Software to help small businesses comply with an U.S. Internet sales tax would cost many businesses tens of thousands of dollars to roll out and nearly as much to maintain each year, according to a study released by opponents of the proposed tax. As several U.S. lawmakers and retail groups renew their efforts to get Congress to approve an Internet sales tax, opponents countered Wednesday with a study saying sales tax collection software would cost medium-sized Web-based sellers $80,000 to $290,000 to set up and another $57,500 to $260,000 a year in fees, auditing expense and other costs. Even though some Internet sales tax bills would require states to make tax collection software available free to businesses, many Internet sellers would still have to pay those set-up and maintenance costs, commissioned by True Simplification of Taxation (TruST), a group opposed to an Internet sales tax. It will be difficult for Internet businesses to get software to work with up to 46 states that now collect sales taxes, wrote study authors Larry Kavanagh and Al Bessin. “The result is hardly free,” they wrote. “A ‘plug-in’ integration only works when using unmodified, out-of-the-box software. In the real world, where software has been in use for years and has been modified to fit the retailer’s business, integration is substantially messy and expensive.”
Connectivity to one of three major international ISPs in Sudan has been restored, following reports that the government may be responsible for cutting off the country’s access amid riots over the lifting of fuel subsidies. The African country began losing access to the Internet around 4 p.m. local time Wednesday. Access to the Internet through Canar telecommunications was restored a couple of hours later, but the majority of the country still lacks access, said Doug Madory, senior analyst at the Internet analysis company Renesys. This is the largest national blackout since Egypt lost its access to the Internet in 2011, he said. The country’s two largest international ISP gateways, Sudatel and Zain, were still down at press time. Renesys has seen some other large national outages in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Syria. The fact that all three international gateways in Sudan began losing access around the same time shows that the event was either government directed or the result of a catastrophic physical failure, Madory said.
Microsoft has added features to Power BI for Office 365, a data analysis tool to complement Excel that the company hasn’t yet released in final form. The preview of Power BI for Office 365 now offers users the ability to mine data using natural language, question-and-answer-type queries. “interprets the question the user is asking and serves up the correct interactive chart or graph,” Microsoft said on Wednesday. Microsoft also improved the Power Map functionality, which was formerly called GeoFlow. This Excel add-in lets users overlay geographic and temporal data on Bing Maps. Here's a video demo:
The idea of customizing your in-car display seems unthinkable, but the design pendulum is swinging in that direction. Cadillac's CUE in the 2013 CTS is already customizable, and the 2014 Chevrolet Impala will have a display where you can move icons and change their look as well.
Yes, State of Decay is yet another zombie game. But it's also rather good.
Target Ticket is an on-demand video service where you can buy or rent movies and TV shows, either for streaming or download. If you're wondering how that's different from what iTunes and Amazon offer, you're not alone.
Twitter's new program lets you sign up for push alerts about emergencies, disasters, and public safety information.
Tapping into the immense powers of system automation, Hewlett-Packard has released an appliance that will streamline the management of large numbers of HP servers in a data center. The . HP gave OneView a graphically oriented dashboard interface, one that would allow administrators to easily find information and complete tasks, according to a Web conference the company held Wednesday to introduce the product. The software streamlines common operational tasks in the data center such as provisioning a group of servers to run as a VMware cluster, or retiring a VLAN (virtual local area network).
Amazon's new Kindle Fire HDX, the merits of personal tech support, Steam moves toward releasing its own hardware, and Microsoft introduces the Surface 2.
Will the carrier help the gadget gain traction?
