Der Telekomkonzern Swisscom lanciert einen neuen Dienst, mit dem Benutzer gratis Nachrichten schreiben und telefonieren können. Die App mit dem Namen "iO" ist bereits im "iStore" sowie in Googles "Play Store" für Apple- und Android-Smartphones erhältlich.
Apple hat sich erfolgreich gegen eine Patent-Strafzahlung von bis zu 625,5 Millionen Dollar gewehrt. Der Oberste US-Gerichtshof bescheinigte nach einem Bericht der Finanzagentur Bloomberg, Apple habe nicht gegen die Patente eines kalifornischen Forschers verstossen zu haben.
Die Flucht des Ex-US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiters Edward Snowden von Hongkong nach Moskau hat schwerste diplomatische Verstimmungen zwischen der USA mit Russland und China ausgelöst. Das US-Präsidialamt forderte Russland am Montag in deutlichen Worten zur Auslieferung des 30-Jährigen auf, der umfangreiche Ausspähaktionen amerikanischer und britischer Nachrichtendienste enthüllt hatte.
Die Börsianer zweifeln mal wieder an Apple. Am Montag fiel der Aktienkurs des iPhone- und iPad-Herstellers erstmals seit April kurz unter die markante Marke von 400 Dollar. Seit dem Rekordhoch im September vergangenen Jahres von 705,07 Dollar ist der Wert der Aktie damit um mehr als 40 Prozent abgesackt.
Als neue Schwester der deutschen ProRZ Rechenzentrumsbau nimmt am 1. Juli die ProRZ Schweiz vom innerschweizerischen Rotkreuz die operativen Aktivitäten für den hiesigen Markt auf. Damit weitet die in Betzdorf (Rheinland-Pfalz) ansässige Unternehmensgruppe DC-Datacenter-Group, zu der die ProRZ gehört, nun die Aktivitäten auf den kompletten deutschsprachigen Europamarkt aus.
Die Oracle-Aktien gerieten zuletzt an der New Yorker Nasdaq kräftig unter die Räder und verloren zeitweise mehr als zehn Prozent an Wert. Oracle hatte erstmals in einem Jahrzehnt im Softwaregeschäft die Prognosen verfehlt, was besonders schmerzlich ist, gilt das vierte Fiskalquartal traditionell als eines der stärksten Quartale beim US-Softwarehaus.
Die Flucht von US-"Whistleblower" Edward Snowden vor der Verfolgung durch die US-Behörden wird immer mehr zum Agentenkrimi. Nachdem Snowden am Sonntag in Ecuador Asyl beantragt hatte, nahm er am Montag nicht wie angekündigt den Aeroflot-Flug von Moskau nach Kuba, sondern verliess Russland laut einem Bericht der russischen Agentur Interfax an Bord eines anderen Flugzeugs.
Handy, Drucker und Co. leben deutlich länger als gemeinhin angenommen. Das ist das Ergebnis eines Studienprojekts der Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, welches der IT-Branchenverband Swico am Greenforum 2013 vorgestellt hat. Die Resultate stellen nach Meinung des Swico die aktuellen Forderungen politischer Akteure nach einer gesetzlich verordneten Produkte-Lebensdauer in Frage.
In der von D.core Switzerland in Zürich kürzlich vorgestellten "Vermarkterzufriedenheitsstudie Schweiz 2013" für den Schweizer Online-Vemarktungsmarkt belegte der aufstrebende Schweizer Werbevermittler Adwebster den ersten Platz, gefolgt von GMX und Ringier.
Bei Microsoft scheint es aktuell Pläne für eine Umstrukturierung zu geben. Am 1. Juli sollen die Details zu dieser Neuorganisation bekanntgegeben werden. Wie AllthingsD und andere Medien schreiben, sollen die Änderungen im Konzern hauptsächlich von Chef Steve Ballmer angeordnet worden sein, zahlreiche hochranginge Manager sollen in die Planung gar nicht einbezogen werden.
