Techno-News Blog

by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica

For the first time since Apple entered the mobile phone market in 2007, it has been ranked the top mobile phone vendor in the US. For the latter quarter of 2012, sales of its iPhone accounted for 34 percent of all mobile phone sales in the US—including feature phones—according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics. Still, Samsung was the top mobile phone vendor overall for 2012, and Strategy Analytics expects Samsung to be back on top soon. “Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, and it will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4.”

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/02/apple-nabs-crown-as-current-top-us-mobile-phone-vendor/

by Peter Bright, Ars Technica

The improvement of Internet Explorer’s position masks a story that’s decidedly mixed for Microsoft. Windows 7 fell for the first time in January, dropping 0.63 points from a high of 45.11 percent to 44.48 percent. Windows 8’s slow growth is continuing, up 0.54 points from 1.72 percent to 2.26 percent. There’s also a small number of tablet users, with 0.08 percent on Windows 8 Touch and a minuscule 0.02 percent on Windows RT Touch. Taken together, the growth by the Windows 8 family seems to be covering the losses Windows 7 has incurred, but that’s surprisingly weak. With corporations still migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7—a process that should continue even in spite of Windows 8’s release—one would expect Windows 7 and 8 to both be growing.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/internet-explorer-still-growing-as-windows-7-starts-its-decline/

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Researchers have created software that predicts when and where disease outbreaks might occur based on two decades of New York Times articles and other online data. The research comes from Microsoft and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The system could someday help aid organizations and others be more proactive in tackling disease outbreaks or other problems, says Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist and codirector at Microsoft Research. “I truly view this as a foreshadowing of what’s to come,” he says. “Eventually this kind of work will start to have an influence on how things go for people.” Horvitz did the research in collaboration with Kira Radinsky, a PhD researcher at the Technion-Israel Institute.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510191/software-predicts-tomorrows-news-by-analyzing-todays-and-yesterdays/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Some Web searches are easy to think of and describe, but complicated to conduct. If, for instance, you want to find “a nonstop flight from Las Vegas to San Diego next week on JetBlue,” you have to fill out a bevy of fields on a travel site. SkyPhrase, a startup created by Nick Cassimatis, an associate professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will soon offer software that lets companies turn natural language questions like the one above into a format that their databases can handle.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510056/startup-brings-better-understanding-of-tricky-questions-to-the-web/

By Susan Young, Technology Review

Helpful flaws: Defects in the structure of a diamond appear as black circular spots in this false-color image. The defects act as magnetic-field sensors that can detect weak magnetic fields coming from small samples on the diamond’s surface. Two reports published online in Science on Thursday open up the possibility that researchers may be able to determine the structure of individual proteins in living cells. Although the work is still in early stages, the potential is that researchers could get a better handle on the role of proteins in disease. Physicists in the U.S. and Germany report important steps toward magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, of molecules in two separate studies. In both reports, the researchers show how specially modified diamond flakes can be used as nanoscale magnetic field detectors. These tiny sensors can elucidate the structure of single organic molecules. With nanoscale MRI, researchers may one day be able to directly image proteins and other molecules at the atomic scale.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510476/tiny-sensors-could-give-an-atom-level-view-of-proteins/

By Nancy Gohring, Technology Review

An Android app that measures atmospheric pressure is now feeding that distributed data to scientists working on better ways to predict the weather. The app, called PressureNet, highlights the potential of distributed sensing using mobile devices and shows how the sophisticated sensors found in modern smartphones could be harnessed for research. It was launched in late 2011 By Jacob Sheehy, a software developer for Flighthub.com, and Phil Jones, an independent Web designer, who became friends while studying at Concordia University in Montreal.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510626/app-feeds-scientists-atmospheric-data-from-thousands-of-smartphones/

by Sumi Das, CNET news.com

So you’ve graduated from high school and been accepted at a four-year college. But when you arrive on campus you find out that you can’t pass college entry-level courses, so it’s back to remedial classes. That’s the fate of half of all freshman at San Jose State University, according to Provost Ellen Junn. Add to those woes decreases in funding for higher education across California, higher tuition fees, and greater competition for college admission. Those are just some of the reasons the university has partnered with Silicon Valley startup Udacity to offer San Jose State Plus, online courses for academic credit. These types of classes are called MOOCs (massive open online courses), and San Jose State administrators say this new program marks the first time a MOOC is being offered purely online for credit.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566552-93/udacity-san-jose-state-university-offer-online-classes-for-credit/

