IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 9/15/2014

Google offers $100,000 cloud credit for startups
Looking for more success stories to add to its portfolio, Google has assembled a starter package to help startup businesses ramp up operations with free Google Cloud Platform services. Startups that qualify will get a $100,000 credit for Google Cloud Platform services, along with around-the-clock support and access to the company's technical solutions team.

Read More ...

---

Why HP bought Eucalyptus: An easy way to go hybrid
When HP announced it was purchasing Eucalyptus Systems, the company behind an open source project for creating

Read More ...

---

Data protection authorities find privacy lapses in majority of mobile apps
Many mobile apps request too many permissions and don't explain how they collect users' personal information, a study of 1,211 popular apps by the Global Privacy Enforcement Network has found. The majority of the apps reviewed did not adequately explain to users how they were collecting and using information, according to the study, carried out by 26 privacy enforcement authorities in 19 countries. It also found that a third of the tested mobile applications requested excessive permissions that were outside the scope of their functionality.

Read More ...

---

Yahoo says it faced $250,000 daily fines for defying U.S. surveillance requests
The U.S. government once threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day if it failed to assist with its surveillance efforts, Yahoo said Thursday. Yahoo said it was threatened with the fines after it challenged surveillance powers granted to the U.S. government under the Protect America Act of 2007. The information has come to light now because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees how those laws are implemented, agreed to unseal documents in the case.

Read More ...

---

HP buys cloud provider Eucalyptus, Marten Mickos to lead HP Cloud
Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy cloud platform provider Eucalyptus, stepping up HP's efforts in the growing field of cloud computing, Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos will manage HP's cloud business and report directly to Meg Whitman, HP's chairman, president and CEO, HP announced Thursday.

Read More ...

---

How platforms attract developers: Docker shows the way
Credit: iStockphoto While everyone covets developers, not everyone gets them. Take a look across the industry -- it's littered with the corpses of would-be platforms that never caught on with developers.

Read More ...

---

CloudBees enterprise PaaS bites the dust
CloudBees has decided to pull the plug on Run@Cloud, its PaaS aimed at enterprise Java developers.

Read More ...

---

WatchKit tools pave the way for Apple Watch app developers
Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam

Read More ...

---

SAP spices up its predictive analytics and visualization apps
SAP has made a series of updates to its InfiniteInsight predictive modeling software and Lumira data-visualization tool in a bid to shore up its foothold in the analytics market.

Read More ...

---

Leaked Windows screenshots look legit -- and hold some surprises
Early this morning, two German-language blogs, Computerbase.de and

Read More ...

---

Microsoft expanding Windows on Devices program
Microsoft is expanding a program to put Windows in smart devices, robots and Internet-connected appliances, following overwhelming response for developer hardware. The company is currently putting a stripped-down version of Windows 8 on Intel's Galileo development board to bring the OS to a "smaller class of devices," said Colin Murphy, senior technical product manager at Microsoft, during an interview at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Read More ...

---

Former Red Hat CTO now head of Google Cloud
Brian Stevens, the former CTO for Red Hat, is now managing Google Cloud. As Red Hat CTO, Stevens was instrumental in preparing the enterprise Linux software provider for the cloud, including its adoption of the OpenStack software for running cloud services.

Read More ...

---

Why Microsoft pulling KB 2889866 OneDrive for Business patch is good news
September's Update Tuesday included a bunch of Office patches,

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Google , HP , Yahoo , Apple , SAP , Windows , Microsoft , Red Hat , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 9/11/2014

Adobe fixes critical flaws in Flash Player, delays Reader and Acrobat updates
Adobe Systems released a critical security update for Flash Player that fixes 12 security vulnerabilities, but pushed back its planned patches for Reader and Acrobat by a week. The Flash Player updates, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, address nine vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution and three that can allow attackers to bypass security features, including memory address randomization and the same-origin policy.

Read More ...

---

Four no-bull facts to know about Apple Pay
Rumors about Apple devising some form of digital wallet for the iPhone were swirling thick and fast months before Tim Cook stepped on stage today and confirmed those suspicions.

Read More ...

---

iPhone and iPad app building will be easier on iOS 8, say developers
Building iPhone and iPad apps will be made significantly less cumbersome with today's rollout of the iOS 8 mobile operating system, according to software developers. Sean Reilly, director of software development house The Infinite Kind, told Techworld that Apple currently makes it difficult for developers to test beta apps.

Read More ...

---

FCC may put mobile under same Net neutrality rules as wired broadband
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is reexamining how it treats wireless net neutrality, in response to public comments on the agency's proposed Open Internet rules.

Read More ...

---

Apple introduces iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
At its big fall event at in Cupertino on Tuesday, Apple unveiled two new iPhones: the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. As expected, both new models sport much larger screens than previous versions. The standard iPhone 6 now sports a 4.7-inch display, while the iPhone 6 Plus comes with a massive 5.5-inch screen, putting it squarely in "phablet" territory. Storage on both iPhone models now tops out at 128GB, double the amount of previous models, and cameras have been updated as well.

Read More ...

---

Weave project knits together networks for Docker containers
Credit: Fanatic Studio

Read More ...

---

Comcast's open Wi-Fi hotspots inject ads into your browser
Comcast is giving users a very good reason to demand an HTTPS connection on every site they visit. The Internet service provider has started injecting ads for its services on websites where you wouldn't normally see them when you're using an Xfinity public Wi-Fi hotspot.

Read More ...

---

Salesforce.com warns customers of malware attack
Salesforce.com users are being targeted by a new version of a computer Trojan that has typically attacked online banking customers until now. The malware threat is called Dyre or Dyreza and came to light in June. Like most online banking Trojans, it hooks the browser process to capture log-in credentials entered by users on websites belonging to financial institutions.

Read More ...

---

What you need to know about the Home Depot data breach
On Monday, Home Depot issued a public confirmation to reports that they had experienced a data breach impacting debit and credit cards. They're the world's largest home improvement retailer, operating 2,266 stores in the U.S., as well as 10 Canadian provinces, so news that they were the next big business to be targeted by payment system malware caused immediate comparisons to the Target breach.

Read More ...

---

Oracle completes Micros acquisition, forms new global business unit
Oracle has wrapped up its $5.3 billion acquisition of Micros, maker of hardware and software for the hospitality industry, in its biggest deal since the purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010. Micros will form the basis for a new global business unit at Oracle focused on hotels, food and beverage, and retailers, led by Mike Webster, who is now head of Oracle's retail business unit.

