Author Archive
California AG Kamala Harris on app privacy deal (podcast)
Larry Magid chats by phone with California Attorney General Kamala Harris shortly after she announces an agreement with major app companies to protect the privacy of consumers. California Attorney General Kamala Harris announcing an agreement for mobile app privacy (Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET) California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced a mobile app privacy agreement today with [...]
HP readies Windows 8 ‘X86′ products for holiday, says CEO
CEO Meg Whitman says during an earnings conference call that Hewlett-Packard has a line of products ready for the next iteration of Windows. Hewlett-Packard has a line of products ready to go for Windows 8, CEO Meg Whitman said today during the company’s earnings conference call. “We have a product line lined up in PSG [...]
Google sugarcoated privacy policy changes to mislead users, group charges
The Center for Digital Democracy sent a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission Wednesday asking it to find Google in violation of a 2011 consent order, conduct an investigation and request the search giant postpone the rollout of its new privacy policies. In the 16-page complaint, the CDD says Google failed to accurately and honestly [...]
T-Mobile requests FCC to block Verizon-cable dealings
Summary: T-Mobile USA is urging authorities to block deals between Verizon Wireless and cable companies for spectrum. According to the Associated Press, T-Mobile USA is urging regulators to stop the purchase of spectrum from cable companies for $3.9 billion by Verizon. In a late filing on Tuesday, the communications company stated that the Federal Communications [...]
New Microsoft ad aims knife at Google’s jugular
New video attempts to accuse Google of Googlighting. Should you be unfamiliar with this term, it allegedly means an ad agency selling productivity software in its spare time. There is little lovelier than large corporations accusing each other of sleaziness. One of the current spats for spiritual superiority involves Microsoft targeting Google for being a [...]
Afghans enraged over Quran burning
(CBS/AP) KABUL, Afghanistan – Anti-American demonstrations were underway in and around the Afghan capital and in another city on Wednesday over an incident that the U.S. military says was an inadvertent burning of Muslim holy books at a military base. There were reports that police had fired shots, into or over crowds of angry demonstrators [...]
Living with the Samsung Galaxy Note
Find out if CNET editor Brian Bennett can survive with the new Samsung Galaxy Note as his only mobile device for a week. I’ve used the massive Samsung Galaxy Note as my sole handset for a week, and life is going surprisingly well. Samsung certainly has high hopes for its unique product, which was first [...]
Woman pleading Fifth in password case loses appeal
Summary: A federal court denies a woman’s appeal in a case where she said turning over her password to decrypt files was a violation of her Fifth Amendment rights. A woman who invoked the Fifth Amendment to protect herself from having to turn over a password as part of a criminal case has lost her [...]
Facebook stores fail f-commerce goals by selling not socialising
Summary: F-commerce stores are shutting or scaling back their offerings. Have stores grasped how to do f-commerce yet or is there a long way to go before social selling really succeeds as a business model? F-commerce stores are shutting or scaling back their offerings according to Bloomberg. But have stores grasped f-commerce yet or is [...]
How Wikipedia stays up and running
Summary: Wikimedia Foundation’s deployment of Nimsoft WatchMouse brings large improvements to the availability of Wikipedia and its related services. In 2010, Wikimedia had two major datacenter outages that impacted the users of their information services. These were major datacenter failures that due to problems in the facilities that housed their distributed services, and they were [...]
Platform as a Service ready to rock the middleware market: Gartner
Summary: Middleware is moving into the cloud in a big way. Gartner says Platform as a service (PaaS) is poised to be one of the fastest-growing areas of cloud and service oriented architecture. This observation makes a lot of sense, and here’s why: Businesses receive more value from PaaS than they do its underlying sibling, [...]
McAfee: Malware samples exceeded expectations in 2011
Summary: The latest report from McAfee only reinforces findings that mobile malware and malicious sites are reproducing at a dangerously rapid pace. The number of malware samples discovered worldwide unfortunately surpassed expectations for 2011 overall, according to McAfee’s fourth quarter Threats Report. Last year, McAfee researchers predicted that global malware occurrences would reach at least [...]
China Telecom to begin selling iPhone 4S on March 9
Deal with the country’s third largest carrier will end China Unicom’s run as exclusive seller of the device in China. China Telecom will soon begin selling the iPhone 4S. (Credit: Apple) China Telecom will begin selling the iPhone 4S beginning March 9, ending China Unicom’s three-year run as the device’s exclusive seller in China. The [...]
Photo blog ‘Torn Lives’ fills in the blanks
A PostSecret for snapshot fans, Torn Lives asks viewers to submit photos with missing pieces–and “complete” them with a short text. Fans of blogs like PostSecret, magazines like Found, and of the strange allure of snapshots might want to take a look at a Tumblr blog called Torn Lives. The site asks viewers to submit [...]
Fifty years on, Glenn’s flight remains a giant leap
John Glenn, the enduring face of America’s early space program, blasted off and into history 50 years ago today, kicking off NASA’s bid to catch up with the Russians in the Cold War space race. John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, to await launch on America’s first orbital [...]
Nielsen: Smartphone ownership rates clash over age, income
Summary: Your age and your income have probably determined whether or not you own a smartphone, according to a new report. Based on age alone, it would not be news that younger consumers are much more likely to own a smartphone than older consumers. But when you throw income into the equation, it becomes a [...]
Washington avalanche kills 3 ski veterans
(CBS/AP) STEVENS PASS, Wash. – Well-equipped and familiar with the terrain, about a dozen expert skiers were making their way through a foot-and-a half of fresh snow when an avalanche hit them in an out-of-bounds area near a popular Washington ski resort. Three men were killed Sunday when they were swept about a quarter-mile down [...]
Steal laptops for class credit?
Students at the University of Twente stole 30 laptops from university staff across campus. Were they prosecuted? No — instead, they received extra credit. As part of a scientific research project, UT researcher Trajce Dimkov requested that the students attempt to steal the devices from campus — and it seems to have been a very [...]
Roozz responds
The Kusnetzky Group LLC is an independent technology industry research firm that focuses on system software, virtualization and cloud computing technology. Dan’s opinions are based upon research, personal experiences and actual use of technology. They are not based upon the relationships the company may or may not have with suppliers, end user organizations, the media, [...]
Game makers play the Kickstarter game
Summary: Over the past week we’ve witnessed a fascinating phenomenon in games. Double Fine, a game developer run by lauded game maker Tim Schafer (Secret of Monkey Island, Psychonauts), asked fans to directly invest in its next big project. Just over a week later, this experiment has raised 1.9 million dollars. How did they manage [...]