Friday, November 20, 2009
5 tips to ensure cloud data quality
Choose neutral platforms and read providers' fine-print. These are steps companies should take before leaping to cloud, say data management vendors.
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Judge sets February hearing for new Google Books deal
Schedule is laid out for second round of final approval process as preliminary approval is given to revised deal submitted last Friday.
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Apps to flourish on mobile, games
Developers should bet on Android, games, navigation and music, to reap returns, suggest industry watchers, who say business apps can also prove viable.
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Ballmer: Windows 7 selling like hotcakes
At Microsoft's shareholder meeting, CEO says the OS has sold twice as fast in its early days as any prior version of Windows. He also takes a few shots at Apple.
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Google has its own plan for netbooks
No, the search giant isn't saying it will build a netbook. But it sure knows what it would like one running Chrome OS to resemble, and that's a little different from the netbook of today.
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Can Adobe beat back the hackers?
As its software becomes a major means of attack, security experts wonder if it can fight hard enough.
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Yahoo adds photos, tweets to news search
Newsy searches won't just produce links to stories now on Yahoo. Searchers will be able to see photos, videos, and tweets from main search results page.
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More on mobile payment front: Boku steps it up
Competing for market share with rival Zong and a few others, start-up says new partnerships give it access to 200 million new user accounts.
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Mozilla not interested in building Firefox OS
Does Firefox backer want to turn its open-source browser into the basis for an operating system a la Google's Chrome OS? Not for now at least.
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Game console makers at crossroads
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are coming to terms with a dearth of blockbuster titles and increased rivalry from new gaming platforms such as smartphones.
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
'Best effort' insufficient for cloud
Cloud ecosystem needs operator participation to provide single point of blame, to win businesses' confidence in moving over, says consultant.
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S'pore transport regulator partners Google Maps
Country's Land Transport Authority hopes to make public transport "choice mode" by offering Google Maps as part of travel planning service.
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IBM: Computing rivaling human brain may be ready by 2019
Leading scientist, working with colleagues from several top universities, has pioneered computational analysis that rivals that of a cat's cortex. Human brain could be just a decade away.
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Comfort, trust give Office edge over Google
Microsoft will only offer hosted productivity suite next year, but Office has user familiarity, trust and resources that Google may not match, say analysts.
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Microsoft targets biz apps with Silverlight 4
Software giant releases beta version of technology for rich Web apps, revealing new features it says will make greater impact on enterprise software.
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Microsoft told to stop some Windows sales in China
Microsoft ordered to stop selling some versions of Windows operating system in China, following licensing dispute with a local supplier.
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Salesforce to offer social networking for companies
Cloud computing specialist announces Salesforce Chatter service to build social networking services into customers' business operations starting in 2010.
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Asian call centers target for social media
Call centers, abound in India and Philippines, need to retool and deploy social media tools to say competitive in market, say top Salesforce.com execs.
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Rumors of a Gphone refuse to die
Yet another report predicting Google is about to release its own phone raises more questions than it answers about Google's mobile strategy.
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Opera Mobile 10 beta now browsing Windows phones
Opera releases most recent mobile browser--complete with Speed Dial and new tabbed browsing design--for Windows Mobile phones.
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With IE 9, Microsoft fights back in browser wars
By showing first glimpses of technology in Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft also showing it's serious about building competitive browser.
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Google, Bing continue gains at Yahoo's expense
Over last several months fewer and fewer searches have been performed on Yahoo's sites, with market leader Google and upstart Microsoft seeing the benefits.
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New Firefox 3.6 beta aims to cut crashes
Third beta imposes new restriction on how third-party software can interact with it. And feature called Resource Package could speed up Firefox 3.7.
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Google set to promote Chrome extensions
One of the standout features of Chrome 4.0 is customization through extensions. Google appears on the brink of launching a gallery to showcase them.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tata targets high-end network services
Tata Comms touts slew of varied investments in Asia-Pacific, in effort to beat competition from operators and content-delivery service providers.
