Der helvetische Webhosting Provider Hostpoint erhält eine Akkreditierung der Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). Das Unternehmen wird damit offizieller Registrar. Über den Schweizer Webhoster können damit Domainnamen mit Endungen wie .com, .net., .org, .biz, .info, aber auch .aero, .asia, .cat, .coop, .jobs, .mobi, .museum, .name, .pro, .tel, .travel sowie .xxx in Zukunft ohne Zwischenhändler registriert werden.
Der Chipkonzern Infineon kauft in grösserem Massstab Aktien zurück. Bis Herbst 2015 sollen dafür bis zu 300 Millionen Euro ausgeben werden, wie das Unternehmen am Dienstag mitteilte. Zum aktuellen Kurs könnten somit etwa 42 Millionen Anteilsscheine erworben werden.
UPC Cablecom wird in den nächsten zwei Jahren mehr als 1000 4G-Antennen mit Bandbreiten von 1 bis 10 Gbit/s versorgen. Orange baut die 4G-Abdeckung hierzulande weiter aus und hat hierfür mit Cablecom ein mehrjähriges Kooperationsabkommen unterzeichnet. Der Auftrag von Orange ist für die Cablecom in der Schweiz der bislang grösste überhaupt im Geschäftskundenbereich.
Die US-amerikanische CRM- und Cloud-Spezialistin Salesforce hat im vergangenen dritten Fiskalquartal 2014 nicht nur starke Umsatzzahlen vorgelegt, gleichzeitig hat das Unternehmen auch eine neue Cloud-Partnerschaft mit dem IT-Giganten Hewlett-Packard (HP) unterzeichnet.
Die Fehraltdorfer IT-Dienstleisterin Up-Great unterstützt im Zuge eines Outsourcing-Projektes künftig die IT-Infrastruktur, das Server-Management sowie das Desktop-Management des im Tankstellen- und Energiegeschäft tätigen Unternehmens Socar. Auch den allgemeinen Helpdesk für die Mitarbeitenden bietet Up-Great an. Das Besondere daran: Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Socar und Up-Great kam via Google-Suche zustande.
Sowohl die schwedische als auch die finnische Polizei wollen mehr Kontrolle über den Datenverkehr von Handy- und Computerbenutzern. Laut einem Bericht des Schwedischen Rundfunks vom Dienstag verhandelt die Sicherheitspolizei des Landes (Säpo) mit Netzbetreibern über eine entsprechende Datenübermittlung.
Der US-Geheimdienst NSA späht offenbar auch die Telefonate norwegischer Bürger in grossem Stil aus. Die norwegische Zeitung "Dagbladet" berichtete am Dienstag unter Berufung auf Dokumente des früheren US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiters Edward Snowden, allein innerhalb eines Monats seien mehr als 33 Millionen Telefonate ausgespäht worden. Zuvor waren bereits ähnliche Ausspähaktionen des US-Geheimdienstes in Deutschland, Frankreich, Spanien, Brasilien und Indien enthüllt geworden.
Turbulente Zeiten für die Kryptowährung Bitcoin. Vor wenigen Wochen noch krachte der Kurs von rund 200 Dollar infolge der Schliessung des "Silk Road"-Onlineschwarzmarkts auf etwa 120 Dollar herab, befindet sich das elektronische Zahlungsmittel nunmehr wieder auf einem Höhenflug. Am 18. November lag der Kurs der Währung kurzfristig bei über 700 Dollar.
Die bereits für die vergangenen X.Days 2013 abgeschlossene Partnerschaft mit dem Institut für Marketing der Universität St. Gallen soll für die nächste Ausgabe der X.Days, die am 19. und 20. März 2014 stattfindet, weitergeführt und ausgebaut werden.
Computer, Tablets und Smartphones sollen nach Ansicht der Grünen so gebaut werden, dass sie möglichst lange halten und kostengünstig repariert werden können. Um dieses Anliegen zu erreichen, wollen sie auch die Hersteller in die Pflicht nehmen.