Read More ...

---

Dell's 'virtual smartphone': Too much, too late
A newly announced product from Dell, set to debut this October, is being touted as a way to turn any late-model smartphone into a managed business smartphone, with its own voice line, storage management, and app ecosystem.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft rolls out Delve information and people discovery tool for Office 365
Microsoft has begun a months-long rollout of Delve, the first Office 365 application that taps into the suite's Office Graph machine learning capabilities and maps connections between co-workers, documents, and information. Delve, announced in March with the code-name Oslo, is designed to automatically surface colleagues, files and data that are more relevant and important to users' work.

Read More ...

---

Lenovo, IBM x86 server strategy gets clarity as acquisition looms
With Lenovo expected to close its IBM x86 server business acquisition by year end, a glimpse at the combined server product line has emerged. Once the deal closes, IBM's System X and Flex servers with x86 chips will fill out Lenovo's high-end product line. Meanwhile, Lenovo's ThinkServer products will be targeted at small and medium-size businesses, according to an IBM presentation.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Adobe , Apple , iPhone , iPad , iOS , iPhone 6 , Oracle , Microsoft , IBM , server , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 9/8/2014

Intel wants to show it isn't an antiquated tech company
Intel may not have a reputation for being cool along the lines of, say, Apple, but its developer forum next week will showcase wearables, robots and other innovative electronics indicative of the markets it wants to break into. To help it make inroads into new markets, Intel is tapping into the maker community for ideas, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.

Read More ...

---

IT jobs take a summer swan dive
So much for the light at the end of the IT jobs tunnel.

Read More ...

---

Intel's Core M chips headed to 20 Windows tablets, hybrids
Intel's new Core M chips -- which bring PC-like performance to paper-thin tablets -- will initially be in many Windows 8.1 tablets, but no Android devices are yet on the radar. The chips will be in five to seven detachable tablets and hybrids by year end, and the number of devices could balloon to 20 next year, said Andy Cummins, mobile platform marketing manager at Intel.

Read More ...

---

Adobe slates critical Reader security update for Tuesday
Adobe yesterday said it would issue security updates next week for its PDF viewer Reader as well as for Acrobat, its PDF creator, to fix critical flaws in the software on Windows and Apple's OS X. But it won't be updating Flash Player, its ultra-popular media playing program. If that holds through the end of the month -- if Adobe does not have to issue an "out-of-cycle," or emergency patch -- it would be a first for 2014.

Read More ...

---

10 hot Internet of things startups to watch
As Internet connectivity gets embedded into everything from baby monitors to industrial sensors, investors, entrepreneurs and engineers are rushing to cash in. According to Gartner, Internet of things (IoT) vendors will earn more than $309 billion by 2020. However, most of those earnings will come from services.

Read More ...

---

DigitalOcean spins up Docker-powered hosting with CoreOS
Credit: iStockphoto

Read More ...

---

Apple CEO says iCloud security will be strengthened
Apple, still reeling from the nude celebrity photo incident, plans to soon strengthen security around its iCloud storage service, according to CEO Tim Cook in a news report Thursday.

Read More ...

---

Nvidia sues Samsung and Qualcomm, wants Galaxy sales blocked
Nvidia has sued Samsung and Qualcomm for allegedly infringing seven of its patents related to GPUs, and is trying to block the sale of some Samsung products in the U.S. The lawsuits open a new and unexpected front in the smartphone patent wars, which have already led to numerous court battles. In a blog post Thursday, Nvidia called it an "important day" for the company and said they are the first patent lawsuits it has initiated in its 21-year history.

Read More ...

---

Configuration errors lead to HealthCare.gov breach
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said that HealthCare.gov, the nation's health insurance enrollment website, was breached in July and that the attackers uploaded malware to the server. The breach, which is the first successful intrusion into the website, was discovered on August 25 by a CMS security team after an anomaly was detected in the security logs of one of the servers on the compromised system.

Read More ...

---

AT&T and Box to pave secure path to cloud content via VPN
Box and AT&T plan to lock down cloud file-sharing with a service that places enterprise content behind an AT&T VPN. The service, announced at the BoxWorks conference on Thursday and coming in the first half of next year, extends AT&T's NetBond technology to Box. It will be able to work in conjunction with the carrier's Toggle software, which separates business from personal content on mobile devices. Toggle with Box is scheduled to ship early next year.

Read More ...

---

Scala founder: Language due for 'fundamental rethink'
Credit: Martin Odersky

Read More ...

---

FCC chairman steps up for citizens, competition, and a better Internet
Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Read More ...

---

Dell brings Google's Chrome OS to desktops
Dell will ship its first desktops with Google's Chrome operating system this month. The company's two Chromebox desktops are small, almost identical in features and can be easily held in one hand. Both rely on Internet services and apps provided through the Chrome OS, but have different usage models.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Intel , Windows , Adobe , security , Apple , CEO , Nvidia , Samsung , Galaxy , via , Chrome OS , Dell , Chrome , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 9/5/2014

Data shows Home Depot breach could be largest ever
It looks like Home Depot may have earned the dubious distinction of being responsible for the biggest compromise ever involving credit and debit card data.

Read More ...

---

Box extends its enterprise playbook, but users are still at the center
Box CEO Aaron Levie may not be able to talk about the cloud storage and collaboration company's forthcoming IPO, but he still took the stage at the company's biggest BoxWorks conference yet, with 5,000 attendees.

Read More ...

---

Samsung banks on super-resolution screens for Galaxy Note 4, Note Edge
Samsung Electronics is hoping that super high-resolution screens on the Galaxy Note 4 and the Note Edge will help bring back some of its mojo. The Edge's screen, which wraps around the side of the device, sparked an explosion of comments by tech reviewers on Twitter the moment it was unveiled Wednesday at the IFA show in Berlin. Simultaneous Samsung events were also held in New York and Beijing.

Read More ...

---

4 no-bull things Google for Work needs to do to win the enterprise
Google for Work debuted earlier this week with ambitious goals.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft re-releases botched Windows 8.1 Update 2 patch KB 2975719
Microsoft announced yesterday that it is re-releasing the ill-fated Windows 8.1 U

Read More ...

---

Teradata continues big data buying spree, scoops up Think Big Analytics
Teradata has made its third acquisition of a company specializing in big data within about a month, with the latest deal involving consulting firm Think Big Analytics The addition of Think Big will boost Teradata's consulting arm, which already counts some 5,000 workers, with a team of engineers, architects and data scientists schooled in multiple Hadoop distributions, NoSQL databases and open-source projects associated with Hadoop, such as Hive and Spark.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft's StorSimple: A first look at the 8000 series
One problem that the emergence of big data and the Internet of things has highlighted for all of us in IT: There is data everywhere. On desktops, on servers, in databases, in logs, on phones and tablets, in your pants drawer -- you cannot escape it. Its corollary: The volume of data will continue to grow -- and data needs space. Data needs disk capacity.

Read More ...

---

IE users in no rush to discard old versions despite Microsoft's support-stoppage mandate
Users of Internet Explorer (IE) were in no hurry last month to discard older versions, even after Microsoft told them that their browsers will drop off the support list in early 2016. In a surprise announcement on Aug. 7, Microsoft said that after Jan. 12, 2016, it would support IE9 only on Windows Vista, IE10 only on Windows Server 2012, and only IE11 on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

Read More ...

---

Apple publishes new site revealing why apps are rejected
Apple has revealed why it refuses to list certain apps on its App Store for the first time. The Cupertino-headquartered firm published a breakdown of the top 10 reasons apps do not meet its guidelines on a new Web page titled "Common App Rejections".

Read More ...

---

Samsung acquires cloud printing company PrinterOn
Samsung Electronics has acquired mobile cloud printing company PrinterOn in a bid to enhance its mobile cloud services to the business-to-business market, the company said Wednesday. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. PrinterOn in Kitchener, Ontario will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Canada.

Read More ...

---

Latest Firefox version adds protection against rogue SSL certificates
Mozilla has added a defense in its latest version of Firefox that would help prevent hackers from intercepting data intended for major online services. The feature, known as certificate key pinning, allows online services to specify which SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Security Layer) certificates are valid for their services. The certificates are used to verify a site is legitimate and to encrypt data traffic.

Read More ...

---

Programmers could get REPL in official Java
Proponents of open source Java are investigating the possibility of formally adding a REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop) tool to the language.

Read More ...

---

PHP 5.6 features built-in debugger, better namespace support
PHP, the venerable scripting language for server-side Web development, has been upgraded in a point release highlighted by a new debugger.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Samsung , Galaxy , Google , Windows 8 , Microsoft , Windows , IE , Apple , Firefox , Java , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 8/16/2014

Azure cloud services have a rough week
Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform suffered a series of outages and service disruptions in the past week that affected several products and impacted customers in various parts of the world. Maintaining solid performance and reliability of the Azure infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service cloud tools is key for Microsoft as it battles strong rivals in this market like Amazon and Google.

Read More ...

---

Samsung buys SmartThings in ambitious push to connect your home
Samsung has agreed to buy SmartThings, a two-year-old startup that makes software to connect household objects and let them be controlled from afar via smartphone. The deal, announced Thursday, gives Samsung a solid foothold in the burgeoning "Internet of things" market. IoT generally involves connecting objects such as cameras, sensors and appliances using a wireless Internet connection and controlling them or collecting data.

Read More ...

---

Users find fix for botched KB 2982791 and KB 2970228 Windows update
Seems like business as usual in the Microsoft Black Tuesday support arena.

Read More ...

---

Stroustrup: Why the 35-year-old C++ still dominates 'real' dev
Credit: Bjarne Stroustrup

Read More ...

---

Smarter than Siri: Viv promises a truly intelligent assistant
Credit: VOLODYMYR GRINKO

Read More ...

---

How to crack an open source community
For a community founded on peace, love, and free-flowing code, the open source community can be a difficult crowd to crack.

Read More ...

---

Rimini Street did steal Oracle's intellectual property, judge says
A federal judge has dismissed a defamation claim against Oracle by third-party support vendor Rimini Street, saying Oracle was telling the truth when it accused the company of "massive theft" of its software. "It is undisputed that Rimini engaged in theft of Oracle's intellectual property by repeatedly making multiple copies of Oracle's copyrighted Enterprise Software programs to support its software support service clients," Judge Larry Hicks wrote in a ruling filed on Tuesday in a federal district court in Nevada.

Read More ...

---

Google broadens its malware sleuthing to sniff out deceptive downloads
Google is expanding its safe browsing technology to notify Web users of downloads that appear benign, but actually make unwanted changes to their computers.

Read More ...

---

Infor goes up against Salesforce.com with SalesLogix acquisition
Infor has acquired Saleslogix in a bid to compete with Salesforce.com in the cloud CRM (customer relationship management) software market, particularly for customers seeking industry-specific features. SalesLogix is changing hands for the second time in two years. In early 2013, Swiftpage bought it along with Act from Sage. Terms of the deal between Infor and Swiftpage, which was announced Thursday, were not disclosed.

Read More ...

---

New Gameover Zeus botnet growing in the U.S.
Cyber criminals are in the process of rebuilding the GOZ (Gameover Zeus) botnet, which law enforcement authorities took over in June, and recent research suggests that they've had some success, especially in the U.S. The original GOZ botnet was built using a modified version of the infamous Zeus trojan program and was designed to steal online banking and other credentials from infected computers. The GOZ malware authors created a command-and-control infrastructure with a peer-to-peer architecture, making their botnet more resilient to takeover attempts.

Read More ...

---

Wyoming to close data centers in cloud shift
The state of Wyoming is planning to discontinue most of its data center operations and move its physical equipment to commercial colocation facilities. It will continue to manage its own physical servers at these colocation centers, but this outsourcing step is part of a broader plan to move the state's computing resources to cloud services.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Samsung , Windows , C++ , Google , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 8/14/2014

SAP makes it cheaper, easier for customers to use Hana in certain scenarios
SAP has relaxed hardware requirements for using its Hana in-memory database platform for development and testing, in a move that could make existing Hana customers' operations easier and less expensive while also generating more Hana sales.

Read More ...

---

Former exec says HP 'bungled' the Autonomy acquisition, alleges cover-up
Autonomy's former CFO has claimed that Hewlett-Packard is accusing him and other ex-employees of fraud in order to cover up its own failings in the disastrous 2011 acquisition. After buying Autonomy, HP took a $8.8 billion writedown on the $11.1 billion deal, citing widespread accounting improprieties at the company before the sale.

Read More ...

---

Dell targets the storage market with new software bundle
Dell is organizing the backup software products that it has acquired in the past two years into a coherent portfolio, bundling three of its storage software products into a single package to simplify licensing for the enterprise. "We have a new approach to data protection that is driving down the costs," said Michael Grant, head of software product marketing at Dell.

Read More ...

---

15 new vulnerabilities reported during router hacking contest
Routers appear to be as insecure as ever, after hackers successfully compromised five popular wireless models during a contest at the DefCon 22 security conference, reporting 15 new vulnerabilities to affected vendors.

Read More ...

---

Texas, Florida, North Carolina lead IT job growth in first half of 2014
U.S. technology professionals searching for jobs may want to look in states not normally considered IT hot spots. The three states with the highest percentage of IT job growth for the first half of 2014 were Texas at 5.99 percent, Florida at 5.64 percent and North Carolina at 3.8 percent, according to a report from IT job site Dice.

Read More ...

---

IBM opening two state-of-the-art disaster recovery data centers
IBM is about to cut the ribbon officially opening two new state-of-the-art data centers intended to provide disaster recovery and resiliency services, one in the Raleigh, N.C. area and other in Mumbai, India.

Read More ...

---

How to overcome hidden barriers to open source adoption
Ten years ago, open source advocates faced an uphill battle when they tried to implement free software in an organization, while proprietary vendors such as Microsoft spoke out publicly and fiercely against it.

Read More ...

---

How Yahoo email encryption could help your business
If Yahoo gets it right, then the end-to-end email encryption the Internet company is promising would be a big help to companies concerned with privacy in the use of webmail, experts say. Alex Stamos, chief information security officer for Yahoo, announced last week at Black Hat that the company was developing a browser plug-in for encrypting messages sent from Yahoo Mail.

Read More ...

---

Amazon protects its virtual desktops with two-factor authentication
Amazon Web Services now lets enterprises use two-factor authentication to better protect hosted WorkSpaces virtual desktops.

Read More ...

---

Nvidia claims 64-bit Denver chip will outperform Apple's A7
Apple pioneered the use of 64-bit processors in smartphones, but Nvidia claims its 64-bit Denver chip will be even faster when it appears in devices later this year. Nvidia shared a few more details about Denver at the Hot Chips conference in Silicon Valley on Monday. It's calling it "the world's first 64-bit ARM processor for Android."

Read More ...

---

Apple's Swift falls back to earth after initial surge
Initial enthusiasm for Apple's newly introduced Swift language appears to have died down somewhat, based on two monthly programming

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:SAP , HP , Dell , router , IBM , Yahoo , Amazon , Nvidia , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 8/11/2014

Microsoft slashes IE support, sets 'huge' edict for Jan. 2016
Hard on the heels of a decision to step up the frequency of Windows updates, Microsoft on Thursday announced it would give customers 17 months to stop using older versions of Internet Explorer (IE), including the most popular of them all, IE8. The decision will further complicate enterprises' use of Microsoft's software, analysts said.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft's no-name update plan nails Windows 8's coffin shut
Microsoft will not, contrary to some expectations, put a name to its next Windows 8.1 update, a decision that not only reflects a scaling back of ambition for the reputation-plagued OS but also indicates a different approach to all Windows' releases, analysts said today. This week Microsoft said that future feature updates, whether new tools or improvements to existing parts of Windows 8.1, would be parceled out in smaller chunks.

Read More ...

---

Emerging networking technology used by Apple, Cisco will frustrate firewalls
Today's security software is ineffective against an emerging networking technology already in use by Apple for its Siri voice-recognition software, according to research presented at the Black Hat hacking conference this week. The technology, called Multipath TCP (MPTCP), is a souped-up sibling of TCP, a cornerstone Internet protocol for transferring data packets between computers. Cisco and Juniper have also put MPTCP in some of their equipment.

Read More ...

---

IBM's new 'brain chip' could power the Internet of things
IBM has taken another step toward its ambitious goal of creating a processor that acts like a human brain, creating a second, more advanced chip that mimics the way the mammalian brain operates. "It's a new landmark of the brain-inspired computers," said Dharmendra Modha, IBM Research fellow and chief scientist focusing on brain-inspired computing.

Read More ...

---

USPTO rejects claims of Apple patent in dispute with Samsung
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected some claims of an Apple patent that was one of the basis for a recent damages award in a dispute with Samsung Electronics.

Read More ...

---

New Windows 9 rumors: Can the charms, clone the Desktop
Curious about Windows 9? Recent revelations give us the beginnings of an idea of what new features to expect.

Read More ...

---

Nadella leaves no doubt of who's in charge at Microsoft
Say what you will about Satya Nadella's first six months as Microsoft CEO, but no one can deny the man jumped in with both feet from day one and has led the company with decisiveness. Some of his moves have been met with applause and others with raspberries.

Read More ...

---

SAP HANA continues to baffle customers
Despite years of hype, some SAP customers remain puzzled over how the vendor's HANA in-memory computing platform can fit into their IT strategies, a newly released survey from the Americas' SAP Users' Group has found. Fifty-five percent of 377 survey respondents asked whether their company has purchased HANA said they hadn't, with 40 percent saying they have and 5 percent not knowing.

Read More ...

---

Don't panic: That Russian hack bombshell isn't what you think
FUD over the current state of cyber insecurity reached a fever pitch this week as thousands gathered in Las Vegas for Defcon and

Read More ...

---

Hadoop meets Google Docs: Analytics made easy
Credit: Wikimedia

Read More ...

---

OpenSSL, critical encryption component, gets nine software fixes
Nine software fixes were released Wednesday for OpenSSL, a critical encryption component for exchanging data on the Web, although none of the problems are as severe as the "Heartbleed" issue found in April. All of the issues were reported during June and July by security analysts with software vendors Google, Codenomicon, LogMeIn and NCC Group, according to an advisory.

Read More ...

---

Network-attached storage devices more vulnerable than home routers
A security review of network-attached storage (NAS) devices from multiple manufacturers revealed that they typically have more vulnerabilities than home routers, a class of devices known for poor security and vulnerable code. Jacob Holcomb, a security analyst at Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators, is in the process of analyzing NAS devices from 10 manufacturers and has so far found vulnerabilities that could lead to a complete compromise in all of them.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Microsoft , IE , Windows 8 , Windows , Cisco , Apple , Samsung , SAP , hack , Google , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 8/7/2014

Rackspace bows out of IaaS market
Rackspace is discontinuing its pure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering in favor of a new category of cloud services named "managed cloud" in which the company will support customers building and managing their cloud services.

Read More ...

---

Researchers promote battery-free Wi-Fi technology
The coming Internet of things (IoT) revolution may not run on batteries, but on power plucked from the air, according to researchers at the University of Washington.

Read More ...

---

HP offers trimmed-down cloud service for lighter use
Hoping to lure more enterprises to its cloud, Hewlett-Packard is offering a trimmed-down basic infrastructure service for lighter workloads. Called HP Helion Managed Virtual Private Cloud Lean, the service can be put to use on things like development jobs or running collaboration software.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft Azure, the world's biggest cloud? Someone's fudging
Credit: iStockphoto

Read More ...

---

Oracle issues fix for Java update that crippled some Web apps
There's relief available for users who applied a recent Java update that stopped some Web applications from being able to launch. Oracle has issued Java 7 Update 67 which contains a fix for the problem that cropped up in Java 7 Update 65, according to an official blog post.

Read More ...

---

Gates cashes out another 20 million Microsoft shares for $882 million
Bill Gates has sold another 20 million shares of the company he co-founded, driving his portfolio under the 300-million mark for the first time, according to regulatory filings. Over a five-day span from July 24 to July 30, Gates sold the shares at prices ranging from $43.45 to $44.54, turning the holdings into $882 million in cash. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published the sales documents between July 28 and July 31.

Read More ...

---

PwC: IoT will become multitrillion-dollar market by 2020
Companies have embarked on a gradual but massive adoption of "Internet of things" (IoT) technology, investing in sensors to collect data, which is then wirelessly sent for further analysis or alerts, according to a survey. IoT involves hardware, like small devices and wireless networking, as well as software, but sensors are key for extracting data from objects and the environment, said PwC in the survey, released Monday.

Read More ...

---

HTTP/2 Web acceleration protocol nears completion
When it comes to speeding up Web traffic over the Internet, sometimes too much of a good thing may not be such a good thing at all. The Internet Engineering Task Force is putting the final touches on HTTP/2, the second version of the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). The working group has issued a last call draft, urging interested parties to voice concerns before it becomes a full Internet specification.

Read More ...

---

Surface damage mounts at Microsoft as red ink reaches $1.7 billion
Microsoft continued to lose money on its Surface tablets throughout its just-concluded 2014 fiscal year, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink and boosting total losses to $1.7 billion since the device's 2012 launch.According to the 8-K statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 22, the Surface posted revenue of $409 million for the quarter that ended June 30. But unlike the two quarters prior, Microsoft did not reveal the cost of revenue associated with the Surface for the period.

Read More ...

---

5 big data projects that could change your life
Most over-hyped technology trends wear out their welcome pretty quickly, which should make skeptics among us wary about Big Data. However, while Big Data is being touted as the latest trend that will change the world, the skeptics aren't as, well, skeptical as they were about cloud and social. That's probably because Big Data is generating real-world wins for the companies embracing it. Already, Big Data analytics is starting to fundamentally change such disparate disciplines as pharmaceutical research, sales and marketing, and product development.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:HP , Microsoft , Oracle , Java , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 8/6/2014

Hewlett-Packard slams ex-Autonomy exec, says it will sue
Hewlett-Packard has fired back at a former Autonomy executive who is attempting to block the settlement of a number of shareholder lawsuits filed over HP's disastrous acquisition of the infrastructure software vendor. HP bought Autonomy in 2011 for more than $10 billion, but later wrote off $8.8 billion of the purchase price after discovering what it called serious accounting irregularities on the part of Autonomy prior to the deal.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft continues global CRM expansion in battle against Salesforce.com
Microsoft has expanded the availability of its cloud CRM software into 17 additional countries in a move sure to step up its rivalry with Salesforce.com. The move brings Dynamics CRM Online to new places in South America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Read More ...

---

Danish university transfers data at record-breaking 43Tbps over a single fiber
Using souped-up fiber, the Technical University of Denmark has set a new record for transmitting data over one channel: 43 terabits per second. The High-Speed Optical Communications group at the university's photonics engineering department made the transmission. It beat the old record, which belonged to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, by a margin of 11Tbps, the university said.

Read More ...

---

Cisco patches traffic snooping flaw in its networking gear
Cisco Systems said attackers could disrupt or intercept traffic in many of its networking products unless a new security update is applied to the software they run. The issue affects the implementation of the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol and its Link State Advertisement (LSA) database in particular. This protocol is used for determining the shortest routing paths inside an Autonomous System (AS) -- a collection of routing policies for IP (Internet Protocol) addresses controlled by ISPs and large organizations.

Read More ...

---

Is your Dropcam live feed being watched by someone else?
Dropcam, the popular video monitoring camera, bills itself as "super simple security." But a pair of researchers plan to show at the Defcon hacking conference later this week how a Dropcam could be a weak point. Patrick Wardle and Colby Moore, both of whom work for security firm Synack, tore apart a $200 Dropcam and figured out how its software works.

Read More ...

---

Mozilla warns of leaky developer network database
Mozilla's website for developers leaked email addresses and encrypted passwords of registered users for about a month due to a database error, the organization said Friday. Email addresses for 76,000 Mozilla Development Network (MDN) users were exposed, along with around 4,000 encrypted passwords, wrote Stormy Peters, director of development relations, and Joe Stevensen, operations security manager in a blog post. Mozilla is notifying those affected.

Read More ...

---

Mercifully toothless Windows 8.1 Update 2 due next week
Everything is on course for an August Black Tuesday release of the Windows 8.1 patch formerly known as Windows 8.1 Update 2, and now apparently code named "August Update," according to unnamed sources cited by

Read More ...

---

New JavaScript library adds facial detection, 3D projection to Web apps
The open source Tracking.js JavaScript library is bringing computer vision and augmented reality to Web development.

Read More ...

---

5 ways to add machine learning to Java, JavaScript, and more
After spending decades in the shadows as a specialty discipline, machine learning is suddenly front and center as a busi

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Microsoft , Cisco , Mozilla , Windows 8 , Windows , 3D , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 04/08/2014

Microsoft sues Samsung, says it stopped paying for patents
Microsoft filed suit against Samsung on Friday, claiming the device maker has backed out of an agreement that requires it to pay licensing fees to Microsoft for the Android phones it sells. Samsung has not honored the agreement since at least last September, when Microsoft announced it was acquiring Nokia's devices and services business from Google, Microsoft alleged in the complaint.

Read More ...

---

Almost 200,000 people may have been affected by U.S. visa system crash
Computer problems with the U.S. State Department's system for issuing passports and visas may have affected up to 200,000 people, it emerged Thursday, as the scale of the problem became clear for the first time.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft EMET 5.0 security tool puts a leash on plug-ins
The latest release of a Microsoft security tool that's designed to stop exploits lets administrators control when third-party plugins are launched, a long favored route for attackers. Microsoft has been steadily improving and adding more capabilities to the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET), a free tool that strengthens the security of non-Microsoft applications by using defenses built within Windows, such as ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) and DEP (Data Execution Prevention).

Read More ...

---

Most USB thumb drives can be reprogrammed to infect computers
Most USB devices have a fundamental security weakness that can be exploited to infect computers with malware in a way that cannot easily be prevented or detected, security researchers found. The problem is that the majority of USB thumb drives, and likely other USB peripherals available on the market, do not protect their firmware -- the software that runs on the microcontroller inside them, said Karsten Nohl, the founder and chief scientist of Berlin-based Security Research Labs.

Read More ...

---

Windows Server 2003 support expiration could boost server sales next year
Server sales could spike with the expiration of extended support for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 OS in July next year, a Dell executive said. The expiration of extended support for Windows Server 2003 is analogous to support expiration for Windows XP in April, which prompted PC upgrades, said Forrest Norrod, general manager of servers.

Read More ...

---

French carrier Iliad offers to buy T-Mobile
French mobile operator Iliad has offered to buy T-Mobile US, the fourth-largest U.S. cellular carrier, in a bid that could complicate an offer reportedly in the works at Sprint.Iliad confirmed on Wednesday that it has offered $15 billion in cash for 56.6 percent of T-Mobile. Its bid prices the whole company at $36.2 per share, a premium of 42 percent over T-Mobile's share price on Dec. 12, before speculation about a Sprint bid affected the price, Iliad said.

Read More ...

---

Judge rules against Microsoft in email privacy case
A U.S. district court judge has ruled against Microsoft in the company's effort to oppose a U.S. government search warrant for emails stored in Ireland. On Thursday, Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected the company's appeal of an earlier ruling requiring it to turn over emails stored in the company's facility in Dublin. Preska ruled that Microsoft will not have to turn over the emails while it files an appeal.

Read More ...

---

Sneaky broadband data caps imperil the Internet's future
Credit: loops7

Read More ...

---

How to get started with GitHub
If you've ever wanted to learn Git, but didn't want to configure a server, GitHub may be the place to do it. That thought isn't mine alone. During a recent site visit, Groupon's lead talent scout told me the company searches for candidates not on a resume site but, rather, by searching through recent GitHub commits.

Read More ...

---

HP gives OpenVMS new life
Hewlett-Packard has changed its direction on OpenVMS. Instead of pushing its users off the system, it has licensed OpenVMS to a new firm that plans to develop ports to the latest Itanium chips and is promising eventual support for x86 processors.

Read More ...

---

SAP ties up with Apigee for API management
SAP will resell software from Apigee in a move to help customers and partners build mobile applications, products and services that securely tap data from SAP systems. The deal will result in a product called SAP API Management, a rebadged version of Apigee's Edge platform, which will be available in both on-premises form and on SAP's Hana Cloud Platform, according to an announcement Thursday.

Read More ...

---

Oracle buys TOA Technologies in strike against Salesforce.com
Oracle is fleshing out its family of cloud applications and taking a competitive step against the likes of Salesforce.com with the acquisition of TOA Technologies, maker of software for companies centered around field services. Terms were not disclosed.

Read More ...

---

IBM buys access control and identity management firm CrossIdeas
IBM has added to its security software portfolio with the purchase of Italian access control and identity management firm CrossIdeas for an undisclosed sum, the companies said Thursday. The company, already an IBM partner, provides tools to ensure that users can only access the applications and data permitted under corporate governance, regulatory compliance and business process rules, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Microsoft , security , USB , Windows , Server , server , HP , SAP , Oracle , IBM , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 23/07/2014

iOS devices are still safe -- from everybody except Apple and the NSA
Forensic researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has outlined details of how undocument

Read More ...

---

VMware dangles dollars for mobile, apps, and virtualization migration
VMware's newest offering isn't a product so much as an escape hatch.

Read More ...

---

Stealthy 'Critroni' ransomware uses Tor, could replace Cryptolocker
Cyber criminals are spreading a new file-encrypting ransomware program that's more powerful and resilient than Cryptolocker, a threat recently shut down by the U.S. Department of Justice. The new ransomware threat is called CTB-Locker (Curve-Tor-Bitcoin Locker), but Microsoft anti-malware products detect it as Critroni.A. Its creator has been advertising the program to other cybercriminals on Russian-language forums since the middle of June and it seems that he's been trying to fix most of Cryptolocker's faults.

Read More ...

---

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden plans to work on easy-to-use privacy tools
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden doesn't yet know whether he'll be spending the next year in a U.S. prison or an undisclosed location in Russia. Nevertheless, Snowden hopes to work on anti-surveillance technologies in the future.

Read More ...

---

Ping Identity wants to replace sign-ons with smartphones
Credit: iStockphoto

Read More ...

---

Google Chrome dumps 30-year-old Windows technology
Google last week said that it was finally ditching a 30-year-old technology to display fonts on Web pages in its Chrome browser for Windows. In an announcement Thursday about some of the notable changes in Chrome for version 37, which reached Google's Beta build channel earlier that day, a software engineer said the preview relied on Microsoft's DirectWrite technology.

Read More ...

---

US court says warrant for access to all content of email account is justified
A New York judge defended a controversial order that gave the government access to all content of the Gmail account of a target in a money laundering investigation, holding that courts have long recognized the practical need for law enforcement to seize documents if only to determine whether they fall within the warrant.

Read More ...

---

Net neutrality a key battleground in growing fight over encryption, activists say
Plans to favor some Internet packets over others threaten consumers' hard-won right to use encryption, a digital privacy advocate says. Activists and tech companies fended off efforts in the U.S. in the 1990s to ban Internet encryption or give the government ways around it, but an even bigger battle over cryptography is brewing now, according to Sascha Meinrath, director of X-Lab, a digital civil-rights think tank launched earlier this year. One of the most contested issues in that battle will be Net neutrality, Meinrath said.

Read More ...

---

GitHub takes center stage at OSCON
Credit: GitHub GitHub will once again get the spotlight at OSCON (O'Reilly Open Source Convention) in Portland, Ore., this week.

Read More ...

---

Oracle, Mirantis team up to grab Red Hat's OpenStack crown
The OpenStack world has been watching Red Hat with unease as the Linux vendor has transformed itself into a Linux-and-OpenStack vendor

Read More ...

---

Appcelerator gears up for the business world
System administrators take note: That mobile employee expense app you're building should be every bit as easy to use as Facebook. Oh, and you better deliver it quickly too, because that's how Facebook rolls. Increasingly, organizations are finding that they need to build mobile apps for their employees in this hyper-connected world. Because employees are probably already used to Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps and other consumer-friendly apps, they'll expect a high degree of polish and performance from their enterprise apps as well.

Read More ...

---

Despite cloud and mobile push, IBM's revenue flattens
Despite a hearty push into cloud services and enterprise mobility, IBM continues to experience difficulty in raising revenue, though second-quarter profit jumped compared to a year ago. IBM's second-quarter revenue was $24.4 billion, down 2 percent compared with $24.9 billion in the second quarter of 2013, the company announced Thursday.

Read More ...

---

CEO Whitman to chair HP's board
Two days after Hewlett-Packard said its chairman had resigned due to ill health, the company has named a replacement: President and CEO Meg Whitman. Whitman is now chairman of HP's board in addition to her other roles. It's a sign of HP's confidence in Whitman as she continues a multiyear effort to get the lumbering Silicon Valley giant back on track.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:iOS , Apple , VMware , Google , Chrome , Windows , Red Hat , CEO , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 15/07/2014

Actuate software offers free data analysis to enterprise business units
Software provider Actuate is offering a free way for business units to analyze enterprise data and present the results in a format that is easy to understand. The gratis software "is a free server for developers to deploy their reports, visualizations and applications," said Nobby Akiha, Actuate senior vice president of marketing. [ Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]

Read More ...

---

BlackBerry's BBM comes to Windows Phone in beta form ahead of widespread launch
In response to "an incredible number of requests," Blackberry will soon bring its BBM messaging app to Windows Phone. For now, the app is in a filled-up closed beta, though you can register to join the waiting list. Blackberry says it will open the app to everyone in "the coming weeks."

Read More ...

---

WordPress 4.0: The app becomes a platform
Credit: WordPress

Read More ...

---

Microsoft zaps bogus SSL certs with emergency patch 2982792
Yesterday, Dustin Childs at the Microsoft Security Response Center advised that

Read More ...

---

Google to tour Europe to discuss right-to-be-forgotten ruling
Google is going to tour Europe with a band of external advisers this fall to discuss a landmark ruling by Europe's top court that gave people the right to have personal information excluded from search engine listings in Europe. Under this so-called right to be forgotten, search engines such as Google could be forced upon request to remove results for queries that include a person's name, if the results shown are inadequate, no longer relevant, or excessive.

Read More ...

---

Gmail users on iOS at risk of data interception
Apple users accessing Gmail on mobile devices could be at risk of having their data intercepted, a mobile security company said Thursday. The reason is Google has not yet implemented a security technology that would prevent attackers from viewing and modifying encrypted communications exchanged with the Web giant, wrote Avi Bashan, chief information security officer for Lacoon Mobile Security, based in Israel and the United States.

Read More ...

---

Amazon seeks U.S. exemption to test delivery drones
Amazon.com has asked the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration permission to test drones outdoors for use in its Prime Air package delivery service. In the run-up to launching the service, which aims to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less, the online retailer is developing aerial vehicles that travel over 50 miles per hour, and will carry 5-pound payloads, which account for 86 percent of the products sold on Amazon.

Read More ...

---

Source code for tiny 'Tinba' banking malware leaked
The source code for an impressively small but capable malware program that targets online bank accounts has been leaked, according to CSIS Security Group of Denmark. The program, known as "Tinba" or "Zusy," was discovered around mid-2012 and infected tens of thousands of computers in Turkey. It is notable for having a very small code base -- just 20K -- but capabilities similar to malware much larger in size.

Read More ...

---

Infosys revenue and profit rise ahead of CEO change
Indian outsourcer Infosys said its revenue and profit grew in the second quarter as the company won some large deals in the period. Infosys said its revenue for the quarter grew 7 percent year on year, to $2.13 billion. Net profit grew 15 percent to $482 million, according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Read More ...

---

Samsung rebrands app store with a focus on Galaxy devices
Samsung Electronics has updated and rebranded its app store, in an apparent bid to cut into Google's revenue from its Play store for apps running on Android devices.

Read More ...

---

Amazon sets sights on snagging mobile developers
Introducing the new mission for Amazon Web Services: mobile dominance.

Read More ...

---

AWS rolls out enterprise document storage and sharing
Amazon Web Services is offering a new document sharing service with management and security features designed to appeal to businesses. Werner Vogels, Amazon chief technology officer, introduced the service, called Zocalo, at the AWS Summit, Thursday in New York City.

Read More ...

---

Nadella on Microsoft's culture change: 'Nothing is off the table'
Microsoft staffers worldwide should buckle their seat belts because a big culture shakeup is in the works at the company. In a long letter sent to employees on Thursday, CEO Satya Nadella said that he and his lieutenants are taking "important steps to visibly change our culture."

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Windows Phone , Windows , Microsoft , Google , Gmail , iOS , Amazon , CEO , Samsung , Galaxy , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 04/07/2014

Many employees won't mingle with enterprise social software
In a great IT industry irony, ESN (enterprise social networking) software, designed to boost interaction and collaboration, is often ignored by users and ends up forgotten like the proverbial ghost town with rolling tumbleweeds. The promise of a successful ESN deployment is appealing to businesses: implement a Facebook- and Twitter-like system for your workplace, with employee profiles, activity streams, document sharing, groups, discussion forums and microblogging, and watch employee collaboration bloom.

Read More ...

