at a Gartner event in Florida that the iPad version won’t come until after a touch-first version is developed for Windows. My first reaction to the news was to shake my head and wonder if Microsoft is still stubbornly clinging to the idea that it can drive sales of Windows mobile devices by holding Microsoft Office hostage. As Microsoft has struggled to compete with iOS and Android, many have suggested that it would be foolish of Microsoft to offer Office on competing platforms because it would take away Microsoft’s only “carrot” for luring people to its own mobile devices. Well, that carrot has been dangled, and nobody is biting. As popular and dominant as the Microsoft Office applications may be among productivity software rivals, the fact is that Windows Phone and Windows tablets have included Microsoft Office and they’re still floundering. Any expectation that Microsoft Office will drive sales has apparently failed. That isn’t to say that Microsoft Office itself is to blame, though. It remains the default productivity suite for businesses and consumers, and the demand is there (albeit waning as time goes by) on competing mobile platforms. It’s just that there are suitable alternative apps available, and Microsoft Office itself is not enough to sway someone to Microsoft mobile devices.
Intel has started shipping new Pentium and Celeron processors based on the Haswell microarchitecture. The processors are aimed at budget laptops. The Pentium and Celeron chips are stripped-down versions of fourth-generation Core processors, which are used in Ultrabooks and more expensive laptops. Intel is providing a range of chips for laptops at different prices, and the Celeron chips are expected to be used in low-cost Chromebooks with Google’s Chrome OS. that future Pentium and Celeron chips would be based on the same architecture used in the latest Atom tablet chips, code-named Bay Trail. However, Haswell provides better performance, while previous Pentium and Celeron chips based on Core architecture have sold well. The company still plans to launch Pentium and Celeron chips based on Bay Trail for low-cost desktops and laptops.
One of the largest comic apps, ComiXology, says digital comics are opening the doors for new readers.
in order to more quickly serve its billion users, and the results are being offered as open-source technology that can also benefit other companies. Recently, Facebook updated its internally developed caching software, called Flashcache, to more efficiently use the thousands of solid-state drives (SSDs) that the social networking giant deploys to store frequently consulted data. is able to make better decisions about what data to cache, while reducing the amount of wear and tear on expensive flash disks. .
It doesn’t take much to please Hewlett-Packard’s investors these days. HP confirmed Wednesday that its revenue will decline slightly next year, but the mention of “pockets of growth” sent hearts aflutter. HP is in the midst of a massive turnaround effort after years of leadership changes, strategic missteps and declines in its traditional PC business. It’s a profitable company, but it’s vital for HP to generate growth so that it can invest in new technologies and stay competitive. This time last year, HP said revenue would start to increase in the current fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31. In August it backtracked and said that was unlikely to happen, and on Wednesday it confirmed its prediction. HP expects to report a year-over-year revenue decline for its fiscal year 2014, which ends next October, though the decline “will moderate from fiscal 2013,” the company said, meaning it will fall by less.
If you think your house has bad cellular coverage, Verizon Wireless has you beat: A small, windowless room high up in a San Francisco office building gets no service at all. That’s not because carriers are neglecting the bustling South of Market business district where the room is located. Instead, it’s because Verizon is paying so much attention to what’s going on there. The room with zero bars is in the heart of the Verizon Innovation Center, where Verizon network and business experts help developers of new wireless devices and apps to turn their ideas into products. The center about two years ago, setting up shop in a hotbed of startup activity in the tech-heavy Bay Area.
The director of the National Security Agency wants you to trust his people. The NSA needs to regain the trust of U.S. residents and the country’s telecom and Internet companies, General Keith Alexander said Wednesday, following about massive data collection and surveillance operations. In addition to its surveillance role, the NSA also has responsibility to protect the U.S. against cyberattacks, and the agency needs cooperation and trust to accomplish its cybersecurity mission, Alexander said in a speech at the Telecommunications Industry Association’s annual conference.
And even better, Amazon's Whispersync technology picks up where you left off no matter whether you're reading, listening, or mixing the two.
