Die auf Bankensysteme fokussierte Schweizer Avaloq Gruppe und Gold Level Member des Oracle Partnernetwork (OPN) ist zum OPN Specialized Database Partner of the Year 2011 für Emea (Europa, Mittlerer Osten, Afrika) ernannt worden. Die Auszeichnung erfolgt gerade einmal einen Monat nachdem Avaloq den OPN Specialized Partner Status für Oracle Database 11g erreicht hatte.

Im ehemaligen Feldschlösschen-Depot beim Solothurner Hauptbahnhof ist das Computer- und Informationsmuseum «Enter» eröffnet worden. Gezeigt werden die zahlreichen Sammlerstücke des Solothurner Unternehmers Felix Kunz.

Neben der Europäischen Union schauen sich nun auch die Vereinigten Staaten mögliche Absprachen bei E-Books an. „Wir nehmen ebenfalls die Branche der elektronischen Bücher unter die Lupe, zusammen mit der EU-Kommission und Generalstaatsanwälten aus den US-Bundesstaaten“, sagte die oberste Wettbewerbshüterin des Justizministeriums, Sharis Pozen, nach Angaben des „Wall Street Journals“ bei einer Anhörung des US-Kongresses.

Die Führung des Kameraherstellers Olympus zieht Konsequenzen aus dem Bilanzskandal und tritt im kommenden Jahr geschlossen zurück. Olympus-Präsident Shuichi Takayama sagte am Mittwoch, der gesamte Vorstand werde ausscheiden, sobald die in Misskredit geratene Firma wieder auf den Weg gebracht worden sei.

Laut einer vom Institut für Organisation und Personal (IOP) der Universität Bern in Zusammenarbeit mit Sieber & Partners durchgeführten Studie in der Schweiz, setzen bereits 88 Prozent der Unternehmen Social Media ein. Allerdings messen diesem Thema aktuell nur 25 Prozent der Befragten hohe Bedeutung zu.

Realisator, ein Beratungsunternehmen für Temporärfirmen, setzt im Bereich Output-Management künftig auf die Dietikoner Graphax. Bei der Geräteflotte kommen dabei Produkte von Konica Minolta zum Einsatz. Neben einer Effizienz-Steigerung beim Dokumenten-Management will Realisator damit gleichzeitig die Kosten senken, wie es in einer Aussendung heisst.

Die auf Managed Print Services spezialisierte Ricoh Schweiz hat das operative Geschäft der Schweizer Niederlassung der deutschen Infoprint Solutions übernommen. Ricoh übernehme damit alle operativen und administrativen Aufgaben, wie beispielsweise Vertrieb, Service, Support, Belieferung und Abrechnung, heisst es in einer Aussendung.

Den Negativschlagzeilen zum Trotz, die die Konzernmutter von Hewlett-Packard (HP) Schweiz durch den Palm- respektive WebOS-Flop, den Blitzabgang von Leo Apotheker und dem Strategie-Hick-Hack in diesem Jahr global geschrieben hat, hat HP Schweiz ein gutes 2011 hingelegt. Selbst die Eurokrise konnte das Ergebnis der helvetischen Landesgesellschaft – im Unterschied zur Muttercompany - bislang kaum trüben.

Das sogenannte Panda-Update war nur eine von vielen Änderungen an Googles System zur Erstellung seiner Ranglisten. "Pro Jahr gibt es etwa vier- bis fünfhundert Änderungen an den Parametern", erklärt Seomaxx-Geschäftsführer Michael Paul. Für manche Unternehmen stellt aber gerade "Panda" eine Bedrohung der wirtschaftlichen Existenz dar. Durch die Marktmacht von Google ist eine Reihung auf den vorderen Plätzen speziell für kleinere Unternehmen überlebenswichtig.

Die neue Timeline-Ansicht bei Facebook, die alle Daten eines Nutzers als Lebensgeschichte an einem Ort zusammenführen soll, ist seit Mittwoch online - allerdings nur in Neuseeland. Wann der Rest der Welt in den Genuss der Funktion kommen soll, teilte das Unternehmen nicht genau mit. Das sei für die "nahe Zukunft" geplant, hieß es in einem Blogeintrag.

eldavojohn writes "The first man-made craft to do so is now entering a 'cosmic purgatory' between solar systems and entering an interstellar space of the Milky Way Galaxy. With much anticipation, Voyager 1 is now 'in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system. Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back.' After three decades the spacecraft is still operating and apparently has enough power and fuel to continue to do so until 2020. The first big piece of news? 'We've been using the flow of energetic charged particles at Voyager 1 as a kind of wind sock to estimate the solar wind velocity. We've found that the wind speeds are low in this region and gust erratically. For the first time, the wind even blows back at us. We are evidently traveling in completely new territory. Scientists had suggested previously that there might be a stagnation layer, but we weren't sure it existed until now.' This process could take months to years to completely leave the outer shell but already scientists are receiving valuable information."

itwbennett writes "Antivirus firm Sophos acquired a passel of USB sticks lost by commuters on trains in the Greater Sydney metro area at an auction organized by the Rail Corporation New South Wales. The company analyzed 50 USB sticks and found that not a single one was encrypted and 33 of them were infected with at least one type of malware."