Google Earth users can do more than just fly around a virtual globe. The can display real-time weather, help compose photographs and measure distances much more easily than its Maps cousin. In a recent update, Google provided 3D building information for many cities. The option can be turned on in the layers panel in the bottom left corner. Sometimes the 3D information will take longer to load and render depending on connectivity. One of the useful features of the application allows photographers to see the position and strength of the sun. Click on the sun icon in the top toolbar and use the slider to change the date and time. Users can see the sun move across the sky and cast shadows on the landscape. Clicking on the wrench icon in the slider panel allows users to set the date and time, which is sometimes more efficient than using the slider. The tool doesn’t account for weather, but can be useful to plan photo shoots or other activities dependent on daylight.
Is the honeymoon over for Bitcoin, the little alternative currency that could? Recent events have some beginning to doubt whether Bitcoin is viable over the long term—and whether it will ultimately be able to live up to its promises of privacy and security. The biggest news from the State of California's Department of Financial Institutions. Failure to comply would subject the group to fines of up to $2,500 per violation per day and possible criminal prosecution to boot. The charge: It is a crime to engage in a "money transmission business" without a license. (The U.S. Treasury Department issues these licenses; failure to register is punishable by additional fines and prison time.) The immediate problem, as has been widely noted, is that the Bitcoin Foundation does not transmit money to anyone. It runs on donations but is basically a lobbying group, not a financial exchange in the vein of Bitcoin's central clearinghouse Mt. Gox.
The Federal Communications Commission should limit the two largest U.S. mobile carriers from buying too much spectrum in an upcoming auction, but the agency should also set a minimum price for the spectrum as a way to ensure that it receives the revenues projected, carrier T-Mobile USA proposed Monday. T-Mobile and some digital rights groups of AT&T and Verizon Wireless in auctions of valuable television spectrum anticipated in 2014. But AT&T and other critics have said that limiting AT&T and Verizon could drive down the amount of money generated by the auction. U.S. lawmakers are counting on billions of dollars in auction proceeds to help fund a nationwide public safety network and to pay back TV stations for spectrum they give up. T-Mobile has disputed those predictions, but its new proposal, called the dynamic market rule, is an attempt to counter the criticism of those opposing limits. Under the proposal, the FCC would cap spectrum holdings by any one carrier to about one-third of the available spectrum below 1 gigahertz. That band of spectrum is considered the best for delivering mobile broadband services over long distances.
Microsoft continued its push into the education market by announcing plans for Bing for Schools, which will optimize results for K-12 students and eliminate ads in the process. Microsoft said that when the program rolls out later this year, Bing for Schools will filter out adult content by default, and prevent students from changing that setting to allow it back in. Ads will be stripped from results. And finally, Microsoft will enhance its Bing homepage images to include “lesson plans,” or provocative questions that kids can search out the answers to themselves. Microsoft made the announcement at the International Society for Technology in Education in San Antonio, Texas, on Monday, where Microsoft and others are attempting to win over the classroom. Microsoft confirmed —a 32 GB Surface RT tablet for $199, for example, versus its standard price of $499. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all chasing after the education market, which in 2009 ranked just behind healthcare as the nation’s largest sector, by spending. In 2011, a have focused on the iPad. Google has also pushed its Chromebooks as educational tools. And Microsoft, whose Surface RT tablets are naturally locked into apps that use its Metro or Windows Store interface, appears to be pushing those limitations as a selling point with its discounted Surface RT tablets.
An Ultrabook™ by any other name, well, it wouldn't be an Ultrabook at all. as a new class of laptop computers, designed to push the envelope in categories size, battery life, features, and performance. While many notebooks may use the term, only a few that can meet all of these criteria are true Ultrabooks. , are allowed to be up to 23mm thick. weighs under three pounds, despite featuring a 14-inch display.
