Hop on an Emirates flight in Dubai and get up to cruising altitude. You realize you forgot to tell your assistant to make some crucial plans when you arrive at your destination. No problem: Just take out your cell phone and make a quick phone call. Say what? Emirates is one of just a handful of airlines that let passengers make calls in flight, not through a funky seat-back phone (though the airline offers those, too), but through a system that relays regular wireless phone calls through a satellite and back down to the ground. Provided by either , the service is available on 300 Emirates flights every day. And a single plane has yet to crash because of it. The technology behind in-flight phone calls isn't all that complicated. Calls are handled by a picocell on the plane, which is basically the same technology behind on 1,600 commercial aircraft.
Dell's thumb-sized PC called Project Ophelia, which is the size of a USB stick, will start shipping in July for around $100. The Android-based device will plug into a display's HDMI port so that it can run applications or access files stored remotely. It will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities and is aimed at users who do most of their computing on the Web. Ophelia can turn any screen or display into a PC, gaming machine or a TV set-top box, said Jeff McNaught, executive director of cloud client computing at Dell. Users will be able to download apps, movies and TV shows from the Google Play store, McNaught said. Users will also be able to run Android games or stream movies from Hulu or Netflix. It is meant to be an inexpensive alternative to tablets and PCs, McNaught said. However, users need to be close to a TV screen, display or projector with an HDMI port to use it.
Operators of two alleged tech support scams that charged consumers hundreds of dollars to supposedly fix their computers have settled charges from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Mikael Marczak, doing business as Virtual PC Solutions, and Sanjay Agarwalla were among the subjects of six complaints the FTC last September. Under Friday, the two are prohibited from marketing or selling any computer technical support service. Marczak and his company, Conquest Audit, also are prohibited from marketing or selling debt relief services, the FTC said in a press release. Neither of the men admitted wrongdoing under terms of the settlement. The settlement with Agarwalla requires him to pay $3000, the amount of money he received in the alleged scam operation, the FTC said. The final order against Marczak and Conquest Audit includes a $984,721 judgment, the total amount of money lost by consumers in the scams, but the order is stayed due to their inability to pay, the agency said.
Italian police arrested four suspected hackers Friday, accusing them of having taken control of the Italian branch of the Anonymous network. The alleged hackers, aged between 20 and 34, were placed under house arrest near the northern cities of Bologna, Turin and Venice, and in the southern town of Lecce. Six more people were placed formally under investigation and a total of 10 premises were raided at the conclusion of a two-year police investigation code-named “Tango Down.” Investigators said the group, which had created a dominant cell within Anonymous Italy, was responsible for cyberattacks on commercial and government websites, including sites belonging to the Vatican, the Italian prime minister’s office, the defense ministry, the police, Bank of Italy and the national railway company Trenitalia.
There's a lot to be said for software that just works. That isn't to say that Adobe Reader
Security researchers from Trend Micro have uncovered an active that so far has compromised computers belonging to government ministries, technology companies, media outlets, academic research institutions and nongovernmental organizations from more than 100 countries. The operation, which Trend Micro has dubbed SafeNet, targets potential victims using spear phishing emails with malicious attachments. The company's researchers have investigated the operation and published a with their findings Friday. The investigation uncovered two sets of command-and-control (C&C) servers used for what appear to be two separate SafeNet attack campaigns that have different targets, but use the same malware. One campaign uses spear phishing emails with content related to Tibet and Mongolia. These emails have .doc attachments that exploit a Microsoft Word vulnerability patched by Microsoft in April 2012.
Google did its best to court developers at with a much-needed integrated developer environment, API for better games, and the capability to more easily translate apps. Their allegiance will become increasingly important as smartphone and tablet hardware sees fewer dramatic improvements. "You guys, Android developers, are really the heart of this ecosystem and I think you know that. We have been on this journey together for over five years now," said Hugo Barra, vice president of Android product management, during the The past 12 months have been lucrative for Android developers, according to Barra. "Here is a pretty insane number for you: Google Play has just crossed 48 billion app installs ... but even better than that; over the last four months this year we have already paid out more money to Android developers on Google Play than in all of last year," Barra said.
