Nokia und Microsoft wollen den Start des neuen Windows-Phone-Handys „Nokia Ace“ nach Medienberichten mit einer 100 Millionen Dollar schweren Anzeigenkampagne begleiten. Wer daran welchen Anteil trage, sei nicht bekannt, berichtet die Technologie-Plattform „Betanews“ unter Berufung auf nicht genannte Quellen.
Der schwächelnde Internet-Konzern Yahoo hat nach monatelanger Suche einen neuen Chef. Scott Thompson kommt von der Handelsplattform Ebay und war dort zuletzt für den Bezahldienst Paypal verantwortlich. Er gilt als guter Organisator - genau das braucht das kriselnde Internet-Schwergewicht nach der Führungslosigkeit der vergangenen Monate.
Die Coop-Gruppe hat 2011 weiter zugelegt, ihr Detailhandelsumsatz ist jedoch gesunken: Von den 27,8 Mrd. Fr. Gesamtumsatz entfielen 18,4 Mrd. auf die Läden. Deren Umsatz ging gegenüber dem Vorjahr um 0,9 Prozent zurück, was gemäss Coop auf den starken Franken und die Konsumentenstimmung zurückzuführen sei.
Die Deutsche Telekom ist am Jahresende 2011 auf einen Schlag um mehr als drei Mrd. US-Dollar (2,31 Mrd. Euro) reicher geworden. Ein Konzernsprecher bestätigte am Mittwoch auf Anfrage, dass der US-Riese AT&T dem Bonner Unternehmen in der vergangenen Woche eine entsprechende Summe überwiesen habe. Beide Unternehmen hatten sich für den Fall des Scheiterns der Übernahme der US-Mobilfunktochter der Telekom durch AT&T auf eine Kompensationszahlung verständigt.
Das Board of Directors des Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) verleiht Prof. Marc Pollefeys den renommierten Titel eines “IEEE Fellow”. Der ETH-Professor erhält diese Auszeichnung für seine herausragenden Leistungen auf dem Gebiet des dreidimensionalen Bildverstehens.
Hashtags, mit deren Hilfe Twitter-Einträge zugeordnet werden, sind mittlerweile Teil der "Leitkultur" geworden. Die Sortierhilfen werden sogar schon ausserhalb ihres natürlichen Habitats verwendet. Selbst die gesprochene Sprache ist vor den Kurzverweisen nicht mehr sicher, wie die Huffington Post berichtet. Der Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung hat solche Entwicklungen kürzlich kritisiert.
Beim Telekomkonzern Swisscom übernimmt Susanne Marty ab dem 1. Februar 2012 die die Marketing-Verantwortung im Geschäftsbereich KMU. Die Managerin kommt direkt von IBM, wo sie zuletzt als Leiterin Marketing und Kommunikation tätig war.
Fernsehen via Internet: Über eine neue Online-Plattform des Blick-Verlags können Interessierte Dutzende Fernsehsender empfangen. Voraussetzung zur Nutzung ist eine Registrierung via Website. Sie erlaubt den Gratis-Zugriff auf alle Angebote.
Die Berner Systemintegratorin Connectis verstärkt ihre Verkaufsorganisation. Ab 1. Februar 2012 soll Niclas Walter als Director Product & Partner Management die enge Zusammenarbeit mit Technologiepartnern wie Cisco, Microsoft und Avaya sicherstellen und das Connectis Lösungs-Portfolio managen.
Die Preise für Mobilfunk sind hoch, Sunrise und Orange erhalten von ihren Kunden noch mittelmässigere Noten als die Swisscom – und dennoch telefoniert oder surft fast niemand mit dem günstigsten Handyangebot. Dieser Widerspruch kostet Geld: Nicht weniger als 2,3 Milliarden Franken jährlich zahlen die Schweizer Handynutzer den Anbietern zu viel.
gManZboy writes "Automatic teller machine maker Diebold has taken a novel approach to protecting bank customer data: virtualization. Virtualized ATMs store all customer data on central servers, rather than the ATM itself, making it difficult for criminals to steal data from the machines. In places including Brazil, customer data has been at risk when thieves pulled or dynamited ATMs out of their settings and drove off with them. With threats increasing worldwide at many retail points of sale, such as supermarket checkout counters and service station gas pumps, Diebold needed to guarantee the security of customer data entered at the 50,000 ATMs that it manages. Diebold last year partnered with VMware to produce a zero-client ATM. No customer data is captured and stored on the ATM itself." Perhaps Diebold should take the same approach to vote-tabulating machines.
darthcamaro writes "There has been a tonne of hype about Big Data and specifically Hadoop in recent years. But until today, Hadoop was not a 1.0 release product. Does it matter? Not really, but it's still a big milestone. The new release includes a new web interface for the Hadoop filesystem, security, and Hbase database support. '"At this point we figured that as a community we can support this release and be compatible for the foreseeable future. That makes this release an ideal candidate to be called 1.0," Arun C. Murthy, vice president of Apache Hadoop, said.'"
hypnosec writes "A New York-based designer has created a camouflage technique that makes it much harder for computer based facial recognition. Along with the growth of closed circuit television (CCTV) , this has become quite a concern for many around the world, especially in the UK where being on camera is simply a part of city life. Being recognized automatically by computer is something that hearkens back to 1984 or A Scanner Darkly. As we move further into the 21st century, this futuristic techno-horror fiction is seeming more and more accurate. Never fear though people, CV Dazzle has some styling and makeup ideas that will make you invisible to facial recognition cameras. Why the 'fabulous' name? It comes from World War I warship paint that used stark geometric patterning to help break up the obvious outline of the vessel. Apparently it all began as a thesis at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. It addressed the problems with traditional techniques of hiding the face, like masks and sunglasses and looked into more socially and legally acceptable ways of styling that could prevent a computer from recognizing your face. Fans of Assassin's Creed might feel a bit at home with this, as it's all about hiding in plain sight."
