2013 was a busy year for Microsoft, which announced that CEO Steve Ballmer will leave the company after 33 years, upgraded its controversial reveled in the success of Office 365, and successfully tweaked Windows Server. But there’s more to do in 2014. Here’s a look at seven things Microsoft should put on its to-do list for 2014. Microsoft could have just strengthened its partnership with Nokia, perhaps investing heavily in the company to become a major shareholder with sway over what Nokia does. Instead it In buying the company Microsoft gains total control over its hardware products phones primarily but also tablets.
Global spending on technology will rise 6.2 percent in U.S. dollars to $2.22 trillion in 2014, helped by an improving economy and growing interest in areas such as mobility and cloud computing, according to new data from Forrester Research. If the prediction bears out, it will be an improvement: IT spending grew only 1.6 percent in U.S. dollars during 2013, according to Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels . Growth will quicken in 2015, rising 8.1 percent in U.S. dollars, but will remain “well below the double-digit growth rates of the late 1990s and 2000 era,” Bartels said in a on Thursday. The U.S. dollar is expected to be weaker compared to many currencies next year, and IT spending will rise only 5.5 percent in local currencies, a percentage point less than previous projections, according to the full Forrester report. U.S. buyers are setting the pace, being responsible for 40 percent of all tech spending, while the nation’s economy has continued to grow “despite self-inflicted wounds from austerity zealots in the U.S. Congress,” Bartels wrote on his blog. But economies in Western Europe are only now beginning to recover while Brazil, China, India and Russia “are going through a period of sluggish and uneven growth,” he added.
Security researchers have discovered what looks like a copycat version of the that drops some of the malware’s sophistication in favor of the single innovation of being able to spread via USB drives. According to security and ESET, the recently discovered worm-like Crilock.A variant (which calls itself "Cryptolocker 2.0") poses as an updater for Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office on sites frequented by peer-to-peer file-sharers. The command and control architecture is also new, ditching the domain generation algorithm (DGA) in favor of less sophisticated hardcoded URLs. Both of these odd developments have convinced Trend Micro that Crilock.A is the work of copycats rather than the original Cryptolocker gang. Targeting file sharers is a strange choice because it while it increases the chance that the malware will be downloaded the is still far smaller than with previous "official" version. A similar point could be made about the abandonment of DGA for hard-coding, which is much easier to block; security firms simply have to reverse engineer the list and the malware becomes useless.
A U.S. surveillance court has renewed its approval of a U.S. National Security Agency program that collects U.S. residents’ telephone records in bulk. The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Friday again approved the NSA phone records program amid multiple lawsuits challenging the legality of the program and more than 20 bills in Congress that seek to alter the program. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence asked the FISC for a renewal of the telephone records metadata collection program, the ODNI . A judge in New York has that the program likely violates the Fourth Amendment. In California, defendants in a terrorism case lost an appeal to have their convictions overturned after they challenged the constitutionality of the surveillance program.
BlackBerry, in an effort to protect one of its key designs, has filed a copyright infringement suit against a company co-founded by Ryan Seacrest that makes a keyboard case for the iPhone. On Friday the struggling smartphone maker filed a lawsuit against , a company that makes a slip-on keyboard designed to fit the iPhone 5 and 5S. The company, which is based in Los Angeles, was founded by entrepreneur Laurence Hallier and television personality Ryan Seacrest. The company’s flagship product, the “Typo Keyboard,” was conceived to make typing on the iPhone quicker and less prone to typos. Now the company might be wishing it went a little slower. The keyboard, BlackBerry alleges, violates the company’s intellectual property rights for copying BlackBerry’s own keyboard designs. Typo's keyboard is designed to slip on over Apple's iPhone. BlackBerry claims that it’s a little too close to the design of its own phones for comfort.
Windows 8 surged in December to end the year with almost 12 percent of the user share of all Windows personal computers, while the destined-for-retirement Windows XP restarted its decline after a two-month pause, a Web analytics company said Thursday. Both were good signs for Microsoft, which has bet its future on According to Net Applications, Windows XP fell 2.2 percentage points in December to 29 percent of all desktop and notebook computers worldwide, the first time it breached that 30-percent barrier. But the 12-year-old operating system still accounted for nearly a third—32 percent—of Windows-powered PCs. Meanwhile, Windows 8’s and 8.1’s combined user share of all computers reached 10.5 percent. Of the systems running Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 8/8.1 owned a user share of 11.6 percent.