Four members of the infamous and largely British LulzSec hacking group that carried a string of high-profile distributed denial of DDoS attacks in 2011 have been handed relatively lenient prison terms of up to 32 months by the judge at Southwark Crown Court in the UK. The bare facts are that Ryan Cleary, 21, and Ryan Ackroyd, 26, of 32 and 30 months respectively, while Jake Davis ('Topiary'), 20, will spend 24 months in a young offender's institution; Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18, was handed a 20 month suspended sentence. All will be watched by the authorities for up to five years after their eventual release. Although these sentences count as relatively severe by UK standards for hacking offenses, they are probably mild compared to the terms that might have been handed out in the U.S. where collaborator and former LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur ('Sabu') has so far only after turning police informer.
If your company hasn’t yet embraced BYOD (bring your own device), there’s a good chance it will soon. . BYOD offers a variety of benefits for both the employee and the employer. The employee gets to use the platforms and devices she is most comfortable with and has consistency between work and home. The employer reduces its burden to purchase or maintain the equipment. Surveys show that employees work an average of 240 more hours per year under BYOD. BYOD also introduces some concerns. Companies have to determine how to give employees access to the applications and data they need on their mobile devices, while also protecting and securing sensitive data. Software used by the company—whether it’s custom applications, software specific to a given industry, or just Microsoft Office—can be installed and used on employee-owned laptop PCs, but it will require purchasing additional licenses in many cases. When it comes to tablets and smartphones, though, users are forced to find suitable alternatives that offer varying degrees of compatibility and synchronization.In order for employees to be productive using their own laptops, tablets, and smartphones, they need the right tools and the ability to access data. However, most of the software users rely on to get work done doesn’t have a mobile app equivalent, and accessing data while on the go can be complicated.
Privacy laws protecting bank account holders are more important than providing information to aid in copyright enforcement, according to a Dutch court ruling this week. The Dutch ING Bank doesn't have to reveal who has access to a bank account, the number for which is posted on the website FTD World, the Amsterdam district court ruled. FTD World, at ftdworld.net, is a Usenet-indexing website that lists links to binary files posted on Usenet. It also provides files in the NZB format listing that allows users to download the posted files more easily. By doing this, the site provides access to copyrighted entertainment files including books, movies, music, games, and software without the permission of the copyright holders, according to Dutch anti-piracy foundation Brein. Brein wanted the court to force ING Bank to reveal who is behind a bank account number posted to the site that is used to receive donations, according to published by the court on Thursday. It had previously been unable to track down the domain name registrant and had received no reply to a letter sent to the Russian hosting provider.
The computer virus seems to be making a subtle comeback. The term virus is frequently used as a catch-all for malicious software, but actually describes a very specific type of program that infects files and replicates, noticeable impairing a computer. Most malware these days tries to not be so obvious. Tim Rains, director of the company's Trustworthy Computing section. In the fourth quarter of last year, viruses were present on about 7.8 percent of computers scanned by the company, he wrote. In some locations, such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Egypt and Afghanistan, the percentage of computers with viruses ranged from 35 to 44 percent, he wrote.
Mozilla has postponed blocking third-party cookies by default in Firefox 22, "to collect and analyze data on the effect of blocking some third-party cookies." The nonprofit organization is, however, not softening its stand on protecting privacy and putting users first, Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO and senior vice president of engineering, wrote Thursday. Mozilla has been testing a patch from Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student at Stanford University in computer science and law and online privacy activist, which like Apple's Safari browser allows cookies from websites already visited, but blocks cookies from sites not visited yet. A pre-build version of the browser, called , was released on April 5, and included the patch to only allow cookies from sites visited. Aurora is a preliminary stage in the development cycle before Beta and Release of a version of Firefox.
