Computing

Ubuntu Strikes Out on Its Own Again
May 13, 2013

If Canonical has shown anything over the past few years, it's that it's not afraid of doing things differently. Ever since the arrival of Unity in Ubuntu 10.10's netbook edition back in 2010, it's been clear the company is "marching to the beat of its own drum," as they say, with a growing focus on mobile and convergence. Well, last week brought yet another example of Canonical's independent-mindedness.

Icahn Leads New Pitch to Win Dell Shareholders
May 11, 2013

Two of Dell's largest stockholders, Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management, have teamed up to propose an alternative to Michael Dell's plans to take his computer company private. The new deal on the table, issued in a letter to board members, involves a leveraged recapitalization that will pay investors and keep them on as shareholders in a public company.

The App-Driven Gadget Floodgates Are Open
May 10, 2013

Peruse any big consumer electronics box-store aisles, and you can't help but notice a new style of peripherals hugging the displays. App-driven devices are appearing on store shelves that let homeowners manage and monitor home systems like thermostats and security using a smartphone or a tablet. There are sensors, styluses and add-ons. Later this year, we'll likely see a plethora of smartwatches.

A Changing Earth Is on Display in Google Timelapse
May 09, 2013

Time, Inc., together with Google, the U.S. Geological Survey and Carnegie Mellon University's Create Lab, on Thursday launched a website featuring timelapse animations depicting changes in Earth's surface from 1984 to 2012. The animations are based on satellite images collected as part of the Landsat program, conducted jointly by the USGS and NASA since 1972.

Linux, Freedom and Cold Cash
May 09, 2013

Well it's spring storm season in many parts of the world, so it should come as no great surprise that we've had some storms here in the Linux blogosphere as well. The latest example? None other than an intriguing poll about paying for Linux. Could you, would you, do you pay for Linux? the poll asked. The question had barely hit the airwaves when the stampede began.

Skype Rival Viber Joins the Desktop Phone, Video Chat Party
May 08, 2013

Viber, a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging VoIP app for smartphones, is now available for Windows and Mac OS X desktops, Viber Media announced on Tuesday. The mobile version of Viber runs on Android, iOS, Symbian and some versions of the BlackBerry and Windows Phone OSes.

Vaio Fit May Be the Laptop Windows 8 Has Been Looking For
May 07, 2013

Sony introduced its new line of entry-level laptops on Tuesday. The new Vaio Fit series starts at around $550 with the Fit E, which offers Intel's Core processors, discrete Nvidia graphics processors, and hybrid hard drives, as well as a full-sized keyboard and trackpad. The step-up Vaio Fit, at $649, offers an aluminum chassis.

Adobe Crowds Its Cloud, Says Buh-Bye to Boxed Software
May 07, 2013

Adobe announced major changes to its business model this week and revealed that from now on, it will sell its software via a monthly subscription plan and forgo boxed software and perpetual licenses. The maker of popular creative software such as Photoshop and InDesign unveiled the new policy at its MAX conference this week.

HP Goes to Work With New ProBooks for SMBs
May 07, 2013

HP, facing difficulties in its desktop and laptop sales, on Monday unveiled two new series in its ProBook notebook computer line for small and medium businesses. The ProBook 400 series has five laptops with screen sizes ranging from 13.3 to 17.3 inches that are up to 36 percent thinner and 18 percent lighter than previous notebooks.

Federal Workers Lead Telecommuting Upsurge
May 07, 2013

U.S. government employees led a big jump in the use of technology to work from home or other locations, instead of their normal offices, during an annual telecommuting exercise in March. For employers and vendors, the message seems clear that the market for telework and mobile workplace equipment and software has only one way to go -- up.

Scan of Entire Internet Reveals Too Many Leaky Devices
May 06, 2013

There are 3.7 billion IP addresses on the Internet, and HD Moore has pinged every one of them. Moore is chief security officer at Rapid7, a cyberthreat and risk management company. In February, he decided as a hobby project to conduct a census of all the devices connected to the Internet, using a nest of computers in a spare room in his home.

New IT Tools Untie Tangled Webs of Business Data
May 06, 2013

Information may indeed be power, but organizations large and small are finding that they have to expend more energy than ever just to keep up with the data streams flooding their infrastructures. It's not just the internal data that provides intelligence about their businesses. Organizations are also having to manage all that external Big Data that can help them land new customers.

Years Inside Intel Could Be New CEO's Biggest Handicap
May 03, 2013

Intel announced Thursday that COO Brian Krzanich will take the helm on May 16, replacing current CEO Paul Otellini, who will retire this month after 38 years with the company, eight of them as its chief. Krzanich has his own long history at Intel. The 52-year-old joined the company 31 years ago as a newly minted college graduate.

Intel Focuses Iris GPUs on Gaming, Video
May 02, 2013

Intel on Thursday announced the Iris family of graphics processor units for its forthcoming Haswell line of processors. The Iris family offers up to double the 3D performance of the chip giant's fastest mobile HD graphics solutions on its processors for laptops and Ultrabooks. It also triples the 3D performance for its R-series processors for desktops.

World's Smallest Movie Is IBM's Science Blockbuster
May 01, 2013

IBM has released the world's smallest movie. Company researchers moved thousands of atoms to create a miniature stop-motion movie titled A Boy and His Atom.. The movie, which has 242 frames, was made with a scanning tunneling microscope which IBM has been using to conduct research into storage. The movie has been certified as the world's smallest by the Guinness World Records.

All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Camera Apps
May 01, 2013

As the geek world drools over the first 13-megapixel smartphone camera -- the Android-driven Samsung Galaxy S4 -- we take a look at the current state-of-play in the must-have camera app genre for Android. Ready, set, go. Occasionally an app comes along that blows everything else away.

Expect Labs' Anticipatory Computing Draws A-List Support
May 01, 2013

The investment arms of Intel and Samsung have sunk money into Expect Labs, which has developed a new class of technologies that can understand the meaning of continuous conversations in real-time, and can leverage that to proactively serve up information users may need. The support will be used to enable new types of context-aware, predictive intelligence in a variety of devices.

IBM Builds Traffic Cop for Internet of Things
April 30, 2013

IBM on Monday launched MessageSight, an appliance designed to handle machine-to-machine communications of the future. Such communications will develop exponentially to create what's known as the "Internet of Things." In announcing MessageSight, IBM cited a 2010 report that predicted more than 22 billion Web-connected devices by 2020, which will generate more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data daily.

Digging Into Garden Planning Software
April 30, 2013

When Catherine Kasper Place in Fort Wayne, Ind., needed to help refugees plan garden plots for themselves and for the organization's community supported agriculture, it turned to GrowVeg.com's Garden Planner and its affiliated iPad app, Garden Plan Pro. "It's challenging just to manage one garden," said Holly Chaille, Catherine Kasper Place's director. "This is 36 different ones, with 36 different designs."

What Happens When Android Fails?
April 29, 2013

I've just finished doing yet another news program on the increasing risks of using an Android phone, and the discussions have started to drift to the potential for class-action lawsuits, commercial plane crashes, and cyberdisasters that would make 9/11 seem trivial -- all connected to this platform.