The suspected China-based hackers known as the "Comment Crew" are back at it again, a development likely to contribute to continued tensions between the U.S. and China over cyberattacks. The security community has had the group under its watch for a number of years, but in February, its activity was exhaustively detailed from computer security vendor Mandiant. Mandiant's report said a specific The Comment Crew laid low for a while following the report but is back hacking again, said Alex Lanstein, senior researcher for FireEye.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman stressed as HP tried to win Chinese business customers at an event in Beijing last week. "Believe me, HP is here to stay," Whitman said in a keynote at the HP World Tour in Beijing. "We've come a long way since I joined Hewlett Packard 20 months ago." HP has made the rapidly-growing Chinese market a strong international focus. Whitman and other HP officials took their case directly to Chinese businesses at a two-day event, which for businesses focused on . The speech marked Whitman's third trip to China. She said she has spoken to 525 Chinese customers and 225 partners in the last year.
A moderately busy small or home office is the target audience for the Canon Pixma MX922, a $200 (as of 06/28/2013) color inkjet multifunction that can handle every office chore from automatic two-sided scanning and printing, to faxing and printing optical media. Output quality and speed are good, too. But the party ends with the ink costs: The MX922 ships with low-capacity starter cartridges, and the regular and larger cartridges are no great bargain. cousin. However, it retains Canon's dodgy, last-generation controls, with the three action buttons and separate four-way cursor. The issue with these is that some functions are available only via the action buttons, and some only via the contextually lit cursor/okay buttons. It's confusing, inefficient, and—if you use the panel often enough—aggravating. On the plus side, the button grid transforms into a keypad when you need to use the unit's fax capabilities. Installing is MX922 is easy, if a wee bit tedious. There are quite a few dialogs to click through, but the install routine found the printer on the network quickly and there were no other glitches. We used Wi-Fi, but you may also connect directly to a PC via the unit's USB 2.0 port, or wire it to your network via ethernet. The software is the usual efficient Canon bundle, with its veteran scanning utility, Image Garden for organizing and editing photos, and a solid driver. There are also the usual remote and email printing features. As mentioned, the MX922 automatically prints and scans in duplex. Paper capacity is good for a small office multifunction: 250 sheets, which reside in a bottom-mounted cassette that extends to handle legal-sized paper. Directly above the cassette and revealed when the front panel drops are a 20-sheet tray for 4-by-6-inch photo media and a feed for printable optical media. As with most Canon printers, the front panel drops automatically, so you can keep it closed for appearances yet not have to worry about a paper catastrophe if you print without checking the machine first.
Yahoo is slimming itself down again by axing 12 of its products, part of an ongoing effort to sharpen its focus on services it thinks people need in their daily lives. The list includes AltaVista, the granddaddy of search engines, and Yahoo RSS Alerts. The other products, including Yahoo Axis, Citizen Sports and Yahoo Browser Plus, are less well known. “Today we’re shutting down a few products so we can continue to focus on creating beautiful products that are essential to you every day,” said Jay Rossiter, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo, in a Friday afternoon. Yahoo ditched in April, such as Deals and SMS Alerts, touting similar goals around “sharpening our focus.”
Google now offers the ability to edit Office documents within Chrome OS, although the new feature is currently far less capable than the document-editing capabilities of Google’s own Google Apps. However, there’s one reason why this is worth checking out: the service is the first time that Google’s QuickOffice has made an appearance. In June of 2012, . “Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.” That sums it up quite nicely: for now, Google Apps provides the functionality and QuickOffice provides the compatibility aspect. Since the purchase, Google has worked to bring the QuickOffice technology to its other properties, namedly Chrome OS.
Closing out June, tech stocks are up for the year but have not enjoyed the full fruits of a bull market that has boosted the Dow to its best first half since 1999, right before the dot-com crash. The tech sector also faces what some analysts predict to be a rough few quarters, amid doubts about the economy and market forecasts for a tough year for tech sales. Tech stocks were up Friday, with the Nasdaq Computer Index, which tracks more than 300 tech-related stocks, closing at 1615.46, up 2.21 percent. It was a mixed day of trading, however. Of the five tech bellwethers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Intel and Hewlett-Packard closed up for the day, while IBM, Microsoft and Cisco were down. Unusually, compared to what's been happening so far this year, tech was up while other sectors were down Friday. The Dow and the Standard and Poor's 500 were both down for the day.
