Clearwire's big payday on Tuesday, when it raised US$734 million through a stock offering and a new investment by majority owner Sprint Nextel, helped the WiMax...
Reader Sigil has an interesting question regarding a MacBook Pro with ailing i-sight.
Picking out your favorite beverage can get a lot more high-tech, as this concept design shows how vending machines can guess what you want to drink.
Adobe plans to release a patch Friday for an older version of the Reader PDF viewer to stymie attacks.
A cancer diagnostics firm is using a single sign-on service to secure a growing pool of SaaS subscriptions.
2011 was a tumultuously transitional year for Cisco.
Salesforce.com announced Thursday it will acquire cloud-based performance management vendor Rypple in a bid to enter the human resources software market.
Greenpeace International has ended a long-running campaign calling on Facebook to "unfriend coal" as a source of energy for its data centers, after Facebook...
LG and Intel have formed a partnership to bring built-in WiDi technology to HDTVs.
Amazon breaks tradition and discusses sales figures for its Kindle lines.
Zoho unveiled a significant upgrade to its on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) software on Thursday with new features including an overhauled user...
The IT job market in 2012 shows some signs of improvement when it comes to hiring, but most companies still aren't expanding.
Google software engineer Kenton Varda builds the ultimate gaming LAN-party house with 12 hidden computers, two huge HDTVs, and a collection of gaming consoles.
Virtustream's acquisition of Enomaly could help enterprises turn a drawback of private clouds--excess capacity--into a profit center.
Using 'semantic desktop' technology, this free new interface learns as you use your tablet and can make context-sensitive recommendations.
Though iMessage is useful from the get-go, these three tips can make the iOS 5 feature far better.
Google's Zeitgeist 2011 list offers a rundown of how the world searched in the past year. The top search item may surprise you.
Wyse Technology has launched an Android app that lets people search remotely for files on their PCs and laptops, then download them, copy them, or send them to...
The aptly named Simple In/Out uses workers' smartphones to automatically log them in or out of the office.
Facebook's new feature, which was announced in February, allows users to tell their entire life stories through the social network. Here's what you need to know about it.
Carrier IQ is vigorously defending itself, and has offered reasonable explanations for how and why its tool does what it does--but it's still putting your data at risk.
Visa is investigating a potential security breach at an European payment processor that might have affected cardholders in eastern Europe.
IBM has signed a deal to buy supply and contract management software vendor Emptoris in another bid to fill out its growing catalog of business-to-business and...
Microsoft is copying Google's update policy with Chrome. Firefox is also working on getting users onto the newest browser without asking permission.
Tablet sales at 18.1 million units during the third quarter were somewhat lower than expected, but stronger-than-expected demand during the rest of the year will...
An ad in the Sydney Morning Herald proclaims that the Galaxy Tab is "the tablet Apple tried to stop."
Google Chrome 15 is the most popular web browser in the world overtaking Internet Explorer 8, according to web analytics firm StatCounter.
Certificate Authority (CA) GlobalSign concluded that a security breach that affected its website earlier this year did not result in rogue digital certificates...
The new features in Google's browser are available in version 16 for Windows, Mac and Linux users.
Don't drive and…do basically anything with your cell phone.
Reflecting the growing need for automation tools in the enterprise, Quest Software has released a software package that could help Unix administrators better...
Sony Ericsson is offering owners of its Xperia smartphones 50GB of free online data storage in partnership with cloud storage company Box, the smartphone maker...
iBahn, a provider of internet services to some 3,000 hotels worldwide, denied on Thursday a news report that its network was breached by hackers.
Japanese game developer Square Enix said Thursday that a server for a fan site with information on 1.8 million users had been hacked, but it was unclear if any...
The Sony PlayStation Vita is well-positioned to avoid the struggles of its main handheld rival, Nintendo's 3DS, Sony says.
Amazon Web Services has launched services for South American customers from data centers in Brazil, the company said Wednesday.
We set out to learn which airports best serve the tech-toting traveler. Perhaps we underestimated the effort required.
In a reorganization of its mobile business, Intel said Wednesday it has formed a new group, called the Mobile and Communications Group (MCG) that will focus on...
IBM is helping a Chinese state-owned firm to monitor food safety in the country, by building a new system meant to prevent tainted products from being sold to...
