Techno-News Blog

As Mozilla 'upgrades the Web,' Microsoft must upgrade its pace - Matt Asay, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-07-06T00:25:00.001+01:00

As I type this, Firefox 3.5 is blazing past 5.6 million downloads, having been released just a day and a half ago. While such uptake for Mozilla's upgraded browser is impressive, the bigger story is how Firefox 3.5 is upgrading the Web with its extensive support for HTML 5. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) 8 has brought the company's browser back into the 21st century, but its sluggish (and

Google Search optimized for a mess of phones - Jessica Dolcourt, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-07-06T00:20:00.001+01:00

Last December we showed you how Google refined its search results for iPhone and Android. The change loaded pages faster and fit the results to the screen width for searches generated from Google.com (plus for the specialized Google widget on Android and the search box on Safari.) On Wednesday, Google began supporting these optimized results for feature phones--essentially handsets that are not

The future is free - Alka Marwaha, BBC

2009-07-06T00:15:00.001+01:00

Chris thinks that the concept of free is where all business will head. Digital Planet has spoken to Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, about the release of his new book, Free: The Future of Radical Price. He told the World Service about the concept of 'freeconomics', the business model behind web companies like Google, YouTube and Yahoo, where giving away things for free is

Cisco Eyes Web Alternative To Microsoft Office - Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek

2009-07-05T00:25:00.001+01:00

Cisco could add Microsoft Office-like applications to its growing arsenal of online collaboration products. That's according Doug Dennerline, senior VP and manager of networking company's Web services. Dennerline said Tuesday during an online news conference that Cisco is considering building a service that would enable businesses users to create and share documents over the WebEx meeting and

Project seeks to measure ed tech's value - Laura Devaney, eSchool News

2009-07-05T00:20:00.001+01:00

An ambitious new research project aims to revolutionize education by showing that well-implemented technology initiatives can save states money after an initial investment. Project RED (for Revolutionizing EDucation) will examine the outcomes of educational technology initiatives using a cost-benefit analysis to determine which ed-tech programs and devices are having the most cost-effective

Microsoft tests free security software - Maya T. Prabhu, eSchool News

2009-07-05T00:15:00.001+01:00

In a move that could help keep higher-education campus networks safe, Microsoft Corp. released a beta test of a free computer security program on June 23 and is on track to launch a finished product in the fall. The program, Microsoft Security Essentials, is designed to find and eliminate malicious software that can steal passwords and other personal information or turn PCs into spam distribution

US 'concerned' over cyber threat - BBC

2009-07-04T00:26:00.000+01:00

The issue of cyber security is of "great concern" to the US, the nation's homeland security secretary has said. Janet Napolitano told the BBC that protecting against virtual attacks was something the US was "moving forward on with great alacrity". Speaking on a visit to the UK, she said the US also had "a number of capabilities" to launch such attacks. Ms Napolitano's comments follow the

Jackson�s Death Caused Spike in Web Traffic - Brian Stelter, New York Times

2009-07-04T00:20:00.000+01:00

Did your Internet connection seem slow Thursday afternoon? It likely wasn�t your computer, it was the surge of interest in Michael Jackson�s hospitalization and death. Akamai said that traffic to news Web sites spiked around 6 p.m. Eastern, clocking in at one point at 4.2 million visitors per minute. During the rest of the day, the sites tracked by Akamai never exceeded 3 million visitors per

New York City Starts Contest for Big Apple Apps - Sewell Chan AND Patrick McGeehan, New York Times

2009-07-04T00:15:00.000+01:00

The winners don�t get a million-dollar Netflix Prize, but, hey, it�s dinner with a billionaire. From our colleagues at City Room: In an effort to improve government transparency and accountability and stimulate development of the digital media industry, New York City is inviting software developers and related professionals this fall to develop applications to help Internet users navigate vast

Iranians take risks to upload their dissent online - Associated Press

2009-07-03T00:25:00.001+01:00

The Iranian protesters sneak their cell phones onto the streets and hit record, frantically trying to evade being caught or beaten. The shaky, grainy images are e-mailed to friends. Then they are uploaded to blogs, YouTube or social networking sites -- offering the world some of the only firsthand glimpses of tensions following disputed presidential elections on June 12. But the Internet window

China postpones controversial Web filter - Associated Press

2009-07-03T00:20:00.000+01:00

China postponed a plan to require personal computer makers to supply Internet-filtering software Tuesday, retreating in the face of protests by Washington and Web surfers hours before it was due to take effect. Manufacturers would have been required to include filtering software known as Green Dam with every computer produced starting Wednesday for sale in China. The official Xinhua News Agency

A Robot that Navigates Like a Person - Anne-Marie Corley, Technology Review

2009-07-03T00:15:00.000+01:00

European researchers have developed a robot capable of moving autonomously using humanlike visual processing. The robot is helping the researchers explore how the brain responds to its environment while the body is in motion. What they discover could lead to machines that are better able to navigate through cluttered environments. The robot consists of a wheeled platform with a robotic "head"

Protecting an inalienable right in the age of Facebook - Simson Garfinkel, Technology Review