The microblogging platform is taking this second-screen thing seriously with a new Comcast partnership that encourages users to use Twitter as a channel changer.
For Apple developers that want an easy way to add cloud storage or device-to-device push notifications to their apps, Google has announced Mobile Backend Starter for iOS. The package gives developers everything they need to quickly set up a back-end for their apps, without having to write any back-end code, according to Google. The same set of features exists for both Android and iOS, and the back-end manages the platform specifics such as using Google Cloud Messaging for Android and APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) for iOS devices. The Android version of the package was announced in June.
And Microsoft's Surface RT falls firmly in the middle.
MediaTek is promising smartphone buyers they will get more bang for their buck now that it plans to introduce its LTE chipsets and use ARM’s upcoming 64-bit processor designs. The semiconductor company has helped cut the cost of low-end phones and now hopes to do the same with sophisticated smartphones. “Our take on the market is that the low-end is being pushed up and the high-end is being pushed down for a number of reasons, so what we will get is a much larger sweet spot of high-performing products at a good price,” said Johan Lodenius, chief marketing officer at MediaTek. The company is getting ready to launch its first SoCs (system-on-a-chips) with LTE. That will bring much needed competition to a sector where Qualcomm’s dominance has resulted “in distorted pricing,” according to Lodenius.
.) The events will begin at 10 p.m. on October 21, at Bellevue Square Mall Westfield San Francisco Centre; Scottsdale Fashion Square; Dadeland Mall in Miami; Lennox Square Mall in Atlanta; the Shops at Prudential Center in Boston; the Westchester in White Plains, N.Y.; the Domain in Austin, Texas; the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City in Arlington, Va.; and Oakbrook Center Mall in Oak Brook, Ill. Microsoft says there will be games and prizes at these locations, and attendees will get a chance to hop a plane to Microsoft's Orlando store to meet Pitbull the next morning. for the limited number of midnight launch locations, but Microsoft's plans are similar to last year, when Microsoft held midnight launches at some locations, while other stores began selling Surface the next morning. (It's unclear whether any other stores will open at midnight without the hoopla; an employee at the store near me in Cincinnati said to check back in a few days.) ” stores in areas where the Microsoft lacks a permanent retail store.
. It doesn't matter how robust your actual password is; if a hacker makes off with an entire password database, he can potentially access your account. (also known as two-step verification), which adds a second level of security to individual accounts. . Here's how to set it up: 1. Sign into your Evernote account in your Web browser.
Samsung introduces a 5.7-inch curved phone for sale in Korea.
The popular mobile messaging application WhatsApp Messenger has a major design flaw in its cryptographic implementation that could allow attackers to decrypt intercepted messages, according to a Dutch developer. The problem is that the same key is used to encrypt both outgoing and incoming streams between the client and the WhatsApp server, said Thijs Alkemade, a computer science and mathematics student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and lead developer of the open-source Adium instant messaging client for Mac OS X. “RC4 is a PRNG [pseudo-random number generator] that generates a stream of bytes, which are xored [a crypto operation] with the plaintext that is to be encrypted. By xoring the ciphertext with the same stream, the plaintext is recovered,” Alkemade said Tuesday in a that describes the issue in detail. Because of this, if two messages are encrypted with the same key and an attacker can intercept them, like on an open wireless network, he can analyze them to cancel out the key and eventually recover the original plaintext information.
Mountain View is installing new Wi-Fi hotspots in parts of the city to supplement the poorly performing network operated by Google. Google, which is based in Mountain View, launched a citywide Wi-Fi network with much fanfare in 2006 as a way for residents and businesses to connect to the Internet at no cost. It covers most of the Silicon Valley city and worked well until last year when connectivity got rapidly worse, according to residents. found it impossible to get a working connection at numerous points around the city, including City Hall and the main library. "The city has received many complaints in recent months regarding the performance and reliability of the free Google Wi-Fi system in Mountain View, particularly at our library," Kimberly Thomas, assistant to the city manager in Mountain View, said on Tuesday.