---

ARM to ship mini-computer for writing 64-bit Android L apps
A new ARM mini-computer that could speed up the development of applications for 64-bit Android L smartphones and tablets will ship late next month.The hardware, which is an uncased computer, is aimed at professional developers and large companies to help them write middleware, drivers and tools for 64-bit Android smartphones and tablets, which are expected in the market by the end of the year.

Read More ...

---

Sparc and Windows get more love in Oracle VM update
The latest release of Oracle's software for managing virtual machines offers the same set of features to Sparc users as to those who manage virtual machines on x86 servers. "With [Oracle VM] 3.3, a big part of the improvement is on the Sparc side," said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle senior vice president for Linux and virtualization engineering. "Both x86 and Sparc servers are on par in terms of functionality from the management console."

Read More ...

---

Latest cyber security bill riddled with Net neutrality loopholes
The latest cyber security information sharing bill being considered in the Senate strikes many as overly broad and in need of revision.

Read More ...

---

Critical vulnerability in WordPress newsletter plug-in endangers many blogs
A critical vulnerability found in a WordPress plug-in that has been downloaded over 1.7 million times allows potential attackers to take complete control of blogs that use it. The flaw is located in the MailPoet Newsletters plug-in, previously known as wysija-newsletters, and was discovered by researchers from Web security firm Sucuri.

Read More ...

---

VMware opens up testing of next-gen vSphere to anyone
VMware is for the first time inviting anyone to beta test the next version of vSphere, the company's virtualization platform. The company is hoping to learn more about how organizations use vSphere under real-world conditions and test cases, it said. As VMware has expanded beyond server virtualization to set its sights on the whole datacenter, it has become more important for the company to get feedback from a larger group.

Read More ...

---

China has the fastest supercomputer, but the U.S. still rules
More powerful supercomputers enable higher resolutions for modeling and simulations, more complex science, and the possibility of breakthrough discoveries. It's one reason why the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list is carefully watched. Computing power matters in this universe.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft action against No-IP disrupting other hacking groups, Kaspersky says
Microsoft's seizure of domains from a DNS service provider has also disrupted some state-sponsored cyber espionage campaigns, according to security vendor Kaspersky Lab. A quarter of the long-term malware operations run by hacking groups tracked by the Russian security vendor have been affected by the seizure of domains from No-IP, wrote analyst Costin Rau on a company blog Tuesday.

Read More ...

---

OpenSSL Project publishes roadmap to counter criticism
The OpenSSL Project is planning a number of changes to ensure its security component, used across millions of computers across the Internet, is in tip-top shape. OpenSSL is an open-source code library that encrypts communications between a computer and a server using SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security). It is a fundamental defense for keeping e-commerce transactions, email, and other data unreadable if the traffic is intercepted.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft admits to technical error in IP takeover, but No-IP still down
Microsoft admitted Tuesday it made a technical error after it commandeered part of an Internet service's network in order to shut down a botnet, but the Nevada-based company says its services are still down. A federal court in Reno granted Microsoft an ex-parte restraining order that allowed it to take control of 22 domains run by No-IP, a DNS (Domain Name Service) provider owned by Vitalwerks, which was served the order on Monday.

Read More ...

---

EFF sues the NSA to disclose use of software security flaws
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a prominent digital privacy rights group, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency to get it to specify the extent to which it might exploit software security flaws.

Read More ...

---

4 ways PHP coding is getting less painful
It's easy to hate PHP despite the culture of software built on top of it.

Read More ...

---

FTC: T-Mobile made hundreds of millions from unwanted SMS features
T-Mobile USA made hundreds of millions of dollars by charging customers for purported "premium" SMS subscriptions that, in many cases, they never ordered, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission says.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Android , Windows , Oracle , security , VMware , Microsoft , other , 

IT News Head Lines (InfoWorld) 02/07/2014

Facebook's big problem: Ethical blindness
When you agreed to Facebook's terms and conditions, did you know you were agreeing to become a subject in a psychology experiment?

Read More ...

---

New Docker-enabled Linux distro wants to rival Red Hat
CoreOS, a newly minted Linux distribution that uses Docker containers to manage both applications and the system as a whole, ha

Read More ...

---

Oracle hopes to entice mobile developers with new framework
Oracle is hoping it can attract more developers with MAF (Mobile Application Framework), which aims to simplify the development of cross-platform enterprise apps for smartphones and tablets. As a result of the growing number of smartphones and tablets employees have, software vendors are increasingly focusing on how to make enterprise applications more mobile friendly. On Monday, Oracle announced updates to its Mobile Suite, which aims to do just that.

Read More ...

---

Google terminates Quickoffice apps on Android, iOS
As Google last week introduced new features for its online and Android productivity apps, it also quietly announced that it has halted development on Quickoffice and would soon pull the free software from the Google Play and Apple App Store.

Read More ...

---

Flash storage faces challenge from Crossbar's RRAM
The hunt for memory technology to replace NAND flash storage within the next 10 years is under way, and startup Crossbar is planning to bringing its version of RRAM (resistive random-access memory) technology to market next year. RRAM, a form of nonvolatile memory that is not available commercially yet, will be cheaper, smaller and more power-efficient than NAND flash, which is being used in solid-state drives and mobile flash drives, said Tanmay Kumar, vice president of device engineering at Crossbar.

Read More ...

---

Facebook researcher defends controversial psychology experiment on users
A Facebook researcher behind a controversial psychology experiment on users has defended it, stating that the research aimed to investigate a common concern that seeing friends post positive content on the social networking website leads people to feel negative or left out.

Read More ...

---

IT spending growth to be slower than expected in 2014, Gartner says
IT research firm Gartner has cut its forecast for global IT spending by about one-third for this year, blaming a tougher competitive environment and subsequent pressure on vendors to lower prices. Spending will rise 2.1 percent to $3.7 trillion in 2014, down from the 3.2 percent growth rate Gartner had predicted for 2014.

Read More ...

---

How much is Hadoop worth? For Google, $80 million
Credit: Wikimedia

Read More ...

---

Oops! Surface Pro 3 firmware and driver update causing sluggish Wi-Fi


Read More ...

---

Google Dart upgrade zooms in on mobile app dev
Although struggling against JavaScript, Google continues to plow forward with Dart, sprucing up the language with mobile development capabilities.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Red Hat , Linux , Oracle , Google , iOS , Facebook , driver ,