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China SaaS growth to exceed 'traditional IT'
Country's software-as-a-service market will grow 56 percent next year, exceeding IT sector that includes on-premise software, says report.
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Microsoft steps up cloud momentum
At developer conference, Redmond announces production availability of Windows Azure and unveils new services running on its cloud platform.
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Augmented reality: Not that real yet
Why iPhone apps that act as a digital guidebook aren't quite ready for prime time and is a step down from using conventional mapping and search applications.
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Contact center by phone still popular in Asia
Calling contact center still preferred method for Asian customers seeking tech help, even with emergence of new media tools, says market specialist.
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GE inks deal for 'cleaner coal' in China
Timed with Obama's visit, General Electric announces deals in China around high-speed rail, hybrid locomotives, and coal gasification plants with underground carbon storage.
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Firefox faces browser clone war in China
Mozilla hosts outreach programs to drive Web standards and has special version of Firefox for China, where browser landscape features IE clones.
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Facebook adopts new privacy policy
The social-networking site hopes that policy revision will make the policy more accessible and easier to understand.
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Yahoo stopping mobile 'Go' app in 2010
Yahoo to pull the plug on a mobile app it cannibalized with the introduction of Yahoo Mobile, its optimized site and mobile app.
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Google Translate now helps with pronunciation
It's one thing to translate a word, but it's another thing to know how to correctly pronounce a word written in an unfamiliar character set. Google Translate just added that feature.
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O'Reilly: Web is at war, and it's making me sad
In his keynote at the Web 2.0 Expo, Tim O'Reilly sets off the "punditocracy" by insisting that the "war of the Web" is heating up again.
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Smartphones: A bigger target for security threats
As the iPhone, BlackBerry, and other devices become more popular, harmful software such as viruses and spyware is emerging to exploit their vulnerability.
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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Intel, NEC team up to flex supercomputing might
Both companies will jointly develop high-performance computing systems based on Intel processor to extend products to wider audience, say executives.
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Jaguar supercomputer races past Roadrunner in Top500
Cray XT5 supercomputer known as "Jaguar" finally bests IBM after three tries. The top 10, while still dominated by supercomputers housed in the U.S., had just one newcomer.
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Microsoft testing Excel for supercomputers
At the Supercomputing 2009 conference, Microsoft releases an updated version of Windows Server for high-performance computers as well as a compute cluster version of its Excel spreadsheet.
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Most security products flunk quality tests
Nearly 80 percent of security tools fail to perform during initial certification tests, requiring two or more cycles of further testing, reports product testing firm.
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Report: Countries prepping for cyber war
U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France are gearing up for cyber offensives, according to a new McAfee report.
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Asian travelers want to fly by mobile
Travelers want to use mobile phones to access more travel services including flight check-in and seat change, survey finds.
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CEOs endorse 'foothold strategy' for electric cars
The Electrification Coalition of different companies pushes for policies to promote electric vehicles in six to eight regions in the U.S. as a way to build critical mass.
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Antitrust concerns linger in Google Books deal
Opponents of Google Books settlement say the search giant will still have exclusive rights to digitize orphaned out-of-print works.
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Amazon to boost Asia's cloud assurance
update Cloud provider's push into Asia-Pacific is expected to provide a boost of assurance to companies of cloud computing's viability, says analyst.
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Moto Droid off to a good start. But is it good enough?
Motorola's Droid phone reports healthy figures in first week of sales, but will face competition from other Android phones coming on to the scene.
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Microsoft opens app store to more phones
Although Microsoft has just made its mobile marketplace available for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1, Microsoft will have to do more if it wants to reach Apple's 100,000 apps--and counting.
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Firefox-syncing Weave updates to beta
Mozilla's homegrown tool for synchronizing Firefox across computers and devices graduates to beta and introduces incremental syncing and a more streamlined, less obtrusive experience.
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US govt to disclose findings in Web 'mystery charge' probe
Numerous shoppers have traced mystery credit card charges to Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue. U.S. Congress will reveal the results at a hearing Tuesday.
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Asian mobile apps need better usability
Developers in region hoping to bring apps to global audience should work on developing cleaner and more intuitive user interfaces, says Nokia exec.
