Linux News: Communication Systems

Secure, Real-Time UC: Safe Connections While on the Move
November 05, 2009

Unified Communications holds enormous promise as a coherent, integrated approach to incorporating the full spectrum of business communications modalities, and as direct path to cut through "communications clutter" resulting in accelerated time-to-action. It also offers a cost-effective way to more directly connect the company to its customers.

The Google Voice Choice: Keep Your Number or Get More Features
October 27, 2009

Google announced on Monday that Google Voice users can retain their existing mobile phone numbers when setting up an account instead of having to receive a new phone number for the service. "Google Voice is all about enabling choice," product manager Pierre Lebeau said in a post on the Google Voice blog.

The Young and the Twitterless
October 24, 2009

They think it's pointless, narcissistic. Some don't even know what it is. Even so, more young adults and teens -- normally at the cutting edge of technology -- are finally coming around to Twitter, using it for class or work, monitoring the minutiae of celebrities' lives.

Mozilla's Raindrop to Provide a Tidy In-Box for Everything
October 23, 2009

Mozilla on Thursday introduced Raindrop, a project that seeks to consolidate online communications. The Raindrop team consists of the same people who worked on Mozilla's Thunderbird, an open source, cross-platform email client. Raindrop will complement Google Wave, the new data communication and collaboration tool from Google.

Google Wave Beta: Some Undertow, but Lots of Potential
October 22, 2009

Five months of hype have roiled the waters for Google Wave. Is it an Outlook killer? The search giant's idea of a social network? One unified communications tool to rule us all? The buzz began at May's Google I/O Developer conference. Now, after much talk in the tech blogosphere and among analysts, Wave is finally in preview mode.

Tech Heavies to FCC: Stay On Target
October 19, 2009

If the Internet is indeed "a series of tubes," as famously described by former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, then the mother of all plumbing snakes would be needed to unblock the press releases and emails sent over the last two weeks by those backing and opposing Net neutrality. That would include Monday's letter to the FCC from the Open Internet Coalition, signed by 25 top tech company executives.

FCC Digs Deeper Into Google Voice Dilemma
October 12, 2009

If you view AT&T and Google as squabbling high-tech siblings and the Federal Communications Commission as the harried parent, then AT&T has won the latest round of attention-getting theatrics, thanks to the FCC's Friday decision to investigate Google Voice. It was the carrier's initial complaint against Google in late September that prompted the government's probe regarding Voice.

The Cutting Edge of Law Enforcement Technologies
October 06, 2009

Not so long ago, Motorola was hailed as the bane of criminals. "You might outrun the cop, but you'll never outrun Motorola," went the saying. The Motorola two-way radio was one of the first technologies to tip the scales in favor of law enforcement. However, it was by no means the last.

FCC Chair Leads Charge on Net Neutrality Battlefield
September 21, 2009

For so-called Net neutrality advocates, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's Monday morning speech at the Brookings Institution must have reached their ears like sweet music -- legally downloaded music, that is, delivered on a very fast wireless connection.

When Microsoft Exchange Availability Matters the Most
September 10, 2009

The average worker checks email once every 15 minutes, recent studies have shown, with some users checking email as often as 40 times per hour. In addition, increasing use of personal mobile devices means that employees have become attached to their email at all times, with some checking their device as soon as each email arrives.

NTSB Practices What It Preaches About Cellphones and Driving
September 09, 2009

The federal safety agency that investigates transportation accidents is banning texting and talking on cellphones by its employees while driving on government business. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman said Tuesday she's adopting the policy because she wants her agency to follow the same safety practices it recommends for others.

Gmail Failure Heightens Cloud Computing Jitters
September 02, 2009

Gmail's 100-minute outage Tuesday was the result of a cascading series of router failures caused by a combination of hardware maintenance and traffic policies, Google said. The failure of the third-most popular Web mail service left users around the world who access the system online instead of through an email client unable to send or receive new messages or retrieve saved ones.

FCC Eyes Flames Threatening LA Broadcasting, Communications
September 01, 2009

The smoke and haze from the 190-square mile Station Fire near Los Angeles isn't just making it difficult to see in the area of the San Gabriel Mountains. It's also having an impact on advanced forms of communications in Southern California: cellphone signals, television and radio broadcasting, even transmissions among the police, sheriff and fire crews battling the blaze.

Healthcare Email Blasts Clog US House System
August 14, 2009

Amid a boisterous debate on healthcare reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many emails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site. Technical support issued a warning to congressional staff that the site, www.house.gov, may be slow or unresponsive because of the large volume of email being sent to members.

The Comedy - and Tragedy - of the Commons
July 30, 2009

Sensitive data in unstructured formats poses a distinct problem to security- and compliance-minded organizations, a problem exacerbated by the ubiquity of Web-based portals and collaborative tools such as Microsoft SharePoint. This research brief describes how current Microsoft SharePoint users respond to the security challenges raised by their expanding reliance on collaboration.

App Testing at the Speed of Change
July 08, 2009

Adaptability is the name of the game in our fast-paced society. In order to remain on top, every company needs to adapt to the market in which it participates. Software and application developers -- actually, the entire IT department, if you want to get technical -- are particularly affected by this fast pace of change.