Techno-News Blog

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

The survey found one-third of the smartphones small businesses use for business purposes are 4G. When it comes to technology, small businesses continue to ratchet up their use of emerging wireless solutions, including tablet computers, 4G devices and GPS navigation mobile apps, according to the just-released “2012 AT&T Small Business Technology Poll.” Nearly all small businesses (96 percent) surveyed use wireless technologies in their operations, with almost two-thirds (63 percent) indicating that they could not survive—or it would be a major challenge to survive—without wireless technologies. More than four in 10 (43 percent) of small businesses surveyed report all of their employees use wireless devices or technologies to work away from the office, a nearly 80 percent jump from three years ago. Despite being a relatively new technology, two-thirds (67 percent) of small businesses surveyed indicate that they use tablet computers, up from 57 percent a year ago.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Tablets-4G-Smartphones-Gain-Traction-Among-Small-Businesses-ATandT-563387/?kc=rss

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

This is the first time Twitter has introduced an advertising solution specifically designed for small businesses. Financial services firm American Express announced that its card members and merchants would be the first to have access to Twitter’s new advertising solution for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), which is scheduled to launch in late March. The company said it would give $100 in free Twitter advertising when using this solution to the first 10,000 eligible businesses that register starting this week. These businesses will be able to use Twitter’s advertising products to engage with current customers and reach new ones. The new advertising solution is expected to open to the general public later this year. American Express will follow up with registrants in the next few weeks via Twitter direct message to provide additional program and eligibility information, according to a company release. “We are committed to providing cutting-edge products, services and programs to help our small-business card members and merchants grow,” said Ed Gilligan, vice chairman of American Express

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Twitter-American-Express-Partner-on-Small-Business-Advertising-552389/?kc=rss

By: Michelle Maisto, eWeek

Apple sold 156 million iOS devices in 2011, which is putting the company on pace to outsell its signature Mac. Still, Apple CEO Tim Cooks thinks the company can do even better. Apple CEO Tim Cook offered new ways of considering the success of Apple products during a presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco Feb. 14. Since the April 2010 introduction of the iPad, Apple has sold 55 million of the tablets, Cook shared. Put in context, it took Apple three years to sell as many iPhones, five years to sell as many iPods and 22 years to sell as many Macs. Asymconf’s Horace Dediu, plotting these numbers, put things still a different way in a Feb. 16 blog post: “The iOS platform as a whole reached 316 million cumulative units at the end of last year,” wrote Dediu. “The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years, and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million).

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-Sold-More-iOS-Devices-in-2011-than-Macs-in-28-Years-504712/?kc=rss

by Brian Bergstein, Technology Review

As one of the leading manufacturers of the equipment that routes data around the Internet, Cisco Systems is in good position to know just how many 0s and 1s go zipping around all day, every day. Today it released an annual analysis of how much Internet usage is growing on mobile devices, and the report produced some staggering numbers. For example, Cisco estimates that the amount of data that was ferried to and from mobile devices last year was eight times greater than the data on all of the Internet in 2000. Global mobile data traffic is expected to see an 18-fold increase between 2011 and 2016. Not surprisingly, video is a big reason: Cisco expects there to be 7.6 exabytes of data flowing to mobile devices every month in 2016, about 70 percent of the total of 10.8 exabytes of data per month. (An exabyte is more than 1 billion gigabytes

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27578/?p1=blogs

By David Talbot, Technology Review

Fully autonomous self-driving cars are still far from the market, but a wide range of features—including sensor systems that warn of lane departures and imminent crashes, and can even apply the brakes if you don’t—are rapidly showing up in midmarket cars. Beyond crash warnings and the related technology of adaptive cruise-control—which keeps you locked at a fixed distance behind the car in front of you when you’ve got cruise control switched on—there are ultrasonic systems that allow the car to sense a parking space and park itself, and cameras that keep track of lane markings, keep an eye on blind spots, and warn if you are about to bump into something while backing up.

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39747/?p1=A2

by David Zax, Technology Review

YouTube continues to get a facelift, this time through its app on Google TV. Google announced the YouTube app update this week, explaining that app was faster, smoother, and that it had added a feature it called “Discover,” which allows users to browse YouTube channels by categories. As updates go, it’s a relatively minor one–hardly an overhaul. But it highlights the ways in which Google is leveraging YouTube to become more of a competitor to sites like Hulu and Netflix. As I wrote back in November, when Google TV issued a significant update to its software, most of us still think of YouTube as a place to go on an ad hoc basis: you’re in the mood for a quick laugh, or a music video, or a video of cat antics. Deep in YouTube’s DNA, or at least our perception of its DNA, is that it’s a place for clips, not shows.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27588/?p1=blogs

by KFC, Technology Review

Metamaterials that absorb seismic waves rather than steer them, might be a better way to protect some buildings, say engineers. In recent years, cloaking technology has taken the world of physics and engineering by storm. The possibility that any object can be hidden from incident waves has numerous applications, both practical and fantastical. One of the more interesting is the possibility of protecting buildings from seismic waves. The idea here is to surround a building, or at least its foundations, with a metamaterial that steers seismic waves around the structure. Various groups have explored ways of doing this.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27566/?p1=blogs