A U.S. judge has shut down an online business-listing operation that allegedly bilked more than $14 million from U.S. small businesses and churches. Judge Virginia Kendall of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, against the Canadian operation Monday at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s request. The operation sold unwanted business listings, calling them yellow page listings, to U.S. businesses and organizations, the FTC said. The operation, based in Montreal, has generated more than 13,000 complaints, the . The defendants used corporate shells and mail drops in the U.S. to hide their actual location, the . The defendants often called business and organizations purporting to verify contact information to update or confirm existing directory listings, the agency said.
, a unique portable Wi-Fi router that does double duty by adding a battery-powered gadget charger to the mix. Mobile hotspots are an increasingly important category for tech users who find themselves away from the home or office, as users who are constantly on the go know that a Wi-Fi signal is often unavailable when they need to get online. Mobile hotspots give your devices an instant connection to the Internet through the cellular data network. You just use your laptop or tablet to connect to the hotspot via Wi-Fi, then leapfrog to the web via a 4G or 3G data connection. Because a mobile hotspot can connect to multiple devices simultaneously, it's a good solution for Wi-Fi-free conference rooms, impromptu brainstorming sessions, and even family road trips. Rather than requiring everyone in the room to use their own methods to get online, a single mobile hotspot can do the job more cost-effectively. AT&T's Unite Pro extends what you can do with your mobile hotspot by adding a small but powerful battery to the product. The Unite Pro's BatteryBoost feature lets you connect your smart phone directly to the hotspot via a standard mini USB connection, letting you charge your phone from the hotspot's internal battery when its juice is beginning to dwindle.
In his last appearance at a Microsoft shareholder meeting as CEO, Steve Ballmer said he’s completely certain the company is in very good shape to succeed in the next decade under someone else’s captainship. Ballmer, who has gotten emotional in some public appearances since announcing , spoke with conviction but stayed composed throughout the meeting, which was webcast. “There is a tremendous amount of opportunity ahead for Microsoft,” he said. Ironically, Bill Gates, who is viewed as more cerebral, did choke up at the end of his prepared remarks when he addressed Ballmer’s retirement and the . Both he and Ballmer are committed to making sure that the next CEO “is the right person at the right time for this company” and that this person will guide Microsoft to success, Gates said, as his voice broke.
Helping scientific supercomputing take advantage of emerging big-data technologies, high-performance computing manufacturer Cray is releasing a set of packages promising to optimize the process of running Hadoop on the company’s XC30 machines. The Cray Framework for Hadoop, along with the Cray Performance Pack for Hadoop, provides a set of tools and best practices for configuring and optimizing an XC30 to run Hadoop for scientific big-data-style projects, according to the company. Hadoop’s Java-based MapReduce model of data analysis could bring a number of benefits to supercomputing, though it has not found widespread acceptance in that community yet, even though both deploy parallel processing and extremely large data sets. Cray has seen some interest in Hadoop from its users, though the open-source data processing platform was not set up to meet most scientific supercomputing use cases, said Bill Blake, chief technical architect of Cray, in a statement.
Finally: Jawbone adds Bluetooth syncing to its simple, understated wrist band.
Google replaced the SSL certificates for its online services with new ones that use stronger, 2048-bit RSA keys, making encrypted connections to its sites safer against so-called brute-force attacks. The company announced in May that it would increase the key length for its SSL certificates from 1024 bits to 2048 bits by the end of 2013. “Coming in ahead of schedule, we have completed this process, which will allow the industry to start removing trust from weaker, 1024-bit keys next year,” Google security engineer Dan Dulay said Monday in a . Until not long ago 1024-bit RSA keys were considered sufficiently strong because cracking them using brute force by systematically trying all possible combinations was viewed as impractical due to the computing power and time required. However, following the recent revelations about the mass data collection programs of the U.S. National Security Agency and its , that’s no longer the case.
Jurors will now decide how much Samsung must pay Apple for infringing on several patents with its smartphones.
What Apple might do with the technology behind Kinect, choosing a tablet over a laptop, the office-software yard sale, and the relevance of new gaming consoles. Dan Moren and Jason Snell are joined by Dan Miller and Armando Rodriguez.
LinkedIn users will soon have access to a wider range of professionally curated content on the site through a new publishing tool available to businesses. the launch of “showcase” pages—a place on the site where companies can publish information related to a specific area of their business. The new pages are designed to serve end users, by letting them receive more focused company updates in their feed, and businesses, by giving them a dedicated page to highlight certain segments of their companies. Businesses will be able to monitor the performance of their showcase page through LinkedIn’s analytic tools, the company said. .