Anticipating a greater need for large-scale enterprise messaging, Software AG has rebranded its messaging software, integrated it with its Terracotta in-memory storage technology, and is now is pitching the product outside its initial market of large financial firms. Terracotta Universal Messaging, formerly called webMethods Nirvana Messaging, could be of interest to utility companies, retail chains and other organizations that cull increasing amount of data from sensor networks and point-of-presence systems, said Eddie McDaid, Software AG’s managing director for the Universal Messaging product. The software could simplify the infrastructure, as well as filter and speed delivery of large amounts of data, often called big data. The software is also being integrated with Terracotta’s own in-memory data store, and will become a key part of Terracotta’s In-Genius data analysis platform, due by the end of the year. Multiple copies of server software, written in Java, could be run around the edge of a network, each collecting source data from multiple sources, and filtering the data and routing it “based on content and value,” McDaid said.
From around the end of August, European Union telecom providers and ISPs will have to comply with new rules to ensure that customers in all E.U. countries receive the same information if their personal data is lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised. The new “technical implementing measures,” published by the European Commission on Monday, are detailed practical rules on implementing existing legislation—the ePrivacy Directive. Since 2011, telecom companies and ISPs have been under a general obligation to inform national authorities and subscribers about breaches of personal data. But a public consultation launched in May 2011 found that some national rules were widely divergent. The U.K., for example, wanted only “serious” breaches notified, while France wanted notification by registered mail. Deadlines for data breach notification also ranged widely—from two days in Ireland to 10 days in Greece.
U.S. officials should be condemned for "bullying" other nations in their attempts to get them to turn over Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, who leaked classified information on massive surveillance programs there, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Monday. in the U.S. and an attorney for WikiLeaks. Whistleblowers exposing government corruption are included in those protections, said Ratner, who helped with Assange's application for asylum in Ecuador. "It is counterproductive and unacceptable for the Obama administration to try and interfere with those rights," Assange said during a press briefing Monday. "It reflects poorly on the U.S. administration, and no self-respecting country would submit to such interference or such bullying by the U.S. in this matter."
The French government’s accounts payable system, Chorus, is back online after a four-day outage, the French State Financial Computing Agency (AIFE) announced Monday. An accident at a data center operated by French servers and services company Bull on Wednesday affected Chorus’s storage systems hosted there. That incident took the core of Chorus, an SAP system with 25,000 users, offline, although another application, Chorus forms, continued to serve its 30,000 users. The server room’s fire extinguishing system was accidentally triggered following an error by one of Bull’s subcontractors, resulting in simultaneous damage to several major components of a storage bay holding Chorus data, the agency said. Bull had little to say about the accident.
Google has been known to shut down old services now and again in its so-called spring cleanings. But nobody seriously expected it to shut down Reader, its trusty and popular cloud-based RSS reader, despite it being in maintenance mode for years. When the shutdown announcement came, it hit the RSS community like an earthquake, with news junkies scrambling for replacements. I was one of those users, and if I learned one thing from this, it's not to rely on a free service from a behemoth corporation for mission-critical work (tech writers really do need RSS). I found a service developed and run for profit, by just a single, committed individual: NewsBlur, by developer Samuel Clay. This online news reader offers a sophisticated interface, machine-learning, story sharing, and is everything Google Reader should have been, had Google taken a more lasting interest in it. A paid account will run you $24/year, but a feature-limited free version is available, too.
Ecuador is considering U.S. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's asylum request and has been maintaining diplomatic contact with Russia, said Ricardo Patiño Aroca, Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Integration, on Monday. "Ecuador is considering Mr. Snowden's asylum request," said Patiño during a press conference in Hanoi during a visit to Vietnam's foreign minister. The event was live-streamed on the Internet in Spanish and an instant English translation was provided by the BBC. "All of us know he has arrived in the Russian Federation," Patiño said. The Russian government must decide how to handle Snowden in accordance with the country's laws, Patiño said. However, when asked directly, Patiño said he did not know where the leaker was. "Specific information as to his whereabouts ... we can not share that at this moment. We don't have it and we can't share it," Patiño said. Snowden requested the Ecuadorian government to grant him asylum because the U.S. has announced a criminal investigation against him, he wrote in his asylum request, said Patiño. Because he has been accused of being a traitor, life in prison is among the possible sentences, Snowden wrote, according to Patiño.