It’s finally happened: Valve announced a new line of home consoles Wednesday that will run send 300 prototypes to Steam users who qualify for the Steam Machines beta program. If you want to join the pool of potential testers, you need to jump through a few hoops before October 25. Log into Steam and join the and agree to the terms and conditions spelled out therein, which include stipulations that any hardware Valve sends you remains the property of Valve and cannot be resold—eBay buyers, beware. Finally, you need to make it clear that you’re no rube when it comes to playing PC games in the living room by ensuring you have a public Steam Community profile, have at least ten people on your Steam friends list, and have at some point played a game with a gamepad in Steam’s Big Picture mode. Got all that? Good. Get ready to wait on the long, long list of people eager to test out the first 300 Steam Machines. Thirty of the machines will be sent to Steam users who are particularly active in the Steam community or who Valve feels have contributed significantly to previous beta tests; the rest will be sent to eligible Steam users chosen at random. You could try to create multiple Steam accounts and run them all through the beta program qualification process, though Valve is quick to claim that such a blatant trick won’t work. As for what we expect to see in the first round of Steam Machines, well, here’s what we know so far: Valve’s prototype is built for people who prefer “the most control possible over their hardware,” but there will be other Steam Machines from different manufacturers that will be designed for people who care more about price, subtlety, or size. The Steam Machine is designed to run SteamOS, but you can modify it to run any operating system you please—though it’s probably smart to keep SteamOS installed on low-powered Steam Machines if you already own a beefy Windows gaming rig, since Valve’s operating system is capable of streaming games from another PC via Wi-Fi and as of this writing only a few hundred of the games on Steam run natively on the Linux-based SteamOS.
If Microsoft does release the so-called Surface Mini, a new report says that you’ll have to wait a while. , which Microsoft has already publicly committed to. The reason? Microsoft is designing the smaller tablet around the “Spring 2014 GDR” release of Windows 8.1, which will be released around the same time as the “Windows Blue” update to Windows Phone Blue, Foley reports. —the only question is whether or not Microsoft would choose to release such a “hero” device itself, or cede the higher-volume, lower-margin parts to its hardware partners.
The isn't the first Monoprice IPS monitor that I've looked at, but it's the first that doesn't feel like a compromise between price and features. The screen itself has never been the issue. Monoprice uses high quality IPS panels from LG along with efficient LED backlights. The first display I looked at, Monoprice's , had a better stand, but the buttons were on the back of the display with no labels on the front. Using the menus required me to crane my head around the back to locate the proper button then come back to the front to see the onscreen menus and then back to the rear to find the up or down button. More concerning, the Zero-G Slim only offered dual-link DVI and VGA connections. The 27-inch IPS-Glass Panel Pro LED Monitor, however, has clearly marked buttons (that all work!) conveniently located on the bottom edge of the case. The Pro LED monitor's stand lets you easily swivel the screen left to right and allows for a few degrees of tilt, but it does not offer height adjustment and the ability to pivot into portrait mode. The display provides DisplayPort and HDMI connections in addition to dual-link DVI and VGA connections. While some newer monitors are beginning to support DisplayPort 1.2's daisy-chaining capabilities, the Monoprice does not. The Pro LED Monitor includes decent sounding speakers, though a pair of inexpensive desktop speakers would probably sound better.
Samsung announced its Solutions Exchange program Wednesday that will help companies write and deploy mobile applications on Samsung smartphones and tablets.
One of the most common questions posed to Microsoft's Surface team Monday was whether the company would buy back used tablets so that customers could upgrade to the newest models set to ship in a month. The Microsoft developers, engineers and program managers who hosted a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" chat Monday afternoon didn't ignore the buyback questions, but had little to offer as an answer. to reporters and analysts, took on Reddit readers in a wide-ranging online Q&A. ]
, a Linux-based operating system based around the incredibly popular Steam PC gaming service, both AMD and Nvidia stepped up their driver support for the open-source OS. Driver support for graphics cards can be a major stumbling block for would-be Linux gamers. Since fewer people use Linux (and most games are created with Windows in mind), driver support for the operating system can be a bit, well, hit-or-miss. that enabled some key features in Linux Radeon drivers, such as dynamic power management and initial support for the "Sea Islands" family of GPUs. . The AMD GPU showcase is expected to start around the same time that Valve unveils its second Steam-related announcement for the week.
The first is a thrilling smartphone display innovation; the second reeks of 'me too!'
