on technology and globalization means more communication, cooperation, and teamwork is necessary to get projects completed on time and on budget. Companies have to hire good communicators if they want to survive.
As for employees, older workers tend to have more emotional intelligence, usually through hard-won experience. Younger workers, however, can close the experience gap by showing genuine excitement about the job, interest in the company, and a willingness to learn and grow.
Job applicants, especially those for executive-level positions, should be prepared to be quizzed on their EQ. Typical subjects include behavioral-type questions about how they coped with a past workplace challenge, managed a personality conflict, or helped a team project succeed.
Even someone fresh out of college should be ready to demonstrate these skills, perhaps describing how they managed a fraternity fund-raiser, met school newspaper deadlines, or trained a group of summer lifeguards, Mobley said.
The increasing importance placed on EQ skills isn't about a kinder, gentler workplace -- actually, it's quite the contrary.
Research collected by the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations shows that salespeople, military recruiters, and executives with better scores on written EQ tests outperformed and out-earned colleagues who scored lower.
A 1997 study conducted by the Hay Research and Innovation Group, an EQ consulting and testing company, showed computer sales reps hired especially for their emotional skills were 90 percent more likely to complete training than those hired on other criteria. Another Hay study from the same year showed insurance agents who scored weakly on empathy, self-confidence, and initiative sold policy premiums worth 50 percent less than agents who scored better in those areas.
Some EQ tips from the experts
Pay attention to key EQ buzzwords in the job description, (``innovative," ``flexible," and ``friendly," for example) and incorporate them into your cover letter and resume.
Know yourself, and learn everything possible about the values and culture of the company you hope to work for. ``It's not emotionally intelligent to force yourself into an office culture where you won't be happy," said Edelson.
Demonstrate reliability and trustworthiness. One of Edelson's favorite stories is about a 23-year-old woman who wrecked her car en route to an interview for a sales position at a pharmaceutical company. Instead of being a no-show, she called and explained the situation, and got a ride to the interview. ``She was determined to show them she was reliable and would show up when she said she would," said Edelson. (Impressed, the firm hired her on the spot.)
Never fib about anything. Don't say you're fluent in Spanish when you haven't spoken a word since high school. Assess your skills realistically, but follow with a pledge to improve quickly if the job requires proficiency.
Which Smartphone Has the Best Browser?
Apple's Safari, Palm's WebOS browser, Google's Android--which one is the best? We put those browsers plus three other contenders through their paces.
But not all mobile browsers are easy to use or pleasant to the eye. Many smartphone buyers base their buying decision on the sexiness of the device itself, without examining the software inside. And many of them stick with the browser that came with the phone, regardless of its merits. Sure, you can check out various third-party browsers, but even if they load pages faster, they won't offer the same integration with your phone and the same interface friendliness as the browser that came loaded on your handset.
For this comparison, I tested several phones from different modern mobile operating systems. I looked at the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre, the Nokia 5800, the Nokia N97, the T-Mobile G1, the HTC Hero, the BlackBerry Storm, and some Windows Mobile devices.
SPOILER ALERT: We give our conclusions and pick the best browsers at the bottom of this page, so consider following the links in the box at right to our browser "mini-reviews" first.
What are the most popular browsers?
There are conflicting views of the raw market-share numbers that different mobile browsers command. Both Net Applications and StatCounter monitor this market, but the numbers they come up with (see the charts at left) are not identical. Inconsistencies aside, most research into mobile browsers' market share has found at least some degree of iPhone domination. StatCounter found that 36 percent of mobile Internet access occurs via iPhones, while Net Applications found that the iPhone holds approximately two-thirds of the market (66 percent).
What about the "other" browsers?
Several third-party developers have created browsers--such as Google Android and Nokia's Symbian S60--for open platforms. Among third-party developers, Opera leads the way with various editions of its browsers for Android, Nokia, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile phones (but not for the iPhone or the Palm Pre).
The Opera mobile browser's strength lies in its speed. Opera 9.7 uses compression technology to pack the pages you want to visit onto its servers in smaller form before they appear on your phone; this arrangement accelerates the overall browsing process considerably.
Where are the speed comparisons?
