Der Elektronikriese Kyocera mit Hauptsitz im japanischen Kyōto hat die Zahlen für die ersten sechs Monate des Geschäftsjahres 2012/2013 bekannt gegeben. Dabei fiel die Bilanz nicht gerade rosig aus, so dass man die Umsatzprognose nach unten korrigierte.

Das Wissensportal Wikipedia ist erste Anlaufstelle vieler Internetrecherchen. Dort findet man vor allem gesammeltes Wissen, dafür aber kaum Nützliches und Tipps. In diese Lücke stösst die Plattform Wikihow.

Die Weisse Arena Gruppe aus Laax lagert ihre gesamte Informatik inklusive Infrastruktur an die in Chur domizilierte Würth ITensis aus. Reto Gurtner, CEO der Weissen Arena Gruppe, glaubt damit bis zu 30 Prozent der IT-Kosten einsparen zu können. "Ausserdem sind wir überzeugt, dass diese spezielle Art des Outsourcings der ganzen Tourismusbranche zugute kommt“, so Gurtner.

Während Apple und Amazon.com den Markt für 7-Zoll grosse Tablet PCs erobern, hält man sich bei Microsoft vornehm zurück. Derzeit gebe es bei Microsoft keine Pläne für einen 7-Zoll grossen Tablet PC, so Microsoft CFO Tami Reller gegenüber dem Branchendienst Wired.

Der japanische Elektronik- und Chiphersteller Toshiba kappt wegen der schwächeren Wirtschaftsentwicklung seine Jahresprognose. Die andauernde europäische Schuldenkrise, die konjunkturelle Abschwächung in China und Indien sowie der starke Yen sorgten allesamt für eine höhere Ungewissheit für die Zukunft, teilte Toshiba am Mittwoch mit.

Die Deutsche Post will stärker im Online-Vertrieb von Lebensmitteln mitmischen. Der Logistik-Riese hält jetzt die Mehrheit am Online-Supermarkt Allyouneed.com. Die Post habe alle Anteile des Mitgründers Christian Heitmeyer erworben, teilte Allyouneed am Dienstag mit. Die Bonner sind bereits seit Ende 2011 bei dem Internet-Händler engagiert.

Nach einem Milliarden-Rekordverlust im Vorjahr rechnet der japanische Elektronikkonzern Panasonic im laufenden Geschäftsjahr wieder mit tiefroten Zahlen. Der Nettoverlust werde bei 765 Milliarden Yen (7,43 Milliarden Euro) liegen, teilte das Unternehmen am Mittwoch in Tokio mit. Im Geschäftsjahr 2011/2012, das Ende März zu Ende ging, lag das Minus bei 772 MilliardenYen.

Der US-IT-Gigant IBM hat ein weiteres Aktienrückkaufprogramm im Volumen von fünf Mrd. US-Dollar aufgelegt, wodurch das Unternehmen Aktienrückkäufe im Volumen von insgesamt 11,7 Mrd. Dollar autorisiert hat. Zuletzt hatte IBM sein Rückkaufprogramm im April um sieben Mrd. US-Dollar aufgestockt.

Knapp die Hälfte aller Schweizer IT-Freelancer, die bei der Internet-Jobbörse Gulp registriert sind, ist im Kanton Zürich zuhause. Der typischen Zürcher Consultant fordert einer aktuellen Gulp-Studie zufolge einen durchschnittlichen Stundensatz von 95 Euro, ist 46 Jahre alt und blickt auf 21 Jahre Berufserfahrung zurück.

Der neue Web-Standard HTML5 wird nach anfänglicher Euphorie von vielen Unternehmen wieder beiseite gelegt. Die Software sei noch nicht Marktreif, heisst es aus den Firmenzentralen. Facebook-CEO Mark Zuckerberg hat unlängst für Aufsehen gesorgt, als er den Umstieg auf HTML5 als grössten Fehler der Unternehmensgeschichte bezeichnete.

Hugh Pickens writes "Rachel Swaby reports that a self-driving car and a seasoned race-car driver recently faced off at Northern California's three-mile Thunderhill Raceway loop. The autonomous vehicle is a creation from the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS). 'We tried to model [the self-driving car] after what we've learned from the best race-car drivers,' says Chris Gerdes (who talks more about the development of autonomous cars in this TED talk). So who won? Humans, of course. But only by a few measly seconds. 'What the human drivers do is consistently feel out the limits of the car and push it just a little bit farther,' explained Gerdes. 'When you look at what the car is capable of and what humans achieve, that gap is really actually small.' Because the self-driving car reacts to the track as if it were controlled in real time by a human, a funny thing happens to passengers along for the ride. Initially, when the car accelerates to 115 miles per hour and then breaks just in time to make it around a curve, the person riding shotgun freaks out. But a second lap looks very different. Passengers tend to relax, putting their faith in the automatically spinning wheel. 'We might have a tendency to put too much confidence in it,' cautioned Gerdes. 'Watching people experience it, they'll say, oh, that was flawless.' Gerdes reaction: 'Wait wait! This was developed by a crazy professor and graduate students!'"