David Talbot, Technology Review

A recent rise in Android malware—combined with increased efforts to combat the threat—highlight the fact that, just like tech companies, app makers, and users, hackers are fast turning their attention to mobile devices. What’s more, experts say, such devices are often configured in ways that make it easier for malware to thrive. Several new types of Android malware have been spotted “in the wild” in recent weeks, and they demonstrate growing sophistication. One specimen, dubbed Opfake, is a bogus Web browser that automatically makes calls to premium phone lines. Opfake exhibits a powerful trick previously seen only in desktop malware, whereby the code repeatedly mutates to make anti-virus detection more difficult.

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39677/?p1=MstRcnt

By Kevin Bullis, Technology Review

Eric Giler points a remote control at a small black pad leaned up against a wall, and three lamps instantly light up and a tablet computer starts charging. The funny thing is, the devices all sit several feet away from the black pad, which provides power, and aren’t plugged in. Giler is the CEO of Witricity, a startup that hopes to revolutionize electronics by replacing wireless charging systems with ones that send power safely through the air. The nearly five-year-old company uses technology developed at MIT that extends the range of inductive wireless charging.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39657/?p1=MstRcnt

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

I wrote last year about a startup offering a simple program that used cloud storage to trick your computer to behave as if it had infinite storage space. Now invites to a trial version of that program, Bitcasa, are starting to trickle out. I was lucky enough to receive one and tried out both the Mac and Windows versions, of which the latter is described as “alpha” and seems not fully polished. But going by the experience of using the Mac version, Bitcasa is promising. I downloaded a 27 megabyte application and a few seconds later was being told by the Finder that I had a hard drive with over 500 terabytes of free space, an instant upgrade of more than three thousand times. In fact, Bitcasa will swallow as much data as you can push at it, I was told last year, but they weren’t able to hack an infinity sign (∞) into Mac OS.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27561/?p1=blogs

By by Dave Lee, BBC

Thousands of people have taken part in co-ordinated protests across Europe in opposition to a controversial anti-piracy agreement. Significant marches were held in Germany, Poland and the Netherlands against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta). Around 200 protesters gathered in central London outside the offices of rights holder representative groups. Demonstrators argued that Acta will limit freedom of speech online. However the agreement’s supporters insist it will not alter existing laws, and will instead provide protection for content creators in the face of increasing levels of online piracy. The treaty has to date been signed by 22 EU members, including the UK, but has yet to be ratified by the European Parliament. A debate is due to take place in June.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16999497

By: Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek

Apple’s iPad 3 will include a higher-resolution display, faster processor and bigger battery, according to the latest rumors. Apple’s iPad franchise might dominate the tablet market, but it nonetheless faces some significant threats in 2012. Chief among them: Windows 8 on tablets, which could arrive sometime late in the year. Microsoft and its hardware partners will surely devote considerable marketing muscle to the upcoming operating system, creating the sort of united front that has thus far eluded the various Android manufacturers who flooded the tablet ecosystem with tablets in 2011. What will Apple do to counter those threats and maintain its considerable market lead? Release a new iPad, of course.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apples-iPad-3-Could-Include-Retina-Display-Faster-Processor-Bigger-Battery-714363/?kc=rss

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Wolfram Alpha looks like a Web search engine but can answer queries such as “how old is President Obama?” or “heart disease risk 50-year-old male.” New features launching Wednesday allow users of a premium version to upload their own data to have Wolfram Alpha chart, visualize, and analyze it. The tools could appeal to those who feel swamped by spreadsheets, numbers, and lists, claims Stephen Wolfram, founder of the company behind the site, Wolfram Research. The premium version will cost $4.99 a month, or $2.99 a month for students.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/39671/?p1=MstRcnt

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

“Customers are coming to us and saying ‘I’d like a Watson,’ ” says Stephen Gold, IBM’s director of worldwide marketing for Watson. Eventually, that might be possible, but first they need to have the right data sets for Watson to operate on. Watson acquires knowledge by digesting piles of text data, and many businesses simply don’t have it on hand, or don’t have it organized in the right way. Alternatively, a company may not currently operate in a way that would make a question-answering computer very useful. Instead, IBM can offer its more established products and services, such as more basic data storage, processing, and business analytics. These tools can help uncover hidden trends in a company’s data, but lack Watson’s unprecedented ability to answer questions as a human would rather than just spitting out numerical analyses or results.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39667/?p1=A2