Last month, Google announced a plan to merge its Checkout and Wallet electronic payment services into a single product for both Web browsers and mobile devices...
Internet service provider Sonic.net unveiled an ambitious plan on Wednesday to build a fiber network that would reach most residences and small businesses in San...
Use a coupon code and pay only $45 for the Roku 2 HD streaming media player.
Now in its early stages, this new editor will offer an alternative to Wikipedia's wiki markup language.
Google pledges funds to restore the site where Turing broke the Enigma code and helped create the computer.
Google is ending 2011 with a cliffhanger: Will Google+ succeed? And if it does not, how much damage will the company suffer as a result?
The Galaxy Nexus, the first phone to run the latest version of Android, will finally go on sale Thursday from Verizon.
If 2011 is any indication, our future relies on robots, insanely high-definition TVs, self-driving cars, and computer intelligence. Take a look.
Is tech the last refuge from Democrat-Republican bickering?
Google Hangouts is adding useful features that will appeal to businesses seeking video conferencing or broadcasting.
The National Transportation Safety board recommended that states outlaw the use of all electronic devices while driving, even hands-free phone kits.
The Bad Astronomer writes "In what is one of the most staggeringly beautiful Hubble pictures ever taken, a newly-born massive star is blasting four separate jets of material into its surrounding cocoon, carving out cavities in the material over two light years long. But only three of the jets appear to have matter still inside them, and the central star is off-center. This may be a gorgeous picture, but the science behind it is equally as compelling."
An anonymous reader writes "Google Chariman Eric Schmidt recently addressed an Android user lamenting the fact that that mobile apps are often released on Apple's iOS platform well before they finally reach Android. Schmidt cooly and curiously explained that this dynamic will change in just 6 months. Here's why he's wrong. Though Google brags about the total number of Android users, developers care about certain kinds of users (those that pay for apps). A similar dynamic can be found in television advertising, where advertisers will more money for ad spots on less popular shows in order to reach desirable demographics, even though other programs may have many millions of more viewers."
McGruber writes "Following up on the earlier Slashdot story, the Christian Science Monitor now reports that GPS spoofing was used to get the RQ-170 Sentinel Drone to land in Iran. According to an Iranian engineer quoted in the article, 'By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.' Apparently, once it loses its brain, the bird relies on GPS signals to get home. By spoofing GPS, Iranian engineers were able to get the drone to 'land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications.'"
YIAAL writes "After a multi-car pileup involving two school buses, the NTSB is urging states to ban all cellphones and personal electronic devices in cars, even hands-free phones. But on looking at the NTSB report, it appears that the big problem was a school bus driver who was following too closely, and another school bus driver who wasn't watching the road. Why is the NTSB targeting gadgets instead of bad drivers?"
Hugh Pickens writes "Commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe Inc. has announced that it has an image of the People's Republic of China's first functional aircraft carrier, taken during the carrier's first sea trials in the Yellow Sea. The carrier was originally meant for the Soviet navy, but its construction was halted as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and engineers in the Ukraine disarmed it and removed its engines before selling it to China in 1998 for $20 million. The vessel, an Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carrier measuring 304.5 meters long, and having a displacement of 58,500 tons, has been refitted for research and training in China. The Ministry of National Defense says the steam-powered aircraft carrier has completed all refitting and testing work as scheduled after its first sea trial in mid-August, and was heading back out to sea for additional scientific research and experiments. According to Andrew S. Erickson at the US Naval War College, China's long term strategic dilemma is whether to focus on large-deck aviation or on submarines (PDF)."
helix2301 writes "Microsoft will be upgrading all Windows XP, Vista and 7 users to the latest IE silently. They are doing this because they have found a large number of non-patched systems. Microsoft pointed out that Chrome and Firefox do this regularly. They will start with Australia and Brazil in January, then go world-wide after they have assured there are no issues."