MTorrice writes "Researchers have demonstrated a way to make high performance, flexible integrated circuits using almost exclusively standard equipment and materials already needed to make conventional chips. Such a method could allow electronics manufacturers to build new devices, such as smart medical implants and flexible displays, without needing to significantly overhaul current production protocols. The method, developed by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, started with researchers patterning integrated circuits on silicon wafers using a standard production line. They then cut off the top 20 to 30 micrometers of the wafer using a thin wire—like slicing a block of cheese—to produce a thin, flexible platter of circuits."

Lucas123 writes "Companies like U.S.-based WiTricity and China-based 3DVOX Technology claim patents and products to wirelessly powering anything from many feet away — from smart phones and televisions to electric cars by using charging pads embedded in concrete. But more than one industry standards group promoting magnetic induction and short-distance resonance wireless charging say such technology is useless; Charging anything at distances greater than the diameter of a magnetic coil is an inefficient use of power. For example, Menno Treffers, chairman of the Wireless Power Consortium, says you can broadcast wireless power over six feet, but the charge received will be less than 10% of the source. WiTricity and 3DVOX, however, are fighting those claims with demonstrations showing their products are capable of resonating the majority of source power."

beeudoublez points out a Google+ post by Linus Torvalds arguing that today's standard laptop display resolution is unreasonably low. He said, "...with even a $399 tablet doing 2560x1600 pixel displays, can we please just make that the new standard laptop resolution? Even at 11"? Please. Stop with the 'retina' crap, just call it 'reasonable resolution.' The fact that laptops stagnated ten years ago (and even regressed, in many cases) at around half that in both directions is just sad. I still don't want big luggable laptops, but that 1366x768 is so last century."

ChristW writes "The final report that was handed to the Dutch government today indicates that all 8 certificate servers of the Dutch company DigiNotar were fully hacked. (Report PDF in English.) Because the access log files were stored on the same servers, they cannot be used to find any evidence for or against intrusion. In fact, blatant falsification has been found in those log files. A series of so-far unused certificates has also been found. It is unknown if and where these certificates have been used."

alphadogg writes "U.S. cellphone carriers took a major step on Wednesday toward curbing the rising number of smartphone thefts with the introduction of databases that will block stolen phones from being used on domestic networks. The initiative got its start earlier this year when the FCC and police chiefs from major cities asked the cellular carriers for assistance in battling the surging number of smartphone thefts. In New York, more than 40 percent of all robberies involve cellphones and in Washington, D.C., cellphone thefts accounted for 38 percent of all robberies in 2011."

Penurious Penguin writes "Your curtilage may be your castle, but 'open fields' are open game for law-enforcement and surveillance technology. Whether 'No Trespassing' signs are present or not, your private property is public for the law, with or without a warrant. What the police cannot do, their cameras can — without warrant or court oversight. An article at CNET recounts a case involving the DEA, a federal judge, and two defendants (since charged) who were subjected to video surveillance on private property without a warrant. Presumably, the 4th Amendment suffers an obscure form of agoraphobia further elucidated in the article."

nk497 writes "Microsoft's failure to include the EU browser ballot in Windows 7 SP1 cost Mozilla as many as 9 million Firefox downloads, the organization's head of business affairs revealed. Harvey Anderson said daily downloads of Firefox fell by 63% to a low of 20,000 before the ballot was reinstated, and after the fix, downloads jumped by 150% to 50,000 a day. Over the 18 months the ballot was missing, that adds up to six to nine million downloads — although it's tough to tell if the difference has more to do with Chrome's success or the lack of advertising on Windows systems. The EU is currently investigating the 'glitch,' and Microsoft faces a massive fine for failing to include the screen, which offers download details for different browsers to European Windows users, as part of measures ordered by the EU to balance IE's dominance."

An anonymous reader writes with news of a company suing Microsoft for infringing upon a patent for tiles with live content. From the article: "SurfCast, in a complaint filed yesterday in a U.S. District Court in Maine, said Microsoft infringes one of its four patents — No. 6,724,403 — by 'making, using, selling, and offering to sell devices and software products' covered by SurfCast's patent. That includes mobile devices using the Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 operating systems as well as PCs using Windows 8/RT."

sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science: "The dungeon is pitch black — until the dungeon master blazes a torch, confirming your worst fears. A Beholder monster lurches at you, its eyeballs wriggling on tentacular stems. As you prepare to wield your Vorpal sword, where do you focus your gaze: at the monster's head or at its tentacle eyes? Such a quandary from the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons may seem like a meaningless trifle, but it holds within it the answer to a tricky scientific question: Do people focus their gaze on another person's eyes or on the center of the head? In fact, a father-son team has used D&D monsters to show that most people will look to another creature's eyes, even if they're not attached to a head."

In development for the better part of the last decade, the 0.17 release of the Enlightenment window manager is slated for November 5th. Leading up to this, the H has an enlightening interview with project lead Rasterman on what to expect. From the article: "Today Enlightenment offers most of what you get from GNOME and KDE, and probably the same if not a bit more than XFCE. It just doesn't try and ship a suite of apps with it. It is the desktop (Window manager, settings, file manager, application launching and management) minus the apps. ... The biggest thing E17 brings to the table is universal compositing. This means you can use a composited desktop without any GPU acceleration at all, and use it nicely. We don't rely on software fallback implementations of OpenGL. We literally have a specific software engine that is so fast that some developers spent weeks using it accidentally, not realizing they had software compositing on their setup."