An anonymous reader writes "The Library of Congress and Twitter have signed an agreement that will see an archive of every public Tweet ever sent handed over to the library's repository of historical documents. 'We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public,' said Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library's national digital information infrastructure and preservation program. Researchers will be able to look at the Twitter archive as a complete set of data, which they could then data-mine for interesting information."

Diggester writes "Jailbreaking is a way to break off from the limitations imposed by the mobile vendor to download additional applications and themes etc. which aren't available otherwise. It provides root access to the device by use of custom kernels. It is common with the iDevices and has been rendered legal by the efforts of EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) in July 2010. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is now determined to make Jailbreaking legal for all the consumer electric goods. They have asked the US copyright office to declare it legal to jailbreak all the devices like smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles etc. no matter who the vendor is. The aim behind this plead is to change the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which prohibits such an access to the user."

Gaygirlie writes "Ars Technica has posted an interesting article about new findings regarding quantum physics and photosynthesis. Their excerpt for the article: 'Physicists have found the strongest evidence yet of quantum effects fueling photosynthesis. Multiple experiments in recent years have suggested as much, but it has been hard to be sure. Quantum effects were clearly present in the light-harvesting antenna proteins of plant cells, but their precise role in processing incoming photons remained unclear.' Here's a little background info for those unaware of what coherence and quantum coherence are."

An anonymous reader writes "Indian Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal yesterday announced a proposal to have technology companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter pre-screen user generated content so that community sentiments are not hurt. Social media platforms are being asked to censor whatever politicians deem objectionable and too offensive for the Internet. Sibal called a news conference when the story broke, and following it, Facebook responded to say that it can't help in the effort."

An anonymous reader writes "With a unique new all-sky map, scientists at MPA have made significant progress toward measuring the magnetic field structure of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail. Specifically, the map is of a quantity known as Faraday depth, which among other things, depends strongly on the magnetic fields along a particular line of sight. To produce the map, data were combined from more than 41,000 individual measurements using a novel image reconstruction technique. The work was a collaboration between scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), who are specialists in the new discipline of information field theory, and a large international team of radio astronomers. The new map not only reveals the structure of the galactic magnetic field on large scales, but also small-scale features that provide information about turbulence in the galactic gas."

ScuttleMonkey writes "A joint venture between Intel and Micron has given rise to a new 128 Gigabit die. While production wont start until next year, this little beauty sets new bars for capacity, speed, and endurance. 'Die shrinks also tend to reduce endurance, with old 65nm MLC flash being rated at 5,000-10,000 erase cycles, but that number dropping to 3,000-5,000 for 25nm MLC flash. However, IMFT is claiming that the shrink to 20nm has not caused any corresponding reduction in endurance. Its 20nm flash uses a Hi-K/metal gate design which allows it to make transistors that are smaller but no less robust. IMFT is claiming that this use of Hi-K/metal gate is a first for NAND flash production.'"

Orome1 writes with a summary of a large survey of web applications by Veracode. From the article: "Considered 'low hanging fruit' because of their prevalence in software applications, XSS and SQL Injection are two of the most frequently exploited vulnerabilities, often providing a gateway to customer data and intellectual property. When applying the new analysis criteria, Veracode reports eight out of 10 applications fail to meet acceptable levels of security, marking a significant decline from past reports. Specifically for web applications, the report showed a high concentration of XSS and SQL Injection vulnerabilities, with XSS present in 68 percent of all web applications and SQL Injection present in 32 percent of all web applications."

First time accepted submitter Mastadex writes "RIM's brand new BlackBerry mobile OS, due in early 2012, was expected to be called BBX. But due to a recent court ruling against it, RIM has dropped BBX and opted simply for 'BlackBerry 10.' Software company Basis International said a U.S. federal court in Albuquerque has granted a temporary restraining order against RIM, barring it from using Basis's BBX trademark. The court decision bars RIM from using the trademark at its Asian DevCon conference on Wednesday and Thursday in Singapore."

ananyo writes "A 3-meter-tall metal sphere full of molten sodium is about to start work modeling the Earth's core. The gigantic dynamo, which has taken researchers ten years to build, 'will generate a self-sustaining electromagnetic field that can be poked, prodded and coaxed for clues about Earth's dynamo, which is generated by the movement of liquid iron in the outer core.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A Swiss team may have found an alternative to silicon microchips which could result in smaller, more flexible and less energy hungry processors. The Swiss team's chip does not use silicon, but molybdenite (MoS2) a dark-colored, naturally occurring mineral that is able to be used in much thinner layers (paywall)."

ewhac writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the MythBusters accidentally sent a cannon ball hurtling through Dublin this afternoon, punching through a home, bouncing across a six-lane road, and ultimately coming to a rest inside a now-demolished Toyota minivan. Amazingly, there were no injuries. The ball was fired from a home-made cannon at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range, and was intended to strike a water target. Instead the ball missed the water, punched through a cinder-block wall, and skipped off the hill behind. Prior to today, the MythBusters had been shooting episodes at the bomb range for over seven years without major incident. It is not clear whether Savage/Hyneman or Belleci/Imahara/Byron were conducting the experiment."