Despite all the best intentions and meticulous overengineering, some of the equipment on spacecraft like the ISS inevitably breaks. An anonymous reader poses the question "Why carry out a very expensive launch into space to resupply the ISS, when astronauts could just manufacture replacement parts themselves?" Startup Made in Space is working on a space-oriented 3D printing system to make it easy to transmit the information needed to pop out complex shapes (as might be in delicate mechanical systems), but the founders are also talking about using 3D printers to jump-start construction if humans extend their presence from the Earth to other planets (or revisit the moon).
rstory writes "I seem to be hearing about more smash and grab thefts lately, from low-tech purse snatching to thieves after laptops and cameras. Bold thieves are even snatching stuff in church/day-care parking lots in the 5 minute window while a parent goes in to pick up their child. I often drive around with my laptop, and want to find the best way to protect against theft. Besides the obvious 'don't leave equipment in the car' solution, what else are people doing? Right now I just use a regular backpack instead of a fancy laptop case. I don't have a trunk, so when I leave the car I put the backpack on the floor of the back seat, sometimes throwing other junk on top. The only interesting thing I've found while googling is a couple of 'anti-theft' backpacks which have wire mesh to prevent cutting them open and a (thin looking) cable for securing to a stationary object. What do you do to protect your gear?"
jfruhlinger writes "In a political environment that's become very strongly defined by partisan lines, the SOPA debate has offered an unexpected ray of hope: the two main Congressional opponents of the bill are Ron Wyden, an Oregon Senator deemed a 'hardcore liberal' and Darrell Issa, a California Representative who is one of the Obama Administration's fiercest critics. (There are both Ds and Rs in favor of the bill, too.)" (Read more below.)
alphadogg writes "iBahn, a provider of internet services to some 3,000 hotels worldwide, denied on Thursday a news report that its network was breached by hackers. Bloomberg wrote that a highly skilled group of hackers based in China, which U.S. investigators have called 'Byzantine Foothold,' attacked iBahn, citing unnamed sources, including one U.S intelligence official. In a written statement, iBahn said it was aware of the allegations in the news report but it had 'not found proof of any breach on the iBahn network.'"
Zothecula writes "Anyone who has a attended a LAN party — where people connect their computers on one network in one location to play multiplayer games together — can tell you that they can be both very fun but also kind of a hassle. Playing games with your friends all in the same room: fun. Having to organize all your friends to each haul their usually-oversized gaming rigs to one person's house, ensuring they all have the same software, and inevitably dealing with one or more people having trouble connecting: not fun. With that in mind, it makes sense that one Google employee decided to bypass all that inconvenience and just build a house specifically for LAN parties, complete with multiple networked computers and TVs connected to game consoles."
Snaller writes "Tech News Today does what the name says — it's a podcast reporting on Tech news, Monday to Friday. They, like Slashdot, reported on the Megaupload vs. Universal copyright dispute. But during their coverage, they played a snippet of the music video and immediately Universal Music Group had the news podcast yanked from YouTube. Tech News Today has outlets other than YouTube, but should a music company have the right to have a news podcast removed on copyright grounds, when it's not even clear that said company has had any copyrights violated?"
Nate the greatest writes "Got a Kindle Fire? Here's your chance to try the new Kindle Format 8. The new format is in beta testing right now with a limited number of publishers, and a few days ago one of those publishers leaked the tools and the guidelines to me. It turns out KF8 isn't all that new. I've looked at the code, and I'd call it an attempt to graft a number of Epub features onto the existing Kindle format. It simply adds a lot of new formatting and is only slightly more capable than Epub. There's a number of screenshots at the link as well as a demo file. You can probably also find more KF8 ebooks in the Kindle Store; look for the Kindle Fire exclusive magazines and graphic novels."
jrepin duly notes the release of Qt 4.8.0, and extracts from the announcement some of the key changes for developers: "Qt Platform Abstraction (QPA) restructures the GUI stack to enable easier porting of Qt to different windowing systems and devices. Threaded OpenGL enables us to render OpenGL from more than one thread concurrently. HTTP requests are now handled in a separate thread by default. The file system stack received some heavy lifting under the hood. The result is better I/O performance."
angry tapir writes "Montclair State University is suing Oracle in connection with a troubled ERP (enterprise resource planning) project. Montclair's complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, states that Oracle made an array of 'intentionally false statements' regarding the functionality of its base ERP system, the amount of customization that would be required, and the amount of 'time, resources, and personnel that the University would have to devote.' 'Ultimately, after missing a critical go-live deadline for the University's finance system, Oracle sought to extort millions of dollars from the University by advising the University that it would not complete the implementation of the ... project unless the University agreed to pay millions of dollars more than the fixed fee the University and Oracle had previously agreed to,' it adds."