All of a sudden, the browser plug-in as we know it is starting to look mighty unpopular. Microsoft barred plug-ins from the modern UI version of Internet Explorer 10 right out of the Windows 8 gate, and this week, the other two major browsers advanced plans to nerf the out-of-the-box functionality of traditional plug-ins. Google announced that plug-ins using the uber-popular NPAPI architecture would be this coming January, rather than running automatically. Many top plug-ins use the technology, including Java, Silverlight, Unity, Google Earth, Google Talk, Facebook Video, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Shockwave, Windows Media Player and Adobe Reader prior to Adobe Reader X. That’s just a stopgap, though: In May 2014, Google will stop publishing new NPAPI-based plug-ins in the Chrome Web Store, leading up to a complete removal of all NPAPI plug-ins in September. Eventually, Google Chrome security engineer Justin Schuh said Monday in a , “NPAPI support will be completely removed from Chrome.”
, one of which was how to access tabs you've recently closed. Today, Google rolled out a Chrome update that not only relocates that useful option, but also simplifies the browser's new-tab interface. or clicking the new-tab button), you'd see one of two pages: a collection of Chrome apps or a bunch of thumbnails for your most-visited sites. That was kind of a hassle, having to switch between the two. Now, everything is accessible from a single, more unified, page.
The successor to 2010's critically-acclaimed horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Machine for Pigs asks “What would happen if we based a game off Upton Sinclair's The Jungle?” The answer: sweet, sweet chaos.
carries penalties of $5,000 to $100,000 per month. , these tips can point you in the right direction. To greatly simplify your required security measures for PCI compliance, don’t save or store any cardholder data in written or digital form. Use a card reader, POS, and/or payment processor that doesn’t retain this information on your systems so you won’t have to worry about protecting and encrypting that data. Check with payment vendors for details on their particular models.
At first glance, Notepad2 doesn't have much to distinguish itself from WordPad, the standard Windows notepad. But it offers a number of features that can make it worth the upgrade.
I’ve upgraded dozens of systems with solid-state drives. In every case I’ve gotten a “W” reaction, as in “Wow!” “Whoa!” and “No way!” (not to mention “Kewl!”). Given a relatively modern CPU, an SSD delivers more satisfaction than any upgrade I know. Don’t take my word for it, however: Believe the numbers. Most people who want to boost their desktop computer’s performance will upgrade either its GPU (easy) or its CPU (only slightly more complicated). Typically it’s impossible to upgrade either component on a laptop. Storage upgrades, meanwhile, usually happen only after you’ve accumulated too much digital stuff (movies, music, and what have you), not when you’re looking to make your PC faster. Most SSDs don’t offer a lot of storage capacity, so they’re relatively expensive on a per-gigabyte basis compared with mechanical hard drives. Modern SSDs are many times faster than their mechanical cousins, though, so it stands to reason that installing one in an older PC will improve the system’s performance. But just how much of an increase can you expect to realize? The typical SSD product review is designed to test the drive’s maximum performance, so the testbed usually consists of a state-of-the art PC. What happens when you put an SSD into an aging computer? Do the PC’s older components—its CPU, motherboard, core-logic chipset, and the like—squelch the SSD’s potential?
Roku sets its hand for the holidays with an updated lineup of streaming set-top boxes.
A controversial biometric project in India, which could require people to produce their biometric IDs to collect government subsidies, has received a significant setback from the country's Supreme Court. The court ruled this week in an interim order that people cannot be required to have the controversial Aadhaar identification to collect state subsidies, even as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government agency that manages the project, has been trying to promote the Aadhaar number as proof of identity for a variety of services including banking. The UIDAI has said that the scheme is voluntary, but some states and agencies have attempted to link the identification to the implementation of programs such as cash subsidies for cooking gas that benefit even the middle and richer classes. "I signed up for Aadhaar only to ensure that I continue to get a gas cylinder at reasonable rates," said an executive in Bangalore who had queued up a few months ago for an Aadhaar number. The state of Maharashtra, for example, aims to be the first state in the country to roll out Aadhaar-linked subsidy transfers to LPG (liquified petroleum gas) consumers across all the districts in the state.