As money and corporate information have morphed from hard currency and blueprints to digital files, small and midsized businesses have become the new banks to rob. In fact, bank robberies across the U.S. have plummeted from 9,400 in 1991 to just 3,870 last year. As Doug Johnson of the American Bankers Association puts it: "As more and more transactions become electronic, more bank crimes become electronic." Look at it from the criminals' perspective: why risk getting arrested breaking into an engineering company or, worse, shot sticking up a bank when you can sit in an ergonomic office chair with an espresso on your desk and music in the background while plundering small companies thousands of miles away? "Small and medium businesses are being targeted at an alarming rate," says Brian Burch, Symantec's vice president, Consumer & Small Business Segment Marketing. SMBs are easy targets primarily because "they don't believe they have the public visibility of bigger companies so they don't believe they are in the gun sights of the bad guys. As a result, SMBs do not put the needed effort into securing their businesses. Further, even if they want to, smaller companies tend not to have the funding, staff or knowledge needed to formalize let alone maintain more secure policies and procedures all combining to make them the path of least resistance...and the bad guys have discovered this." The numbers bear out this alarming trend.
If you simply pull an external drive out of a running computer, you're asking for trouble. You might lose files, crash applications, or even ruin everything on the computer. But removing it safely isn't always as easy as it should be. Windows' built-in solution usually works: Click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area (aka the system tray or the systray) and select the drive. When you get the "Safe To Remove Hardware" message, it's safe to remove the hardware.
The way in which European cloud computing contracts are drawn up is to come under scrutiny by a team of experts. On Friday the European Commission, the European Union's top law-making body, called for nominations for people from industry, academia and other interested groups to sit on the new expert group, which is being formed in order to create a transparent and comprehensible contract model. According to Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, users often don't understand the terms of their contract, what they're paying for and what they can expect. She said that people shouldn't need a law degree to know what they are signing up to. "Small firms might hesitate to use the cloud because of fears that they will not meet their legal obligations, or worries that they might get locked in, Kroes said on her personal blog. "They don't want the risk of getting mired in foreign court cases in foreign languages; nor of exposing the data which may be their business's life blood to security risks or breaches. And they cannot afford costly legal fees to figure all this out case by case."
Microsoft is investing $678 million in the expansion of its data center in West Des Moines, Iowa, to bolster online offerings such as Xbox Live and Office 365. . Other tech companies are also setting up data centers in Iowa. Facebook said in April its data center in Altoona, Iowa, will be its fourth owned and operated data center, and its third in the U.S. The company plans to break ground this summer and expects to begin serving user traffic in 2014. Google opened a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 2009. In November 2012, it announced that it would expand its data center operations in Iowa, taking the total investment to over $1.1 billion. Microsoft has run a data center in Iowa to support its operations since 2009. It could not be immediately reached for comment on the proposed investment.
A foundation created last year to shepherd Bitcoin's software development has received a stern warning from a California financial regulator. in a May 30 letter that it is a violation of state and federal law to be involved in money transmission without registering with the U.S. Treasury or California's Commissioner of Financial Institutions... even though the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation isn't a Bitcoin exchange. California's DFI oversees banks, credit unions, money transmitters and issuers of payment instruments. The letter, signed by Senior Counsel Paul T. Crayton, does not accuse the Bitcoin Foundation of violating laws but says the regulator thinks it "may be engaged" in a money transmission business without a license.
Hewlett-Packard is also bringing Android to the PC, and has unveiled a 21.5-inch all-in-one desktop installed with Google's operating system. The device, called the HP Slate 21, was shown off at an HP event in Beijing on Monday. It's built with a high-definition IPS touch screen, and installed with Android 4.2.2, according to the company's official microblog in China.
