Techno-News Blog

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

In addition, Microsoft said it is ending support for Windows XP, launched in 2001, and Office 2003, two years from now. For the admittedly limited number of Microsoft Vista fans out there, your time is running out. Microsoft plans to retire mainstream support for the much-maligned operating system this week as well as for Office 2007. Microsoft said it would offer extended support for both systems until 2017, but is making the effort to get users to buy Windows 7. The next version of the company’s operating system, Windows 8, will likely be released in October of this year. Microsoft’s Stella Chernyak also reminded users that on April 8, 2014, Microsoft will also officially end support for the even older Windows XP—first launched in 2001—and Office 2003.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Microsoft-Ending-Mainstream-Support-for-Vista-Office-2007-332208/

By Darryl K. Taft, eWeek

Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose, purely functional programming language, with non-strict semantics and strong static typing. In computer science and computer programming, a type system is said to feature strong typing when it specifies one or more restrictions on how operations involving values of different data types can be intermixed. The opposite of strong typing is weak typing. “Strong typing” implies that the programming language places severe restrictions on the intermixing that is permitted to occur. This prevents the compiling or running of source code, which prevents data from being used in an invalid way. Haskell is named after logician Haskell Curry. In Haskell, “a function is a first-class citizen” of the programming language. As a functional programming language, the primary control construct is the function. The language is rooted in the observations of Curry and his intellectual descendants, that “a proof is a program; the formula it proves is a type for the program.”

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Why-Programmers-Should-Use-the-Haskell-Language-Now-669827/

by the BBC

Yahoo has signalled it is investigating e-book adverts as a way to stimulate its earnings. It says in two US patent applications that ads for digital book readers have been “less than optimal” to date. The filings suggest that users could be offered titles at a variety of prices depending on the ads’ prominence. They add that the products shown could be determined by the type of book being read, or even the contents of a specific chapter, phrase or word.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17657859#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

By Jonathan Koomey, Technology Review

Computing isn’t just getting cheaper. It’s becoming more energy efficient. That means a world populated by ubiquitous sensors and streams of nanodata. The performance of computers has shown remarkable and steady growth, doubling every year and a half since the 1970s. What most folks don’t know, however, is that the electrical efficiency of computing (the number of computations that can be completed per kilowatt-hour of electricity used) has also doubled every year and a half since the dawn of the computer age. Laptops and mobile phones owe their existence to this trend, which has led to rapid reductions in the power consumed by battery-powered computing devices. The most important future effect is that the power needed to perform a task requiring a fixed number of computations will continue to fall by half every 1.5 years (or a factor of 100 every decade). As a result, even smaller and less power-intensive computing devices will proliferate, paving the way for new mobile computing and communications applications that vastly increase our ability to collect and use data in real time.

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/40016/?p1=BI

Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Pinterest, the social network where users “pin” photos to virtual pin boards, has become the third most popular with Web users behind Facebook and Twitter, a report from marketing company Experian says. Like all social networks, Pinterest is dogged by questions of how to make money, but Experian’s data suggests that it may not be difficult. Ads for consumer goods and retail are the most successful kinds on Facebook, Experian says. Those categories are a natural fit with the photos of home décor and fashion items most pinned by Pinterest users.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27712/?p1=blogs

By Christopher Mims

Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out. The unprecedented accuracy of the Broadcom 4752 chip results from the sheer breadth of sensors from which it can process information. It can receive signals from global navigation satellites, cell-phone towers, and Wi-Fi hot spots, and also input from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters, and altimeters. The variety of location data available to mobile-device makers means that in our increasingly radio-frequency-dense world, location services will continue to become more refined.

