Techno-News Blog

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

A new computer chip will help tackle one of the Web’s weak spots—the fact that most data is exchanged without any protection against hackers or eavesdroppers. For some communications, such as credit card payments and online banking transactions, it is standard to encrypt the information that users and websites send each other. But most online activity is completely unprotected, largely because encrypting communications requires extra work from Web servers and software, which is costly to implement. Search queries and social media updates, for example, are almost exclusively sent in forms easily read by a third party snooping on Web traffic. Listening in to Web traffic can be as simple as using the same Wi-Fi network as the target, as Ashton Kutcher found when his Twitter account was hijacked at the TED conference earlier this year, by means of a Firefox add-on called Firesheep.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38336/?p1=A6

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Building on the trend toward remote work, two companies started shipping wheeled telepresence robots to customers this year, and other versions are launching soon. While prices are steep and sales tepid, some early adopters find that the robots offer advantages over technologies such as videoconferencing. Telepresence robots are wheeled machines steered by a person sitting at a remote computer; the bots take the person’s place around the conference table or, say, on a facility inspection.

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/38183/?p1=BI

By Katherine Bourzac, Technology Review

A microchip with about as much brain power as a garden worm might not seem very impressive, compared with the blindingly fast chips in modern personal computers. But a new microchip made by researchers at IBM represents a landmark. Unlike an ordinary chip, it mimics the functioning of a biological brain—a feat that could open new possibilities in computation.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38367/?p1=A1

 by the BBC

Chip maker Intel has commissioned leading science fiction authors to pen short stories that imagine future uses for the firm’s technology. The collection, called “The Tomorrow Project”, aims to capture the public’s imagination regarding the company’s current research. Intel believes this can help anticipate consumer aspirations, and drive future adoption of its products. The anthology has been made available online as a free download. The Tomorrow Project is led by Intel futurist Brian David Johnson, who regards the scheme as an important way to assess future technology trends.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14587868

by Education-Portal.com

Finalist: Massive Open Online Courses

‘Many people can undergo the course at the same time.’ -Rachel Nyingi

This 8-week course supported by the University of Illinois – Springfield has its sights set on online learning in more ways than one. Students here engage in a class that’s a mix of self-driven instruction and video seminars all about the future of scholarship on the Internet, including a focus on OCW. MOOC embraces its Web surroundings, incorporating Google Docs, blogs and Twitter hashtags into its coursework. Every week a panel of experts on each topic delivers a webinar to those enrolled in the course. http://sites.google.com/site/edumooc

http://education-portal.com/articles/Most_Open_College_Open_Textbooks.html

by the BBC

A Leeds University study has combined computer virtualisation with a device that simulates pressure on a surgeon’s hand when touching human tissue remotely. This could enable a medic to handle a tumour robotically, and judge if it is malignant or benign. Cancer specialists hope the new system will help to improve future treatment. In current keyhole procedures, a surgeon operates through a tiny incision in the patient’s body, guided only by video images.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14540581

By: Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek

Microsoft is revealing a bit more about Windows 8 ahead of September’s BUILD conference, as part of what will be surely a long marketing campaign for the operating system. In his second posting on the “Building Windows 8” blog, Windows and Windows Live division President Stephen Sinofsky offered a further drill-down into the engineering teams putting the operating system together. “We have about 35 feature teams in the Windows 8 organization,” he wrote. “Each feature team has anywhere from 25-40 developers, plus test and program management, all working together.” He then provided a list of “features or areas” under construction by those teams. Many of them seemed obvious: “Graphics Platform,” “Hyper-V,” “Media Platform,” and so on.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Windows-8-Will-Feature-App-Store-Online-Component-442393/?kc=rss

By: Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

IBM researchers have created prototype computing chips that mirror the human brain, enabling them to not only collect and analyze information, but essentially learn from their mistakes, understand the data they’re seeing and react accordingly. The “cognitive computing” chips are able to recognize patterns and make predictions based on data, learn through experiences, find correlations among the information and remember outcomes, according to IBM officials. The chips represent a significant departure from how computers are traditionally programmed and operated, and open opportunities in a wide range of fields, they said.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/IBM-Unveils-Chip-Prototypes-That-Mimic-Human-Brain-261179/?kc=rss