A browser's speed depends largely on the hardware capabilities of the phone it's loaded on. For example, browsing the Web via Wi-Fi on an iPhone 3G is slightly slower than doing the same thing on an iPhone 3GS, because the 3GS has a stronger processor and more RAM memory. Speed differences (and variability) between browsers are further increased by real-world differences in Wi-Fi and 3G coverage that connects the browser to the Internet.
So what's the best mobile browser then?
The leading mobile browsers are the iPhone's Mobile Safari, the Palm Pre's WebOS browser, and the browser in Google's Android mobile OS. All three have sleek interfaces and offer easy access to all of their main functions. Of the three, however, Android phones require the largest number of interactions to perform tasks such as saving an image.
While the Palm Pre's simple interface and its integration of both Google and Wikipedia search in the same bar are interesting, Android phones feature Google voice search technology, too--a nifty feature to use in place of typing a search query.
Though the iPhone has a very intuitive tabbed browsing interface, the Palm Pre beats the competition on this measure, thanks to its ability to load multiple pages in the background or side-by-side. On the other hand, the iPhone wins the beauty contest for its smooth adaptive zooming and quick navigation within a page and between pages.
Adobe Flash powers most of the multimedia and interactive features of modern Web sites, yet it still doesn't work on many smartphones. Many people complain about the iPhone's lack of Adobe Flash support, but the iPhone is hardly alone. The Palm Pre and the BlackBerry Storm don't have Flash support, and neither do most Android devices (except the HTC Hero). Nokia's S60 and the Windows Mobile browsers provide limited, scaled-down Flash support.
Full Flash support is something to watch for, if you want to get the full online experience out of your mobile Web browsing. Interesting developments are occurring in the Google Android realm, and BlackBerry is working on similar things. Nokia is moving forward, as well, developing a new Linux-based mobile OS that will debut on the N900 tablet.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Hot New Marketing Trends
Market on the Move:
According to the Mobile Marketing Association, by 2008, 89 percent of brands will use text and multimedia messaging to reach their audiences, with nearly one-third planning to spend more than 10 percent of their marketing budgets on advertising in the medium. As phones with video capability become more prevalent, expect more rich media marketing options. Plus, now that mobile phone service providers are dipping their toes into the credit card pool--soon your phone or PDA may make plastic obsolete--customers will be relying on these devices more than ever.
"There are some low-cost mobile marketing onramps for small businesses," says Kim Bayne, author of Marketing Without Wires. "Businesses can implement opt-in text messaging services and coupons with their loyal customers. We've already seen local restaurants send the day's specials to nearby lunch patrons. The cost is fairly low, and it can be done from a PC, without involving a pricey service provider."
Go Online:
"Think globally, act locally" is now the mantra for entrepreneurs advertising online. Online ad spending is up as much as 33 percent over last year, says David J. Moore, chairman and CEO of digital marketing firm 24/7 Real Media Inc. in New York City. Earlier this year, Google announced a new local advertising program linked to its map service and AdWords program, allowing businesses to drive some of Google's traffic to their brick-and-mortar locations.
"[Entrepreneurs] should pay attention to any targeting that allows them to increase advertising efficiency by reaching users in their particular geographic area," says Moore. Online ads are also migrating to podcasts and blogs, where advertisers can reach very specific niche audiences. And with increased access to broadband and the falling cost of video production, Moore foresees a rise in online video ads for businesses as well.
Court the Boom:
A baby boomer turns 50 every 7 seconds--joining a population segment that will grow by 25 percent in the next decade while other segments remain flat.
Matt Thornhill, founder of consulting firm The Boomer Project, which helps businesses reach adults born between 1946 and 1964, says it's time for marketers to recalibrate their thinking about marketing to older adults. Boomers are a dynamic group that's much more open to new experiences and brands than previous generations of older adults have been. Stephanie Lakhani found that to be true at her upscale Breathe Wellness Spasin Boise, Idaho. Catering primarily to boomers, the two spas bring in about $1.2 million per year. She says boomers are an excellent target, with disposable income and a tendency to refer business. "They expect perfect service," says Lakhani, 35, who adds, "They tend to travel and buy in groups, so giving them an incentive to refer a friend in the form of an upgrade or a thank you [gesture] works very well. They are also very responsive to direct mail."
Thornhill adds that marketers should target boomers by what they're doing instead of how old they are. "Boomers are living such cyclical lives. In their 40s or 50s, they could be going back to college, be empty nesters or be married a second time and raising a young family," he explains. "You wouldn't sell the same vacation package to all these people. So pick the lifestyle segment you're targeting, and focus on that."
