From The Editor
By Jeff Caruso, Site Editor
- Cisco backdoor still open, and other Black Hat news #BlackHat
- In another memorable Black Hat security conference this week, vulnerabilities were found in products ranging from Cisco to Microsoft to Wi-Fi, and beyond.
Cisco backdoor still open
The...
- Resources for helping Haiti
- In the horrible aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, many people in IT and elsewhere want to do what they can to lend a hand without getting scammed. Our sister sites at IDG passed...
- Tell us about your favorite IT gear
- Do you have a favorite enterprise IT product you can't live without? Tell us about it and we'll share your raves with our readers.
Please send your submissions to Ann Bednarz at Network World by...
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YouTube confirms IPv6 support; Cisco’s data center extensions Listen now!
- Websense debuts unified security architecture
- Websense Tuesday announced Triton, a unified security architecture, which merges its data-loss prevention and e-mail security products, keeping much of the security-as-a-service approach it already supports, but with a common management and reporting console.
- Google Nexus One available for pre-order from Play.com
- Google's 'superphone' - the Nexus One - is available to pre-order from Play.com.
- London Stock Exchange appoints new CIO
- The London Stock Exchange has appointed Antoine Shagoury as chief information officer.
- Intel Atom netbooks get whole-disk encryption
- Netbook users worried about storing sensitive data on their portables are being offered the world's first whole-disk encryption that will run useably on Intel's Atom processor.
- Users dispute Microsoft's explanation of Windows 7 battery problems
- Windows 7 does not ruin notebook batteries or issue premature warnings that the power is exhausted, Microsoft's head of Windows said in response to customer complaints.
- 2010: Finally the year of the Mac?
- Apple was a bright spot in 2009 in terms of PC sales, but the signals are mixed as to whether the Mac can grow beyond its niche
- Microsoft, Google team with MediaTek in smartphone push
- Microsoft and Google have turned to Taiwanese chipset vendor MediaTek to boost their traction in smartphones aimed at China and other emerging markets.
- Toyota to recall Prius hybrids over ABS software
- Toyota plans to recall around 400,000 of its Prius hybrid cars to replace software that controls the antilock braking system (ABS), the auto maker said Tuesday.
- Windows 7 Just Being Honest About Battery Life
- Last week I wrote about reports that some Windows 7 users are experiencing anomalies with battery life, or at least how Windows 7 reports remaining battery life. The issue seemed worthy of exploring, but not big enough to cause any significant damage to Microsoft's flagship desktop operating system.
- Google now taking user phone calls about Nexus One
- That was fast. Just one week after Google posted an advertisement for a phone support program manager, the company is offering telephone support for Nexus One customers -- but will only answer questions about the status of their phone orders and shipments.
- Microsoft e-health research taps Xbox, mobile phones
- Microsoft is researching how gadgets like the company's Xbox game machine, surface computers and accelerometers in mobile phones could be used to improve health care.
- Riverbed releases gigabit-speed WAN optimizer
- Riverbed Technology announced new models of its network accelerator appliance, increasing the throughput for on-site and off-site backups to 1Gbit/sec.
- LG, Samsung go social with latest handsets
- South Korea's two biggest cell phone makers previewed on Tuesday handsets they plan to unveil at next week's Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona.
- NASA: Astronauts use robotic arm to check for damage
- NASA, astronauts, space shuttle, Endeavour, International Space Station, launch, blast off, liftoff, Sharon Gaudin, robot, robotic arm, heat shield, inspection, wing, nose cap, spacesuit, spacewalk, emerging tech, node, module
- NBN Co to up headcount as Kaiser appointment slammed
- The company responsible for rolling out the National Broadband Network (NBN) is expected to announce shortly some “first-release” sites to trial the high-speed fibre network infrastructure and test construction techniques.
- Indie dev causes a stir with 'games are not art' statements
- Independent developer Tale of Tales caused a stir at the Art History of Games conference this week in Atlanta, GA by saying that games are not art and largely a huge waste of time.