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/40075/?p1=A1

by Martin LaMonica, CNET news.com

Google’s Project Glass demo is certainly the coolest hardware demo so far this year. Behind the scenes is something equally intriguing: artificial-intelligence software. The augmented-reality glasses, which Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted wearing yesterday, created a huge buzz Wednesday when Google released a video showing, from the wearer’s perspective, how they could be used. In the video, the small screen on the glasses flashes information right on cue, allowing the wearer to set up meetings with friends, get directions in the city, find a book in a store, and even videoconference with a friend. The device itself has a small screen above the right eye on wrap-around glasses which have no lenses.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57410443-76/googles-project-glass-you-aint-seen-nothin-yet/?tag=mncol

by John Pavlus, Technology Review

Reactions to the product design have ranged skeptical to enthusiastic, but I was curious about the psychological and visual-cognitive aspects of the user experience. What would these “digital overlays” actually look and feel like? Would they really be as sharp and legible as the ones shown in the video? (I don’t know about you, but I can’t focus sharply on anything less than an inch away from my eyeball, which is where the eyeglasses’ tiny screen would be dangling.) Would they obstruct my vision and make me motion-sick? How would my brain make perceptual and physical sense of the graphics: where would I “look,” exactly, in order to “watch” the tiny picture-in-picture video chat shown at the conclusion of the clip? I asked Mark Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist and author of The Vision Revolution, to answer some of these questions in an audio commentary track on the video, which you can watch at the URL below.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/27711/?p1=blogs

by Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

I deleted my Pinterest account on February 29, 2012. I still love the site and actually intend to restart my account after April 6th. That’s because Pinterest finally took action to correct some potentially disastrous mistakes: their Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy. As of April 6th, these new policies (announced here) are more forgiving and actually give the user the ability to pin without fear of being sued for copyright infringement. Instead, Pinterest will simply remove any content that has been requested for removal by its owner. Your pin will disappear…but that’s a small price to pay instead of getting named in a lawsuit.

http://edudemic.com/2012/03/why-ill-start-using-pinterest-again-after-april-6th/

by the BBC

Google has revealed details of its research into augmented reality glasses. It posted a brief introduction to Project Glass, photos and a concept video at its Google+ social network. The images show a minimalist design with a microphone and partly-transparent video screen that places information over the view from the users’ right eye. The product’s developers said they wanted feedback on the idea. They did not give any indication about when the device might go on sale or what it would cost.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17618495

by the BBC

The UK scientists who developed a prototype chocolate printer last year say they have now perfected it. They hope to have the machine on sale at the end of April. It would allow chocolate lovers to print their own custom-made sweets, layer by layer. Lead scientist Dr Liang Hao, from the University of Exeter, founded the Choc Edge company to commercialise the device after interest from retailers. 3D printing using plastic, wood and metal is already widely used by industry to create objects ranging from jewellery and footwear to human bones. Dr Hao told the BBC that chocolate printing, just like any other 3D printing technique, starts with a flat cross-section image – similar to that produced by ordinary printers turning out images, and then prints out chocolate layer by layer to create a 3D shape, without any moulding tools.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17623424

by the BBC

More than half a million Apple computers have been infected with the Flashback Trojan, according to a Russian anti-virus firm. Its report claims that about 600,000 Macs have installed the malware – potentially allowing them to be hijacked and used as a “botnet”. The firm, Dr Web, says that more than half that number are based in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17623422

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

A search engine like Google or Bing can help you find lots of things on the Web, from the mating habits of seahorses to driving directions. But what if you want to know, say, the last time Beyonce was mentioned on TV? A new search startup called Boxfish can help. The company opened up its site in a public beta testing phase in late March, allowing users to search through words and phrases used on the TV within the past month, see the topics that are trending on TV, and set up alerts for broadcast mentions of specific terms like “Lady Gaga” or “lottery.” Boxfish was created by Eoin Dowling and Kevin Burkitt, Ireland natives now based in Palo Alto, California, who sold a mobile entertainment startup called Red Circle to Zamano, a Web and mobile company, in 2007

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/40074/?p1=A2

by Will Knight, Technology Review

George Dyson’s new book, Turing’s Cathedral, is a fascinating, meticulously researched account of the effort to build the first universal Turing machine, under the leadership of the mercurial John von Neumann, at the Institute for Advanced Study during the second world war. The resulting computer, called the MANIAC, was used to perform thermonuclear calculations that fueled the development of the atomic bomb, and, in spare moments, to perform mathematical calculations on principles of symbiogenesis and evolution. The story has a personal side for George, who spent his early years at the Institute, where his father Freeman Dyson worked as a professor, and he remembers playing with some of the parts discarded by the engineers working on the computer project.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27708/?p1=blogs

