Inside the Briefcase
Windows 8 will be built for both traditional PCs as well as devices that use ARM processors, like tablets. But ARM Windows devices won’t allow the use of browsers other than Internet Explorer, and that decision has Mozilla accusing Redmond of restricting user choice and chilling innovation. The Firefox maker also raised questions about antitrust regulations. Google reportedly shares Mozilla’s concerns.
The state of Nevada has granted Google an official license to test out its fleet of self-driving cars on the state’s public roadways. The autonomous autos are able to drive and steer themselves, but humans are still required for now. In fact, two people must be riding in the car’s front seats whenever the vehicle hits the road.
Aryaka, the world’s first cloud-based WAN optimization and application acceleration solution, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) LLC, an Amazon.com company and the leader in cloud computing /quotes/zigman/63011/quotes/nls/amzn AMZN -1.13% , today announced they have brought to market a solution that delivers a unified infrastructure for accessing global cloud and enterprise resources. Aryaka provides an optimized network that ensures IT application instances running on AWS behave as if they were on the local network with any-to-any connectivity, regardless of where end-users are located around the world.
Facebook may genuinely want to help facilitate organ donation through its new status update feature. However, the gesture is also likely to add more polish to the company’s image, which is always a good thing just prior to an IPO. The initiative “presents a friendly face to investors — retail investors, especially,” said David Johnson of Strategic Vision. “It can only help drive up the price of Facebook’s stock.”
The Next Web Conference 2012 has kicked off with differing views on the Internet. Thursday morning’s speakers featured Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit; author Andrew Keen, whose upcoming book, Digital Vertigo, rails against the “cult of the social”; and Dagan Cohen, founder of Upload Cinema.
Facebook is making friends with a wide variety of top computer security companies in an effort to eradicate the malware that flows through the social network. It’s compiling the companies’ databases of malicious URLs in order to stop those links from spreading via its pages. It’s also offering free AV software to users.
After being fined a paltry amount for activities that involved snooping on people’s open WiFi networks, Google likely wants to put the episode behind it. But privacy advocates think justice has yet to be done, and some say Google’s wardriving activities may have given it an advantage over its competitors in the fields of search and advertising.
The long-rumored Google Drive, or GDrive, service has once again popped up on radar, this time courtesy of a report claiming the online storage service will be launched as soon as next week. Google’s cloud storage network will reportedly give users 5 GB of free storage. It would enter a crowded market, but Google’s many resources could help Drive be a contender.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin spoke out about his biggest concerns regarding the freedom and openness of the Internet during a recent interview. He named government censorship, overreach from entertainment companies anxious to eradicate piracy, and walled-off platforms as some of the Net’s biggest problems of the day.
In this webinar, you’ll learn how IBM® SPSS® Data Collection survey software can collect all these types of data – including unstructured data from open-ended survey questions and information from social media.
Google has once again revamped Chrome OS, the company’s computer operating system. Some users have categorized the changes as very minor, though others say they represent a complete turnaround for the operating system that makes the OS appear to more closely follow examples set by OS X and Windows.
SAP announced the broad market success of the SAP Business One application, addressing small enterprise preferences for minimal up-front cost and lower IT operations.
More enterprises are seeking storage in the cloud as they rapidly fill up their on-premise storage and as the cloud storage providers become more secure, reliable, and cost competitive. AWS is typically first on business buyers’ lists. In fact, I’m finding that more and more ask only for AWS; others are not even considered.
Twitter CEO Dic Costolo answered critics of the company’s new policy regarding tweet-blocking — or censorship, as critics contend — by insisting Twitter has no choice but to abide by other countries’ laws. “It is a cop out,” said marketing professor Daniel Ladik. “Twitter is acquiescing without even much of a fight when it should be leading the charge.”
It’s not clear whether Facebook’s outing of members of the Koobface gang will pressure them to stop flooding the Web with malware or merely add to their notoriety. Authorities in Russia, where the gang is headquartered, haven’t displayed much interest in their capture. “The unfortunate reality is that Koobface will continue to wreak havoc,” predicted security expert John Viega.
