Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Google

Submission + - Google Wave: 'Like Real-Time E-Mail. On Crack.' (bnet.com) 1

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "Developers are finally getting their hands on the developer preview of Google's Wave, which means we can finally get some first-hand accounts of what it's really like to use, unfiltered by Google's own programmers. Ben Rometsch, a developer with U.K. Web development firm Solid State, blogged that, it's "probably the most advanced 'application in a browser' that I've seen." Wave is like giant Web page onto which users can drag and drop any kind of object, including instant messaging and IRC [Internet Relay Client] clients, e-mail, and wikis, as well as gadgets like maps and video. All conversations, work product and applications are stored on remote servers — presumably forever. "It's like real time email. On crack," he wrote. And unlike the typically minimalist Google UI, "It feels a lot more like a desktop application that just so happens to live in your browser.""
Microsoft

Submission + - The Hidden Costs of Microsoft's Free Office Online (bnet.com)

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "Despite what you've heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won't be free to corporate users. Business customers will either have to pay a subscription fee or purchase corporate access licenses (CALs) for Office in order to be given access to the online application suite (Microsoft already does this with email — the infamous Outlook Web Access — or OWA, pronounced ow!-wah! because of the painful user experience). But wait — there's more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000, all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."

Comment Volunteers not such a bad idea (Score 1) 123

by eweekhickins (#28642143) Attached to: US Seeks Volunteers To Review Broadband Grant Applications
There are two issues here that argue in favor of the government's approach: who says hiring people will be any better or quicker, and whatever happened to the idea of open source? No one gets paid for committing code to an open source project, and no one should suggest that those who do are "losers." You'd need to implement the same kind of safeguards against cronyism with paid people as with volunteers, you'd still have to train them, and they'd still have a nearly impossible task. The issue isn't money (Congress actually allocated money to hire people); it's where and how do you recruit the best people. I'm not so sure asking for volunteers is the worst way of going about this, as I argue further here.
Security

Submission + - Murdoch Reporters Hacked Celebrity Phones (bnet.com)

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "Change the default, ya'll. Executives at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.-owned papers (including current Tory spokesman Andy Coulson) allowed reporters to hack into phone conversations of celebrities and then paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover it up. How did famously technologically-challenged reporters manage the feat without BT catching on? Voicemail."
Handhelds

Submission + - Smartphones Get Killer App (bnet.com)

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "A killer application has finally emerged that should allow smartphones to overtake conventional PCs and laptops as the computing device of choice: it's called augmented reality, and as absurd as that sounds, that's exactly what it is. Mobile device consultant Tomi Ahonen wrote on his mobile developer forum that, "this is one of those game-changer types of innovations." Using location based services on smartphones that include a camera, GPS and a compass, the technology allows customers to augment their surroundings with metadata layered over what their smartphones capture through their viewfinders."
Supercomputing

Submission + - Computers Key To Air France Crash (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "It's no secret that commercial airplanes are heavily computerized, but as the mystery of Air France Flight 447 unfolds, we need to come to grips with the fact that in many cases, airline pilots' hands are tied when it comes to responding effectively to an emergency situation. Boeing planes allow pilots to take over from computers during emergency situations, Airbus planes do not. It's not a design flaw--it's a philosophical divide. It's essentially a question of what do you trust most-- a human being's ingenuity or a computer's infinitely faster access and reaction to information. It's not surprising that an American company errs on the side of individual freedom while a European company is more inclined to favor an approach that relies on systems. As passengers, we should have the right to ask whether we're putting our lives in the hands of a computer rather than the battle-tested pilot sitting up front, and we should have right to deplane if we don't like the answer."
Privacy

Submission + - Businesses Generally Ignoring E-Discovery Rules (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "A full year after the institution of new federal e-discovery court rules, only a minority of companies are paying attention. Researcher Michael Osterman said that only 47 percent of companies have some kind of e-mail retention policy in place. "I don't think it's difficult to understand the rules," Osterman told eWEEK. "I just think that it sometimes takes 'headline shock' to make people move on some things."
The Internet

Submission + - Web Traffic Snarls Sites on Black Friday (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "A surge of e-commerce traffic on Thanksgiving night and all day Friday apparently caught several retail giants by surprise, with Lowe's, Macys and Victoria's Secret especially hard hit. In fact, almost a third of leading retailers suffered significant slowdowns on Black Friday, according to statistics released this weekend by Keynote Competitive Research, a firm that tracks Web site performance. The site run by Victoria's Secret also slowed, but users seemed more tolerant about waiting for the site's "exclusive" pictures to download. Go figure."
Government

Submission + - Lawmakers Delay Telco Immunity Vote (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a scheduled vote on whether telecommunications carriers should be granted immunity for cooperating with the White House's domestic spying program of telephone wiretapping and e-mail surveillance. The panel hopes to vote on the provision as soon as next week. Senator Pat Leahy said the immunity would make it impossible for Americans to seek redress for 'illegal' violations of their privacy."
Networking

Submission + - Network Monitoring Appliance Makes Heroes (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "Here's a new tool to help network managers cope with increasing pressure to improve performance. This appliance, from Dublin-based Corvil (with backing from Cisco) passively monitors traffic across networks in segments below 1 microsecond in length and correlates monitoring data with remote appliances and gives a complete picture of latency, jitter, packet loss and other phenomena that affect network and application performance. Corvil CEO Donal Byrne noted that "If you can drop a millisecond [of latency] off, you're a hero.""
Censorship

Submission + - How to Dodge the Chinese Internet Censor (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "A report written by a tech worker in China describes the pervasive censorship, abetted by ample manpower and funding estimated at $27 billion in U.S. dollars. The author, Mr. Tao, also writes that plenty of Chinese are finding ways to resist censorship, and offers tips on how to keep evading Big GeGe (that's older brother). Not surprisingly, self-censorship is very prevalent. Also not surprisingly, the authorities are starting to catch on to things like RSS feeds. It's another race for survival between the tiny mammals and the lumbering dinosaurs."
Security

Submission + - TSA to Contractors: Thou Shalt Encrypt Laptops (eweek.com)

Submitted by
eweekhickins
eweekhickins writes: "After two laptops were lost (stolen?) containing the personal data of 3,900+ truckers who handle HAZMATs, the Transportation Security Administration has ordered its contractors to encrypt any and all data. Ann Davis, the TSA's public affairs manager, says that even though there's only "a small chance of [the data being misused], we did notify all affected individuals." Well that's a relief."

Slashdot Top Deals

A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.

Close