Techno-News Blog

by CHRIS VELAZCO, Tech Crunch

Hey, Ice Cream Sandwich users — if you’re a Dropbox user and somehow haven’t gotten the latest (2.1.4) update, do yourself a favor and get on it. The update is sure to please those who find the Dropbox experience to be woefully light on Hangul, as it introduces Korean language support, but there’s something even better to play with. This release sees the addition of a nifty, Ice Cream Sandwich-exclusive feature — the ability to stream videos stored within a Dropbox account. As something of a digital media hoarder, I threw a handful of big miscellaneous video files (a 500MB .avi and a 400MB .mkv, specifically) into my Dropbox account to see how well things actually worked. Thankfully just waiting for them to be stored in the cloud was the most odious part of the process — once everything was in place, it was a simple enough process to select the file from within the Dropbox app and kick back momentarily with an old episode of Top Gear.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/dropbox-for-android-update-packs-video-streaming-for-ics-users-korean-language-support/

by FREDERIC LARDINOIS, Tech Crunch

It’s not often that we come across startups that focus on seniors, but according to a new report by analyst firm Forrester Research, seniors ages 65 and up are probably more connected and tech-savvy than you think. Forrester found that about 60% of U.S. seniors are online. That’s about 20 million people and while this obviously means that 40% don’t care much about the Internet, those 60% who are online are tech-savvy and happily use technology to connect to their friends and family. Online seniors, says Forrester analyst Gina Sverdlov, also highly value their mobile phones, but mostly for making calls. Only 22% of online seniors use their phones to access the Internet and only 7% of those who are online and own a mobile phone use mobile apps on a regular basis.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/online-seniors-tech-savvier-than-you-think/

by David Zax, Technology Review

The Verge got a hands-on with Intel’s vision for inductive charging. The idea is to have your smartphone charge straight from you ultrabook. No wires required, just “close proximity.” Check out the video, and then let’s mull the thing. I’ve written about wireless charging before–most recently, I think, when a controversial Apple patent surfaced on the matter. (It was unfavorably reviewed, that patent application; folks called it “incredibly impractical” and “ridiculous,” among other things.) Intel’s vision of wireless charging is intriguing, but there are a number of reasons why this technology–which has been foreseen since the days of Nikola Tesla–hasn’t taken off.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428125/will-wireless-charging-ever-take-off/

by David Zax, Technology Review

The blogs have been whirring with speculation that Siri will come soon to the iPad. It all began with a 9to5Mac report to this effect. The site’s sources say one of the “tentpole features” of iOS 6 will be Siri support for iPad. Due to the iPad’s larger display, Siri for iPad wouldn’t need to take up the full screen. Rather, you’d hold the home screen (much as on your iPhone 4S), and the Siri interface would slide up from the bottom of the screen. The experience would be overlaid on top of whatever you were already doing on your iPad. Multiple sources (you guessed it–unnamed!) say that Siri-on-iPad would likely only be for the newer Retina Display models. A question remains, however. Is the iPad the proper place for Siri?

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428141/siri-strikes-out-for-the-ipad/

By Prachi Patel, Technology Review

Cost has been a major barrier in keeping people from buying energy-efficient LED lightbulbs. While they last much longer than $1 incandescent bulbs or $4 compact fluorescents, their sticker-price is daunting: a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb costs $15 to $25. Now one of the world’s largest LED makers, Osram Opto Semiconductors, says it has perfected a technique that could significantly cut the production cost of LEDs.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428102/cheaper-led-lightbulbs-are-on-the-way/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Sure, you can text your significant other that you’re on the way home when you leave the office, or turn music on when you go for a run. But wouldn’t it be easier if your phone did it for you? A new, free app and accompanying website from Microsoft’s Bing search engine purports to do just that. Released in a public beta version this week, on{X} lets users set up so-called “recipes” that their smart phone will adhere to, performing preset tasks under specific conditions by using the various sensors and capabilities that are built into the device.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428135/an-app-to-automate-lifes-little-tasks/

By Scott M. Fulton, Read, Write, Web

Welcome to the new Internet! Last night, some 200 major service providers, including AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Google, Facebook and Time Warner Cable, switched over to a new version of the Internet protocol. The transition from Internet Protocol v4 to v6 (skipping over the number in between) is the biggest infrastructure shift in the Internet since the network was founded. Yet Internet Society officials, prior to the switch last night, calmly assured users that they wouldn’t notice a thing. To understand why, it’s necessary to delve into the tortured history of IPv6. Proposed in 1995 and adopted as a workable protocol in 1999, Internet Protocol version 6 was designed to support the Interent’s rampant growth.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the-tortured-history-of-internet-protocol-v6.php

