Techno-News Blog

by Rachel Metz, Technology Review

In the summer of 2009, Yelp quietly added a feature to its iPhone app that blurred the line between the real and the virtual. If you held your handset up and looked at the world through its screen, you’d see little floating tags containing the names, user ratings, and other details of businesses around you. Several years later, augmented reality is still mostly used by early tech adopters, but it’s starting to graze the mainstream, helped by the massive popularity of smartphones and tablets, and their constantly improving processors and sensors, along with the growth of high-speed wireless data networks. Apps featuring augmented reality are available for everything from gaming to driving to furniture arrangement. Slowly but surely, augmented reality is becoming less of a novelty and more of a utility.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428654/augmented-reality-is-finally-getting-real/

by Martin LaMonica, Technology Review

India’s electric grid is particularly challenged in keeping up with its economy, but grids around the world are at risk from growing complexity and conflicts between water and power. An estimated 670 million Indians were affected by this week’s grid outage (see “How Power Outages in India May One Day Be Avoided”). But it would be a mistake to think that India is uniquely vulnerable to large-scale grid failures. The growing complexity and reliance on the electric grid in both developed and fast-growing countries is making stability tougher to achieve.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428685/outage-in-india-could-be-a-harbinger-for-the-rest/

By Lee Chang-sup, Korea Times

Three decades after a successful pro-democracy movement, Korea is witnessing new types of democratization — this time not of the government, but of learning, knowledge, journalism, organizations and the economy. The democratization of learning is progressing rapidly, jeopardizing the once-thriving private learning institutions in posh southern Seoul. The proliferation of mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets and e-readers as learning tools is revolutionizing how we learn; these days, e-learning, e-libraries, e-coaching, reverse mentoring (where younger staff teach senior executives about the latest in technology, social media and other workplace trends), on-demand mentoring, mobile learning, mass mentoring and micro-feedback have become common avenues for learning.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/08/137_116495.html

By: Michelle Maisto, eWeek

Verizon Wireless and AT&T posted surprisingly strong second-quarter earnings, given that rumors of an upcoming iPhone 5 likely delayed some iPhone sales. While those missed sales hurt Apple, they seem to have benefited the carriers. Smartphone and tablet usage is up, Americans are burning through more data than ever and the wireless carriers, which have invested billions of dollars to get to this point, are beginning to enjoy the results. They’re also enjoying what the Apple iPhone has helped to create, even in absentia.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/iPhone-5-Rumors-Could-Hurt-Apple-But-Benefit-Verizon-ATandT-374872/?kc=rss

by Virtual College (UK)

While e-learning technologies will never completely replace humans in school education, they should make the work of educators easier. This is according to Matthew Horn, co-founder of non-profit think tank Innosight Institution and executive director of its educational practice, who argued the job of teaching expects a “super-human” performance from educators. Innovations can therefore “automate or improve on certain tasks”, he remarked, stating this enables teachers to increase their focus on other activities. These include mentoring, deeper analysis of topics, answering complicated questions and encouraging conversation, the specialist stated.

http://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/Virtual-learning-environments-allow-teachers-to-help-students-newsitems-801416944.aspx

By: Todd R. Weiss, eWeek
 
After a 16-month wait, Google announced that residents of Kansas City can now start signing up to receive gigabit-speed Internet and cable television service through Google Fiber starting in September. And rather than deciding on its own which neighborhoods will get the first service, Google is asking residents to gather their neighbors together to “lobby” for the first hook-ups through a sign-up competition that will last through Sept. 9, according to a July 26 blog post on the Google Fiber blog. The neighborhoods with higher numbers of preregistrations will be the first ones to get the services, according to the blog post from Kevin Lo, the general manager of Google Access.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Networking/Google-Fiber-Service-Launches-in-Kansas-City-With-Eye-Toward-Cable-TV-739905/?kc=rss

by BBC

Operating system Windows 8 will be a “catastrophe” for PC game makers, according to Valve Software’s boss. Speaking at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle, Gabe Newell said the next version of Windows could mean big changes to the PC market. Many took his comment as a criticism of the changed user interface in Windows 8 as well as its built-in Windows Store. The Windows Store could dent the success of Valve’s own online market, Steam, through which players buy games. Mr Newell, who worked for Microsoft for 13 years on Windows, said his company had embraced the open-source software Linux as a “hedging strategy” designed to offset some of the damage Windows 8 was likely to do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18996377#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