There are lots of things in this world to be afraid of. Spiders. Terrorists. Clowns. Now it seems you can add IT projects to that list. Online storage provider which note that 55 percent of IT managers complain that the companies they work for "perceive the adoption of technology as a risk" and that 57 percent of company executives are "fearful of new technology implementations." 37 percent of respondents to the survey said that IT projects had been axed or blocked due to this fear. Fear? Fear of what, exactly?
Oracle’s string of high-profile cloud-computing partnership announcements with Microsoft, Salesforce.com and NetSuite dominated tech news headlines this week. While certain aspects of them weren’t as “startling” as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had promised they would be, its deal with Salesforce.com definitely lived up to the hype and could have some lasting ramifications. Here’s a look at the potential fallout. The partnership announced this week by Oracle and Salesforce.com, under which Salesforce.com will stands to provide a major initial test case for the cloud computing-friendly capabilities built into Oracle’s newly released Database 12c. The release’s “pluggable databases,” allows many individual databases to reside inside a single instance. It represents Oracle’s take on multitenancy, the architectural approach SaaS (software as a service) vendors such as Salesforce.com have used to serve many customers more efficiently.
The Acer Iconia W3 flips Windows computing on its head, rotating the screen into an 8.1-inch, easy-to-hold, portrait form factor. This may seem like a trivial improvement, but it’s more significant than you might think. Microsoft offered the Acer Iconia W3-810 to all attendees at its at the Computex trade show. I played with the Iconia W3 for several hours, looking to determine whether the smaller size and screen improves the basic Windows tablet experience. It definitely does, especially if you frequently surf the Web with Internet Explorer. And with its included version of Office, plus a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard, content creation is possible on the Iconia W3, too. Microsoft's Surface tablets (and similar Windows 8 devices with displays in the neighborhood of 10 inches) are all much larger than the Iconia W3—leaving the W3 to play the role of Google's Nexus 7 within the Windows ecosystem. If anything, Acer's Iconia W3 is a viable competitor to the Surface, which would normally deliver the “pure” Windows experience. The Iconia W3 ($429 direct from Acer) runs the full version of Windows 8. It's the OS that came on the hardware Microsoft provided, and we didn't update it to Windows 8.1 for expediency’s sake. Inside the tablet is an Intel dual-core Atom Z2760 running at 1.5GHz—the same “Clover Trail” chip that powered many underpowered, first-generation Windows tablets. While the weak CPU may rule out a purchase for some, don’t necessarily dismiss the Iconia W3 outright. It ran Pinball FX2 and other apps just fine.
Microsoft Thursday released its Windows 8.1 beta as a disk image, making it more convenient to upgrade multiple devices within an organization or enterprise. launched Wednesday, but was initially only available from Microsoft’s app market, the Windows Store. Each Windows 8 or Windows RT PC or tablet had to individually download the massive upgrade from the store. By downloading a disk image, then burning it to DVD or storing it on a USB flash drive, users can upgrade machines or devices faster or when they are offline. The .iso files range in size from 2.7GB to 3.9GB, depending on the language and whether the upgrade is 32- or 64-bit. Microsoft has made disk images available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved legislation that would more than double the current skilled immigration H-1B cap with the focus on science and technology workers. The House Judiciary Committee approved the Supplying Knowledge Based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visa Act, or the SKILLS Visa Act, by a vote of 20-14 late Thursday. The bill would set aside 55,000 green cards each year for employers to hire foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. would also increase the annual H-1B visa cap to 155,000, from the current 65,000, and increase the additional H-1Bs set aside for foreign graduates of U.S. universities from 20,000 to 40,000.
Don’t be fooled by all this blabber about Windows 8.1 being Microsoft’s grand chance for a re-do—talk I’m admittedly guilty of myself. , but as an operating system built from the ground up to revolve around an app-based experience, it—and specifically the Start screen—can never truly shine unless the Windows Store is stuffed. That’s a big problem, since , but Microsoft took advantage of the developer conference to announce a slew of high-profile apps coming to Windows 8’s virtual marketplace. Here’s a rundown of the biggest apps destined to land on the Windows Store’s currently dusty shelves. Finally—” isn’t Microsoft’s official answer to the missing Facebook-app question.