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Dell unveils Android-based Mini 3 smartphone
The first carriers for the Android-based phone will be China Mobile and Brazil's Claro. Details on the devices will come later.
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Videoconferencing: Cisco, Logitech target mainstream
Logitech's acquisition of LifeSize and Cisco's bid for Tandberg are aimed at grabbing market share and expanding sales to more businesses--and even consumers.
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Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share
Microsoft's mobile operating system lost 28 percent of its smartphone market share over the past year, according to analysts at Gartner.
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Three-strikes piracy deterrent not for S'pore
Anti-piracy law won't be implemented in Singapore as existing laws are sufficient, and will also be difficult to implement, say industry watchers.
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Running a contest on Facebook? That'll cost you
Social network tightened rules for companies running contests on its platform, and sources say those companies will be required to buy ad space, too.
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Google Books settlement sets geographic, business limits
Revised settlement allows the scanning of out-of-print works from only English-speaking countries, restricts future business for Google, and gives copyright holders more rights.
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China solar panel maker sets first US plant
Suntech Power aims to boost its share of the U.S. market with a solar-panel manufacturing plant to be built in Arizona.
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Wary green-tech venture investors shift gears
Applying the venture capital model of IT onto energy isn't working, which is something many clean-tech venture capitalists will learn the hard way, say experts.
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Judge rules for Apple in Psystar case
Summary judgment states that Psystar's creation of Mac clones that run Mac OS X violate "Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works".
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Hackers bypass Windows 7 activation
Coders find way to disable normal activation requirements of Microsoft's latest operating system, although Redmond says it is working to shore up antipiracy protections.
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Microsoft: Windows 7 tool used GPL code
Microsoft confirms tool intended to allow netbooks to more easily move to new operating system was based in part, and unintentionally, on open source code.
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Microsoft patching zero-day Windows 7 SMB hole
Company warns customers that exploit code for the Server Message Block hole is available and suggests a workaround until a patch is ready.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Expert says Adobe Flash policy is risky
Adobe Flash Player allows arbitrary content to access applications without permission, says researcher at Foreground Security.
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Google: Firms can 'get rid' of Office in a year
Search giant sets sights on office software leader, Microsoft Office, with "30 to 50 updates" to be released for Google Docs next year, says top exec.
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Indian states take flight with SWANs
Country's US$713 million State Wide Area Networks initiative to interconnect 29 states and six union territories is now in full swing.
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Intel, AMD reach landmark settlement
Upon payment of US$1.25 billion by Intel, AMD will drop longstanding antitrust litigation. The two powerhouses will share chip technology.
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'Pragmatic' Intel seen in AMD deal
Intel's settlement with AMD avoids costly and lengthy legal battles and signals Intel looking to reduce reliance on PC and server markets, says analyst.
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Qualcomm readies 3G/4G mobile chipsets
Company says it is sampling dual-mode chipsets that can switch between 3G and 4G wireless networks. Commercial products are expected next year.
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Bing integrates Wolfram Alpha results
Microsoft's search engine will use Wolfram Alpha computation engine APIs for results in areas including nutrition, health and advanced mathematics.
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Google's SPDY protocol could ramp up Web speeds
Researchers at Google are playing with a new Web protocol that could theoretically decrease the time it takes to load a Web page by a significant amount.
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Playdom exec: Social gaming to look 'a lot more like Hollywood'
After raising US$43 million in venture funding and acquiring two smaller companies, it's no surprise that Playdom's days of running like a Web start-up are numbered.
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Samsung launching its own mobile OS
Samsung unveils plans to launch its own mobile operating system, Bada, giving developers open platform to create new apps for its upcoming phones.
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Google buys Gizmo5 for Google Voice
Terms of the deal for the VoIP software company were undisclosed, but Google's second acquisition of the week will be used to help Google Voice.
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Verizon tests sending RIAA copyright notices
U.S.'s No. 2 phone company, known for its reluctance to intervene in antipiracy cases, strikes an agreement to forward copyright notices on behalf of the music industry.
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