More than 99 percent of Nokia’s shareholders have voted to approve Microsoft’s acquisition of the Finnish company’s Devices & Services business. for €3.79 billion (US$5.1 billion) in the beginning of September. Once the acquisition closes, Microsoft will also pay €1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents. The vote took place at an extraordinary general meeting in the Helsinki Ice Hall, where executives explained the reasoning behind the deal and were grilled by shareholders for several hours. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of next year. Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer presented it as a win for employees, shareholders and customers of both companies.
Samsung believes that more customized apps will help convince consumers to pick its smartphones, tablets, and TVs over competing products and create loyalty.
Xbox One owners hoping to broadcast their gameplay to the Twitch.tv video streaming service will have to wait until next year, Microsoft said Tuesday. describing the types of achievements forthcoming in the Twitch.tv app for the Xbox One, due to launch on Nov. 22. But Microsoft's statement at the end of the post will be the only thing gamers remember: "We know the ability to instantly broadcast gameplay is something the gaming community is excited about, and we are too," Microsoft said. " We are working to ensure the initial Twitch on Xbox One broadcasting experience meets the expectations of the Twitch community, so while this feature won’t be available right away, we’ll let you know as soon as it is ready. Our goal is to deliver it during the first part of 2014."
Boston Limited has announced a new server based on ARM processors and certified to run Ubuntu Linux 13.10, a move that could further stir up growing interest in ARM servers. When it ships, the Viridis Microserver will be one of the few commercially available ARM servers. Top server makers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell have announced their intent to release ARM servers, but only a handful of products from small vendors are commercially available. Other ARM server makers include Penguin Computing and Aeon Computing. Advanced Micro Devices is expected to start selling ARM servers in next year’s first quarter. Boston Limited did not respond to requests for comment on price or worldwide availability of Viridis Microserver.
The lack of a simple, convenient way to steer PowerPoint presentations arguably birthed an entire industry of PowerPoint remotes. Now, Microsoft has gravely wounded it with a single app. run on Windows RT.) If you can manage that, however, the free app appears to offer everything you'll need—including a virtual laser pointer, too. , a bit of code that facilitiates the control from the phone to the PC. After that, however, you should be able to launch any of the three Office apps and be off and running. Office Remote is a collaboration between Microsoft Research and the Office team, with the idea that different components of the Microsoft ecosystem should be able to talk to each other.
In the rush to exascale computing, Intel is making a small change that could have a big impact on system design with its upcoming Xeon Phi chip. Intel on Tuesday promised big performance and power improvements with the redesigned chip, code-named Knights Landing, which analysts said could ship next year or 2015. The chip will also have interconnect and memory advances, Intel has said, that could separate it from other co-processors like graphics processors, which are widely used to accelerate technical computing. Knights Corner will have many cores and could function as a primary CPU in a supercomputer, or also as a co-processor that slides into a PCI-Express slot. That is a big change from the current Xeon Phi chip, code-named Knights Corner, which is available only as a co-processor and requires a server CPU like a Xeon E5 to host applications and run an OS. “The chip itself is no longer a co-processor. It runs the OS and all of the computation on the same chip,” said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.
The European Parliament will not approve any data sharing deal with the U.S. unless E.U. citizens have judicial redress when their personal data is transferred to the country, a European politician said Tuesday. Jan Philipp Albrecht, who is the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in charge of the E.U.’s new data protection law, made those comments after officials from the European Union and the U.S. met Monday in Washington to discuss data protection and mass surveillance. In an interview later, Albrecht elaborated on the rights E.U. citizens should have in the U.S. “In E.U. law everybody has equal rights,” he said. “If a U.S. citizen has a problem with how his data has been treated in the E.U., he can take it up with an E.U. court. We just want the same rights in the U.S. This should be possible, it would be very easy to fast-track change in the U.S.’s privacy act and simply add text to include E.U. citizens. We do need a general E.U.-U.S. framework agreement as the Snowden allegations have shown that there is a threat to E.U. citizens’ rights when so much information is going to the U.S.” He also said the European Parliament would have to consent to any agreement between the E.U. and the U.S. After their meeting, E.U. Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and U.S. attorney general Eric Holder issued a joint statement saying that both sides were committed to moving forward with negotiations for a “meaningful and comprehensive data protection umbrella agreement in the field of law enforcement.”