2009-07-02T00:25:00.001+01:00

I'd be a fool to include my Social Security number in this article: doing so would leave me vulnerable to all manner of credit fraud, scams, and even criminal arrest. All of this would surely happen because a few bad people would read the article, write down my SSN, and pretend to be me. We know a lot more about the use and abuse of SSNs today than we did back in 2002. That was the year the

Simpler Data Visualization - Kate Greene, Technology Review

2009-07-02T00:20:00.001+01:00

There are many ways to slice and dice data to better understand what it means. Software like Microsoft's Excel offers a simple way to create charts and graphs, while more complex applications, such as IBM's Many Eyes, provide more interesting ways to visualize more complex data. Specialized programming languages can do more by tweaking the design of visualizations. But these languages tend to be

Firefox Aims to Unplug Scripting Attacks - Robert Lemos, Technology Review

2009-07-02T00:15:00.001+01:00

Sites that rely on user-created content can unwittingly be employed to attack their own users via JavaScript and other common forms of Web code. This security issue, known as cross-site scripting (XSS), can, for example, allow an attacker to access a victim's account and steal personal data. Now the makers of the Firefox Web browser plan to adopt a strategy to help block the attacks. The

The best Firefox extension: AutoCopy - Seth Rosenblatt, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-07-01T00:25:00.002+01:00

Once you've highlighted anything from a single letter to entire multipage New Yorker articles, the add-on opens a small options box where your cursor is. Through the extension options, you can configure how long that box appears for, or turn it off. If you choose to use it, the post-copy options box offers a couple of useful choices. You can undo the copy, or access up to 10 previous clipboards

Reading machine to snoop on Web - Mark Rutherford, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-07-01T00:20:00.001+01:00

What if the wisdom of Web could be yours, without having to read through it one page at a time? That's what the military wants. DARPA has hired a company to develop a reading machine to reduce the gap between the ever increasing mountain of digitized text and the intelligence community's insatiable appetite for data input.

What the iPhone teaches us about cloud adoption - James Urquhart, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-07-01T00:15:00.002+01:00

Chris Hoff (now a colleague at Cisco, but long a phenomenal blogger in his own right) described in a recent post a fascinating analogy for the inevitable adoption of cloud computing--the adoption of the Apple iPhone: The thing I love about my iPhone is that it's not a piece of technology I think about but rather, it's the way interact with it to get what I want done. It has its quirks, but it

Thumbing Windows 7 onto Netbooks - Ina Fried, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-06-30T00:25:00.001+01:00

Microsoft is considering offering Windows 7 on a thumb drive to allow Netbook owners to more easily upgrade their machines, a source tells CNET News. The move, which is still under consideration, is one of several things Microsoft has looked at to try to make it convenient to upgrade machines that don't come with a CD or DVD drives.

The perils of five-star reviews - Finlo Rohrer, BBC News Magazine

2009-06-30T00:20:00.000+01:00

A publishing giant got into hot water after offering gift vouchers to anyone who would give their textbook a five-star review. It raises one of the key questions in online purchasing, how much can you trust the customer reviews you read? In the US, it is called "shill reviewing". You are the owner of a company whose product - Brand X Widget is struggling. On a major online retailer, Brand X

Web slows after Jackson's death - Maggie Shiels, BBC News

2009-06-30T00:15:00.001+01:00

The sheer number of queries concerned Google. The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson's death. Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack. Millions of people who searched for the star's name on Google News were greeted with an error page.

Apple iPhone 3GS: The sum ($) of its parts - Brooke Crothers, CNet news.cnet.com

2009-06-29T00:25:00.000+01:00

The iPhone, of course, is more than the sum of its parts, but the cost of individual components adds up--to $178.96, to be exact. A new analysis by iSuppli details the cost of the iPhone 3GS and the motley collection of chips inside. The entry-level (16GB) version of the iPhone 3GS carries a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, for a total of $178.96,

Microsoft offers free anti-virus - BBC

2009-06-29T00:20:00.000+01:00

Microsoft Security Essentials is aimed at home users. A trial version of Microsoft's free anti-virus software has been launched in the US, China, Brazil, and Israel. Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) promises to provide people with basic protection against viruses, trojans, rootkits and spyware. The software giant has been criticised in the past for failing to include free security software

Cell Phones That Listen and Learn - Kristina Grifantini, Technology Review

2009-06-29T00:01:00.000+01:00

Researchers are increasingly using cell phones to better understand users' behavior and social interactions. The data collected from a phone's GPS chip or accelerometer, for example, can reveal trends that are relevant to modeling the spread of disease, determining personal health-care needs, improving time management, and even updating social-networks. The approach, known as reality mining, has

Apple: More than 1M new-model iPhones sold - Associated Press

2009-06-28T00:25:00.001+01:00

Apple Inc. sold more than a million units of its latest iPhone model in the first three days, making it the most successful model yet.The iPhone 3G S went on sale Friday in the U.S. and seven other countries.When Apple Inc. launched the previous model last year, it also sold one million units in the first three days, but that model launched simultaneously in 22 countries. Piper Jaffray analyst