Network Solutions is investigating an attack by a pro-Palestinian hacking group that redirected websites belonging to several companies. Owned by Web.com, Network Solutions registers domain names, provides hosting services and sells other website-related administration services. claimed responsibility on Twitter. The websites affected included those of the security companies AVG and Avira; the messaging platform WhatsApp; a pornography site, RedTube; and Web metrics company Alexa. John Herbkersman, Web.com's senior director for public communications, said Network Solutions was aware of the problem.
Skype's Android app has received a much-needed overhaul, adding a new look and greatly improved video call quality.
German companies are not legally responsible for the way Facebook processes the personal data of people visiting the companies' Facebook fan pages, a German administrative court ruled on Wednesday, allowing the companies to keep using the pages without violating German data protection laws. The case highlights the uncertainties facing companies and data protection officials when services are hosted or operated from one jurisdiction, but accessed from another. In November 2011, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ULD) for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein ordered companies to deactivate their Facebook fan pages or face a fine of up to €50,000 ($67,800). The ULD maintained that Facebook violated German data protection laws by processing personal data of German users on fan pages and using that data for its own commercial purposes. Companies using fan pages were at least partly responsible for the processing of personal data via those pages, the ULD said. Three organizations challenged the order, suing the ULD in the Administrative Court of Schleswig-Holstein. They disagreed with the ULD and wanted to know if they could legally use Facebook's services, said Marcus Schween, central coordinator for legal affairs at the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Schleswig-Holstein, one of the plaintiffs.
Mozilla Foundation is improving the performance of its Firefox OS software for smartphones, and devices running it will soon go on sale in more European and Latin American countries.
Find a better way to swipe, thumb-type, or dictate your next text message.
The Web is a wild place, with more than the in full effect, you never know if Hollywood is monitoring your peer-to-peer activity. Then there are the malicious hackers trying to reset email, Facebook, and Twitter passwords. No security regimen short of complete hermitage can keep you 100 percent secure. Nevertheless, you can take a few simple precautions to maintain your privacy online and deter all but the most determined bad guys. One of the worst online security mistakes you can make is to connect to an email, bank, or other sensitive account over . If that’s unavoidable—because you spend a lot of time in cafés, hotels, or airports, for example—paying for access to a virtual private network can significantly improve your privacy on public networks. VPNs serve as an encrypted tunnel that prevents bad guys from getting between you and the Internet in order to steal your login credentials or other sensitive information.
You don't drive an electric car. It drives you, from charging station to charging station, as you plan your trips around maintaining the battery. The early infrastructure has a lot more building to do.
Some of the best things in a PC lover's life are indeed free, but they're not always obvious. Beyond the to install on a new PC lies a whole universe of lesser known, yet no less stellar software that's just begging for a spot on your hard drive. Need proof? Check out the following 20 supremely handy-dandy programs. None are household names, but all will rock your world. Let's start with a simple fix for a stupid irritation. If you hover your mouse cursor over a window changes that and lets your scroll through inactive windows with ease. Windows users miss out on something Mac and Linux users have enjoyed for years: virtual desktop support. Virtual desktops create discrete desktop interfaces, letting you, say, maintain separate desktops for work, play, and communication tools, and switch between them at will. It's a great way to reduce clutter and keep like programs together.
IBM has begun integrating its cloud portfolio with cloud computing infrastructure from its $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer Technologies, starting with its social learning platform targeted at a variety of industries. The IT company said in June that it had formed a new cloud services division, and after the close of the acquisition in the third quarter, the new division would combine SoftLayer with IBM SmartCloud into a global platform. SoftLayer infrastructure will be the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio, it said. IBM's Social Learning, a cloud-based global education technology platform, is already in use at Boston Children's Hospital to teach pediatric medicine using real-time videos via a hybrid cloud computing environment. The company said on Wednesday it is commercializing the platform on SoftLayer technology to target a variety of industries, such as retail, energy and utilities, government, healthcare and automotive. of Xtify will also be available on SoftLayer, as indicated earlier.
