26875522
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Lucas123 writes:
Every year, Computerworld polls its readers on what types of tech gear they want to give and/or receive for the holidays. While the top five categories they chose are pretty much the same as in 2010 — tablets, e-readers, smartphones, laptops and HDTVs — the products themselves have changed significantly. For example, Android powerhouses such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet are strong contenders this year while in years past Apple's iPhone 4S and iPad 2 topped the lists.
26722156
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Trailrunner7 writes:
Security researchers who have investigated the inner workings of the Carrier IQ software and its capabilities say that the application has some powerful, and potentially worrisome capabilities, but that as it's currently deployed by carriers it doesn't have the ability to record SMS messages, phone calls or keystrokes. However, the researchers note that there is still potential for abuse of the information that's being gathered, whether by the carriers themselves or third parties who can access the data legitimately or through a compromise of a device.
Jon Oberheide, a security researcher who has done a lot of work on Android devices, also analyzed several versions of the Carrier IQ software and found that the software has the ability to record some information, but that doesn't mean that it's actually doing so. That part is up to each individual carrier. However, he says that the ability to collect that data is a dangerous thing.
"There is a lot of capability to collect sensitive data, which is dangerous in any scenario," Oberheide said in an interview. "It's up to the carriers to use the software as they choose, but you could sort of put some blame on Carrier IQ. But they put it on the carriers."
24472746
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Lucas123 writes:
As part of a computer industry oral history project, in 1995 Computerworld performed an extensive interview with Steve Jobs, then head of NeXT Computer. Jobs talked openly about his life and work during from his early years — when he says he's sure that except for a few key adults 'I would absolutely have ended up in jail' — to how he felt about Apple in the mid-'90s — 'The Macintosh will die in another few years [under John Sculley]' — to his predictions about the Internet.
24442278
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Lucas123 writes:
After six days of spotty service and outages with its online and mobile sites, Bank of America today said it has not been the victim of a denial of service attack, hacking or malware. Yet, the bank has set up a new homepage that it says will help customers navigate to the proper online service. Internet monitoring service Keynote said the outage is unprecedented in banking. 'I don't think we've seen as significant and as long an outage with any bank. And I've been with Keynote for 16 years now,' said Shawn White, vice president of operations for web monitoring service Keynote Systems. In the meantime, a BofA spokeswoman continued to devulge what might be happening, saying 'We're not going to get into the technical details. We're not going to comment on the technicalities of what we do.' Speculation among experts has been that the site is under attack.
21381236
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jcatcw writes:
Did you catch the recent show "Code Wars: America's Cyber Threat" on CNBC? If not, don't bother. Sadly, the show did nothing to educate viewers about Defensive Computing. But why are the bad guys winning? Here, in no particular order, are the top 34 reasons we're losing the war. For example: 1) The game is rigged; 3) There's no Internet User Guide; 6) SSL is a sham; 8) Public Wi-Fi; 14) Programming is still an art and one best done by the fewest possible people; 29) Google.
21380662
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FatLittleMonkey writes:
Researchers from Princeton University have discovered nematodes at depth of up to 3.6km in three gold mines in South Africa, likely feeding on the radiation-consuming bacteria also discovered by the same team. Carbon dating their environment confirms that the 500 micrometres long critters have been there for at least 3000 years and are not a recent contaminant. The finding means that unexpectedly complex ecosystems occur deep underground, increasing the chance that complex life may have survived on Mars according to Carl Pilcher, director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, "The significance was that you could imagine an ecosystem existing in the subsurface of a planet that didn't have a photosynthetic biosphere, like Mars," he says.
Until now, it was thought such an ecosystem could be made of bacteria only. But Onstott's new findings have completely changed that. "These nematodes are grazing on microbes. So now you could imagine that if animal life had ever developed on a planet, and the surface of that planet became lifeless," Pilcher explains, "you could imagine that animals could coexist with microbial ecosystems all powered by radioactivity."
21380000
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netbuzz writes:
“We’re not building some generic Joni Mitchell cloud,” sniffs the university CTO in an interview with Network World. Get it? Joni Mitchell cloud? No wimpy ‘60s folk music cloud for these guys. The song being referenced – Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” recorded in 1969 – practically cries out for parody these days. And Bruce Kerr, an attorney at Oracle, has stepped up to the plate to deliver the goods.
20532774
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Lucas123 writes:
When cloud storage providers shut down, as four have done in the past year, users are left wondering how they'll get their data back and whether they'll be able to migrate it directly to a new service provider. More importantly, analysts say, what guarantees they have that the data stored offsite will be deleted after the shutdown. Currently, there is no direct way to migrate data to another provider, and there are no government rules or regulations specific to data managed by cloud storage providers.