By Jon Mitchell, Read, Write, Web

Never mind Stuxnet’s infiltration of Iranian nuclear facilities – national governments are carrying out Internet attacks against private citizens, often their own. Now Google has stepped into the breach. If it detects an attack, the search giant says, it will warn the victim and block the perpetrator. Diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks implicated the Chinese government in hacking into alleged dissidents’ Google accounts. This incident led to Google pulling its business out of China, although since then it has inched its way back. Google wants to serve the huge Chinese user base, but it will implement new security measures to protect those who might come under attack by prying governments.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google-warns-users-of-government-hacker-attacks.php

By Dave Copeland, Read, Write, Web

Don’t believe the next social media expert who tells you “social media is intangible” when it comes to building your brand. Sure, it’s difficult to calculate a precise return on investment for social media marketing efforts: Just ask General Motors, which pulled $10 million in Facebook advertising last month because it couldn’t track measurable results. But social media reach is more measurable than some people would have you believe. “Obviously this is a very new space so there isn’t one established way to think about it,” said Linus Chou of Google Analytics in a presentation at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in New York City this week.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/making-the-most-of-social-media-analytics.php

By Violet Blue, ZDNet

The viral Facebook Privacy Notice is a fraud and shows that user trust is at an all time low. A so-called “Facebook Privacy Notice” is currently circulating Facebook and users are posting it to their profiles and timelines. There are a few versions and they are all useless fakes. It’s a harmless cut and paste spoof – unless you think it’s actually going to protect your privacy any further than Facebook’s own Terms.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/facebook-privacy-notice-fake/1370?tag=nl.e539

By Gery Menegaz, ZD Net

Flame is clearly the next evolution in computer virus and got me to thinking of all of the viruses, worms, trojans, and malware that I have had to battle over the past few years. Were I an Iranian scientist Flame would definitely be in my top 5 Virus, Trojan and Worm selections; since I am not, here is my top 5.

 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/the-5-worst-computer-viruses/79014?tag=nl.e539

By James Kendrick, ZDNet

I predict that many hybrid purchasers will come to experience one of two realities. Some will come to realize that a good tablet is all they need almost all the time. Through actual usage they’ll find the keyboard is something they don’t reach for very often. The tablet alone is all this group will need most of the time. The other group will find over time that they end up using the hybrid as a laptop all of the time. The nice tablet screen is there, but will end up serving primarily as a display for the laptop. They will rarely use the tablet as a tablet, instead reverting back to the familiar laptop form almost all of the time. While these new convertible notebooks being shown will serve these folks, as Dignan points out there will be compromises. Why have a keyboard and the resultant cost increases and usability sacrifices if all you end up using is a simple tablet function? The same for the tablet functions if you only use the notebook functions?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/convertible-notebooks-will-sell-but-for-how-long/8061?tag=nl.e539

by Claudia Buck, McClatchy Newspapers

When Debbie Klava’s daughters come home from school in Elk Grove, Calif., she knows the minute they walk in the front door. Even though she’s working in an office 90 minutes away, she gets an email or cellphone text when they arrive – or an alert if it’s past their expected 3 p.m. arrival time. And if Mom wants to see her girls’ smiling faces, she can call up a five-second video clip on her smartphone or computer screen that shows them schlepping their backpacks through the door. Klava, credit and collections manager in Comcast’s Livermore, Calif., office, is one of the first Sacramento-area residents to log on to the company’s new “Xfinity Home” wireless technology system.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/04/2108459/connected-security-systems-tether.html

by AFP

High-tech “diet glasses” unveiled in Japan trick the wearer into seeing plain snacks as chocolate biscuits. They also make biscuits appear larger than they are, offering hope to weak-willed dieters everywhere. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed devices that use computer wizardry and augmented reality to fool the senses and make users feel more satisfied with smaller – or less appealing – treats. On one device goggle-mounted cameras send images to a computer, which magnifies the apparent size of the biscuit in the image it displays to the wearer while keeping his hand the same size, making the snack appear larger than it actually is.

http://www.news.com.au/world/cyber-goggles-serve-see-food-diet/story-fn6sb9br-1226384005739

