silicon.com : News

Apple buys music streaming site Lala

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:27:02 GMT

Apple has bought streaming music service Lala for an undisclosed amount.

A spokesman for Apple confirmed the acquisition to silicon.com sister site CNET News.com on Sunday.

The Weekly Round-Up: 03.12.09

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:19:02 GMT

Yes, it's almost here again. Christmas.

The time of year when you express your great love for your nearest and dearest through the gift of two-for-one bubble bath and novelty slippers.

Desktop virtualisation held back by industry hype

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:00:02 GMT

Excessive industry hype has left CIOs reluctant to embrace desktop virtualisation.

According to a new survey, half of private sector CIOs believe the technology is promising more than it can deliver.

Happy Christmas for retailers as UK shoppers shell out £5bn

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:59:01 GMT

Monday is set to be the biggest-spending day of the year with UK consumers shelling out £350m.

According to retail association IMRG, UK shoppers will spend an expected £5bn this month - a year-on-year increase of 14 per cent.

Whitehall's G-Cloud gets clearer

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:47:01 GMT

More details of the G-Cloud - the proposed government-wide cloud computing platform - have emerged.

The G-Cloud will feature the hinted-at app store, according to Martin Bellamy, the director of the office of chief information officer at the Cabinet Office, and will make use of both public and private datacentres.

Photos: 48 core chip that will help make machines as smart as humans

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:16:01 GMT

Intel debuted and demonstrated its Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC) processor on Wednesday.

The processor has 48 cores - 24 dualcore "tiles" - connected with a high-speed mesh network. Intel wants the experimental chip, at least 100 of which it'll distribute to researchers in 2010, to lead to new attempts to tackle multicore system and software design. Ultimately, Intel believes its aggressive multicore approach will be the way computers get enough power for tasks such as vision and speech comparable to what humans have.

Weekend Gadget Watch: Nokia N900

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Considering hitting the shops at the weekend? Looking for inspiration? Check out the latest in our series of gadget mini-reviews, courtesy of silicon.com's sister site CNET.co.uk, the home of technology reviews. For the full review and details, click on the link below.

What is it: Touchscreen smartphone with Qwerty keyboard

Photos: The top Christmas apps for the Apple iPhone

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:15:01 GMT

Feeling festive? Then you need silicon.com's seasonal guide to the best Christmas apps for Apple's iPhone.

First up is the Solar System app, a cosmic take on the advent calendar that lets you journey to the earth's neighbouring planets.

Green light for UK IT skills school to arrive next year

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:18:01 GMT

The opening of a National Skills Academy for IT in the UK has moved a step closer, after the government announced it has approved the business plan submitted by sector skills body e-skills UK.

In October 2008 the government gave the green light to a tech academy on account of IT's "critical" role in growing the national economy, and because of strong and growing demand for tech workers - more than 140,000 new IT recruits are required by the industry every year, according to e-skills UK.

IT gender pay gap getting worse

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:35:02 GMT

The IT gender pay gap is getting worse, according to results from the 2009 silicon.com Skills Survey.

More than a third (35 per cent) of female IT workers responding to this year's survey said they were on the bottom rung of the tech pay ladder, earning less than £25k, compared to just under a third of women (32 per cent) last year. And only 14 per cent of male IT workers are in the lowest pay bracket this year, down from 20 per cent in 2008.

Facebook, Google, eBay urge Mandelson to abandon copyright plan

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00:02 GMT

Web heavyweights have hit out against the Digital Economy Bill, claiming clauses in the legislation could put the UK's digital future at risk.

In an open letter to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Peter Mandelson, published yesterday, representatives of eBay, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! call on the government to abandon "measures which risk stifling innovation and damaging the government's vision for a Digital Britain".

Shared services - how to get it right in your business

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00:00 GMT

With so many businesses looking to cut costs, shared services have become a popular option. Stuart Roberts offers advice on making them deliver.

I think everyone agrees that since mid-2008 the economic situation has been somewhat difficult, with all the cutting of costs and jobs.

SAP delays support price hike for customers

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:50:02 GMT

SAP has delayed price rises for its customers following a slip in the timing of a user benchmarking scheme.

Earlier this year SAP users ordered the software company to meet a new set of key performance indicators in order to justify support price rises proposed last year.

ID cards: Seven years of missed deadlines and U-turns

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:47:02 GMT

Picture the scene: the year is 2016 and ID cards have been embraced by the British public, with most UK citizens now carrying their very own card.