Employees at the Chinese factories of Apple supplier Foxconn continue to work beyond the country's legal limit of 49 hours a month, according to a report from the Fair Labor Association (FLA). But the Taiwanese manufacturer is making overall steady progress in improving the working conditions at a select group of factories in China, it said. , including enforcing breaks for workers and stopping student interns from logging overtime hours. "significant progress" in reducing employee working time to 60 hours per week, or what Apple demands in its own labor code, according to the audit. Workers at two of the three factories in China logged between 40 and 60 hours per week. At the other factory, the working time for employees was largely the same, except for three weeks in September and October, where the hours ranged between 40 and 70 per week. by July of this year. Chinese labor laws limit working hours to only 40 per week, plus an additional 9 hours for overtime.
A router is the heart of your network, so it deserves to be chosen carefully. Any router will share your Internet connection amongst your computers and other networkable devices (smartphones, tablets, and so on), but better models provide features that will enhance your network and its performance. Whether you're seeking a business- or consumer-class router, here are the eight most essential features to look for. 1. Wi-Fi access point Most routers targeted at the consumer and SMB market have a built-in Wi-Fi access point (AP) to provide wireless network connections for PCs and other devices equipped with Wi-Fi adapters. You can purchase additional APs to extend the router’s range. A stand-alone AP can also add wireless capabilities to a wired router. There are several wireless standards in use, with IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g considered to be legacy standards. IEEE 802.11n is the latest ratified standard, and 802.11ac is in "draft" mode with final ratification expected late this year or early next. There is a remote chance that devices based on this standard won't be compatible with the final standard, but most people in the industry consider that event highly unlikely.
Each year, the list of "green" gadgets gets longer, from solar-powered coasters or networked light bulbs. But some are a lot more useful than others. If you're looking for more than a novelty item, we've spotted ten devices that can save your company money by improving its energy efficiency. Some of them offer nifty, time-saving automation features and mobile apps too. Whether you're working from home or in a high-rise headquarters, these tools can put some energy dollars back in your pocket.
Social media has been a ” or another. It's becoming so commonplace that “Twitter disaster” really doesn't deserve to be in quotes. Damage can occur with incredible swiftness. Although tweets and Facebook posts can be deleted, evidence of their existence is invariably captured and collected for posterity within seconds of their going live. Say something wrong on a social network, and it will haunt you for life. Don't believe me? Check out these nine all-too-common reasons for failure, all of which involve real businesses being undone by a simple, wayward message on social media. It's understandable that as a small-business owner you might not want to spend your days tending to the Twitter and Facebook pages. It's a high-effort job that often has minimal bottom-line impact, so it's very tempting to outsource the task to another company or hand it off to a low-level staffer.
An appeals court in Mexico has overturned an approximately US$2.7 billion judgment against Yahoo and Yahoo Mexico in a breach-of-contract suit concerning online directories. by the 49th Civil Court of Mexico, overturning all monetary awards against Yahoo and cutting down the award against Yahoo Mexico to $172,500. The plaintiffs, World Wide Directories and Ideas Interactivas, may appeal the decision. The plaintiffs sued Yahoo in 2011, alleging breach of contract, breach of promise and lost profits in connection with a listing service.
Dell reported another quarter of declining profits and revenue Thursday as CEO Michael Dell continues his fight to take the company private. Dell’s profit for the quarter, ended May 3, was $130 million, down 79 percent from $635 million a year earlier. Revenue declined 2 percent to $14.07 billion. Dell’s PC division was particularly hard hit. Sales for the quarter were down 9 percent to $8.9 billion, Dell said, and the group’s operating profit skidded 65 percent lower to $224 million. Laptop sales were hit especially hard. Part of the problem is that . “Windows 8 has been, from our standpoint, not necessarily the catalyst to drive accelerated growth that we thought it would be,” CFO Brian Gladden said on a conference call to discuss the results.