Microsoft has released a SkyDrive Pro mobile application that gives SharePoint Online users access to the cloud storage service from devices. The free application is available in the Windows Store and for people who use SharePoint Online in the broader Office 365 cloud collaboration and communication suite. The iOS version of the application works on iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. Microsoft already had a version of this application for Windows Phone 8 smartphones.
If you recently purchased an Ultrabook™ or plan to do so in the future, don’t be surprised to find it equipped with a mysterious-sounding feature: . Built to beam video from your Ultrabook to your TV, WiDi dispenses with the cable you’d normally need to bridge the two, instead relying on specialized wireless technology. Why would you want to do that? Actually, the possibilities are pretty endless. And fun, too, if you push WiDi’s capabilities to the edge. Here’s a look at four fun and creative ways to use WiDi around the house, all of them guaranteed to make your Ultrabook an even more indispensable member of the family. Ever notice how in every sci-fi movie, the homes of the future all have walls with ever-changing scenic landscapes? One minute it’s the calm blue ocean, the next a gorgeous mountain view, and so on. Scientists haven’t quite invented LCD wall paint, but you can enjoy the next best thing by pairing your Ultrabook with a WiDi-capable projector. For example, LG’s PA70G and PB60G both have the technology built right in—ostensibly for running PowerPoint presentations without wires, but way more fun for trying to recreate “.” Once you have the hardware, all you need is spacious blank wall—preferably painted white or light gray—and some kind of slideshow program stocked with scenic wallpapers. Dim the lights, then kick back and enjoy your sci-fi scenery wall.
, and it’s not a pretty picture: BlackBerry the company will survive, but it’s time to throw in the towel on BlackBerry the mobile platform vendor. went so far as to suggest that number would be 3.6 million. The tally for BB10 devices was a mere 2.7 million. Wall Street projected revenue of $3.4 billion, but BlackBerry reported a paltry $3.1 billion. Do those figures assure that the end is nigh for BlackBerry as a company? Not necessarily, but this should have been BlackBerry’s biggest quarter in years. This was supposed to be its moment to shine. It was BlackBerry’s last best chance to demonstrate that after all the setbacks and delays, BlackBerry 10 was worth the wait, and that the company is back and ready to go head-to-head with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. BlackBerry didn’t even meet conservative Wall Street expectations, in a quarter that included the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10. This is the pinnacle. Demand for BlackBerry devices will never be any higher, and the fight for market share will not get any easier. So, yes—the future looks very bleak for BlackBerry as a mobile platform.
You may or may not realize it, but you put a lot of your life on Facebook. The social networking website gets its hooks into everyone, making them lose their inhibitions about revealing everything in their lives, including all the latest snapshots. If this sounds like you, you may want to use fbDownloader to create a secondary backup of those pictures.
One of my chief complaints with Windows 8 is that Microsoft forced you to boot to the new Start screen rather than giving you the option of booting to the desktop--which is where I prefer to hang my computing hat. working in Desktop), but with the release of Windows 8.1, Microsoft has added the capability. In other words, now you can boot directly to the desktop. It's not immediately obvious how--Microsoft still doesn't outfit Windows with any "guides to new features" or the like, a silly oversight--but at least it's easy once you know the steps. tile to enter Desktop mode.
A former high-ranking U.S. military official is reportedly under investigation for leaking classified information related to the use of malicious software to disrupt Iran’s uranium refinement program. , citing anonymous legal sources. DOJ officials could not immediately be reached. that Cartwright was under investigation. that Cartwright was a key player in persuading former President George Bush to consider cyberattacks as a way to counter Iran’s nuclear program.
A new piece of malware designed to delete files from hard disk drives and render computers unable to boot targets South Korean users, according to researchers from security firm Symantec. The malware is similar to the Jokra Trojan program that was used in March to wipe the hard drives of computers belonging to several banks and TV broadcasters in South Korea, leading to significant disruptions of their operations. , including that of South Korean President Park Guen-hye. .
More than 1,600 websites selling pharmaceutical products, including some spoofing CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, were shut down this week in a sting involving 99 countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday. many of the websites were part of an organized criminal network that runs sites under the “Canadian Pharmacy” banner. Called “Operation Pangea VI,” the enforcement action ran for a one-week period through Tuesday, and investigators seized $41 million worth of illegal medicine, the FDA said. At least of the two of the websites purported to belong to the CVS pharmacy chain and Walgreens, using slight spelling and punctuation variations of those brands in domain names.