First time accepted submitter ltjohhed writes "We've been using deduplication products, for backup purposes, at my company for a couple of years now (DataDomain, NetApp etc). Although they've fully satisfied the customer needs in terms of functionality, they don't come across cheap — whatever the brand. So we went looking for some free dedup software. OpenSolaris, using ZFS dedup, was there first that came to mind, but OpenSolaris' future doesn't look all that bright. Another possibility might be utilizing LessFS, if it's fully ready. What are the slashdotters favourite dedup flavour? Is there any free dedup software out there that is ready for customer deployment?" Possibly helpful is this article about SDFS, which seems to be along the right lines; the changelog appears stagnant, though, although there's some active discussion.
astroengine writes "Only four days into the New Year and the first four exoplanets of 2012 have been spotted orbiting four distant stars. All four alien worlds are known as 'hot Jupiters' — large gas giant planets orbiting very close to their stars. Their orbits are aligned just right with the Earth so that when they pass in front of their parent stars, they slightly dim the starlight from view. The discovery was made by the The Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) Project (maintained by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) consisting of six small (11cm diameter), wide-field automated telescopes based at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO), Cambridge, Mass. and The Submillimeter Array atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii."
If you've ever tried to look up public records online, you may have run into byzantine sign-up procedures, proprietary formats, charges just to view what are ostensibly public documents, and generally the sense that you're in a snooty library with closed stacks. Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org has for years been forging a path through the grey goo of U.S. government data, helping to publicize the need for accessible digital archives — not just awkward, fee-per-page access. (Mother Jones calls him a "badass.") Malamud has (with help) been making it easier to get to the huge swathes of data in government sources like PACER, EDGAR, and the U.S. Patent Office. He's got a new initiative now to establish a “Federal Scanning Commission,” the task of which would be to assess the scope and outcomes of a large-scale effort to actually digitize and make available online as much as practical of the vast holdings of the U.S. government. ("If we were able to put a man on the moon, why can't we launch the Library of Congress into cyberspace?") Ask Malamud below questions about his plans and challenges in disseminating public information. (But please, post unrelated questions separately, lest ye be modded down.)
bs0d3 writes "Kopimism is now an official religion in Sweden. Kopimi beliefs originated with the Swedish group called Piratbyran who believed that everything should be shared freely online without restrictions from copyright. Leader Isak Gerson, has recently had some disagreements with the Swedish Pirate Party where many people disagree with all religions." Here's the official website for the "Missionary Church of Kopimism."
Diggester writes "Yahoo Inc said on Wednesday it has appointed Scott Thompson as its chief executive, effective from January 9, replacing interim CEO Tim Morse who will resume his role as chief financial officer. Thompson, who was previously president of PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc, will also join Yahoo's board. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said Thompson's primary focus will be on the core business as the company continues its strategic review process. Yahoo has been in discussions about selling off its Asian assets for some weeks."
hankwang writes "The Internet Storm Center reported that one million web pages have been attacked by the Lilupophilupop SQL injection and contain a malicious Javascript link. Affected sites can be found using a Google search query. See also the technical details of the SQL injection. The attack is directed to sites running ASP or ColdFusion with an MSSQL backend. The payload of the Javascript leads, via redirects and obfuscated Javascript, to a fake download page for Adobe Flash and antivirus software."
An anonymous reader writes "Erica was once the owner of an old violin that had survived through WWII, and decided to sell it on Ebay for $2500. The person who bought it decided it was a counterfeit and wanted his money back. Paypal decided to honor the request for a refund on the condition that the buyer destroy the violin and provided photographic evidence of the destruction. Couldn't he have just returned it?" Sounds like a hoax to me, but I guess it's possible.
djl4570 writes "'Google is pushing its own Chrome browser down in search rankings for 60 days following reports that the company was involved in an ad campaign that paid for links to bolster search traffic. ... According to Sullivan, it appears that Google contracted its Web ads out to a firm called Essence Digital, which in turn asked a company called Unruly Media to implement the campaign.' I see this as an astute move on Google's part. Rather than circle the wagons they say 'oops' and correct the problem. Google understands that such link pimping is a cancer that undermines the integrity of their search engine. That's why it isn't allowed and now Google is saying we don't support a double standard either."
symbolset writes "Slashgear is reporting that Tivo has achieved a settlement in their patent lawsuit with AT&T. Tivo will receive the minimum sum of $215 million over six years — more if AT&T DVR subscribers go above a certain level. This settles a patent dispute going back to 2009 and has been covered here with some side issues. Confirmed by Tivo press release."