Hoping to entice more enterprises to use the R statistical programming language directly within their predictive modeling and data visualization jobs, Tibco has released a free version of its R runtime engine. The Tibco Enterprise Runtime for R Developers Edition is a free version of the engine, which was released last September as part of the updated Tibco Spotfire Professional 5.0 in-memory visual analytics software. The developer edition features the same capabilities as the enterprise version but does not require Spotfire in order to run. The purpose of this free release “is not to compete with open-source R [programs] on individual statisticians’ desktops. It is about selling to the organizations in which these statisticians work, so that it will be easier for them to integrate, deploy and scale their work on an enterprise-compatible platform,” said Lou Bajuk-Yorgan, senior director of product management for Tibco Spotfire. The R programming language has long been used for statistical analysis, though it tends not to be used directly within business intelligence (BI) applications, Bajuk-Yorgan said. Richard Stallman’s Gnu Project the mostly widely used implementation of R as an open-source program.
Businesses today are faced with fierce competition in a struggling economy, coupled with an increased reliance on complex technology to get things done. It can be precarious to be dependent on technology—it has a way of complying with Murphy’s Law and only breaking when you need it most. Few small businesses have either the skills or the time necessary to effectively maintain or repair PCs, networking equipment, or other devices. Small businesses should stay focused on what counts, and enlist the aid of expert IT support. Whether you want to create a sales presentation for a potential customer, draft up a contract, track inventory, or communicate with co-workers, partners, or clients, technology is crucial. Most businesses simply can’t operate without working computers and a functional connection to the Internet. As much as you depend on technology, though, it isn’t always dependable. Power supplies die. Hard drives crash. The harsh reality is that the computers, routers, switches, servers, and other technologies you rely on will eventually fail.
Microsoft has responded to a high-profile put-down by Google CEO Larry Page, but Oracle, at least for now, won’t be drawn into a public fight with the executive. in response to questions after his keynote speech at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco Wednesday. Microsoft came under fire about instant messaging interoperability, while Oracle was singled out over Java. “We’ve kind of had an offer forever that we’ll interoperate on instant messaging,” he said in response to a question. “I think just this week Microsoft took advantage of that by interoperating with us, but not doing the reverse. Which is really sad, right? And that’s not the way to make progress. You need to actually have inter operation, not just people milking off one company for their own benefit.” : “It’s ironic that Larry is lending his voice to the discussion of interoperability considering his company’s decision—today—to file a cease and desist order to remove the YouTube app from Windows Phone, let alone the recent decision to make it more difficult for our customers to connect their Gmail accounts to their Windows experience.”
Jive Software has released an add-on to its enterprise social networking (ESN) software that automates and simplifies the process of integrating Jive’s suite with third-party systems. The add-on is based on technology Jive acquired when it bought a company called StreamOnce. At launch, the StreamOnce add-on links Jive’s ESN suite with the Gmail and Microsoft Exchange email servers and with the DropBox cloud storage app. Later on, it will integrate Jive’s product with ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) software from vendors including Oracle, NetSuite, Salesforce.com, SAP and SugarCRM. The StreamOnce add-on is available now. Jive officials declined to say how much it costs. Prior to acquiring StreamOnce, Jive had made custom integrations between its software and several third-party products, including Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration server, Microsoft’s Outlook email client, the Box cloud storage and file sharing app and Salesforce.com’s Chatter ESN product. Jive also provides a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that external developers can use to create bridges between their applications and Jive’s software.
Windows 8, the most significant upgrade to Microsoft’s operating system since Windows 95 and one of the most important products in the company’s history, will not achieve enough adoption in enterprises to be considered a standard, according to Forrester Research. By the time the next major Windows upgrade is released, Windows 8 will be in less than 50 percent of workplace PCs, unable to overtake its predecessor Windows 7. “I have to believe Microsoft expected better enterprise adoption for Windows 8,” said Forrester analyst David Johnson, the lead author of the report “IT Will Skip Windows 8 As The Enterprise Standard,” released Thursday. As it is, most enterprises have either recently migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7, or are in the process of doing so. In a Forrester survey of European and North American enterprises and SMBs conducted in last year’s third quarter, Windows 7 was on almost half of respondents’ PCs and Windows XP had a 38 percent share. Respondents further said that they forecast having Windows 7 on 60 percent of their PCs a year later, and Windows 8 on 26 percent.