The social networking platform has removed an option to let followers send you direct messages without a follow-back.
The Galaxy Gear may or may not be selling well, depending on who you ask, but it'll a custom ROM for the smartwatch will definitely be available soon.
gets a jaw-dropping 22 hours of battery life. , and only achieved under super-optimal conditions. And the Dynabook Kira V634/27K foregoes some of the niceties of modern PCs in order to hit that lofty endurance; the 13.3-inch, 1366-by-768 display is neither super-high definition nor touch-enabled, both of which are features that take a big toll on battery life. Moving up to a more expensive Dynabook Kira with a 2560-by-1440 display and a touchscreen, for example, drops the laptop's lifespan to a (still impressive) 14 hours. Ready for the bad news? When the long-lasting Dynabook Kira V634/27K launches tomorrow, it'll only do so in Japan. But hey, if Toshiba can pull off endurance like that in the land of the rising sun, PC makers should be able to port it elsewhere just as easily—though it seems the laptop's extreme portability comes at a big price. that Toshiba released Stateside earlier this year, these new Dynabooks sport slick magnesium alloy-clad cases and other high-end features appropriate for such pricey PCs.
It's that time of the year when Oxford Dictionaries declares a Word of the Year, and this time, the venerable dictionary is turning the camera inward. is “selfie,” defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Oxford University Press notes that its U.S. and U.K. editions declared the winner jointly, whereas in some years they each choose their own words. “Selfie” beat out seven other shortlisted words—three of which are also tech-related—including the digital currency “bitcoin;” the Netflix habit known as “binge-watch;” the practice of “showrooming” in a store before buying online; a small furry mammal called “olinguito;” a U.K. housing penalty called “bedroom tax;” the provocative dance known as “twerk;” and a term for synthetic meat, or “schmeat.” Oxford traces the origins of the word “selfie” to a 2002 forum post, in which the poster apologizes for a blurry drunken photo, explaining that “it was a selfie.”
Valve has big plans for the future of the Steam gaming platform and it's not just about —the company's developer conference. Valve will also share its VR support plans during the conference. “We’ve figured out what affordable Virtual Realityhardware will be capable of within a couple of years and assembled a prototype which demonstrates that such VR hardware is capable of stunning experiences,” Valve says in a Dev Days session description. The session in question is called “What VR Could, Should, and Almost Certainly Will Be . Abrash, who went to work for Valve in 2011, is widely known for being part of the team behind Quake and other popular video games. In 2012 during an interview with , Abrash said we were just at the beginning of the era of VR gaming. “I don’t know what VR will turn into,” he said. “But I’m pretty confident it’ll turn into something great if the hardware can be good enough.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Electronic Privacy Information Center's petition for it to review a National Security Agency (NSA) phone record data collection program. EPIC asked the Supreme Court to vacate an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that requires the Verizon telephone company to turn over all phone records on all of its customers to the NSA. According to EPIC, that order was unlawful, and it wanted the Supreme Court to review the collection of vast quantities of irrelevant information on American citizens. that only the Supreme Court had the proper jurisdiction to review a FISC order.
No matter if you’re looking to get a gift for someone else or just yourself, everyone likes to save money when shopping for the holidays. And deal sites provide a way for savvy tech shoppers to make their spending money stretch long into December. But how to get a jump on those bargains? We talked to the deal collectors themselves for tips on the best ways to use online deal websites. “Deals are why we exist as a company,” says Mark LoCastro, PR director for . In business for 16 years, DealNews is something of the granddaddy of all deal sites. “There are tons of sales out there, the consumer is bombarded. How do you know if it’s really a good deal?” DealNews has teams of people verifying each deal presented on the site, LoCastro says, with the number of those deals ranging from 200 to 400 daily. “If you can find it cheaper elsewhere, we don’t list the deal,” he says.