Steve Jobs lights up Apple show
Apple boss Steve Jobs stole the show at an event to launch new products as he took to the stage for the first time in nearly a year following medical leave.
Mr Jobs returned to work at the end of June after taking a six-month break to recover from a liver transplant.
After a long summer of speculation about what would roll off the Apple production line, the products took second billing to Mr Jobs' appearance.
"I'm vertical and I'm back," joked Mr Jobs at a press event in San Francisco.
As the audience rose to give him a standing ovation and cheer his return, the notoriously private Mr Jobs talked briefly about the operation he received at a hospital in Tennessee.
"As some of you may know, about five months ago I had a liver transplant," he told the crowd of press, analysts and invited guests.
"So I have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. I wouldn't be here without such generosity."
Dressed in his usual blue jeans and black turtle-neck, and looking perhaps a bit thinner than normal, the technology mogul urged everyone to follow suit and become organ donors.
'In charge'
Weeks before the company's event, dubbed "It's only rock 'n' roll and we like it", the rumour mill had gone into overdrive about whether or not Mr Jobs would attend.
The issue has been seen as a major distraction for the company.
 The product announcements were seen as a bit of a letdown by some |
Many believed that this was one engagement Mr Jobs could not afford to miss given that the company's share price has risen and fallen in the past on reports of his health.
"Today it was all about Steve Jobs," Gene Munster, a senior analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co told the BBC.
"Users and investors of Apple adore Steve Jobs and the fact that he was here is really a statement that he is in charge and he is an active part of the company. That is the most important takeaway," said Mr Munster.
That was a view echoed by Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes.
"We believe it is positive that Jobs is healthy and enthusiastic enough to lead Apple, which is an important element of the short- and long-term investment cases for Apple," Mr Reitzes wrote in a research note to clients.
Although investors typically sell Apple stock after a launch event, he said the presentation should be seen as a "warm-up" for a "re-engaged Steve Jobs".
While Apple's shares have doubled in value since the start of the year, they fell 0.9% on the day to $171.41 (£105).
Prices lowered
Mr Jobs did not dwell on the issue of his own health for very long. Minutes after the show kicked off, the Apple boss got down to business.
The chief executive showcased a new iPod Nano with a built-in video camera, FM tuner and voice recorder ranging from £115 to £135 in the UK and $149-$179 in the US.
 The new iPod Nano with video camera comes in a variety of colours |
Mr Jobs called the Nano "the most popular music player in the world", with more than 100 million sold to date. The company revealed that as a whole, it has sold more than 220 million iPods and now commands 73.8% of the market, compared with Microsoft's 1.1%.
Apple also lowered the prices of existing iPods and introduced a new 32GB and 64GB iPod Touch that it promised would run faster than previous models.
Mr Jobs earlier turned the spotlight on a revamped iTunes program that includes app management, home sharing and the ability to buy lyrics, memorabilia and liner notes through an iTunes LP music feature.
"I think it's really cool, but iTunes LP isn't going to sell albums," said analyst Michael Gartenberg of Interpet.
"Good music will sell albums. Still, it's nice we are getting back some of the stuff we lost with the CD," he told Wired.com
Mr Jobs said that iTunes was now the world's number one music retailer with 100 million registered users.
'Disappointment'
At the end of the day, the products the company unveiled left some feeling underwhelmed.
"The common sentiment everyone always feels after an Apple press conference is a sense of delight at some of the cool things but also some disappointment that all of the wildly crazy rumours didn't come true," Dean Takahashi of Venturebeat.com told BBC News.
 The award-winning Norah Jones performed two songs at the event |
"So that meant no Apple tablet and no Beatles heading to the iTunes store. I did think there were a couple of cool things like the iPod Nano camera. You almost expect them to come up with something more innovative but there was no big wow moment," said Mr Takahashi.
"It was kind of a non-event," Piper Jaffray's Mr Munster said.
"It was all about the iPod today and in terms of competition they are still running away with the show. Our biggest question is what is going to happen in the next six months. The Apple Tablet is what we want to hear about and it's going to address this mid-market as people look for portability with their computing.
"This is a niche they really need to address in the coming months," said Mr Munster.