A data center in Sweden has cut its energy bills by a million dollars a year using seawater to cool its servers, though jellyfish are an occasional hazard. Interxion, a collocation company in the Netherlands that rents data center space in 11 countries, uses water pumped from the Baltic Sea to cool the IT equipment at its facilities in Stockholm. The energy used to cool IT equipment is one of the costliest areas of running a data center. Companies have traditionally used big, mechanical chillers, but some are turning to outside air and evaporative techniques as lower-cost alternatives. Seawater is another option, and apparently an effective one. Interxion recouped its initial investment after about a year, with the “cost” of the seawater equivalent to $0.03 per kWh, said Lex Coors, Interxion’s chief engineering officer, at the Uptime Institute’s data center conference in Santa Clara, Calif., this week.
emerge over the past year or so, but examples with triple-boot capabilities are much less common. . . “The components of this device are the result of careful and accurate selection, to ensure perfect compatibility with all operating systems.” Ready for a look? Here's what we've got.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich admitted Thursday in his first speech in that role that the company has been weak in smartphones and tablets, but aims to improve by advancing chip and manufacturing technologies. Intel’s main focus is to produce more power-efficient chips, as it also adds features for connectivity and security, Krzanich said during a speech at the annual shareholder meeting in Santa Clara, Calif. “We see that we’ve been a bit slow to move in the space,” Krzanich said of the mobile market. “We’re well positioned already and the base of assets we have will allow us to grow much faster in the area.”
Google has introduced an IDE (integrated developer environment) aimed at easing development of Android apps. in San Francisco. on the base of IntelliJ's Idea Java IDE. "The pivot around the IntelliJ IDE is a shift for Google," noted Al Hilwa, who covers application development software for IDC, in an email interview. IntelliJ "is less complex and more friendly than Eclipse and should help Android reach a broader section of developers," Hilwa wrote.
Anyone remotely within the orbit of SAP lately knows that its number-one focus is the HANA in-memory database and development platform. At this week’s Sapphire conference in Orlando, the vendor sought to show the progress it is making in both building out HANA’s capabilities as well as attracting developers and partners to HANA. “After four years of preaching HANA, I think we have reached a relative climax,” SAP co-founder and Chairman Hasso Plattner said during a keynote address Thursday. “It’s not about HANA anymore, it’s about the applications on HANA.” While walking the conference’s show floor, Plattner saw evidence of “hundreds, probably thousands” of applications that are being built on HANA, he said. SAP has also been updating HANA through a series of service packs, which it says provide new functionality without the pain and hassle of a traditional upgrade. Service pack number six is now generally available and with it brings a raft of features resulting in a “re-imagined” HANA, SAP said Thursday.
Darpa is ending its experiment with small, close-flying spacecraft, but that doesn't mean the concept is dead.
The military doesn't want to take sexual assault cases out of the chain of command. But as scandals compile and Congress prepares to act, it may have to.
Wired senior editor Peter Rubin joins me to explore two Electronic Arts announcements that might prove quite telling of gaming's future.
So, there's a new trailer for director Guillermo del Toro's
Star Trek Into Darkness costume designer Michael Kaplan readily admits that he wasn?t a Star Trek fan prior to being hired for the 2009 reboot. Still, with iconic sci-fi movies like Blade Runner and Armageddon under his belt, he was confident he could capture and improve the look of Starfleet, updating the occasionally clunky aesthetic of the original series into something long-time fans would still recognize and appreciate: ?I certainly want to please Trekkies.?
NASA scientists recorded the biggest explosion from a meteorite impact on the moon that they have seen in eight years of monitoring.
Tomorrow marks the official release of the DSM-5, a hugely influential diagnostic guide that defines disorders of the mind. Many experts say it's fundamentally flawed, and efforts to develop a better alternative have begun.
A roundup of odd ways humans and wild animals crossed paths this week compiled by Jon Mooallem, author of the upcoming book
Today's dubious lesson in technology as explained by movies: 1995's
Each week, Wired Design brings you a photo of one of our favorite buildings, showcasing boundary-pushing architecture and design involved in the unique structures that make the world's cityscapes interesting. Check back Fridays for the continuing series, and feel free to make recommendations in the comments, by Twitter, or by e-mail.