Fusion-io is updating its ioTurbine caching software to help more types of enterprises integrate flash-based cache into virtualized computing environments. The software, designed to be used with Fusion-io's ioCache hardware, manages the placement of application data in server-based caches. Based on real-time activity and on policies set by enterprise IT, ioTurbine understands what data is most critical and caches it, directing other data to slower, high-capacity storage elsewhere. To deliver its intended speed boost to applications, flash cache needs to reside on the same physical server where the application is running. Fusion-io's ioTurbine is designed to automatically provide flash capacity when a VMware virtual machine is moved from one physical server to another. In the updated version, the software will also let enterprises make caching work at the hypervisor level, handling the I/O streams for multiple VMs. Fusion-io has also merged its Direct Cache product, which managed cache on non-virtualized servers, into ioTurbine.
As Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference kicks off this Wednesday, the company faces a daunting task: To convince developers and tech enthusiasts that it remains on the cutting edge. That’s a tough challenge when you’re about to release a Windows system update that most think exists to correct nagging flaws. Indeed, it’s hard to make a Band-Aid look like a fresh innovation. For many consumers, the still needs to address a laundry list of other issues, and Windows watchers worldwide remain skeptical. ”I think the [Windows 8] updates have been noticed by the tech community,” said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research. “But the mass market perception of Windows hasn’t changed that much.”
Vodafone plans to acquire Germany's largest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland, for €7.7 billion ($10.1 billion) as it looks to become more competitive by combining mobile, fixed broadband and TV subscriptions, it said Monday. By taking advantage of Kabel Deutschland's high-speed broadband and TV capabilities, the acquisition, if successful, will provide Vodafone with the ability to offer unified communications services and cross-sell to consumers and businesses in Germany, according to Vodafone. It would leave the U.K. operator with 32.4 million mobile subscribers, 5.0 million broadband subscribers and 7.6 million direct TV subscribers in Germany, the company said on Monday. Vodafone said the acquisition will also allow it to cut costs. It plans to migrate its existing fixed-line DSL users to Kabel Deutschland's cable network where possible, generating savings from closing down DSL central offices, reduced maintenance costs and removing the need to pay unbundled local loop and bitstream fees. Shrinking revenues from voice and messaging are forcing mobile operators to look for new revenue streams. For Vodafone, fixed networks have become a large part its efforts to grow in the challenging European market. The company's results for the year to March 31 showed that fixed line revenue had grown to £4.7 billion ($7.1 billion) from about £3.6 billion a year earlier.
If . Late last week, within 24 hours of each other, the two Asian tech giants unveiled broad, new product lines. Following recent announcements from other major players, a critical mass of next-generation Windows 8 machines is now coming down the pike. But it’s not the quantity that’s most impressive—it’s the diversity: The arrivals cover every shape and form of portable PC, with touchscreens galore, and even some daring dual-boot systems. If the PC market is dying, vendors are responding not with resignation, but with innovation. And there are some good reasons this is happening, which you'll see as we take a peek at some of these beauties. Crawford del Prete, chief research officer at IDC, says the Lenovo and Samsung announcements show how fundamentals are coming together for the PC market. “Haswell should significantly improve battery performance," del Prete says. Haswell is the code name for Intel’s fourth-generation Core processor, and it's finally starting to show up in new systems after months of hype and buildup. that calls for thinner, touchscreen-equipped machines that will play better with Windows 8.
I'm writing this from around seven miles high in the sky, where I can't help but marvel at the technology that's allowing my laptop a reasonably speedy Interent connection (never mind the technology that's keeping me--hopefully--from plummeting to earth). I don't fly that often, but I've done it enough to have learned some tips for successful traveling with technology: If you're shopping for a new portable and can't decide between the 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch models, picture yourself in a coach seat. With the seat in front of you tilted all the way back. You're a sardine. And a big laptop will make it very, very difficult to angle the screen for comfortable viewing, to say nothing of typing.
From the hot metal press to desktop publishing and broadcasting via radio or television, the media has always been driven by technology. You could argue that technology created the media, enabling the dissemination of information with an ambition greater than any town crier could have mustered. the media organization best known for printing the "pink paper," is continuing the trend of using the latest technology to distribute information, while being challenged by other, younger, organizations using the same tools to publish their news and views to an ever-widening audience. as a 2012 report from media regulator Ofcom confirmed. all reported year-on-year decreases in headline circulation, which includes subscriptions, overseas distribution, and bulk sales," reads the report.
Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who leaked information about the country's surveillance programs, left Hong Kong Sunday to a third country. Snowden left Hong Kong on his own accord for a third country through "a lawful and normal channel," despite an earlier request from the U.S. to Hong Kong for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against him, the Hong Kong government said in a statement Sunday. The Hong Kong authorities did not name the country Snowden was headed to. Snowden is on a commercial flight to Russia, but Moscow will not be his final destination, the South China Morning Post last month after leaving his job as a contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii. WikiLeaks said in a Twitter .
Stanford University has launched an online privacy initiative meant to complement Do Not Track, an effort aimed at preventing sites from recording people's Web browsing without permission. announced last week, is expected to improve browser reliability in determining whether a cookie planted by a site is meant only for tracking. Microsoft sparked a huge uproar among online advertisers last year when it decided to indiscriminately in Internet Explorer 10, which ships with Windows 8. The idea behind Do Not Track, of not having their movements on the Web logged by a website or ad network. Most tracking on the Web is done through cookies, small files that sites plant in visitors' browsers, so advertisers can show targeted ads for products and services.
Gartner is giving the thumbs up to crediting the operating system refresh with overcoming the major downsides of Windows 8. for desktops and laptops, not just touchscreen devices, Gartner analysts say. While the operating system originally released last fall is heavily touch-centric, the announced changes that come with Windows 8.1 should be enough to make the new version enterprise ready, say Gartner analysts Michael A. Silver and Stephen Kleynhans. "Based on the information currently available, we believe Windows 8.1 features could quiet most of its detractors," they say in a Those improvements include the capability to boot directly to the desktop rather than the Windows 8 Start screen and restoration of a Start button on the desktop. Ready access to the desktop should make it easier for users to find a familiar interface, and Gartner says that means they will be able to interact with their current apps as they do with Windows 7. "Microsoft has not released many other details, but Gartner expects only minor changes to the Windows desktop, which would ensure high levels of compatibility with legacy Win32 desktop applications," the analysts say.
Texas has become the first state in the nation to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant to read people's email, and privacy advocates are hoping the move will help quicken the passage of a similar proposal in Congress. Texas Gov. Rick Perry . The proposal was introduced in the Legislature by 29-year-old Republican Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a conservative with Tea Party backing. Liberals also supported the measure. While the Lone Star state is the first, it is unlikely to be the last to pass such a law. The California Legislature is considering a bill barring warrantless email surveillance and snooping on messages and profile information stored on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Privacy advocates are hoping that states passing such laws will to amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires a warrant only for unopened email. Opened messages, as well as email left unopened for more than 180 days, do not require federal law enforcement to get a warrant.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has asked Google for information related to its according to reports published on Saturday. The FTC wants to look into possible antitrust issues stemming from the deal, the from Google about the probe. Neither Google nor the FTC immediately responded to a request for comment. Earlier this month, Google announced a crowdsourced mapping application developer based in Israel, saying it wanted to add more real-time navigation tools to its Maps product.
It's hard to keep track of new Google features. They can show up as Google trial balloon and surprise you one day. And then the next day over the past couple days—has been a carousel of images served up when making local search requests. If you've searched Google for something local recently there is a good chance you've seen what I'm talking about. Google's local carousel showcases images of nearby business or attractions related to your search query (see image above). The new layout has been rolling out to the public over the last couple days. Try searching for "coffee spots near me" or "museums near Chicago" and there is a good chance you'll see a strip of images of businesses or points of interests presented horizontally across the top of the Google search results page. A small Google Maps window will appear just below to the right of the carousel. Hover over an image in the carousel and a corresponding Google label lights up on the Google Map showing you where the business or attraction is located. The new layout is an update to Google's integration of local search results and Google Maps. It's also an expansion by Google beyond just mapping restaurants and hotels on Google Maps. According to the , Google's new carousel works with 54 different queries such as nightlife, hiking, soup, and dog parks.