IBM's decision to license its future Power8 processor to third parties doesn't mean life has ended for the current Power 7+, which will go alongside x86 chips into new PureFlex System preconfigured servers announced on Wednesday. The new servers are targeted for hybrid cloud deployments. The single-chassis PureFlex System Express is aimed at small and medium-size businesses and has an "affordable entry price point," IBM said. The more expensive PureFlex System Enterprise is an is a high-uptime server available in multiple configurations. The servers will become available starting Nov. 15 and pricing will be announced then, an IBM specification sheet said. PureFlex System servers tightly couple IBM hardware and software to run specific applications. A system consists of storage systems, networking components, and computing boards with CPUs, memory and other processing units such as graphics processors. The PureFlex System Enterprise server has more networking, server management and storage options than the PureFlex System Express, which is less flexible.
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Wissenschaftler aus Hawaii kommen in einer neuen Studie zum Schluss: Was wir heute als Extremwetter empfinden, könnte schon in wenigen Jahrzehnten normal sein.
Der amerikanische Basejumper Jeb Corliss hat einen Sprung gewagt, bei dem die Chance zu sterben bei ungefähr 50 Prozent stand. Damit hat er alle Vorurteile über seinen Sport bestätigt.
Die CO2-Emissionen steigen, die globale Erwärmung stagniert. Für Klimaforscher ist dennoch klar: Es braucht Massnahmen gegen den Klimawandel.
Laut Reto Knutti bleibt nicht mehr viel Zeit, um das 2-Grad-Klimaziel zu erreichen.
Es wird wärmer, aber nicht so warm, wie es sollte. Ist das CO2 schuld oder doch die Sonnenaktivitäten? Oder pausiert der Wandel einfach? Die Klimaforscher sind am Ende ihres Lateins.
Der neue Bericht des IPCC heizt den Klimastreit im Bundeshaus an.
Der neue Klimabericht bestätigt den langfristigen Trend einer globalen Klimaerwärmung.
Steigende Meeresspiegel, ungebremster Temperaturanstieg: Klimaexperte Urs Neu sagt, was der Weltklimabericht an Neuem bringt – und was er über die Schweiz aussagt.
Der neue UNO-Klimabericht zeigt: Treibhausgase müssen substanziell reduziert werden.
Der Chemienobelpreis geht an die US-Forscher Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt, Arieh Warshel. Die Jury lobt: «Die Arbeit ist bahnbrechend, weil es gelang, die klassische Physik mit der Quantenphysik zu vereinbaren.»
Das Aufstauen des Stausees Vajont in Italien führte 1963 zu einem Bergrutsch in den See. Eine Wasserwoge flutete das Tal und riss über 2000 Menschen in den Tod.
Geologen sind überzeugt, zum ersten Mal auf der Erde den Bestandteil eines Kometen identifiziert zu haben. Er soll vor 28 Millionen Jahren über Ägypten explodiert sein und eine grosse Katastrophe ausgelöst haben.
Die CIA hat soeben eingeräumt, dass es das sagenumwobene Geheimgebiet Area 51 in der Wüste von Nevada wirklich gibt. Die Legende will es, dass dort im Untergrund fliegende Untertassen gelagert werden.
Warum ist Innovation so wichtig für die Wirtschaft? Und warum lässt die Innovationskraft nach? Nobelpreisträger Edmund Phelps hat die Antworten in seinem neuen Buch.
Auch Schweizer Forscher arbeiteten an den Experimenten im Cern, die zum Nachweis des Higgs-Teilchens führten. Entsprechend gross war die Freude am Nobelpreis auch an der ETH.
Die Forscher am Cern haben das Higgs-Teilchen nachgewiesen, sind nun aber bei der Nobelpreisvergabe leer ausgegangen. Cern-Direktor Rolf-Dieter Heuer erläutert, wieso er sich trotzdem freut.