This increasingly unlikely scenario is how the government initially envisaged the ID card scheme would turn out way back in 2006.

Android phones, Firefox history, Google Wave and datacentres galore

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:10:01 GMT

This month saw California's Hacker Dojo host the Random Hacks of Kindness event, which brought independent coders together with developers from Google, Microsoft, Nasa, Yahoo! and other organisations to work on projects to help with disaster relief.

See more photos from the hackathon here.

2010: The year your desktop goes virtual?

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:28:01 GMT

Server virtualisation is rapidly becoming an accepted part of the corporate IT infrastructure - and now industry experts are predicting that it won't be long until corporate desktops follow suit.

Desktop virtualisation refers to the running of a PC's operating system within a central datacentre. Users have a screen and terminal (or thin client) on their desk, which connects to the operating system running on the server via the local network. To the user, the experience is similar to the operating system running on their physical machine but in reality the processes are run and the data is stored in a central location.

Outsourcing: UK carbon control plan needs a rethink

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:12:01 GMT

Encouraging businesses to go green is good but the government must better incorporate outsourcing in its carbon control scheme, says the NOA's Mark Kobayashi-Hillary

Much is being said about the UK government's upcoming Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme but it remains unclear how much of this talk is translating into action and what impact the scheme will have on the outsourcing and offshoring industries.

Anti-ageism legislation isn't working, say IT pros

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Anti-ageism legislation isn't working and the IT industry continues to discriminate against older techies. That's the verdict of the exclusive 2009 silicon.com Skills Survey.

The majority (51 per cent) of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the IT industry discriminates against older workers, compared with less than a fifth (18 per cent) who held the opposite view.

Leaked report reveals billions in budget cuts for public sector IT

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:34:01 GMT

Shared services delivered through the cloud will help the public sector shave billions from its annual IT spend, according to a leaked Whitehall report.

The leaked draft document, Government ICT Strategy: New world, new challenges, new opportunities, sets out priorities for public sector IT chiefs through to 2020.

Mini laptops, codebreaking, Wikipedia and why there's no 'British Google'

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:50:01 GMT

November's top stories on silicon.com tackled some big questions: does my business need an office? Can I work solely on a netbook? Will the UK ever create a Google, Microsoft or Oracle of its very own?

November also dealt with the perennial question of will the UK's ID cards programme ever run to plan?

Your top HR tech priorities for next year revealed

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:35:01 GMT

Working out your budgets and trying to figure out the tech priorities for your HR department in 2010? Nick Heath has a few suggestions for HR directors as to where to invest that cash on technology to get the most benefits for your team and the rest of the business.

Consider standardising your systemsTake a look at what you do in the HR department and the chances are a number of companies are doing exactly the same thing: processes like payroll and benefits administration or training and recruitment will need to be carried out at any large organisation. As a result, adopting standardised systems for common processes is worth considering for enterprises that are relying on expensive, bespoke IT systems.

Recession fuels fears of UK jobs being sent offshore

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:58:01 GMT

With recession leading businesses to cut IT costs as much as they can, tech workers are increasingly feeling the impact of offshoring, results from the exclusive 2009 silicon.com Skills Survey show.

Almost half (47.5 per cent) of respondents said their organisation has probably offshored IT jobs - up from more than a third (36 per cent) who thought that was the case last year.

Peter Cochrane's Blog: Can I become faster and smarter?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:40:02 GMT

Compiled on the M6 driving to Liverpool and dispatched to silicon.com a couple of weeks later via a free wi-fi connection in my hotel.

I just cannot work any faster or smarter - I seem to have exhausted every degree of freedom, every element of efficiency improvement I can muster.

The Weekly Round-Up: 27.11.09

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:59:01 GMT

We've all made embarrassing mobile phone blunders as part of our busy modern lives.

We've all done something with a mobile that has led to fingers pointed in mirth and mockery: a few years ago the Round-Up even had one of those Bluetooth headsets that make you look like a minicab driver (although the cash from all those unexpected fares came in handy at Christmas).

Photos: When hackers get together to do the world a favour

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:12:02 GMT

The Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California, is a community of hackers who have come together to work on projects, collaborate, and share expertise in technology and entrepreneurship.

The Dojo, which opened in July, offers classes and a place to share ideas. Earlier this month the Dojo hosted the Random Hacks of Kindness event, which brought together thinkers and coders to try to solve real-world problems related to disaster relief.