Techno-News Blog

By: Fahmida Y. Rashid, eWeek

An independent security consultant demonstrated a “cookiejacking” technique to show how attackers can steal Web cookies to access user accounts online. An unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer allows attackers to steal login credentials to various Websites via cookies, according to a security researcher. Attackers can exploit the Internet Explorer flaw to steal cookies from user computers and use the saved information to access user data. The researcher, Rosario Valotta, demonstrated the exploit at the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam on May 20. Cookies are text files that Websites constantly save onto computers with information about user activity, such as login credentials, the contents of a shopping cart, or what sites the user has recently visited.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/IE-Flaw-Lets-Attackers-Steal-Cookies-Access-User-Accounts-402503/?kc=rss

By: Darryl K. Taft, eWeek

A recent Evans Data survey shows IBM’s Rational tool suite beating out the likes of Microsoft’s Visual Studio, Eclipse, Flash Builder and others to claim the top spot in a user survey. According to a recent Evans Data survey, IBM’s Rational tool suite ranked tops in user satisfaction according to data collected from developers in April. In Evans Data’s annual User’s Choice Software Development Platform survey, IBM’s Rational toolset was rated as the best in six different categories, including application modeling, requirements management, support for remote development, support for frameworks, support for multiple languages, and quality of tech support. It also generated the best overall score and topped eight other major competitors.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/IBM-Rational-Rated-Top-Dev-Tool-Suite-Survey-842838/?kc=rss

By: Brian T. Horowitz, eWeek

IBM is expanding its Analytics Solution Center in Dallas and will use Watson-like technology to allow medical researchers to transfer medical data from documents into mobile devices. IBM has announced an expansion of its Analytics Solutions Center, in Dallas, to connect medical data to mobile EHRs using natural-language processing and technology similar to that used with its Watson supercomputer. As part of the center’s expansion, IBM will incorporate Watson-like analytics capabilities along with clinical voice recognition from Nuance Communications to link with EHRs on smartphones using voice or text. Watson was recently featured on the “Jeopardy” game show.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Health-Care-IT/IBM-Watson-Inspires-New-Effort-to-Link-Health-Care-Data-Mobile-EHRs-811722/?kc=rss

By Chris Summers, BBC News

Twitter can be used in court now but where will it all end? During the row over privacy injunctions, critics have emphasised that it is near impossible to stop people revealing information on Twitter. But what if people use it to name victims in rape cases or reveal information from court that could see trials abandoned?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13372452

by the BBC

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt have warned governments worldwide not to over-regulate the internet. Mr Zuckerberg said governments cannot cherry pick which aspects of the web to control and which not to. The two are leading a group of internet pioneers to the G8 summit in France. The delegation will deliver recommendations thrashed out at the first e-G8 gathering in Paris this week. Although e-G8 had the blessing of President Sarkozy, world leaders are under no obligation to listen to its findings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13553943

by the BBC

The first ever 3D advert for the iPad has just launched. Creator Cooliris hopes it will kickstart innovation in the nascent mobile ad business. The ad promotes a new series for the US Weather Channel which follows the award winning photographer Peter Lik as he travels across the US to take the perfect photo. Experts say such ads will take a while to catch on. A lot of advertising in the mobile space is done using banner ads which include basic static display images at the top or bottom of a phone screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13558089

by David Pogue, NY Times

In my Times column Thursday, I mentioned that there’s no core curriculum for technology. Nobody teaches you the basics. You just pick stuff up as you go along.  As a result, everybody, even experts, winds up with knowledge holes—things everybody thinks everybody else knows about the basics of consumer electronics. When I started writing down the ones I figured everybody should know, my column was twice as long as it’s supposed to be. But hey—on the Web, nobody can hear you exceed your word count. I lopped out half of them and saved them for this e-newsletter.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/25-more-tech-tips-and-tricks/

By John Brandon, Computerworld

Hackers never sleep, it seems. Just when you think you’ve battened down the hatches and fully protected yourself or your business from electronic security risks, along comes a new exploit to keep you up at night. It might be an SMS text message with a malevolent payload or a stalker who dogs your every step online. Or maybe it’s an emerging technology like in-car Wi-Fi that suddenly creates a whole new attack vector.Whether you’re an IT manager protecting employees and corporate systems or you’re simply trying to keep your own personal data safe, these threats — some rapidly growing, others still emerging — pose a potential risk. Fortunately, there are some security procedures and tools available to help you win the fight against the bad guys.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/228206/six_biggest_rising_threats_from_cybercriminals.html