By: Chris Preimesberger, eWeek

Aug. 18, 2011 may well turn out to be a pivotal day in the 72-year history of Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s largest IT provider. The day boiled down to simple subtraction and addition—and not just in reference to the 2011 third-quarter financial report it delivered, which was the most dire one in recent years. A clear indicator is this: The stock closed Aug. 18 at $29.51 on the New York Stock Exchange, an all-time low in most valuation metrics for the company, because it’s trading at only about six times earnings.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/HP-Confirms-Cutting-PC-webOS-Businesses-Autonomy-Acquisition-302050/?kc=rss

By Tom Henderson and Brendan Allen, Network World

Cloud management tools are as varied as cloud uses. For this test, we chose five tools that each attack cloud management from a different perspective. We looked at Symplified for identity management exclusively targeted to SaaS-based apps, Puppet Labs for virtual machine deployment, HP for building and managing private clouds, Abiquo for IaaS platform management and TurnKey Linux for low-cost cloud backup.

http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2011/enterprise4/080811-ecs-cloud-management-test.html?hpg1=bn

By Nathan Clevenger, InfoWorld

When evaluating the adoption of mobile enterprise applications, it’s important to understand the overall trends driving the adoption of the iPad within the enterprise. As I worked on the book “iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications,” I spoke to, interviewed, and received feedback from dozens of technology authors, industry analysts, enterprise software executives, Fortune 1000 CIOs, and other visionaries of enterprise IT. I felt that the best way to explore this concept was to hear from those industry leaders directly. Although the iPad is an extremely polarizing topic on its own, the concept of the “consumerization of IT” is even more controversial. I spoke to nearly as many people who were unwilling to go on the record as to those who allowed me to quote them in the book.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/it-management/how-the-ipad-will-change-it-forever-166948

By Melanie Pinola, PCWorld

Save money and bring an old laptop back to life with a few quick software and hardware upgrades. We show you how. Do you have an aging laptop that you want to save from the recycling center? With a few software and hardware upgrades, you could bring that old notebook back to life and possibly avoid having to plunk down cash for a new laptop or a secondary device such as an Apple iPad or an Android tablet.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/237040/laptop_refresh_six_ways_to_revitalize_an_older_notebook.html

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Google is doubling up on an existing Google Toolbar feature that adds content relevant to Web pages by making it an extension for its Chrome Web browser. When Chrome users are browsing a Web page, such as a news article, or retailer Website, the Google Related extension may display content relevant to the context of the Web page in a bar at the bottom the screen. Google said not all Web pages will include related content.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Related-Surfaces-Relevant-Content-in-Chrome-585762/

By Bernard Golden

The consumerization of IT isn’t just about employees using consumer devices and apps at work. It’s about consumers becoming the primary users of internal IT applications, and it has serious ramifications for how CIOs operate and scale their IT infrastructures.

http://www.cio.com/article/687931/Cloud_CIO_What_Consumerization_of_IT_Really_Means_to_CIOs

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

Hewlett-Packard would like to extend the reach of its webOS platform to include operating systems on devices like household appliances and automobiles, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. “We’re looking at expanding the base and bringing to the webOS community an ecosystem that inspires developers out there,” Stephen DeWitt, in charge of webOS for HP, told the paper, noting that there was considerable interest in the platform. He declined to mention specific manufacturers or developers, however.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/HP-webOS-Moving-to-Cars-Appliances-584589/

By P. J. Connolly, eWeek

The “Lion” Server may be the last version of the Mac OS X Server that matters, but if that’s the case, it’s going out with a roar. It’s a solid operating system that was designed for ease of use and lives up to that goal. What other goals Apple may have for the Lion Server aren’t easily described. Since Apple’s exit from the enterprise server market at the beginning of the year, the company has tried to position its Mac Mini and Mac Pro server-ish configurations as replacements for the rack-mounted Xserve. But if Apple has plans to expand its server business, it’s doing a good job of disguising them. The operating system’s management tools are a confusing mix of legacy tools and new utilities that unnecessarily overlap in many places. It’s hard to recommend Lion Server to anyone except the most fanatical of Mac loyalists.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Apples-Latest-and-Last-Enterprise-OS-Falls-Flat-276260/?kc=EWKTS08172011AB