The Snapchat breach that led to millions of user names and phone numbers posted on the Web shows how a startup’s priorities of growth and features can sometimes lead to weak security, experts say. While and social network accounts, saying not enough details were available. Both attacks occurred this week. Snapshot vulnerabilities exploited With Snapchat, the mobile photo-sharing service made several errors in its use of cryptography and key management, according to Zak Dehlawi, senior security engineer for Security Innovation. Those mistakes led to the perpetrators posting 4.6 million user names and phone numbers on a Web site called SnapchatDB.info. The site has been taken down. On Christmas Eve, Gibson Security, based in New Zealand, posted a lengthy it found in Snapchat security after notifying the company of the problems.
Smartphone-based navigation and traffic apps are quickly invading the space of TomTom, Garmin, and other GPS devices. TomTom hopes to gain an edge by offering its once-costly traffic info for free.
A 77-inch television with a curved screen and resolution four times better than today’s high-definition TV will be a centerpiece of LG Electronics’ product line-up at next week’s International CES in Las Vegas. The TV’s screen is based on OLED (organic light emitting diode), a fundamentally different technology from LCD (liquid crystal display), the dominant flat-screen type in use today. Compared to LCDs, OLED panels produce pictures that appear brighter, crisper, more colorful and more vibrant to most people. The technology has been in commercial use for several years in smartphones, but display makers are still struggling to reliably produce OLED screens at screen sizes large enough for televisions. The difficulties in production mean many OLED products never reach the market or, if they do, remain prohibitively expensive for most consumers.
The U.S. Department of Justice will appeal a district judge’s opinion saying a phone records collection program at the National Security Agency likely violates the U.S. Constitution. The DOJ on Friday filed an appeal of Judge Richard Leon’s December 16 ruling in of U.S. phone records likely violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Leon wrote that James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution, would be “aghast” at the scope of the NSA program. The DOJ, on behalf of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and NSA Director General Keith Alexander, appealed Leon’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DOJ has defended the phone records program, saying judges on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have approved the program on multiple occasions.
Love it or hate it, the annual International CES is the way the year begins for many people in the consumer electronics industry. Next week in Las Vegas, companies will present their vision of things to come, some of it grounded in fact and some pure speculation. For all the solid technology on show, there’s an equal amount of “throw it out and see what sticks” gadgets and gizmos. Here’s a look at some of the highest profile technologies of CES 2013 that didn’t quite live up to the dream, at least not yet. At CES 2013, there was a lot of talk about the just-launched Windows Phone 8 OS and the soon-to-be-launched Blackberry 10 OS. But a lot of buzz surrounded two would-be competitors: . Both demonstrated early versions of their phone OSes, and geeks everywhere drooled at the shiny demos. Twelve months on, the Firefox phone is a reality in a just a handful of countries, and the Ubuntu phone has yet to appear. Ubuntu-maker Canonical has reportedly just signed a deal for a phone, but hasn’t identified the company it’s working with.
Was it because of all those mean tweets?
CBS and NBC will be streaming the NFL playoffs for free, but only cable subscribers will be able to watch Fox's NFC games.
Chromebooks are gaining popularity at the expense of Windows machines, and Acer is cashing in with a touchscreen laptop based on Google’s Chrome OS. Acer’s new Chromebook C720P-2600, which has an 11.6-inch touchscreen and runs on Intel’s dual-core Celeron 2955U chip based on the Haswell architecture. The laptop is three-quarters of an inch thick, weighs just shy of 3 lbs., and delivers 7.5 hours of battery life, the company said. The $300 laptop will be available in the second week of January. It will be shown at Pepcom’s Digital Experience event on Jan. 6 in Las Vegas, one day ahead of International CES trade show. Chromebooks are for those who rely on the Internet for computing and storage. Chromebooks accounted for 21 percent of commercial laptops shipped in the U.S. last year, on Amazon.com.
Gaming accessory maker SteelSeries has partnered with Tobii Technology to develop a device that will let gamers use their eyes to control game play. SteelSeries expects to announce further details about the partnership and products over the next several months. But the Tobii EyeX Controller, which will be demonstrated at International CES, will show how eye-tracking peripherals can look and function. SteelSeries is sure eye tracking will play a big part in the future of gaming, because it expands the number of ways players can interact with games, company CTO Tino Soelberg said the partnership. The prototype EyeX hardware.