by Tom Snyder, Huffington Post

I strongly believe that the future of higher education lies with online learning. Increasingly, colleges and university students now find themselves with other obligations beyond that of getting a degree. Jobs and family commitments make equal demands on their time. Having the option of taking online classes and studying on their own time is critically important. At the same time, many state institutions are unable to accommodate all those who want to take classes on campus, escalating the demand for online learning. Finally, lifelong learning must now be a part of everyone’s career plans. In today’s job market, taking online courses help workers remain competitive and they don’t need to take time off from their jobs to do this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-snyder/the-benefits-of-online-le_b_2573991.html

by Natalie Houston, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The CamScanner app, which is available for both Android and IOS mobile devices, allows you to use your phone to scan items directly to PDF. Some of the features I have found especially helpful include:

batch scanning

editing of the scanned image, including cropping and rotation

creation of user-defined tags for documents

easy uploading to Dropbox or sharing via email, social networks, etc.

There is a free version of the app, which limits the number of documents you can create and adds a watermark with the app name to them. Upgrade to the full version is handled from within the app. Of particular interest to ProfHacker readers: A free upgrade to the full version of the app is available to anyone who registers it with a .edu email address.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/turn-your-phone-into-a-scanner/45757

by NATASHA LOMAS, Tech Crunch

Google’s philanthropic arm, Google Giving, has awarded a grant to the U.K.’s Raspberry Pi Foundation to fund 15,000 U.K. schoolchildren to get their very own Raspberry Pi micro computer to learn to code. The size of the Google Giving grant has not been disclosed by Google but the Foundation describes it as “generous”, and the Model B Pi, which the kids will be getting, retails for $35 — so taken at face retail value the grant is worth $525,000 for the hardware alone. Add in additional teaching materials, support and resources and it’s likely to be worth considerably more than half a million dollars. Update: TechCrunch understands the total grant is worth $1 million — which covers the cost of the devices plus support and teaching materials to ensure the kids get the most out of their free Pi.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/29/google-giving-grant-worth-525000-to-fund-free-raspberry-pi-for-15000-u-k-schoolkids/

by Dan Rowinski, Read Write

Apple announced a new version of its fourth-generation iPad today. Apple’s newest will be a 128 GB version starting at $799 with cellular connectivity at $929 and hits stores on February 5th. With the tablet industry trending towards smaller, cheaper versions, why would Apple buck the trend and release one of the most expensive tablets on the market? The answer has little to do with Google, Amazon or the Android Army. For Apple, the 128 GB iPad is all about business and enterprise. What company controls the enterprise software market and is releasing its own expensive tablet? Yeah, that would be Microsoft.

http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/apple-sets-out-to-kill-microsofts-enterprise-business-with-128-gb-ipad

by Antone Gonsalves, ReadWrite

Department store surveillance cameras are not just watching for thieves. Some are also tracking customer activity. Knowing the ebb and flow of the number of shoppers, the path they take through the store and the products they touch can provide valuable information for boosting sales. While customers may find this level of scrutiny creepy, retailers see it as survival in a low-margin, fiercely competitive business.

http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/the-cloudy-future-of-facial-recognition-in-stores

by Steve Kovach, BusinessInsider

The evidence is picking up that Apple may launch a new iPad as soon as this March. The latest leak comes from 9to5Mac, which received some photos of what is allegedly the casing for the fifth-generation iPad. As has been reported before, the iPad 5 will look a lot like the iPad Mini, but it’ll have a full 9.7-inch screen. It will also likely be noticeably thinner and lighter.  The photos 9to5Mac posted come from an iPad accessory maker in China. We have one of the images for you below, and you can check out the rest on 9to5Mac.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-5-casing-leak-2013-1

By Nicole Lee, Engadget

It’s been three years since we first heard about DARPA’s ARGUS-IS, but thanks to a PBS Nova special entitled “Rise of the Drones,” we finally have more information about the 1.8-gigapixel camera that is supposedly the highest-resolution surveillance system in the world. The documentary showed video footage of the imaging system in action, though the camera itself remains shrouded in mystery for security reasons. Designed to be used with UAVs like the Predator, the ARGUS-IS (which stands for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance – Imaging System) can spot a six-inch object within a ten square mile radius from 20,000 feet in the air. As shown in the clip after the break, the high-res cam doesn’t quite reveal facial features, but you can spot details like a bird flying around a building and the color of someone’s clothes.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/28/darpa-argus-is-surveillance/

by the BBC

The Pentagon will dramatically increase its cyber-security staff to counter threats against US government computer networks, according to media reports. US Cyber Command, established three years ago, could grow as much as fivefold over the next few years. The planned expansion comes amid a series of successful attacks, including a virus that wiped data from 30,000 computers at a Saudi oil firm. Cyber Command currently has 900 staff members, both military and civilian.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21235256#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