by the BBC

More and more people are using NFC to make low value purchases via their phone. A skilled hacker has shown how to hijack a smartphone via a short-range radio technology known as Near Field Communication (NFC). Charlie Miller created tools that forced phones to visit websites seeded with attack software. The software on the booby-trapped websites helped Mr Miller look at and steal data held on a handset. NFC is becoming increasingly common in smartphones as the gadgets are used as electronic tickets and digital wallets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19010945#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

by the BBC

Microsoft revealed it was buying Skype in May 2011, 17 months after filing a surveillance tech patent. Microsoft’s online message, phone and video chat service Skype has denied making changes to its system “in order to provide law officers greater access” to its members’ conversations. It follows reports suggesting infrastructure upgrades had made it easier to hand on users’ chat data. Skype has now posted a blog saying the changes were made solely to improve user experience and reliability. But it added it would pass on messages to law enforcement when “appropriate”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19012415#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

By Don Reisinger, eWEEK

After Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion, it didn’t take me long to download the software. As a longtime Mac user, I had every intention of getting in on the Mountain Lion fun and finding out once and for all if the software was right for what I look for in an operating system. After just 24 hours with the software, it’s hard to say right now if Mountain Lion is a major step up over Lion. The operating system works in much the same way, but adds a couple of applications that seem to be useful. And with Notification Center kept handy at the side of the screen, OS X Mountain Lion delivers several notable differences compared with its predecessor. Still, it’s not all pretty. Some third-party applications aren’t working so well with the software. OS X Mountain Lion looks like a bit of a mixed bag. It doesn’t look like a major upgrade, and at $19.99, it’s hard to determine if the price matches the overall value that it delivers. Take a look at this slide show to learn more about the good, the bad and the surprising features about OS X Mountain Lion.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Mac-OS-X-Mountain-Lion-10-Things-to-Love-or-Hate-About-Apples-New-OS-591891/?kc=rss

By: Nathan Eddy, eWEEK

Samsung and Apple dominate the smartphone market, doubling their market share over the past two years, IDC reports. The success of Samsung’s latest Android-based smartphone, the Galaxy S III, has helped it extend its lead over Apple and its iPhone in the ultra-competitive smartphone market, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The report found Samsung and Apple have more than doubled their combined market share over the past two years, shipping almost half of the world’s smartphones.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Samsung-Extends-Lead-Over-Apple-in-Smartphone-Market-IDC-156549/?kc=rss

By Corinne Bernstein, eWEEK

A new study, conducted by market researchers at Vanson Bourne on behalf of data protection specialist Mozy, suggests that global employers don’t expect their staffs to work a traditional 9-to-5 shift. The study, based on a poll of 1,000 U.S., British, German, French and Irish employees and employers, found that 73 percent of bosses don’t stick to a firm 9-to-5 schedule because they believe their staffs have started working before they actually arrive at the office. Mozy Vice President of Marketing Dave Robinson attributes this to a combination of changing work habits, employer attitude and the availability of mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones, as well as access to data on the go. Here, eWEEK offers some highlights of Mozy’s new study, titled “The New 9 to 5.”

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/The-NeverEnd-Workweek-How-Email-Smartphones-Kill-Our-Free-Time-553342/?kc=rss

by Christopher Steiner, Technology Review

It’s widely accepted that creativity can’t be copied by machines. Reinforcing these assumptions are hundreds of books and studies that have attempted to explain creativity as the product of mysterious processes within the right side of the human brain. Creativity, the thinking has been, proves just how different people are from CPUs. But now we’re learning that for some creative work, that simply isn’t true.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428437/can-creativity-be-automated/

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

With cyber attacks that steal valuable intellectual property on the rise, companies need to consider their options for striking back at attackers, attendees of the annual Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas heard yesterday. “We’ve been focused on defense for a long time, but there’s something else that you’ve got to do. I believe that the industry has to mitigate the threat and take on the attacker,” said Shawn Henry, who gave the opening keynote at the conference, which is being attended by 6,500 experts in cyber attack and defense techniques—both legal and otherwise. Until this March, Henry headed the FBI’s criminal and cyber programs worldwide. He is now president of CrowdStrike, a company that is working on technology that might help targeted companies launch countermeasures, and he is not alone in calling for companies to consider striking back at those who attack them.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428584/fighting-hackers-without-sinking-to-their-level/

