Techno-News Blog

by Marc Cieslak, BBC

A touch screen that responds to many people using it has been revealed at the CES technology show in Las Vegas. The 3M device runs on Windows and Linux. It can be manipulated through thin gloves and responds to more than 20 simultaneous points of contact.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9345606.stm

by Erica Naone, Technology Review

The phones in many people’s pockets today are miniature personal computers, and they are just as vulnerable as PCs to viruses, malware, and other security problems. But research presented at a conference in Germany last week shows that phones don’t even have to be smart to be vulnerable to hackers. Using only Short Message Service (SMS) communications—messages that can be sent between mobile phones—a pair of security researchers were able to force low-end phones to shut down abruptly and knock them off a cellular network. As well as text messages, the SMS protocol can be used to transmit small programs, called “binaries,” that run on a phone. Network operators use these files to, for example, change the settings on a device remotely. The researchers used the same approach to attack phones. They performed their tricks on handsets made by Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Micromax, a popular Indian cell-phone manufacturer.

http://technologyreview.com/communications/27021/?p1=MstRcnt

By Katherine Bourzac, Technology Review

Genetically modified microbes could perform many useful jobs, from making biofuels and drugs, to cleaning up toxic waste. But designing the complex biochemical pathways inside such microbes is a time-consuming process of trial and error. Christopher Voigt, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, hopes to change that with software that automates the creation of “genetic circuits” in microbes.

http://technologyreview.com/computing/27025/?p1=MstRcnt&a=f

by Kristina Grifantini, Technology Review

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas hardware company Vuzix has revealed the first clear AR glasses for the consumer market. Called Raptyr, these glasses doesn’t use video feeds but rather rely on holographic optics to make digital objects appear in mid-air. The technology is challenging, not least because clear interfaces have to compensate for (or compete with) natural light. The glasses, which have won a CES Innovation Award, feature a 6-megapixel camera, microphone, headphones and a tracking system. And they could be plugged into a PC, smart phone, or gaming system. The lenses can be electronically darkened to compensate for brighter or darker environments. “It looks a lot like a pair of shutter glasses you’d buy from Sony,” CEO Paul Travers told Technology Review. “It’s just like transition sunglasses that get darker outside.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/26227/?p1=A4

by the BBC

Facebook has reportedly raised funds which value the company at £32 billion. It is believed the money has come from investment bank Goldman Sachs, and a Russian technology company. Technology blogger Mike Butcher said having people’s personal information is Facebook’s most powerful tool.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12111693

By Mark Ward, BBC

Tablets look set to hog the headlines at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Industry watchers expect 100 or more of the portable gadgets to be shown off at the four-day technology extravaganza. About 120,000 people are expected to visit the 150,000 sq m (1.6m sq ft) of exhibition halls the show fills. The devices are part of a trend towards greater mobility and smarter living that are starting to define some parts of the market in 2011. Early estimates suggested only about 80 tablets would be on the stands at CES in 2011, said Shawn Dubravac, chief economist and director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) prior to the show opening. “I would not be surprised to see 100 plus tablets at CES this year,” he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12118062

by the BBC

Online retail giant Amazon is attempting to grab a slice of the fast-growing market for apps by opening its own online store. It will initially offer programs that run on Google’s Android mobile operating system. Developers can now submit their apps for approval and they should be available later this year. Amazon’s move comes as the competition to become the go-to destination for mobile apps intensifies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12119509

by Scott Bullock, the Excapist

It’s not what others have promised with their glasses-free 3D; most of the time you’re required to sit perfectly still in exactly the right place in front of your 3D device in order to receive the three-dimensional image correctly. While this is fine for a personal device such as a 3DS, a television needs to be seen by many people at different angles, and is where this tech comes most in handy. The 3D effect is produced by filtering the light from the screen through a film of pixel-sized domes, which will refract the light to enter either the left or right eye of the viewer. By providing each eye with a slightly different view of the same image(the premise behind all existing 3D technology), the brain is tricked into doing the heavy lifting and combining two similar images into one three-dimensional one.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106435-Apple-Patents-Holographic-TV-Screen-Tech

by the White Lake Beacon

When Whitehall District Schools students returned to the classroom from their holiday break, the way they learn and teachers teach will begin to change dramatically. That’s because 48 of the district’s classrooms are becoming “21st Century Classrooms” with new technology. Over the holiday vacation, workers were rapidly installing technology which will enhance learning through interactive video and audio technology.

http://www.whitelakebeacon.com/news/23221-classroom-technology

by Third Age News

Mobile technology is getting more advanced as hospital patients can now recover from certain procedures in the comfort of their own home. According to Fiona Graham of BBC News, mobile technology proves to be both useful and convenient. Because of its technology, developed Telefonica, the Spanish telecoms giant, some patients don’t have to go back and forth, to and from the hospital — they could just recover at home. Graham reports: “Instead of having to go to the hospital on a daily basis for physiotherapy, [Nativo Mira Espulgues, who has had knee replacement surgery,] is doing it at home, using a remote monitoring terminal that works using mobile phone technology.”

http://www.thirdage.com/news/mobile-technology-healthcare-goes-mobile-new-technology_12-27-2010

by Emma Jones, BBC

After the success of Avatar, film companies have rushed to bring out their productions in 3D but the results received mixed reviews. The technology is growing and will soon be available on a range of home entertainment. The BBC’s Emma Jones reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12088475

by the BBC

Earlier versions of the DS have proved hugely popular with children. The eyesight of children under six could be harmed by 3D games played on Nintendo’s forthcoming handheld console, the company has warned. The games giant posted the health warning on the website devoted to the 3DS handheld. It said specialists had warned of possible damage that could be caused by 3D games which present different images to the right and left eye. Younger children should only play 2D versions of 3DS games, said Nintendo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12100925

By: Fahmida Y. Rashid, eWeek

Spammers are using cloud-based storage services to store malware, allowing them to circumvent e-mail spam filters, according to security experts at Kaspersky Lab and MX Lab. Kaspersky Lab detected the click-fraud Trojan, a variant of the Trojan-Dropper.Wind32.Drooptroop family, which has been in circulation since the beginning of December, said Vicente Diaz, a Kaspersky Lab expert. There are over 7,000 variants of this particular family, according to Kaspersky. As with other types of malware that took advantage of the holiday season, the executable file for this Trojan was named gift.exe, Diaz said.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Criminals-Host-Trojans-on-Cloud-Storage-Service-Rapidshare-339725/?kc=rss

By: Michelle Maisto, eWeek

Skype has just launched an updated app that enables video calling on Apple devices, including the iPhone 4 and 3GS, the iPad and fourth-gen iPod touch. Skype for iPhone just got a little better, thanks to the addition of video capabilities. That’s right, catching up to the competition — we’re looking at you, Fring — Skype users on the iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch fourth generation, or with iOS 4.0 or higher, can make and receive free Skype video calls over a WiFi or 3G connection. (Keep in mind that additional data charges will apply to the latter.) What this means is that colleagues can more easily discuss work details, grandparents can coo in real-time at grandbabies and — as Skype shows off in a video on its blog, offering truly little additional incentive, in one person’s opinion — flubby men with morning breath can dance in their skivvies for friends.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Skype-Video-for-iPhone-iPad-iPod-Touch-Now-Available-851220/?kc=rss

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Fortune said 2011 will be the year Google’s Android operating system “explodes,” across the technosphere on smartphones, tablet computers and other devices hardware manufacturers cook up. Time for a level set: “Explodes,” or some variation thereof is the dramatic euphemism people in the technology industry employ to proclaim that a product is set for some super definitive growth. In this case, it’s the kind that blows RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iOS smartphone platforms out of the water.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Android-Tablets-Smartphones-to-Rule-at-CES-627644/?kc=rss

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Facebook was the most popular Website and most searched term in 2010, according to HitWise. Facebook’s connections and the increase in time spent with them are of bigger concern for Google. HitWise delivered another red flag to Internet giant Google when it reported Dec. 29 that Facebook was easily the most visited Website and most searched term overall in 2010. The social network accounted for 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010, with Google.com notching 7.19 percent of visits. The search term “facebook” also accounted for 2.11 of all search queries made worldwide, while Google only accounted for .63 percent of search terms. It’s not Facebook’s rank as most popular Website and most searched term that should alarm Internet rival Google. It’s the amount of time Facebook’s 550 million-plus users are spending on the social network, which will increase thanks to the company’s social plug-ins and connections.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Facebook-Traffic-Rise-Make-Google-Social-Tools-Essential-238416/?kc=rss

By Dan Kusnetzky, ZD Net

During 2010, I published information on what 55 different companies offering products in the cloud computing and/or virtualization arenas were doing. I also published quite a few posts on various happenings that were in other areas. While reviewing what posts were the most widely read, I was surprised to learn that the rants and sardonic posts got more interest than the posts that I thought could be considered substantive and potentially useful.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/2010-the-virtual-year/2579?tag=nl.e539

by David Gewirtz, ZD Net

Since March, I’ve published 172 articles. Most have had some element of civics in their content. A few were merely technology-related. And some, like the Kinect gaming articles, had nothing whatsoever to do with governance, but were just fun to explore. In this year-end post, I decided to go beyond the typical top-ten piece and look at what articles caught your attention, and — more interestingly — where your interest in civic issues intersected with topics that were just plain interesting. To that end, I bring you … charts. Don’t worry, there will be a Top Ten 15 list. But first, charts.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/hey-howd-your-apple-get-into-my-wikileaks-2010s-top-15-zdnet-government-posts/9799?tag=nl.e539

By Michael Krigsman, ZD Net

Top ten failure lists are a dime a dozen and enough to drive a person crazy. This one is exceptional because the guy who compiled it, Jeff Papows, literally wrote the book on this subject. Jeff’s book is called GLITCH, and it documents some of the great software failures of our time; he even quotes yours truly in the book. Jeff is CEO of Weblayers and an authority on the impact of technology glitches on society. He and I share the belief that IT governance plays a crucial role in alleviating this problem. This is Jeff’s top ten list of software glitches for 2010 (please see the URL).

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/ten-great-software-glitches-for-2010/11941?tag=nl.e539

by Maggie Shiels, BBC

Steve Wozniak is an out and out self proclaimed geek. As the co-founder of Apple, he has given the world products aimed at making our life easier and more fun. On the occasions I have interviewed him he is always bright and upbeat about the state of the industry and where it is going. Today he is feeling very differently about his view of the world. In a lengthy letter in the distinguished magazine The Atlantic, Woz expresses a high degree of frustration and concern about the future of internet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/12/woz_calls_for_free_and_open_ne.html

By: Chris Preimesberger, eWeek

Citrix CTO Simon Crosby looks back at 2010 in the cloud computing sector–and ahead at what 2011 may bring–and isn’t very comfortable with a number of things emerging on the security side of that very hot business. “This was the year when nation-state attacks started to happen,” Crosby said. “You’ve got Stuxnet, you’ve got the Chinese government attack on Google, and you’ve got WikiLeaks. My take is that every CIO should be shivering in a state of panic.” Everybody’s long been aware of denial of service attacks and their potential, but Crosby thinks many people have become indifferent to these events, believing such an attack won’t happen to them. “All of these have profound lessons for us,” Crosby told eWEEK. “We’re in a space of hyper-innovation, and that’s fueled by Moore’s Law on the client and the server, and Moore’s Law helping the network, so we get the network effect of that. And the network effect of that innovation is unbelievable.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/2010-Saw-the-Dawn-of-NationState-Cyberwars-Citrix-CTO-430619/