Data wars: Unlocking the information goldmine
Data mining: Dr Mike Lynch says the next IT revolution is happening in the “I”, the information, not the “T” In his 1950 paper entitled Computing Machinery and Intelligence, computer scientist Alan Turing opens with the words: “I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?’” Sixty years on, the idea of intelligent computers seems […]
Here comes Yahoo’s own Web browser — Axis
Yahoo is announcing tonight that it’s getting into the browser business with its new Axis browser. There are versions for iPad and iPhone, and plug-ins for the desktop browsers Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari. The design goal, according to Ethan Batraski, head of product for the Search Innovation Group at Yahoo, is to eliminate the […]
Memristors in silicon promising for dense, fast memory
Researchers have revealed details of a promising way to make a fundamentally different kind of computer memory chip. The device is a “memristor”, a long-hypothesised but only recently demonstrated electronic component. A memristor’s electronic properties make it suitable for both for computing and for far faster, denser memory. Researchers at the European Materials Research Society meeting now […]
Pay-per-use bandwidth? Not without some ground rules
Molly Wood faces the hard reality that the days of unlimited bandwidth are over, but she’s not going to get taken to the cleaners by greedy providers. Here’s how to make pay-per-use a fair deal for everyone. Do I get results, or what? Less than a day after this column posted, Comcast announced it would […]
LightSquared Files For Chapter 11
Wireless Internet provider LightSquared has filed for Chapter 11 protection. LightSquared, the ambitious 4G wireless venture recently poised to bring lightning-fast Internet to the masses, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier today. Government tests found that LightSquared’s signals interfered with GPS reception, a setback LightSquared was never able to recover from. In an official […]
Brighton & Sussex NHS Trust deploys Microsoft private cloud
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is deploying Microsoft’s Hyper- V private cloud platform, to help deliver improved services for desktop PCs and unified communication and collaboration across its entire IT estate. The move will allow the Trust to depart from its existing shared service model and benefit from the advantages of a private […]
Adobe ships CS6 software; Creative Cloud imminent
The Creative Suite 6 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and all their companion apps are now for sale. Adobe’s subscription for them arrives Friday. Adobe Systems today began selling Creative Suite 6, its mammoth but expensive collection of software for designers, artists, photographers, videographers, publishers, and others in the “content creation” business. The […]
Yahoo and its CEO: What’s the worst that could happen?
Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson is accused of lying about his college education. Tempest in a teacup, or scandal in the making? Yahoo chief executive Scott Thompson has been accused outright of lying on his resume in an already brewing scandal dubbed “Resume-gate.” Carol Bartz: “LOL.” The whole debacle appears on the face of it […]
Samsung to launch next Galaxy phone
Samsung will put the rumours and alleged leaks about its next flagship smartphone to rest when it unveils the handset in London later on Thursday. More than 20 million copies of the existing Galaxy S2 have been sold since its launch in April 2011. Analysts say its success helped Samsung overtake Nokia to become the […]
RIM CEO: We’re not abandoning BlackBerry physical keyboards
Research In Motion is not killing off its physical keyboards, according to CEO Thorsten Heins. Heins, who addressed a room full of journalists and bloggers at the company’s BlackBerry World conference here, said he wanted to clear up confusion based on the company’s unveiling of the BlackBerry 10 software. It was widely reported or intimated […]
Android’s new ally against the iPhone: Ubuntu
Strong sales of the iPhone 4S are putting renewed pressure on Android to innovate. Ubuntu for Android could give the platform a key capability iPhone is still missing. Last year was a long time ago for Android. That was when Google’s mobile platform was stealing market share from all the other smartphone platforms — winning […]
LG to open up multi-screen cloud streaming service
Apple’s iCloud will soon have a new contender to take on in the sky. LG announced today that its new Cloud offering will launch in beta tomorrow. LG Cloud is designed to work on “three screens” — smartphones, PCs, and televisions — and streams everything from video to photos. In order to access LG Cloud, […]
Samsung overtakes Nokia in mobile phone shipments
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. Nokia took the top spot in 1998 from Motorola, but in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93m phones compared to almost 83m by Nokia. Samsung also reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008. […]
Samsung announces quad-core chip for Galaxy S phone
Electronics heavyweight Samsung will put quad-core silicon in its next Galaxy smartphone, upping the ante for mobile performance. The Exynos 4 Quad integrates four processor cores and is built on the company’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer manufacturing process. The chip will run at speeds above 1.4GHz, the company said in a statement today. As a yardstick, the […]
Apple’s Tim Cook rejects idea of laptop-tablet hybrids
Apple’s boss has dismissed the idea of mixing laptops and tablets into a hybrid product. Chief executive Tim Cook said the idea of combining the iPad and MacBook Air would “wind up compromising” both. Rival Asus already markets such products in its Transformer series. Intel has also been a vocal advocate of the idea. Mr […]
Did Facebook pay just $83M for that giant pile of IBM patents?
Social-networking giant’s amended S-1 sheds light on how much it plunked down for patents in first quarter. News today that Facebook is spending $550 million to buy 650 patents held by Microsoft came just weeks after it made what seemed to be an even bigger purchase from IBM in which it spent an undisclosed sum […]
Android chief: We didn’t believe we needed a license from Sun
Android chief Andy Rubin wrapped up his testimony this morning in the copyright portion of the Oracle-Google trial at the U.S. District Court here. Google counsel Robert Van Nest picked up from where he left off on Tuesday afternoon, asking Rubin what happened after initial negotiations with Sun Microsystems ended in 2006. Rubin said that […]
Nokia Lumia 710 and 800 getting Wi-Fi hot spot update
An update that brings with it Internet tethering is reportedly about to roll out to the two Lumia handsets in certain countries. Nokia’s Lumia 710 and 800 phones may be one step closer to gaining the ability to act as Wi-Fi hot spots, though the company itself isn’t confirming or revealing any details on the […]
Cyber-spying on the rise
When Linda Trottman’s husband landed a promotion at his company, a co-worker congratulated her on it a few days later. Trottman says she hadn’t even realized her colleague monitored her husband’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional-networking site, where he had posted his new title. “It hit me that he was targeting my husband’s previous position,” […]
Apple ratchets up App Store security
iOS and iTunes users have been bumping into new and stricter security measures as they use their accounts. The new security demands, apparently implemented yesterday, have been asking users to choose three security questions and answers that are then required to download a new app from the App Store. A backup e-mail address is also […]