By RANDALL STROSS, NY Times

AN Android smartphone with unlimited calls, unlimited texting, unlimited data and no contract, all for $19 a month? Really? When I first saw this offer from Republic Wireless, I rubbed my eyes and looked for an asterisk leading to fine print that detailed a huge catch. But Republic, a division of a telecom company called Bandwidth.com, delivers exactly what it advertises. It can do so because the handset technology is a curious hybrid: it uses Wi-Fi when the customer is in a Wi-Fi area and Sprint Nextel’s 3G network when it is not. The concept brings together the best of two worlds: the low cost of voice calls carried over the Internet and the convenience of making calls to any phone number using a major carrier’s cellular network when Wi-Fi isn’t available.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/business/republic-wirelesss-plan-melds-wi-fi-and-network-calling.html

by David Zax, Technology Review

For now, at least, my dumb phone experiment has reached a strange equilibrium. In early December, I lost my iPhone at a McDonald’s. I decided to do something a little crazy: not replace it (see “I’m Going Back to my ‘Dumb Phone’: Should You?”). Now, as some of you may recall, the sacrifice I made was considerably mitigated when my father gave me what amounts to a hand-me-down iPod Touch in the middle of my experiment. The device is actually a Verizon iPhone 4, so in a sense I’ve already been cheating for weeks (see: “What Is an iPhone Anyway?”). But since I don’t have a Verizon voice or data plan, 3G connectivity, SMS, and traditional phone calls are not an option on the device. It’s exactly what I needed. When I gave up my iPhone, what I found I was missing most were the suite of productivity and scheduling apps that had come to make my life so much easier. My iPhone camera, my voice recording app, my maps and calendars–it stung to lose these.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510386/why-im-not-going-back-to-my-iphone/

by Kevin Bullis, Technology Review

An electrolyte developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory could enable lithium-ion batteries that store five to 10 times more energy and are safer than the ones that recently caught fire on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. While the cause of the Boeing fire hasn’t yet been determined, Boeing could have reduced the risk of fire by choosing a safer electrode chemistry (see “Grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners Use Batteries Prone to Overheating”). But it would have had fewer options for the electrolyte—the material that allows current to flow through a battery. Lithium-ion batteries, even the ones that use relatively safe electrodes, still use flammable liquid electrolytes.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510311/battery-material-prevents-fires-stores-five-times-the-energy/

By Ed Bott, The Ed Bott Report

Congratulations, Oracle. Oracle’s Java plugin for browsers is a notoriously insecure product. Over the past 18 months, the company has released 11 updates, six of them containing critical security fixes. With each update, Java actively tries to install unwanted software. Here’s what it does, and why it has to stop. Java is the new king of foistware, displacing Adobe and Skype from the top of the heap. And it earned that place with a combination of software update practices that are among the most user-hostile and cynical in the industry.

http://www.zdnet.com/a-close-look-at-how-oracle-installs-deceptive-software-with-java-updates-7000010038/

by Ken Hess, ZDNet

The real problem with personal cloud services is security. And I’m not necessarily referring to hackers breaking into accounts or attacking personal cloud provider’s sites. I’m strictly speaking of security concerning corporate data. If there are, let’s say, twenty different personal cloud services available to consumers in addition to the corporate cloud storage options, you’re looking at the beginnings of cloud sprawl. Everyone has his own preference of service. Dropbox might work very well for John in Marketing but for Betty in Accounting, Box is her choice. And Bill in IT prefers SkyDrive, while Martina, the CFO, only uses Google Drive. I think you’re getting the picture of the problem of cloud sprawl. You have too many disparate sources and too many places where your company’s data is stored. And, the data owners–the company owners–may have no idea that this kind of thing is happening.

http://www.zdnet.com/uk/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-to-byoc-now-theres-cloud-sprawl-7000010083/

By Michael Lee, ZDNet

A student at a Montreal university has been expelled and had his grades zeroed after he discovered and reported a flaw in the software that is responsible for holding students’ personal information. Ahmed Al-Khabaz, who was studying computer science at the Dawson College, discovered that the student software managing their college accounts had a significant flaw that could allow any user to retrieve students’ personal information, according to the National Post.

http://www.zdnet.com/student-expelled-for-helping-find-security-flaws-at-university-7000010108/?s_cid=e539