By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will be home to the Intel Science and Technology Center (ISTC) for Big Data. CSAIL will also launch a new initiative called bigdata@CSAIL to study “data collections that are too big, growing too fast, or are too complex for existing information technology systems to handle,” according to information released by the school. In an effort to make big data more useful to society, bigdata@CSAIL is designed to develop new techniques for collecting, storing, sharing, processing, analyzing, and sharing big data through collaborations between experts in academia, industry, and government. With a focus on areas such as finance, medicine, security, and social media, CSAIL will build new systems “from the ground up” to deal with the “data deluge,” according to Laboratory Director Daniela Rus.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/06/04/mit-launches-big-data-initiative-becomes-home-to-intel-science-and-technology-center.aspx

by John Paczkowski, All Things D

Initially a little dim, Microsoft’s prospects in the tablet market could improve significantly with the debut of Windows 8. Though the operating system has yet to hit the market, there’s a groundswell of consumer interest developing around it. And it’s large enough that some observers are already predicting that Windows 8 could catapult Microsoft into the No. 2 position in the tablet market, ahead of Google’s Android and behind Apple’s iPad.

http://allthingsd.com/20120604/windows-8-plus-office-could-equal-success-for-microsoft-tablets/

by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

Seattle-based Mobilisafe, a mobile security startup backed by $1.2 million in funding from Madrona Venture Group, Trilogy Equity Partnership and T-Venture, is exiting its private beta program and launching publicly today. The company’s cloud-based Mobile Risk Management (MRM) solution aims to help companies deal with the ever-increasing number of personal devices on corporate networks, but takes things a step beyond existing mobile device management solutions. In addition to its real-time assessment capabilities, it’s also aggregating and mining the data it collects to help its system become more predictive over time.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/byod-without-big-brother-mobilisafe-debuts-real-time-mobile-risk-management-solution/

By Janko Roettgers, Gigaom

Boxee launched an iPhone app for personal video sharing with a closed beta test Monday. The app, dubbed Cloudee, is available for free during the test period, but could eventually become Boxee’s first real revenue generator. The app focuses on the iPhone and iPod touch for now, but Boxee CEO Avner Ronen told me during a phone conversation a few days ago that tight integration with the company’s Boxee Box will follow soon. “We think it’s gonna be a core offering of what Boxee is,” he said.

http://gigaom.com/video/cloudee-boxee-ios-video-sharing/

By Dave Copeland, Read, Write Web

The question “what happens to your social media account when you die?” has been asked to death (pun intended). I first encountered it six years ago in the form of “what happens to your MySpace account when you die?” and now it gets updated with each new social network. It turns out that the ways people answer this question are bringing significant social change. A growing body of research suggests that social media is altering the psychology and behavior of death and mourning. A group of British researchers outline the changes in an article in the spring edition of Omega: Journal of Death & Dying. Those changes cover almost every aspect of dying, including funerals, grief, memorialization, inheritance and archaeology. New patterns attributed to online behavior are also challenging long-held standards in the study of death about how people deal with death.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social-media-is-changing-how-we-die-and-mourn.php

By ANDREW E. KRAMER and NICOLE PERLROTH, NY Times

When Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Europe’s largest antivirus company, discovered the Flame virus that is afflicting computers in Iran and the Middle East, he recognized it as a technologically sophisticated virus that only a government could create. He also recognized that the virus, which he compares to the Stuxnet virus built by programmers employed by the United States and Israel, adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet. “Cyberweapons are the most dangerous innovation of this century,” he told a gathering of technology company executives, called the CeBIT conference, last month in Sydney, Australia. While the United States and Israel are using the weapons to slow the nuclear bomb-making abilities of Iran, they could also be used to disrupt power grids and financial systems or even wreak havoc with military defenses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/technology/cyberweapon-warning-from-kaspersky-a-computer-security-expert.html

by Alexis Madrigal, the Atlantic

Apple turns over its inventory once every five days. That’s part of why a new report from the technology research firm, Gartner, ranked Apple’s supply chain the best in the world. And it’s pretty amazing when you think about it. This is a company that sells hundreds of millions of hardware gadgets all over the world and yet it doesn’t actually need to stockpile its goods. The only company on Gartner’s list of 25 companies that turns over its product faster is McDonald’s, which is not exactly in the electronics business. Dell and Samsung rank two and three in Apple’s category, turning over their inventory roughly once every 10 and 21 days respectively.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/wow-apple-turns-over-its-inventory-once-every-5-days/257915/