By Andrew Leonard, Salon

The latest numbers on the devastation wrought upon the personal computer industry by the mighty iPad are nothing short of stunning. While Apple was earning blowout profits from iPad sales, Bloomberg reports that Dell, Microsoft and HP all took major hits in the first quarter. Hewlett Packard’s consumer PC sales dropped 23 percent, Dell’s fell by 7.5 percent, and Microsoft Windows sales fell by 4.4 percent. The popularity of the iPad is clearly one major factor, but buried deep in the story is an intriguing hint of another. Computer systems sales to corporations appear robust, but consumers are holding back.

http://www.salon.com/news/unemployment/?story=/tech/htww/2011/05/18/ipads_and_unemployment

By Tim Weber, BBC

Cloud computing is more secure than on-premise solutions, say its fans Cloud computing may be the hottest thing in corporate computing right now, but two IT disasters – at Amazon and Sony – beg the question: Is cloud computing ready for primetime business? It’s a nightmare moment. You are under pressure – to meet customer orders, finish a project, execute a deal – and nothing. Your computers, servers or network are down. If you are lucky, a few nail biting hours and a reboot or three later, you and your IT team have restored services. goes down and there’s nothing you can do because your computing power sits in the cloud, provided over the internet by another company?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13451990

By Dan Whitworth, BBC

It’s being launched in L.A. Noire, the latest video game blockbuster. Its publishers Rockstar Games say it will make character’s faces and emotions more lifelike than ever and will change the way games are made. Tens of millions of pounds have been spent developing it with hundreds of people working on the system for the past few years in Australia. Writer director Brendan McNamara says his L.A. Noire game is different from others on the market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13466001

By Alex Hudson, BBC News

The material graphene was touted as “the next big thing” even before its pioneers were handed the Nobel Prize last year. Many believe it could spell the end for silicon and change the future of computers and other devices forever. Graphene has been touted as the “miracle material” of the 21st Century. Said to be the strongest material ever measured, an improvement upon and a replacement for silicon and the most conductive material known to man, its properties have sent the science world – and subsequently the media – into a spin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9491789.stm

By Nathan Eddy, eWeek

As the U.S. economy continues to improve, companies have started to reinvest in new IT projects and technologies in an effort to remain competitive. Consequently, these organizations are beginning to staff up, meaning the war for qualified IT administrator and manager talent is on the rise. Modis, a provider of information technology staffing, identified a list of the top seven cities across the country to find IT jobs today, with Houston ranking as the best place to land an IT position. Modis based the list of top cities on internal data, taking into account factors such as the number of job openings over the past quarter, growing industries in the area and the intensity of the war for talent in these regions. Houston claimed the top spot to find an IT job in large part due to its position as a key hub for numerous global organizations—many of which are now rebounding from the recession and benefiting from increased IT budgets. Demand is high for a variety of IT jobs—from systems administrators to business analysts to mobile application developers. Here, eWEEK looks at the seven best cities to get a new or better IT job.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Houston-Washington-DC-Top-List-of-Hot-Cities-for-IT-Jobs-210882/?kc=rss

By: Fahmida Y. Rashid, eWeek

Businesses are becoming more confident about deploying open-source technology within the enterprise, instead of relegating it to the fringes or for experimental projects, according to a recent survey. A significant majority of surveyed respondents, or 95 percent, said their organizations are using open-source technology to avoid vendor lock-in, according to the Future of Open Source Survey released May 16. In previous years, the chief reason driving open-source adoption was lowered software costs.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/OpenSource-Software-Going-Mainstream-in-Enterprises-Survey-376198/?kc=rss

By: Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek

Amazon is claiming that Kindle e-books are outselling hardcover and paperback print books on its Website. “We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly—we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years,” Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, wrote in a May 19 statement. He also claimed that the Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world, although his company has never released sales numbers for the device. Since April 1, some 105 Kindle e-books have sold for every 100 print books, including hardcover and paperbacks for which there is no Kindle edition. Amazon has excluded free Kindle e-books from that breakdown. Kindle e-books are selling at three times their rate during a comparable period in 2010.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Amazons-Kindle-EBooks-Outselling-Paper-Books-792500/?kc=rss

By: Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

Dell’s business-focused Streak Pro, which will offer a 10.1-inch screen and Android “Honeycomb” OS, will hit the shelves in June, according to several reports. Dell is set to roll out its newest tablet, the business-focused 10.1-inch Streak Pro, in June, according to reports. Dell’s tablet, which will run Google’s Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” operating system, will join a long list of media tablets set to roll out during the summer as a growing number of vendors look to gain traction in the rapidly growing tablet space currently dominated by Apple’s iPad. The new device will be Dell’s third tablet, joining the Streak—which offers a 5-inch screen—and the 7-inch Streak 7.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Dell-Streak-Pro-Tablet-Coming-in-June-Reports-495227/?kc=rss

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a remarkable media-chomping device with a crisp screen in a slim form factor. It’s great for sending email and consuming YouTube, movies, books and music. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is an excellent alternative to Apple’s iPad 2, the ultra-thin tablet it is designed to challenge in the burgeoning market for lightweight slate computers.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-101-Slate-Great-for-Media-Consumption-642238/?kc=rss

By: Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek

Apple is signing deals with music labels for a streaming music service, according to reports. Google and Amazon already have streaming-music offerings in place. Apple is reportedly closer than ever to launching a streaming-music competitor to Google and Amazon. According to Bloomberg, Apple has signed deals with Sony, EMI Group and Warner Music Group “to let users of its new music service access their song collections from handheld devices via the Internet.” Users could access their music via Apple’s servers instead of storing it on a hard drive. A deal with Universal Music Group is apparently on the table.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Apple-Signing-iTunes-Cloud-Music-Deals-Reports-839337/?kc=rss

By: Chris Preimesberger, eWeek

What the Satellite does for iPad owners, in fact, owners of any WiFi-enabled device, is give them 500 more gigabytes of portable capacity. With all the iPads and iPad 2’s flying out of Apple stores, many of which holding only relatively small amounts of application and file storage, it would be a welcome thing to have easily accessible additional storage to go with it. After all, iPads and most other tablet devices only carry a limited amount of on-board storage (usually 16GB, 32GB or 64GB). The iPad’s been out for a year, yet nobody’s come forth with something like this until Seagate introduced its wireless GoFlex Satellite earlier this week.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Seagate-Introduces-500GB-Wireless-Storage-Drive-for-iPads-371339/?kc=rss

by Mutual Art

Contrary to popular belief, beauty is not only skin deep: there is plenty to fascinate right beneath the surface. This is certainly true for artist Jo Berry, whose latest work illuminates the exquisite cellular workings of the human body. For Berry, the intricate live human cells are both a fascinating subject and the next great medium. In her groundbreaking new project “Hijacking Natural Systems,” Berry captures the the art of biological processes – beauty that is, quite literally, on a cellular level. “The project is celebrating the human body, the use of new technology, the collaboration between science and art,” Berry recently stated. “[It] also gives the public the opportunity to see art in a non-traditional setting.” The goal of this particular series of works is to engage and inform the general public, through the dual-disciplined lens of art and science.

http://www.mutualart.com/OpenArticle/Under-the-Microscope–Art-on-a-Cellular-/47A907BDF706EFA5

by Jonathan Eunice, CNet news.com

Over the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about the coming consumerization of information technology. Well, it’s here. The Web, e-mail, mobile phones, automated teller machines, GPS navigators, supermarket self-checkouts, online banking, digital cameras, instant messaging, chat rooms, online shopping, airline e-tickets, iTunes, YouTube, Facebook–you name it. Every one of them puts large swaths of the population in direct, frequent contact with sophisticated IT systems and interfaces. And this is just the short list. It’s an overstatement to say “everyone’s on Facebook” or “everyone has a smartphone”–but not by much. Something like 50 percent of the U.S. population is on Facebook and we’re rapidly approaching the day when half the U.S. population of mobile-phone users has a smartphone. The U.S. isn’t even the most techno-savvy country around. A similar “everyone has this” or “everyone knows how to do this” situation exists for many other technologies.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/05/16/house-bills-new-priorities-dont-include-ed-tech.aspx