The name Nubia might conjure up images of Africa, Egyptian pharaohs and early civilization. But perhaps one day, it'll also be remembered for smartphones. Or at least that's the hope of Chinese handset maker ZTE, which is using the name as a new company brand. ZTE's latest Nubia handsets were unveiled on Tuesday, at a time when the company is trying to bring more high-end phones to the market. The flagship device, the Z5S, is a 5-inch smartphone packed with the latest technologies including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 443 pixel-per-inch touchscreen. The device, along with the smaller Z5S mini, will be available for pre-order in China later this month. But the phones will also appear in foreign markets such as the U.S. and Europe, probably by next year's first quarter, according to the company. ZTE, while not widely known in the U.S., is one of the largest mobile phone makers in the world. Many of its handsets are sold in its home market of China, but the company's reach also extends to the worldwide marketplace. Last year, it ranked fourth in annual mobile phone shipments behind Apple, according to research firm IDC.
Planning on traveling during the holidays? Then you'll need to decide which of your tech gadgets you need to bring along. Here's how to figure that out.
A cluttered hard drive can be disorderly and slow, but it can also be a security hazard. This is especially true of any software on your PC that you rarely, if ever, use. Perhaps you installed a free demo, or you completed a game and you’ll never touch it again. Chances are good that the software you’re not actively using isn’t being patched and kept up-to-date, which means it may leave your PC vulnerable to exploits. Just as you regularly remove expired jars of mayonnaise and uneaten leftovers from your refrigerator (right?), any time is a good time to rid your PC of useless and unwanted programs. It never hurts to clear out old data files you’ll never need again, too. Here are some tips to help you purge all that dreck from your PC. In Windows, go into the Control Panel, look under Programs, and click column heading to sort the list accordingly.
The PC simply isn't the end-all and be-all of the computing world anymore. Instead, it has become just one of many screens vying for your attention, as more and more of our tasks shift to tablets and smartphones. But getting things done on disparate devices doesn't mean you have to abandon a cohesive workflow. These 13 Android apps sync, link, connect, or just plain play with your computer in ways that make it easier to stay productive no matter where you are—and with minimal hassle. Check 'em out. Staying productive on your mobile device often involves mucking around in the Android file system, placing and plucking files from here, there, and everywhere. That file system is hidden from users by default. Astro lets you dive in. 'Nuff said. Actually, not quite. Astro also has killer search capabilities that can find your files no matter where they're hidden on your phone, and "Cloud Hopping" technology that lets you seamlessly move files between multiple cloud storage services downloading them to your phone first.
Bought a new console? These are the only launch games worth paying attention to.
Federal officials told a U.S. Senate hearing on Monday that virtual currencies like bitcoin can offer benefits to the financial system, but also cautioned about its possible misuse for illicit activity. “The Department of Justice recognizes that many virtual currency systems offer legitimate financial services and have the potential to promote more efficient global commerce,” said Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice in her testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We have also seen, however, that certain aspects of virtual currencies appeal to criminals and present a host of new challenges to law enforcement,” Raman added in her written testimony before the committee, which is conducting an inquiry into virtual currencies. Law enforcement agencies suspect that virtual currencies are being used for money laundering and other illegal activities as they typically allow users to remain anonymous. Dealers of drugs and other illegal items on online marketplaces like the Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded are said to have taken cover behind the Tor anonymity service and anonymous bitcoin transactions. The and its alleged owner and operator arrested.
Customers of Salesforce.com who want their own dedicated infrastructure within the vendor’s cloud will now be able to get one through a partnership with Hewlett-Packard. The Salesforce Superpod will be based on HP’s Converged Infrastructure hardware and jointly developed and marketed by Salesforce.com and HP. The Superpods will be hosted in Salesforce.com’s data centers and cost customers extra money, but pricing details weren’t provided Monday. HP CEO Meg Whitman will discuss the offering when she joins Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff at the start of the company’s Dreamforce conference, which gets underway Tuesday in San Francisco. HP says it will be the first customer for the Superpod. It marks a significant shift in strategy for Salesforce.com, which has historically served all its customers from its multitenant cloud, where they share an application instance with their data kept separate. The emergence of the Superpod may have been provoked by demand from large customers not fully comfortable with the multitenant delivery model.