Now that Android has “taken the world by storm,” as AppsGeyser VP Eduardo Robles put it, Google apparently wants to tame the beast. It has launched a style guide — Android Design — in the hope of reining in app devs and encouraging a more uniform look and feel for Android products. “It’s only natural to bring out a tool like [Android Design] right now,” said Robles.
Maybe the Internet won’t exactly fry your brain, but it could change it in other unwelcome ways. A new study found a correlation between Internet addiction and specific brain changes often observed in alcoholics and drug addicts. There was evidence of disruption to the connections in the nerve fibers that connect brain areas involved in emotions, decision making and self-control.
When Tammy Finch started her Web-Tech business 13 years ago, the online world was a far cry from the one that exists today. “It was really different then. There was no Google. When you put a website up, people could find you very easily,” she said. Now some businesses are even forgoing websites altogether in favor of a presence on Facebook, said Finch.
There’s speculation and scuttlebutt that cloud computing juggernaut Amazon is pondering fluffing up a big data crunching service as part of its Amazon Web Services subsidiary.
Usage of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 Web browser has dipped below 1 percent in the U.S., according to Net Applications’ figures, and Microsoft couldn’t be happier. The ancient browser, which long ago crossed the line into obsolescence, had been kept alive by users and enterprises who wouldn’t or couldn’t upgrade. Newer browsers automate the upgrade process.
This year, telephony stopped being a separate solution for some companies and, in the near future, is likely to be part of a larger communications and collaboration strategy for more and more organizations. This is enabled by Internet Protocol (IP)-based systems, and a general commodification of telephony services, and ongoing adoption of Unified Communications (UC).
The Firefox development merry-go-round has moved on again, with Firefox 10 Beta and Firefox 11 Aurora builds being joined by two separate versions of Firefox 12: Firefox 12 Nightly and Firefox 12 UX, the latter build representing the efforts of a team focussed on delivering improvements to the Firefox user interface.
An attractive tool aimed at providing fast, simple analysis for end-users.
SOURCE: TechNewsWorld There are plenty of Android tablets in the market already, but none has given the iPad much of a run. “The issue with the Android tablets is they tend to be all over the map in terms of design and experience, appearing too difficult to use and too hard to learn against the simple ...
Google’s long insisted on taking a relatively open stance on Android and Android applications. That’s made Android a very popular platform — even among malware authors. Although Amazon uses Android in its Kindle Fire, it holds its own app store on a shorter leash. Is Amazon’s management of its app store an example other Android app vendors should follow?
Looked at purely on the merits of its design, Facebook’s new Timeline interface does much to make members’ profile pages more attractive. However, soon Timeline will not be optional — it will be mandatory. Users will have seven days to clean up their profiles, lest some embarrassing photo from years ago is revealed to others. It’s another testament to Facebook’s callousness toward user privacy.
We’ve all had a favourite service that shut down after it couldn’t stay afloat. Some — like my favourite extension, Xmarks — got lucky and were bought out by a bigger company. Others, like Drop.io, were bought out and changed or never heard from again. We’ve often talked about which services are worth paying for, but Macie at previously mentioned Pinboard makes a different point: It’s not just a matter of principle. Paying is sometimes the only thing that can keep these services around.
Google and various game developers recently showed off the early fruits of their Native Client efforts. Chrome Native Client is designed to make it easier for developers to write sophisticated Web apps more quickly and with less strain. “This is exciting to users because it enables applications that were previously confined to the desktop to come to the Web,” said Google’s Claudine Beaumont.
SOURCE: TechNewsWorld Facebook says it’s fixed a glitch that temporarily allowed users to the private photos of others. The bug was connected to the system users have for reporting offensive photos they might find on the public portions of users’ profiles. “There are a seemingly infinite number of variables to test for in quality assurance,” said ...
A surprising security hole in Facebook allows almost anyone to see pictures marked as private, an online forum revealed late Monday. Even pictures supposedly kept hidden from uninvited eyes by Facebook’s privacy controls aren’t safe, reported one user of a popular bodybuilding forum in a post entitled “I teach you how to view private Facebook photos.”