20170024
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Lucas123 writes:
At SNW in Santa Clara this past week, a diverse group of techies shared insights into their industries, such as the DVR market. TiVo's senior director of IT, Richard Rothschild, for instance, explained how those set-top boxes track everything you watch for advertising and marketing and then combine the information with supermarket membership card data to determine how effective ad campaigns are. Oh, and TiVo's planning to integrate its box with your flatscreen, so not more set-top device. And Steve Wozniak attacked the American education system, saying students should be graded on a single, long-term project rather than a short learning/testing cycle. "In school, intelligence is a measurement," he said. "If you have the same answer as everyone else in math or science, you're intelligent."
19969784
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Lucas123 writes:
Intel today launched a line of consumer solid state drives (SSDs) that replaces the industry's best selling X25-M line. The new 320 series SSD doubles the top capacity over the X25-M drives to 600GB, doubles sequential write speeds, and drops the price as much as 30% or $100 on some models. Intel also revealed its consumer SSDs have been outselling its enterprise-class SSDs in data centers, so it plans to drop its series of single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash SSDs and create a new series of SSDs based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND for servers and storage arrays. Unlike its last SSD launch, which saw Intel use Marvell's controller, the company said it stuck with its own processing technology with this series.
19005164
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Julie188 writes:
Microsoft's Supreme Court fight against i4i has ironically become a new rallying point for the tech industry to fight software patents, now that Bilski didn't do the trick. Red Hat, Verizon, and Hewlett-Packard have jumped in to provide support to Microsoft in the dispute and to generally argue (again) that the courts need to do something to fix the broken patent system since Congress hasn't done so. The group combined forces to file an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. This follows a similar declaration in favor of Microsoft's position by The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Apache Software Foundation earlier this week. [PDF of full amicus brief.]
18679716
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CWmike writes:
Students at Hong Kong's Chinese University may be onto a type of memory media that could be a truly secure way to store data — text, images, music, and video. It takes up almost no space, can be encrypted, and is so gross that it's unlikely many people would attempt to steal it. That is, if the thief would even consider searching a refrigerator for massive data storage inside E. Coli. The bacteria can successfully and securely be used for biostorage, the storage of data in living things. AFP reports that the U.S. national archives take up more than 500 miles of shelves, but one gram of bacteria used for storing data could hold the same amount of information as 450 hard drives with 2 TB each of storage capacity. 'This means you will be able to keep large datasets for the long term in a box of bacteria in the refrigerator,' said student instructor Aldrin Yim about the biostorage project. Allen Yu, another student instructor, told Discovery News, 'Bacteria can't be hacked. All kinds of computers are vulnerable to electrical failures or data theft. But bacteria are immune from cyber attacks. You can safeguard the information.'
18597974
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CWmike writes:
Google's Android upgrades are both a blessing and a curse. While each upgrade opens the door to exciting new features and functions for a phone, the updates don't arrive instantly — and the wait to receive them can often be long and filled with uncertainty or disappointment. Google's Android 2.2 upgrade, or Froyo, has brought this angst to the fore. Announced last June, Froyo has slowly made its way onto handsets around the world. Some phones got the software within a matter of days. Others, however, waited weeks or months, while others yet (cough, cough, Galaxy S) are still waiting for their turns. Then, of course, there are the phones that have been given the dreaded 'no upgrade' stamp. So who can you trust to provide timely Android upgrades, and whose track record is less than impressive? JR Raphael set out to find that answer (Shortcut... see chart.). Next, JR analyzed how the four major U.S. carriers performed when it came to Android upgrades in 2010 (see chart), looking specifically at how upgrades to Android 2.2 rolled out to eligible phones before the end of 2010, within six months of the software's release. Where's your upgrade? Check the list.
17844930
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Lucas123 writes:
Today's Xboxes and eReaders were built on 40 years of technology innovation for holiday toys and games, harkening back to the days of wood-panelled controller consoles, like the Atari 2600, and two-dimensional displays like the one in Pong, the first electronic tennis game that sold tens of millions of units in the mid-1970s. Remarkably, some of the most popular gadgets began as nothing more than a training exercise for engineers. While many of the coolest holiday tech toys sold like hotcakes, the industry didn't always get it right, like The Kitchen Computer, which sold for $10,600. What did you get for that? An electronic recipe book. Not surprisingly, Neiman-Marcus sold not one.