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The Royal Canadian Mint has invented a new, digital currency called MintChip intended to be an alternative to using debit and credit cards. MintChip is modeled somewhat on Bitcoin, a digital currency invented by an unknown programmer that looked like it might succeed last year before falling prey to a serious of security and regulatory problems. The promo video for MintChip promises that transactions as small as $0.01 will be possible, something not feasible with credit cards due to the fees on each transaction. A competition is underway that will reward programmers with the best demonstration uses for MintChip.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27707/?p1=blogs

By Don Reisinger, eWeek

Security has always been a major concern for consumers, but it’s especially important for enterprise users. In far too many cases, malicious hackers are able to take control of a computer, steal sensitive information or use it against millions across the world. On the Web, hackers take every opportunity to try and take down sites or turn them into their own personal Trojan-delivering friends. However, in recent years, a new threat has emerged that, at least so far, few people know enough about: mobile security. From Android to Symbian and even, in some cases, iOS, operating systems across the mobile market are being targeted by malicious hackers.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Android-Security-Is-a-Major-Threat-10-Reasons-Why-148798/

By: Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

New variants of the fast-growing Flashback Trojan have affected more than 600,000, according to security vendor Doctor Web.More than 600,000 Apple Mac computers worldwide—more than half of them in the United States—have been hit by a new fast-moving variant of the Flashback Trojan malware that uses Javascript code rather than relying on user interaction, according to security researchers. Officials with security software company Intego said in an April 3 blog post that they found samples of the new Flashback Trojan March 23, and noted that the new malware—like the previous version discovered last year—uses two Java vulnerabilities, they said, one of which was patched by Apple April 3. The malware attacks Macs running the Mac OS X operating system. Bloggers from Russian security company Doctor Web said in a post April 4 that the new Flashback variant had compromised up to 550,000 Mac computers, more than 300,000 of which were in the United States and more than 106,000 in Canada.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mac-Botnet-Infects-More-Than-600000-Apple-Computers-699749/

By: Jeffrey Burt, eWeek

The hacker group claims attacks on hundreds of government and commercial Websites and urges Chinese citizens to revolt against the government. The hacker collaborative Anonymous reportedly is now turning its sights on Chinese government agencies and enterprises, apparently hoping to foment unrest among Chinese citizens. The group, which now apparently has a presence in China, claims to have hacked into and defaced hundreds of national and local government and business Websites, carrying messages decrying what the hackers say is Chinese government oppression, and with The Who song “Baba O’Reilly” playing in the background in many of the defacements. In one Pastebin post, Anonymous lists the hundreds of sites it claims to have targeted.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Anonymous-Takes-Aim-at-Chinese-Government-370796/

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

A video released by Google confirms rumors that the company has been working on glasses that display maps, incoming messages, and other information in your field of view. The video shows a person using the voice-activated goggles to take photos, share video of what they are looking at with friends, get directions, and receive messages. The technology looks similar to that of Recon Instruments, which makes inserts for ski goggles that display things like speed or air time during a jump. However, unlike this impressive video released from Google’s self driving car project last week, this one looks more like a concept reel than a demonstration of an actual working gadget. It also doesn’t answer the question of what it takes to make the odd-looking glasses socially acceptable.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27701/?p1=blogs

by David Zax, Technology Review

Is Research in Motion, maker of the iconic BlackBerry, dead–or sick unto death? Some observers are calling it. Jonathan Geller, founder of Boy Genius Report, is one of them. Indeed, he puts it more starkly than anyone: “The RIM we know, is dead. The company has 12 to 15 months until it’s either acquired, or broken into pieces and sold for parts. I’m not even sure why the company still plans to launch BlackBerry 10 smartphones at this point.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27696/?p1=blogs

by Christopher Mims, Technology Review

Google’s Android device makers aren’t happy. They’re tired of making commodity devices that are merely vehicles for Google’s Android OS, each indistinguishable from the other because of Google’s rules about how Android can be implemented on them in order for them to qualify as “compatible.” These makers have seen the success of devices with custom OSes built on forked versions of the still kind-of open-source Android operating system, primarily Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, and they’re itching to release their own. Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless, has a unique window onto this phenomenon, because his company provides geolocation services for these yet-to-be-announced devices.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27703/?p1=blogs