Edward Lorenz wasn't planning to spark a scientific revolution when he published his famous paper on weather models in 1963. But the unexpected behavior of his equations opened the door to an entirely new field: chaos theory. Fifty years later, Samuel Arbesman takes a look at what this new way of scientific thinking has wrought.
We are homogenizing our crops and homogenizing our people. And Big Pharma seems intent on pursuing a parallel attempt to create its own brand of human monoculture. With an assist from an overly ambitious psychiatry -- given tomorrow's impending release of the DSM-5 -- all human difference is being transmuted into chemical imbalance meant to be treated with a handy pill. Turning difference into illness was among the great strokes of marketing genius accomplished in our time.
Anyone who has spent time in blustery, rainy climates knows the frustration of an umbrella defeated by the elements. In 2009, designer Federico Venturi experienced this frustration firsthand and, instead of throwing away the broken umbrella like everyone else does, decided to use it as inspiration for everything an umbrella should not be.
[HTML1]It was a watch so beautiful, so elegant, so precise, that it could only have been meant for royalty. Then it vanished without a trace. | Photo: David Silberman/Getty Images The tiny Simca 1000 Sedan puttered through the winding streets of a tony enclave near Israel's presidential residence. The spring evening ...
Printable drones, limbs and ammunition. It's a far-out vision, but more and more military officers are starting to think that future troops will rely on 3-D printers to manufacture the tools of war.
In many ways, Google+ is still struggling to define itself. But there's been one clear success story inside the Google social network: Video "Hangouts," which have proven popular in group communications, from academia to large corporations to startups.
I awoke aboard a boat, just before daybreak, which was weird. The last thing I remembered was being in San Francisco?s Moscone Center, wrapping up a four-hour Google I/O keynote liveblogging session. My last recollection was of Google CEO Larry Page taking questions from the audience and promoting a vision of a utopia where society could be free to innovate and experiment, unencumbered by government regulations or social norms.
It's hard to resist rubbernecking when we pass an accident on the freeway. What's happening is none of our business, but we do it anyway. This voyeuristic urge is what Danish photographer Nicolai Howalt wants to explore in his series, Car Crash Studies.
New materials. Outlandish technologies. Insane movements. Today?s watchmakers are engineering the most complicated mechanical timepieces ever.
The biggest question that comes up in
For years, bicycle makers have squeezed more speed and efficiency out of their products by shaving weight to the minimums set by cycling's ruling bodies. But to really improve a bike, whether it's for riding in the peloton or the park, you have to reduce aerodynamic drag.
NASA has just released this cute chart depicting the various distances traveled by wheeled machines on other worlds.
The Justice Department's internal watchdog found "significant problems" in how the feds handle terrorists who snitch and get new identities. They can evade no-fly lists. Some actually have.
The Meteor Entertainment employee who helped create Brosie the Riveter spoke with Wired about the prank that went viral, and about what the internet's reaction to it could tell us about the gender problem in the gaming industry.
Nintendo has said that it is working with YouTube to place advertisements in front of user-created videos of Nintendo games. This might be a bad idea.
In the wake of the AP scandal, in which federal investigators obtained the phone records of journalists using only a subpoena, four lawmakers have introduced legislation in the House that would prevent federal agencies from seizing any phone records without a court order.
As bloated as it might be, Apple isn't forgetting about iTunes. Cupertino released the latest update to its music/video/movies/app manager and player today.
Design freaks (and freaks of any persuasion, really) can find a digital treasure chest of entertaining content in the realm of the podcast. Allowing for interested parties to expand beyond radio/tv/print restrictions, the format continues to grow in professionalism and regard.
Over 10 days in November 1983, the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly started a nuclear war. Now newly declassified documents reveal just how close we reached a mutual destruction -- because of an exercise.
At Google's annual I/O developer conference Thursday, the company announced the first big wave of third-party Glass apps, dubbed Glassware.