90 Prozent der Wintersportler tragen mittlerweile auf der Piste einen Helm. Trotzdem geht die Anzahl schwerer Kopfverletzungen gemäss einer Studie nicht zurück. Grund dürfte die Geschwindigkeit sein.
US-Anbauer warten ungeduldig auf eine neue Sorte genmanipulierter Samen, die resistent gegen ein populäres Unkrautvernichtungsmittel sind. Kritiker warnen, dass dann noch mehr Chemikalien versprüht werden.
Vor genau 100 Jahren wurde letztmals ein Fischadler beim Nisten in der Schweiz beobachtet. Nun will ein Verein den aussergewöhnlichen Vogel wieder in der Schweiz ansiedeln – die Gesuche dazu sind gestellt.
Der emeritierte Professor für Psychiatrie Allen Frances sagt, dass das neue Standardwerk der Psychiatrie zur Hyperinflation psychischer Krankheiten führt.
Psychologische Versuche zeigen, dass nackte Haut die Wahrnehmung von Menschen radikal ändert. Allerdings stimmt es nicht, dass nackte Menschen zu Objekten degradiert werden.
Ein schwimmendes Labor mit Schweizer Beteiligung erforscht das Meer vor Japan, um dereinst brauchbare Erdbebenprognosen zu ermöglichen.
Drei Jahre nach dem Tod des Berliner Kulteisbären Knut sind die wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen abgeschlossen: Der Bär war krank, bevor er starb.
Die NSA will auf gut geschützte Rechner von Banken und Regierungen zugreifen können. Dafür arbeitet der US-Geheimdienst offenbar an einem Quanten-Computer. Auch in der Schweiz wird in diese Richtung geforscht.
Gewaltiger Ansturm auf One-Way-Ticket zum Mars: Aus über 200'000 Interessenten wählten die Betreiber in einer ersten Runde nun 1058 aus. Insgesamt sollen 24 davon auf dem Roten Planeten wohnen.
Die Evakuierung der im Eis stecken gebliebenen Forscher und Touristen ist erfolgreich verlaufen. Sie hat aber gravierende Auswirkungen auf andere Forscher in der Antarktis.
Die Wahl des Fischerei-Verbandes gewann dieses Mal die Groppe. Sie lebt in gesunden Flüssen und Bächen – und ist damit der beste Botschafter für die Wiederherstellung natürlicher Gewässer in der Schweiz.
Ein chinesischer Helikopter hat alle 52 Passagiere des im Eis feststeckenden Forschungsschiffs evakuiert. Bis diese wieder festen Boden unter den Füssen haben, dauert es allerdings noch Wochen.
Vor 700 Jahren erhob sich der Schwyzer Bauernstand gegen die geistige Obrigkeit. Schriftdokumente belegen, dass die Aufständischen bei ihrem Angriff auf das Kloster Einsiedeln äusserst rüpelhaft vorgingen.
Michael Schumacher hat ein schweres Schädel-Hirn-Trauma. Andreas Raabe, Chefarzt der Neurochirurgie am Inselspital Bern, erklärt, was dabei im Kopf geschieht und welche Gefahren eine solche Verletzung birgt.
Michael Schumacher erlitt gemäss den Ärzten ein schweres Schädel-Hirn-Trauma. Die Folgen eines solchen Vorfalls sind schwer abzuschätzen.
Der Erste Weltkrieg wirkt unendlich fern. Und doch erinnern den Politologen Herfried Münkler einige aktuelle Konflikte an die Situation von 1914. Ein Gespräch über China und mögliche Kriegsgefahren.
Augenzeugen haben im US-Bundesstaat Iowa einen Meteoriten beobachtet, der in mehrere Teile zersplitterte. Eine Überwachungskamera hat das Naturschauspiel aufgezeichnet.
In der Hauptstadt der Demokratischen Republik Kongo sollen Roboter für Ordnung auf den Strassen sorgen. Mit Verkehrssündern kennen sie keinen Pardon.
Im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert begannen Ärzte, den menschlichen Körper mit wissenschaftlichen Methoden zu begreifen. Ihre Briefe beförderten den Eintritt der Medizin in das Zeitalter der Aufklärung.
Seit der Internetriese eine Roboter-Firma gekauft hat, sind die Blechmaschinen mit Innenleben wieder ein heiss diskutiertes Thema. Was ist dran?