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

After four years of quiet hard work, Nicira has just launched that software as its first product. It should trigger a new wave of Internet innovation in everything from mobile apps to online banking security. The product is clunkily named Network Virtualization Platform. It’s aimed at the operators of data centers, the computer-stuffed warehouses that run Internet services and websites. But Nicira, which has received $50 million in funding and filed nearly 50 patents, is taking on a problem that limits what the Internet can offer all of us. The problem is this: cloud computing, even though it now might be a household term, hasn’t lived up to its hype—and as things now stand, it can’t. It was supposed to turn computing power into a cheap utility, like electricity after the advent of power stations and a national grid. A relatively small number of companies would offer computing resources by running software in vast, efficient data centers and piping the results over the Internet to anyone, anywhere. That would push down the price of services that rely on computing and allow them to become more sophisticated.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39631/?p1=featured

By: Darryl K. Taft, eWeek

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced price reductions averaging around 12 percent for its Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).  In a Feb. 6 blog post, Amazon Web Service evangelist Jeff Barr announced a new series of price reductions for the S3 service, noting that AWS continues to innovate on its customers’ behalf to drive down storage costs and pass the saving back to the customer base. “With this price change, all Amazon S3 standard storage customers will see a significant reduction in their storage costs,” Barr said in his post. “For instance, if you store 50TB of data on average, you will see a 12% reduction in your storage costs, and if you store 500TB of data on average, you will see a 13.5% reduction in your storage costs.”

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Amazon-Web-Services-Drops-S3-Storage-Prices-110613/?kc=rss

By: Nicholas Kolakowski, Technology Review

Apple’s iPad 3 will be unveiled in March, according to a new AllThingsD report. Rumors suggest it will feature a more powerful processor and Retina Display. Apple will unveil the iPad 3 at a high-profile March event in San Francisco, reported AllThingsD. “No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that’s what it’s called),” noted the Feb. 9 report, which relied on the ever-popular unnamed sources. Those sources apparently confirmed that the next-generation tablet will boast a similar look to the iPad 2, “but running a much faster chip, sporting an improved graphics processing unit, and featuring a 2048×1536 Retina Display—or something close to it.” Rumors of those features have circulated for some weeks. In a Feb. 1 posting, the Boy Genius Report also suggested the iPad 3 will feature an A6 processor.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-iPad-3-Unveiling-Set-for-March-Report-392245/?kc=rss

by the BBC

The FBI files of Steve Jobs have been released, showing a man who commanded respect as an innovator but was questioned on his honesty and morality. The file was prepared on the Apple founder as he was considered for a presidential appointment in 1991 during George H W Bush’s time in office. Documents also revealed that Jobs had been the victim of an extortive bomb threat in 1985. Jobs’ files note, too, his conversion to Buddhism and admissions of drug use.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16971177

By Simson L. Garfinkel, Technology Review

He invented a logical formalism that described how a human computer, taught to follow a complex set of mathematical operations, would actually carry them out. Turing didn’t understand how human memory worked, so he modeled it as a long tape that could move back and forth and on which symbols could be written, erased, and read. He didn’t know how human learning worked, so he modeled it as a set of rules that the human would follow depending on the symbol currently before her and some kind of internal “state of mind.” Turing described the process in such exact detail that ultimately, a human computer wasn’t even needed to execute it—a machine could do it instead. Turing called this theoretical entity the “automatic machine” or a-machine; today we call it a Turing machine.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39669/?p1=MstRcnt

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Google’s home entertainment device will be a WiFi system for streaming music and likely controlling Google TV and other home products. Apple will also play here. The Wall Street Journal report that Google is building a home entertainment system to let users stream music throughout the home without wires has roiled the tech sector the last couple of days. The news comes several months after Google unveiled a streaming music server that let users tap a CD against a device to scan the music into Google’s Music storage locker. The experimental product, dubbed Project Tungsten at Google I/O last May, falls under the company’s Android @Home banner for powering home consumer electronics and eventually home appliances such as lights, thermostats, refrigerators and microwaves with the company’s Android operating system.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Home-Entertainment-System-Will-Challenge-Apple-Microsoft-487045/

By Don Reisinger, eWeek

The time has come once again to think seriously about Apple’s iPad. Only this time, the focus isn’t on the iPad 2 but on Apple’s iPad 3. That tablet, which is rumored to be launching in March or April, could very well be a groundbreaking option for consumers and enterprise users alike. The excitement and speculation has been building for months already. That excitement becomes all the more impressive when one considers that the device’s details have yet to be announced. In fact, Apple hasn’t even acknowledged that that it will launch an upgraded tablet model this year. For now, in official channels, Apple’s focus is solely on the iPad 2. But those who have been following Apple over the years know better. Apple will release a new tablet this year and there’s a solid chance the slate will come with a host of features to appeal to customers. But just what features should be built into this new tablet?

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Networking/Apple-iPad-3-10-HighPriority-Features-We-Want-in-the-New-Tablet-739540/