Intel’s CTO and director of its labs Justin Rattner is stepping down to meet a requirement under the company’s bylaws that employees cannot serve as corporate officers after the age of 65. Rattner will, however, return to Intel at a later date in an as yet undetermined role after taking personal leave immediately to deal with a “pressing family matter,” Intel said. The company did not immediately announce a successor to Rattner, whose exit on account of the age limit would have been expected within the company. Intel Labs will report to Intel president Renée James until further decisions related to its leadership are made, the company said. After Rattner’s return, he and the management team will decide what role he will play, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy in an email. “While we were certainly aware of Justin’s age our management team will use this opportunity to evaluate how we organize our R&D efforts including Intel labs,” he added.
You’ve probably read at least one story with warnings about using , so you know that eavesdroppers can capture information traveling over those networks. But nothing gets the point across as effectively as seeing the snooping in action. So I parked myself at my local coffee shop the other day to soak up the airwaves and see what I could see. My intent wasn't to hack anyone's computer or device—that's illegal—but just to listen. It’s similar to listening in on someone’s CB or walkie-talkie radio conversation. Like CBs and walkie-talkies, Wi-Fi networks operate on public airwaves that anyone nearby can tune into. As you'll see, it’s relatively easy to capture sensitive communication at the vast majority of public hotspots—locations like cafes, restaurants, airports, hotels, and other public places. You can snag emails, passwords, and unencrypted instant messages, and you can hijack unsecured logins to popular websites. Fortunately, ways exist to protect your online activity while you’re out-and-about with your laptop, tablet, and other Wi-Fi gadgets. I'll touch on those, too. I opened my laptop at the coffee shop and began capturing Wi-Fi signals, technically called 802.11 packets, with the help of a free trial of a wireless network analyzer. The packets appeared on screen in real time as they were captured—much more quickly than I could read them—so I stopped capturing after a few minutes to analyze what I had vacuumed up. Note: You can click on any of these screenshots to view larger versions that are easier to read.
BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones and recorded a $84 million loss during the three months to June 1, as it struggles to turn around its fortunes.
, Microsoft’s about-face when it comes to encouraging people to put PCs in their living rooms is less of a puzzle. Third-party developers, on the other hand, haven’t given up on the home-theater PC concept. Ceton’s InfiniTV 6 is a good example: This digital tuner lets you watch and/or record up to six digital cable TV channels simultaneously. : It plugs into your router, so that every PC on your network that’s running Windows Media Center can access live TV. Let’s say you have a home-theater PC connected to the TV in your living room, a desktop in the den, and a couple of laptops scattered around the house: Each one can tap that generous pool of tuners. But keep in mind that your cable company’s largely uncompressed HD signals will eat up a lot of bandwidth. For a wireless network setup, you’ll need an 802.11ac router, the InfiniTV 6 will need a hard-wired ethernet cable connection (although you could try deploying an 802.11ac bridge nearby), and each PC would need to be outfitted with an 802.11ac adapter.
I thought this cart for Lenovo’s 27-inch IdeaCentre Horizon tablet/all-in-one PC was pretty cool when I first laid eyes on the prototype, and I got even more excited when I heard the real thing would retail for $299. That’s a reasonable price for a specialized product that will never be mass-produced. I mean, I don’t expect Lenovo to sell millions of Horizons, and only a fraction of those buyers will pick up the cart to go with it. Now that I’ve spent some time with the finished product, I’m not nearly as jazzed. Let me give you the upside before I bang on the cart’s shortcomings. The tablet itself weighs nearly 19 pounds, so it’s not something you can just tuck under your arm and move from room to room. And you definitely won’t want your kids lugging it to and fro. Mount it to the cart, on the other hand, and the combo can move effortlessly around the house—provided it’s rolling on tile, vinyl, cork, or hardwood floors or very low-pile carpet. Brakes on all four wheels keep the cart stationary when you arrive at your destination, and the base is wide enough that you don’t need to worry about it tipping over even if you push hard while the brakes are locked. Lay the computer flat in table mode, and you can play air hockey, arcade games, and board games using the provided paddles, joysticks, and E-dice. Now for the other side of the scale: You can’t pivot the tablet into portrait mode, which means it’s no good for playing virtual pinball. And while you can tilt the tablet on its horizontal axis and use it as an all-in-one PC, you’ll need to hold the keyboard on your lap. The removable tray that mounts to the center column is suitable only for storing accessories. Also, you have no surface for operating the mouse, leaving you dependent on the touchscreen. Last, the cart is not height-adjustable—a big ergonomic no-no.