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The U.S. Internet’s infrastructure needs to be redesigned to allow the NSA to know instantly when overseas hackers might be attacking public or private infrastructure and computer networks, the agency’s leader, General Keith Alexander, said at the annual Def Con computer hacking conference in Las Vegas. It was a symbolic appearance that he said was motivated by a need to interest the hacker community in helping to make the Internet more secure. Alexander, who is also commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, described the Internet as “at great risk from exploitation, disruption, and destruction.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428644/nsa-boss-wants-more-control-over-the-net/

by Samantha Murphy, Sydney Morning Herald

YouTube is making it harder for users who post negative and hurtful comments on videos to hide behind the site’s anonymity. The video-sharing site is urging users to start using their full name when commenting and uploading clips. Instead of displaying a pen name linked to the YouTube account, the company wants to link to the user’s full name and picture used on their Google+ account. “One Google-wide identity was something that proved popular with new YouTube users when we began offering it in March, so we are now extending it to existing users.” YouTube now asks users if they want to use their full name when leaving a comment. Users that decline must then choose a reason for doing so, such as “my channel is for a product, business or organisation” or “my channel name is well-known”.

http://m.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/youtubes-push-for-users-to-use-real-names-20120725-22opa.html

by Dara Kerr, News.Cnet.com

Twitter is developing a new tool that will let users export their whole tweet history — everything from smart observations to those embarrassing tweets that people may not want to remember. “We’re working on a tool to let users export all of their tweets,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in a meeting with The New York Times yesterday. “You’ll be able to download a file of them.”  As of now, users can only search back through the last few thousand posts.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479315-93/twitter-to-release-tool-that-exports-users-tweet-history/

by Ingrid Lunden, Tech Crunch

The move to offer a Windows Phone app is significant on two levels: the first is that it underscores how important mobile, and being everywhere on mobile, is for Box’s longer-term success. Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, says that already 40 percent of Box’s users are accessing Box from mobile devices, with that number growing fast. “We see a huge correlation between users adopting mobile, and users adopting Box,” he tells me. The second is that, for Windows Phone (be it 7 or 8) to have any hope of taking significant market share away from Android and Apple among smartphone users, it needs to make sure that it’s delivering on content. For enterprise users, that means support for services like Box’s, among others.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/box-debuts-windows-phone-app-as-ceo-levie-says-40-of-users-are-now-accessing-box-cloud-from-mobile-devices/

By: Michelle Maisto, eWeek

How likely are consumers to buy the iPhone 5? Very likely indeed, says a new ChangeWave survey. Apple’s manufacturing partners should fire up their iPhone assembly lines pronto. The sixth version of the iconic smartphone—tentatively called the iPhone 5—could have record sales in its future. 451 Research has reported that a recent ChangeWave survey found not only “an uptick” in planned consumer smartphone purchases this quarter, but an “unprecedented level of advance demand” for the next Apple iPhone. The survey, of 4,042 consumers, 88 percent of whom were in the United States, took place June 18 to 25 and asked participants how likely they are to purchase the next iPhone.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/iPhone-5-On-Track-for-RecordBreaking-Sales-Suggest-Survey-845835/?kc=rss

by the BBC

A Raspberry Pi computer has boldly gone where no other Pi has gone before. High-altitude ballooning enthusiast Dave Akerman tethered one, complete with a webcam to photograph its progress, to a helium balloon. The bare-bones computer managed to reach an altitude of almost 25 miles (40km) before the balloon popped and it returned to Earth. The Pi sent live images throughout the flight and was safely retrieved by tracking its onboard radio transmitter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18900862#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

by the BBC

German engineering giant Siemens has issued a fix for the software loopholes used by the notorious Stuxnet worm. Stuxnet was discovered in 2010 after investigations into malfunctions at many industrial plants and factories. Iran’s nuclear enrichment efforts were hit hard by Stuxnet which targeted the devices that control delicate industrial processes. The fix comes as reports circulate of a fresh cyber attack on Iranian nuclear enrichment project.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18968233#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa