Android, Phone Home
Linux on your end table: The New York Times reports that T-Mobile plans to roll out Android-based home phones next year, as well as other devices, including a tablet computer. Read the full story here. An excerpt:
Linux on your end table: The New York Times reports that T-Mobile plans to roll out Android-based home phones next year, as well as other devices, including a tablet computer. Read the full story here. An excerpt:
Henry Porter writing in the Observer attempts to make the “Or Not” case. Read the full column here. I suggest you do, because it presages the arguments of those who would strangle technology to preserve walled gardens.
The Guardian considers reports that Google is negotiating to buy Twitter. Read the full story here. An excerpt: I freely confess that, as regards Twitter, I just don’t get. But I still think Usenet is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Update: Kara Swisher at Boomtown reports that Google and Twitter were, indeed, talking, but […]
In May of this year, Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft. Then, the release candidate for Win7 will be downloaded by millions of people and the transition will begin, leapfrogging the ill-conceived Visa OS. Except for the skilled, it is going to be one tremendous slap around for most of the country. […]
Reuters reports that, as the economy worsens all over the world, cyber crime is increasing dramatically. Read the full story here. The crimes include old friends, such as the Nigerian scam and auction fraud, as well as credit card fraud, Ponzi schemes, and, according to sources I have read elsewhere, mortgage relief schemes. Here is […]
The latest answer, the latest of many, to the question of “earth, the universe, and everything” in computerdom seems to be cloud computing, in which users’ applications and data exist not on their local machines, but up there, somewhere, in the “cloud.” (Aside: In the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, it was […]
Keep those firewalls up and those computers updated. The New York Times reports on a cyber-spying ring originating from China. Read the full story here. An excerpt:
Reuters reports: Read the full story here. There were hints that this might be on the way in this radio interview two weeks ago.
According to Bloomberg News, the FCC reports that viewer ratings for stations that have already switched to digital only over-the-air broadcast signals have dropped nine per cent. Read the full story here. Most stations are waiting for the June deadline, which Congress earlier this year pushed back from February. I suspect that, whenever this goes […]
Another company has joined the Facebook world, Reuters reports. Read the full story here. Here’s an excerpt:
Michael White, from Washington University Medical School, considers why mediocrity is so common and answers the question with a Plinko game. Read the full story here. There’s an excerpt below the fold.
The New York Times speculates on what the Conflicker worm is all about. Read the full story here: Make sure your Windows boxes are updated, your firewalls are secure, and your anti-malware programs are current.
Bloomberg quotes Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft’s efforts to become a player in internet searches. Read the full story here: I find Mr. Ballmer’s position interesting for a number of reasons.
From MarketWatch, which reports that Microsoft “unveiled Internet Explorer 8, the newest version of its Web browser. The software will be available for download in 25 languages at noon Eastern Time on Thursday at Microsoft’s Website.” Here is a link to the IE 8 webpage.
I have been a rabid Opera fanboy since Opera v. 3. I now have gotten Opera on the netbook that I discussed here. Here’s how I did it (hint: it worked the same as if I were on regular laptop or desktop):
Developers in Japan designed a robot intended to serve as a fashion model. Apparently, it didn’t impress the audience. Read the full story, with illustrations, in the Guardian at this link. Here’s an excerpt:
Except when it’s not. From the New York Times: “A list of user names and passwords for customers of Comcast, one of the nation’s largest Internet service providers, sat unprotected on the Web for the last two months. “The list was 8,000 lines long, but Comcast said late Monday that just 700 of those lines […]
Bloomberg reports that Cisco Systems has released its first server for use in corporate data center environments. Read the full story here. According to the story, Cisco is banking on having designed a box that is easier to administer and manage in a network environment. Two excerpts:
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been testing a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook. Here’s what I found.
This is really neat–a look back to 1975 at a mechanical (that is, completely not electronic) Tic-Tac-Toe playing computer made of Tinkertoys. Read about how it worked here. Here’s some detail.
The Guardian reports that Mary Lou Jepsen, who designed the OLPC, has now engineered a screen, dubbed the Pixel Qi, that can work as a computer monitor, a television screen, or “paper” that can be read in sunlight, similar to the Amazon Kindle. Read the full story here.
The corporate forces opposing and supporting net neutrality have decided to fight it out in Europe, according to the New York Times. Read the article here. The says that those ISPs who want to charge for bandwidth and to charge websites for higher priorities have concluded that, if they can establish those practices in Europe, […]
Automation can be a wonderful thing for performing repititious tasks, well, repititiously. Automatons, though, have not judgment. According to an article in the Washington Post, persons with real, but unusual names, face great struggles in getting through Facebook’s automatons to someone with judgment. Rejected, yet valid names include “Super,” “Batman,” “Pancake,” and “Beers.” (I used […]
A computer security consultant (has to be an irony there) got for years for creating botnets and was ordered to pay $19,000 in restitution. Read the story here.