Loaded with more pixels than you'll know what to do with, the new Fire tablets also include 'X-Ray' features for second-screen TV viewing and a 'Mayday' button for real-time video tech support.
A San Francisco strip club has filed a lawsuit against Oracle, alleging an employee of the software giant didn’t pay a $33,540 bill run up over two days last year. The New Century Theater filed suit on Sept. 3 in San Francisco County Superior Court. Oracle has 30 days to respond from the day it is served legal papers. alleges an American Express corporate credit card in the name of Oracle/Iberica was used by Jose Manuel Gomez Sanchez for $16,490 in charges on Oct. 2, 2012, and for $17,050 worth of charges on Oct. 4, 2012. “Mr. Sanchez signed for each of these charges in which the cardholder was in fact Oracle,” the suit alleged.
Nur gerade 90 Meter breit ist die Insel, die sich nach dem Erdbeben in Belutschistan aus dem Meer vor Pakistan erhob. Florian Haslinger vom Schweizerischen Erdbebendienst SED erklärt das Phänomen.
Forscher haben in China einen versteinerten Panzerfisch gefunden. Das Fossil ist nur knapp 20 Zentimeter lang – doch es könnte die Theorie von der Entstehung der Wirbeltiere revolutionieren.
Das grösste Flugzeug der Welt hat Zürich wieder verlassen. Kurz vor 16 Uhr startete die russische Maschine Richtung arabische Halbinsel.
Die meisten sehen sie als Gefahr für die Schafherden – dabei sind Luchs und Wolf wichtig für die Waldpflege. Sie verpassen den Bäumen eine dringend benötigte Verjüngungskur.
Aus Angst vor teuren Haftpflichtklagen behandelt das Zürcher Unispital keine Patienten aus den USA und Kanada. Andere nehmen das Risiko in Kauf.
Der Zürcher Extremkletterer Matthias Trottmann hat die erste Rotpunktbegehung der derzeit schwierigsten Nordwandroute der Schweiz geschafft. Das muss gewürdigt werden.
Premiere am Flughafen Zürich: Mit der Antonow An-225 ist hier am Dienstag erstmals ein Flugzeug gelandet, das grösser ist als der A380 und das es nur einmal gibt. berichtete vor Ort.
Laut einer Untersuchung des Zürcher Kinderspitals verzögert Koffein die Hirnentwicklung in der Pubertät. Studienleiter Reto Huber nimmt Stellung.
Es ist 120 Meter hoch und liefert 2300 Kilowatt Strom: Auf der Anhöhe Lutersarni im Entlebuch hat das grösste Innerschweizer Windkraftwerk den Betrieb aufgenommen.
Karl Ehrenbaum möchte, dass die Menschen an seinen Veranstaltungen mehr über die Medizin und ihren eigenen Körper lernen.
Moskau dreht einmal mehr am Uhrzeiger: Nach nur zwei Jahren will das Riesenreich im Winter die Normalzeit wieder einführen. Nicht nur die dunklen Wintermorgen schlagen den Menschen aufs Gemüt.
Der Koffeinkonsum von Kindern und Jugendlichen ist in den letzten 30 Jahren um über 70 Prozent gestiegen. Jetzt zeigt eine Studie, dass dies in der Pubertät gravierende Folgen haben kann.
Thomas Stocker leitet die Klimaverhandlungen mit über 190 Regierungsdelegationen. Der Berner Forscher sieht keine Pause im Klimawandel. Langfristig steige die Temperatur weiter an.
Lange musste sich der UNO-Weltklimarat die Kritik gefallen lassen, nicht unabhängig zu sein. Der IPCC hat aus seinen Fehlern gelernt: Seinen Kritikern gehen die Argumente aus.
Das französische Unternehmen Quiet Oceans entwickelte eine Risikokarte, die Bauplaner über die Lärmempfindlichkeit von Meeressäugern orientiert.