By: Don Reisinger, eWeek

News analysis: Price cuts tablet makers recently announced are nice. But the cuts are unlikely to increase sales of competing tablet models versus the Apple iPad 2. To gain ground against the iPad, competitors must find some way to offer a superior product. Price is vastly important in today’s technology industry. With the economy the way it is and a growing number of people thinking more about saving than spending, companies must determine the right price point that will induce consumers to buy their products. As of late, several tablet makers, including HP and Vizio, have made that abundantly clear. Vizio’s 8-inch tablet retails for $299, and HP was recently forced to drop the price of its TouchPad to $399 and $499 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-iPad-2-vs-Tablet-Competitors-10-Reasons-Price-Cuts-Wont-Help-700776/?kc=rss

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

The goal is to ensure that effective emergency response is a critical element of the broadband environment, the FCC said. At the 2011 Association of Public Safety Communications Officials conference in Philadelphia, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a five-step action plan to chart the transition to NG911 (Next Generation 911) services. Working with the public-safety community, carriers, manufacturers and other service providers, Genachowski said his goal is to ensure that effective emergency response is a critical element of the broadband environment. Under the five-step action plan, the FCC will develop automatic location accuracy mechanisms for NG-911; facilitate the completion and implementation of NG911 technical standards for the hardware and software that carriers and PSAPs (public-safety answering points) use to communicate NG911 information; work with state 911 authorities, other Federal agencies, and other governing entities to provide technical expertise and develop a coordinated approach to NG911 governance; develop an NG911 funding model focused on the cost effectiveness of the NG911 network infrastructure linking PSAPs and carriers; and enable consumers to send text, photos and videos to PSAPs.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/FCC-to-Add-Video-Text-Capability-to-911-Service-838606/?kc=rss

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Google launched games such as Angry Birds and Zynga Poker on Google+, a move to get users spending more time on the social network instead of Facebook. Google has added games to Google+, a move that should increase the amount of time users spend on the social network as it seeks to pry users from Facebook. Google+ launched to limited field testing June 28, quickly gaining more than 25 million users in a month’s time, according to comScore. The network leverages a Circles construct of manual friending, and offers Hangouts for impromptu and planned video chat sessions. The company has been refining the product for the last six weeks since its launch and the latest tweak is a big one; the search engine is adding a games button to the top of Google+ users’ streams.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Gets-Games-to-Keep-Users-Close-at-Hand-804093/?kc=rss

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Google+ users who opt to use fake profile names will get a 4-day grace period to shape up or ship out. Google will suspend the accounts of those not in compliance. Google is now giving Google+ users who violate its real name policy by using fake names or pseudonyms four days to get in compliance before it suspends user profiles. Google+ requires its 25 million-plus users to create Google user profiles, public pages on the Web that users may fill out “to help connect and find real people in the real world.” The company argues that by providing a common name, users will be assisting their friends, family members, classmates, co-workers and other acquaintances to find and create “a connection with the right person online.”

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Google-to-Enforce-Real-Name-Policy-After-4-Days-621086/?kc=rss

By: Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

It could be more than a year before Intel makes headway in the tablet market, which is why its ultrabook push makes sense, says Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay. Intel executives are putting a lot of time and money behind their effort to create a new category of high-mobility computing devices called ultrabooks, and the reason is clear, according to one analyst: They have no choice. Right now, the giant chip maker is essentially locked out of the booming markets for smartphones and tablets, which for the most part are powered by non-x86 chips designed by ARM Holdings and manufactured by vendors like Samsung, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. Intel officials say there are x86-based tablets and smartphones on the way, but probably not until next year. Ultrabooks are another way for Intel to establish a presence in the mobile-computing space, according to Roger Kay, principal analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Intel-Looks-to-Ultrabooks-for-Way-Into-HighMobility-Space-Analyst-453296/?kc=rss