Business use of cloud services for handling sensitive infomation is skyrocketing, and a new study finds that corporate anxiety about the security of that information is rising right along with it. for the encryption key management company Thales e-Security, more than half (53 percent) of the 4,205 business and IT managers surveyed said they were already sending sensitive data to the cloud. Another 31 percent of the respondents, from seven countries—the United States, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom—said they expected to do so within the next two years. But what's even more interesting is that 35 percent of the companies surveyed said their firm’s security exposure was worse as a result. Richard Moulds, vice president in charge of strategy for Thales e-Security, said businesses should be concerned about the security of sensitive data in the cloud, even though most services promise to encrypt it. Once data leaves the premises, he said, businesses have little way of knowing how the encryption is managed. Small businesses in particular face increased security risks because their data is often kept on servers that host multiple customers. Moulds likened most cloud encryption guarantees to providing a door lock without safeguarding the key. “It isn’t about how well your door lock works. If you’ve got your key under a flowerpot on the front doorstep, there’s not much point.”
Windows 8.1 is Microsoft's chance to regain the goodwill lost in the contentious release of the new-look Windows 8 operating system—and by and large, the feature-packed re-do . (Boot to desktop, and a better Windows Store? Yes, please!) Sure, Windows 8.1's improvements are more about refinement than revolution, but this is an update, not a whole new OS. While …perfect. In fact, after spending more than a day tinkering with Windows 8.1, we can think of a dozen additions we'd love to see. With the official release of Windows 8.1 likely still months off, Microsoft has time to add these features to the update. Fingers crossed! The simple return of the Start button, even in its bastardized "drop you on the Start screen" form, fixes one of the major interface woes found in the original Windows 8.0 release, especially when paired with the new All Apps button. But Microsoft shouldn't stop there.
that let you whip through huge files and shrug off bumps and vibrations. But those SSDs tend to contain a lot less storage space than their bulkier laptop cousins. And that can be a problem when it comes to installing software and having access to your data while on the go. With a little help from the cloud, though, you’ll never miss that extra storage space. rely on flash-based solid state drives which have no moving parts to break and require less space and less power and are faster than a traditional hard drive. However, those SSDs hold a lot less data than most standard hard drives. 128GB and 256GB are the norm, as opposed to the 500GB and 750GB behemoths found in many traditional laptops.
Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff’s long-running public feud appears to be over, with the CEOs of Oracle and Salesforce.com making a joint appearance Thursday to extol the virtues of a new partnership they describe as financially sensible and strategically pragmatic. “The best decision we ever made is to go with Oracle” for Salesforce.com’s infrastructure, Benioff said of a company he once accused of selling a “false cloud.” Improvements for cloud computing in Oracle’s new 12c database “are extremely important” to Salesforce.com and the vendor expects to cut its database server costs “in half,” he said. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to make this announcement with you today, Larry.” Ellison, who a “roach motel” that is difficult for customers to migrate away from, had no such jibes on Thursday. “Salesforce.com and Oracle have some overlapping products, but there are far more opportunities to work together than to compete,” he said.
Further boosting its presence in the field of product marketing, Adobe is acquiring campaign management software provider Neolane for approximately $600 million in cash. Based in Paris, privately held Neolane specializes in orchestrating marketing campaigns across multiple channels, including Web, email, social media sites, mobile, call center outreach, direct mail and point-of-sale locations. Its flagship product is called Conversational Marketing Platform. Neolane, founded in 2001, reports having about 400 corporate customers, including many that also use Adobe products. The customers cover a wide range of industries and include Ikea, EMI Music, Barnes & Noble, DHL International, Wells Fargo Center and others. The company reported $58 million in revenue for 2012. It’s Neolane’s cross-channel campaign management capabilities that caught the attention of Adobe, said Brad Rencher, an Adobe senior vice president and general manager of Adobe’s digital marketing business, in a statement. These capabilities extend Adobe’s own Marketing Cloud portfolio of products and services, joining the existing Analytics, Target, Social, Experience Manager and Media Optimizer lines.
