Trend Micro launches parental controls for social networks
Trend Micro on Monday became the latest security software company to release a parental control package aimed at protecting kids from trouble on social networking sites.
Referring to a recent study from Pew Internet research, Trend Micro on Monday said over 90% of kids ages 12-17 are on the Internet, and over 70 percent of teens have a social networking profile of one kind or another. In McAfee's 2008 report The Secret Online Lives of Teens (.pdf here) the security company estimated that percentage to be considerably higher at 81% and growing.
Western Digital acquires Hitachi GST in serious enterprise SSD play
Monday, storage and network hardware company Western Digital announced that it will be acquiring Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million WD common shares.
The total transaction will be approximately $4.3 billion, and Hitachi GST president and CEO Steve Milligan will join Western Digital as president under the company's current CEO John Coyne.
How much will one count of 'conspiracy to commit software piracy' cost you?
Two thousand dollars ($2,000) and two years of probation…after five years of investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and three years of litigation in the Connecticut District Court.
That was the sentence for Michael Uszakow, 46, of Houston Texas, in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut this week. His "Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Copyright Infringement" took place when he participated in the cracking/warez scene.
After a decade, It's time to say goodbye to Internet Explorer 6 (again)
Internet Explorer 6 was released a decade ago, and as of February 2011, 12% of the world accessing the Web still used it. On Friday, Microsoft officially stated that it wants that fragment of the population to just let it go already.
It did this by launching an official "death clock" for IE6 at ie6countdown.com. The website is dedicated to watching IE6 usage drop down to less than 1% worldwide. Microsoft is not kidding around this time, saying it wants website developers to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6. The company is giving site developers the option to embed a banner in their site that lets users know they're using a browser that lacks support for modern web standards.
FCC suggests subsidized broadband for poor, instead of telephones
At Thursday's open meeting of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a set of reforms to the Lifeline/Link-Up program was proposed, aiming at "modernizing and driving tougher accountability" for the program that provides discounts for telecommunications service and installation for lower-income consumers.
The existing program is part of the Universal Services Fund (USF), which is paid into by the major telecommunications companies and their subscribers. It offers discounts of up to $10 per customer for monthly bills and one half (up to $30) of installation fees for basic services. To be eligible for the program, consumers must be at, or less than 135% of, the federal poverty line (which has been set at $10,890/year per individual for 2011.)
Adobe launches ColdFusion Builder 2 public beta
Thursday, Adobe announced the public availability of ColdFusion Builder 2 beta, the company's Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for its ColdFusion development platform.
ColdFusion Builder first became available
New features in iOS 4.3 that the iPhone 3G will never have
Along with the iPad 2 on Wednesday, Apple unveiled the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 4.3. Though these features were revealed back in a beta version in January following the launch of the CDMA iPhone 4, this is the first time Apple officially presented the new features.
According to Apple, iOS 4.3 will be available to iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM model), and third- and fourth- generation iPod Touch devices as a free software update on Friday, March 11.
Apple unveils slim new iPad 2: release date March 11
At an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, Apple unveiled the second generation iPad, which Apple is simply calling iPad 2.
Typically, Apple's second generation product revisions don't deviate much from the groundbreaking debut product, and serve as an incremental update, increasing the feature set and putting a finer polish on its design. Apple again proved this to be true with today's unveiling of the new iPad.
Software and content in the Arab world: Moving beyond infancy
In the late 90's, India, Israel, and Ireland (often called the "three i's") grew from having unremarkable software industries into major software exporting nations. According to the Taxonomy of New Software exporting Nations by Erran Carmel in 2003, they went from "infant" software exporting nations to almost top-tier major exporters in a relatively short time, a rare occurrence indeed.
According to Carmel's thesis:
Notebook prototype adds 'eye control' on top of keyboard, trackpad
At international tech tradeshow CeBIT on Tuesday, eye tracking technology company Tobii took the wraps off its first fully functional prototype notebook with integrated eye control. The company collaborated with PC maker Lenovo to include "eye control" technology on top of the standard keyboard/trackpad layout.
Another example of the growing sophistication of natural user interfaces, Tobii's eye control system lets users control the mouse pointer, select windows from exposé view, automatically scroll through a website, and create special eye controlled gadgets in a Windows sidebar.
HP announces its first non-print inkjet solution for medical research
HP today announced a new direct digital dispensing design for medical research that utilizes inkjet printheads to accurately apportion tiny doses of drugs.
In the fields of medicine and biotechnology, the process of drug discovery is long, costly, difficult, and sometimes wasteful. We often hear it said that each new drug costs about $1.3 billion to develop. HP today said pharmaceutical companies are spending upwards of $16 billion a year in drug discovery research.
Windows Intune, Microsoft's new cloud solution, launches March 23
Microsoft on Monday announced that its new cloud PC management solution, Windows Intune, will be launched in its first complete RTM build on March 23 at the Microsoft Management Summit, and will be commercially available in more than 35 countries thereafter.
Windows Intune is a cloud-based desktop management solution which lets IT techs manage remote systems through their browser. Microsoft is marketing Intune toward two different types of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs.) First, companies that don't yet have a PC management infrastructure, and want one that won't incur a big material cost; Second, companies that have lots of "virtual" and remote employees.
Now in beta: OS X backdoor Trojan
Security researchers at Sophos Labs last week discovered a new, "still in beta" backdoor Trojan targeting Mac OS.
The Trojan, identified as BlackHoleRAT, is a variant of the free "remote administration tool" darkComet RAT for Windows, and gives the administrator the ability to place text files on the desktop, send restart, shutdown or sleep commands, to run shell commands, to place a full-screen window with a message that forces a reboot, to force URLs to a client, and to pop up a fake "Administrator Password" phishing window.
Third party beats Microsoft to the punch, releases free SDK for Kinect
Microsoft's Craig Mundie and Don Mattrick recently announced that the company would be releasing a non-commercial SDK for its Kinect 3D motion controller sometime this spring. Today, just seven days later, Belgian 3D interface company SoftKinetic has launched its free SDK for all depth-sensing cameras, including Microsoft's Kinect.
"We want to expand the community of developers able to access to our professional tools and technology," said Eric Krzeslo, Chief Strategy Officer of SoftKinetic. "We believe that opening up our cross-platform, multi-camera software to a broader community will enhance productivity and creativity, and we cannot wait to see the incredible innovations that emerge as a result."
Streaming video largely lacks accessibility for the deaf; Netflix is working on it
The Web as a whole tends to favor those individuals with their vision intact.
There are a couple of areas of the Web that have benefitted the visually impaired: Web radio and podcasting services, for example, are generally free sources of lots of information, and many of the most popular news sites do daily or weekly audio recaps of their featured written content. Voice over IP communications, likewise has brought the convenience of free instant messaging to those without sight. But for the most part, the Web has been a silent place that we look at, instead of listen to.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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