- Victoria to tip in $3M to spy on bushfires
- Victoria’s troubled bushfire alert system may be bolstered with a fleet of fire-detection cameras after a $3 million government trial announced today is completed.
- iHound aims to help you find your missing iPhone
- If you're outside Moscone Center for this week's Macworld Expo, and someone hands you a "Lost iPhone" sticker, don't toss it away. It could help you track down your phone, should it ever go missing.
- Apple lets partners hit up enterprise
- Apple has moved to boost its small business and enterprise operations with the launch of an Australian version of the Apple Consultants Network.
- Apple iPad Price Cut: Blunder or Brilliance?
- If Apple is really considering price cuts on its just-introduced iPad, the best advice is to make them before launch, not after.
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- EA announces new games, lower revenues in investor report
- EA recently concluded its quarterly investor conference call, revealing its performance for the final three months of 2009, as well as its outlook for the first quarter of 2010, as well as the entire 2011 fiscal year (which runs from April 2010 to March 2011). Along with its financial results, the company revealed a tentative release slate the next twelve months. The company's official press release is located here.
- TransACT unveils third data centre
- TransACT has become the latest organisation to announce a new data centre with the official launch of a facility by ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope.
- Google reduces its Nexus One termination fee
- Google has quietly chopped US$200 off its early termination fee on the Nexus One, meaning it will now cost users less to cancel service on the smartphone.
- Apple to Remain 'Nimble' on iPad Pricing
- Apple could cut iPad prices if the device isn't selling well, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- Access Your Home PC Even When You're Not Home
- I routinely use my local coffee shop as a temporary office--and judging by the number of other laptop users I see there, I'm not alone.
- Could Google's 'Social Gmail' Really Work?
- Gmail, meet Twitter.
- Why e-Books Must Cost More
- Big increases in e-book prices seem like a bad deal for consumers. They may be necessary, however, to keep authors and publishers in business as e-books replace paper ones.
- Control Your Nokia N900 With Sony's Sixaxis Controller
- We recently stumbled across a hack that allowed the Nokia N900 to run Mac OS X. Now another mod has surfaced, but this time it's all about gaming.
- iPad Interest Evaporates, But Math is Fuzzy
- Now that everyone's up to speed on Apple's iPad, few people actually plan to buy one, according to a survey by Retrevo.
- Dell looks to buy clustered storage vendor Exanet
- Looking to extend its storage sales into NAS systems, Dell today put in a bid to purchase financially-troubled Exanet Inc., which sells clustered NAS software.
- IT hiring jumps in January
- The TechServe aliance industry group said that the addition of 12,900 IT jobs in the U.S. is "better than incremental" and a sign that corporate demand for such workers is finally growing again.
- ShmooCon: Web app storage open to attack
- New forms of off-line client-side storage, such as those specified by the emerging HTML 5 set of standards, could open entirely new kinds of attacks to Web application users, said Michael Sutton, vice president of security research for cloud security firm ZScaler.
- Apple offers 'find out how' tutorials as podcasts
- For some time, Apple has given the Designated Family Tech Support Personnel among us a small reprieve with its "Find out how" selection of tutorial videos. While they don't really tackle inevitable questions like "was deleting ~/Library/Keychains a bad idea?," they serve as succinct primers for The Way of the Mac and Apple's various apps and services. Now, if your tech-blossoming family and friends prefer to gobble their media in a subscription format, Apple has finally created iTunes Store podcast channels for its "Find out how" series.
- Startup links VMware with Amazon to create secure cloud storage
- A startup called Nasuni has made software that adds security and performance features to Amazon’s cloud storage
- Healthcare IT Dilemma: iPad Lust Meets Software Reality
- In addition to being a top priority for legislators and the press, healthcare has become a major target for IT vendors. Driven by economic pressures that force hospitals to merge and consolidate, regulations that force better documentation and security, and legislation that may fundamentally change the industry's business models, healthcare companies will spend more on technology this year than any other type of company, according to a study released Jan. 31 by Enterprise Strategy Group.
- Violence and Video Games gets the ProCon treatment
- Nonprofit public charity ProCon.org adds a "violence and video games" section to break down the debate for the public. So far, they've got 15 Pros (as in "yes, games do cause violence") to 14 Cons.
- Google tries to make Gmail more like Facebook, Twitter
- Google is reportedly on the verge of making Gmail behave more like Facebook and Twitter, with a service allowing users to share status updates, video and photos with friends.
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- Windows 7 stability update makes PCs unstable, users report
- Some Windows 7 users say their PCs started to freeze or randomly display the infamous "Blue screen of death" after applying a January update Microsoft billed as a stability and reliability fix.
- After delays, Intel rolls out Tukwila chip
- Intel today unveiled its delayed itanium processor -- taking some of the spotlight away from IBM's simultaneous unveiling of new Power 7 chips.
- Poughkeepsie, N.Y. slams bank for $378,000 online theft
- The theft of $378,000 from the town of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. is raising questions about the responsibility of banks to protect customer accounts from online criminals.
- Mass. city becomes testing ground for boosting broadband adoption
- Increasing broadband adoption isn't just about building out networks in underserved areas -- it's also about telling people who don't use broadband what they're missing.
- Canon Adds Fun Features to New PowerShot Cameras
- In addition to the EOS Rebel T2i DSLR announced today, Canon expanded its 2010 PowerShot camera line with four new point-and-shoot models. The new PowerShots include replacements for the company's popular 2009 cameras, a pocketable high-zoom follow-up to the PowerShot SX200 IS, and a new touchscreen camera.
- iPad's Best Innovation? No-Contract Wireless
- Apple's iPad, while getting slammed for lack of innovation in some areas, does something no other device seems to have done before: Offer customers 3G service on a month-to-month, no-contract basis. It's about time.
- Neo Nectaris for iPhone
- Hudson's nifty turn-based strategy game, Military Madness, enjoyed a revival on Xbox Live last year with Nectaris. Now it's spreading the love to iPhones with Military Madness: Neo Nectaris.
- Oracle buys AmberPoint for SOA management
- Oracle on Monday fattened up its already burgeoning middleware stack, announcing Monday that it has purchased SOA (service oriented architecture) management vendor AmberPoint. Terms were not disclosed.
- Open Text generates US$248 million in the second quarter
- Enterprise content management (ECM) software provider Open Text generated US$247.8 million as the total revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 and says the figure has increased about 19 per cent as compared to the same period last year.
- Adobe apologizes for 16-month-old Flash bug
- Adobe apologized over the weekend for letting a 16-month-old bug in Flash Player languish without a patch, even though it updated the popular plug-in four times since the flaw was reported.
- Google goes deep for the Super Bowl
- The big event has passed, and now it's time for Monday morning quarterbacking and second-guessing key decisions. I'm not talking about last night's Super Bowl -- I'm talking about the advertisements.
- Free Realms reaches 8 million registered users
- The free-to-play massively multiplayer online game credits its success to customization options and in-game events like a certain upcoming Valentine's Day-themed event. The part where it's family-friendly probably helps a lot, too.
- Report: Google to make Gmail more social
- Google plans to tweak Gmail to make it easier for its users to post and share status updates, in an attempt to inject the Web mail service with social-networking capabilities popularized by Twitter and Facebook, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- The Latest BlackBerry Spyware Scare: Don't Worry, Yet
- Here we go again. Another BlackBerry security scare, in which some "noble" researcher explains to all of us blissfully-unaware BlackBerry users that our precious devices aren't nearly as safe as we think they are.
- Weak forecasts kill Supercomm trade show
- Supercomm, a U.S. telecommunications trade show that has taken on different forms and names over the past several years, has been canceled for 2010 due to lack of interest.
- Open ebook battle ends, but the war continues
- The Great Amazon Delisting may be coming to an end, according to the New York Times. What no one can quite understand is why it happened at all, or took so long to resolve.
- Perplexed by permissions
- Reader Paul Moortgat's Mac appears to be unhappy with a new hard drive. He writes:
- App offers 'spatially aware' picture resizing on iPhone
- A newly-released iPhone app allows you to perform a "smart" resize of images, eliminating unimportant elements and preserving significant ones without the use of complex photo-editing tools.
- Get quick access to recently used items
- Your Mac is full of files, folders, and applications, and it's always an annoyance to spend time looking for the items you need. OS X offers many tools (for instance, the Dock and the Finder's sidebar) that can help you access things you use day in and day out, but there are also a number of ways you can quickly get to items you've used only recently. Learning these techniques will streamline your work.
- Microsoft warns of lapsing Windows support
- Just days after warning Windows 7 users of an impending shutdown of the free release candidate, Microsoft reminded customers running Windows 2000, XP and Vista of approaching support deadlines for those editions.
- Facebook Dumps Microsoft Ads, Keeps Sleazy Advertisers
- Facebook says it has dumped Microsoft banner ads, but what the social network really needs are fewer sleazy advertisers, not less Microsoft.
- Canon EOS Rebel T2i Invites Upgrade from Point-and-Shoot
- As the new flagship in Canon's Digital Rebel line, the Canon EOS Rebel T2i complements the Canon EOS Rebel XS and the Canon EOS Rebel T1i.
- The enterprise opportunity Apple is hiding from
- There probably isn't a week that goes by without an enterprise IT manager hearing one of their users lament "why can't I have one of those cool iMacs instead of this boring, grey PC?" It's enough to make even the strongest IT manager run for the hills.
- OOXML not suitable for Norwegian government, says study
- Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI).
- Six Great iPhone Apps Flying Under the Radar
- The most popular apps in the App Store aren't always the best. Here are six cool apps you might not have heard about - and why they haven't broken into the bigtime yet.
- LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars announced
- LucasArts and Traveller's Tales announced earlier today that the Star Wars saga will continue in brick form, as LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars was announced for the DS, PC, PSP, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.
- 'Rugged Manifesto' promotes secure coding
- Three respected security professionals have issued the Rugged Manifesto, a call for developers to learn and practice secure programming in an effort to reduce the number of exploits directed at applications.
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- Italian gov't backs down slightly over Web regulation bill
- Observers and operators gave a cautious welcome Monday to proposed changes to a draft Italian broadcasting law that has been criticized as a menace to freedom of expression on the Internet.
- NASA's Endeavour launches 'complicated' mission
- NASA's space shuttle Endeavour successfully took off on its trip to the International Space Station after cloudy skies forced a postponement of Sunday's scheduled launch.
- RealPlayer SP beta now out for Mac
- On Monday, RealNetworks released a beta of RealPlayer SP for the Mac, the latest version of the company's free multimedia playback software.
- Watch Out, Nexus One: Here's HTC's Incredible Phone
- It's only a matter of time before another Android phone trumps Google's Nexus One, and based on an early glimpse, the HTC Incredible could be the one.
- Google Ads Level the Playing Field
- While the annual Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet offers an enticing alternative to the Super Bowl for those who aren't football fans, almost everyone loves to watch the NFL championship game just for the $2 million per 30-second spot advertising spectacles. Super Bowl ads get as much, or more, attention and analysis as the game itself.
- Google's Softer Side: Super Bowl Ads Promote Search
- Google doesn't tend to show itself off. Why would it need to? It's a household name, often synonymous with search, the go-to search engine. Even if Google didn't flood the news on an almost daily basis, at this point, it'd be impossible to ignore its influence. Yet still, Google dug deep into the television advertising gambit on Sunday, airing a heartwarming spot during the be-all, end-all destination for ads: the Super Bowl.
- Twitpics in Space
- If you've ever wondered what Earth looks like from aboard the International Space Station, then you absolutely must follow the Twitter feed of Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. Since his arrival in December, Noguchi has been uploading to Twitpic images of Earth as seen from the space station. So far, Noguchi has posted 28 images detailing such sights as the Golden Gate Bridge, Amazon River (upper right), Tokyo, Haiti, and the clouds above Antarctica.
- PC Maintenance: What Tasks When?
- Ruption18 asked the Answer Line forum what regular chores will keep his PC healthy.
- E-mail app Postbox adds tighter integration with OS X
- For Mac e-mail software, Apple Mail is good enough, but barely just. Microsoft Entourage has retail polish and bloat, while Mozilla Thunderbird is clearly a product of open source software.
- BlueLock's cloud services aim at large and small
- BlueLock, a little-known cloud-computing services provider, is rolling out a suite of services aimed at a wide range of customers, it announced Monday.
- Top 5 Super Bowl Ads
- It's Super Bowl Monday, the morning after the big game, and that means it's time to break down the highlights and look back at the best commercials shown during this year's broadcast. Since advertisers can pay as much as $3 million for a 30-second ad, Super Bowl commercials have become an event of their own where companies square off with advertising budgets and big-name celebrities to bring you the most memorable few seconds of your Super Bowl evening.
- SSD storage fixes data center bottlenecks for a price
- As a new decade opens, more and more data center operators find themselves struggling with an enterprise bottleneck not of their own making.
- SAP hits reset button with CEO change
- With the replacement of Léo Apotheker as CEO of German ERP giant SAP, company officials are hoping to rebuild customer relations and ignite more innovation within the company, according to a conference call held with co-founder and chairman Hasso Plattner on Monday morning.
- IT Careers: Retire? How about never
- For as long as he could remember, Ben Richardson had had big plans for an early retirement.
- Microsoft's Chris Capossela
- Chris Capossela's career path is a throwback, just like Dom's, the Italian restaurant in Boston's North End that his parents ran for 45 years. Capossela has been at Microsoft Corp. ever since he graduated from college some 18 years ago, working his way up from being Bill Gates' speechwriter to head of the Microsoft Project business, to his current role running marketing for some of Microsoft's most lucrative products: Office, SharePoint and Exchange, as well as their as well as their new hosted equivalents. He recently talked to Computerworld about how his family background prepared him for Microsoft, how Microsoft plans to beat Google Apps, and how the company is adding Twitter-like features to SharePoint.
- Planning for virtualization? Beware of server overload
- As virtualization stretches deeper into the enterprise to include mission-critical and resource-intensive applications, IT executives are learning that double-digit physical-to-virtual server ratios are things of the past.
- New global accounting standard will require IT conversion
- CIOs have a new acronym to learn -- and fast: IFRS.
- Xerox, ACS close $6.4B merger deal
- Officials from Xerox and ACS say the newly combined firm isn't looking to layoffs to boost profits, but to marry the Xerox technology and services with ACS business process expertise.
- ID'ing the cities with fewer competitors for available jobs
- Ask a Premier 100 IT Leader: Jessica Carroll
- IBM launches eight-core Power7 processor, servers
- IBM on Monday launched its latest Power7 processor, which adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up time.
- Google's Next Venture: Universal Translator
- Google wants to pioneer the first smartphone technology to translate foreign languages almost instantly, the search giant told British daily The Times. The technology will be able to convert spoken words into a different language in real time, and could be ready within a few years.
- NASA: Fabulous space shuttle Endeavour launch for complicated mission
- NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour rocketed into space this morning to rendezvous with the International Space Station.
- Intel to monitor social networks on Super Bowl ads
- Intel Corp. executives are monitoring social networks like Facebook and Twitter to gauge consumer reaction to commercials that it ran during Sunday's Super Bowl.
- Ikonoskope goes 3D
- Ikonoskope, the innovative camera manufacturer from Sweden have announced a 3D version of the Ikonoskope. The company is known for producing light-weight, high quality, cameras which are small in size and easy to operate.
- Final Cut Pro plug-in to work with EOS Digital SLRS
- Canon has announced the EOS E1 video plug-in for Apple's Final Cut Pro. This new plug-in is designed to offer simple and easy transfer of video content from Canon's EOS digital SLR cameras directly into Final Cut Pro.
- Banning illegal file-sharers could breach human rights
- Banning web users suspected of illegally downloading from the net could be a breach of human rights, says the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights.
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