Unter dem Konkurrenzdruck von Smartphone-Herstellern wie Apple macht der neue Chef des Blackberry-Bauers Research in Motion (RIM) Tempo. Binnen zwei Wochen wolle er dem Direktorium sein Konzept für umfangreiche Änderungen vorlegen, sagte der vor einer Woche angetretene Thorsten Heins in einem Reuters-Interview.
Einer der Väter von Apples iPod und spätere Chef des Smartphone-Pioniers Palm, Jon Rubinstein, sieht sich nach einem neuen Job um. Den Computer-Riesen Hewlett-Packard, der Palm erst für mehr als eine Milliarde Dollar gekauft und später aufgegeben hatte, hat der 55-jährige Manager jetzt verlassen.
Der Online-Kurznachrichtendienst Twitter will künftig Inhalte in bestimmten Ländern mit entsprechenden Filtern blockieren und hat damit eine Debatte um «Zensur» losgetreten. Bislang sei es nur möglich gewesen, einzelne Einträge («Tweets») komplett zu löschen, so dass sie weltweit nicht mehr zur Verfügung stehen, teilte Twitter in einem Blogeintrag mit. Nun könnten einzelne Nachrichten jeweils nur in einem bestimmten Land blockiert werden, weltweit aber verfügbar bleiben.
Am Mittwoch, den 21. März, geht im Technopark Zürich die Swiss Cloud Conference 2012 über die Bühne. Organisiert wird sie von Eurocloud Swiss, dem Schweizer Fachverein für Cloud Computing. Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an Cloud- und Hostingprovider, Software- und Toolanbieter, Berater, Management und Anwender aus allen Branchen.
In den erwarteten Mega-Börsengang von Facebook kommt offensichtlich Bewegung. Nach Informationen des «Wall Street Journal» könnte das weltgrösste soziale Netzwerk schon am kommenden Mittwoch die nötigen Unterlagen bei der US-Börsenaufsicht einreichen.
Das Internet wird nach Auffassung von Unternehmensberatern immer mehr zu einer Wachstumslokomotive. Allein in den Ländern der G20 könne es im Jahr 2016 bereits 4,2 Billionen Dollar zur Gesamtwirtschaft beitragen - etwa doppelt so viel wie 2010. Das wird in einer Studie der Boston Consulting Group vorausgesagt, die von dem Beratungsunternehmen sowie dem Internet-Konzern Google beim Weltwirtschaftsforum (WEF) in Davos vorgestellt wurde.
Der Datenschutztag stand dieses Jahr im Zeichen der Themen «Datenbearbeitungen durch Unternehmen» und «Nutzung der Neuen Medien durch Jugendliche». In beiden Bereichen wurden vom Eidgenössischen Datenschutz- und Öffentlichkeitsbeauftragten mitentwickelte Sensibilisierungsprojekte der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert.
Der Urner Industriekonzern Dätwyler hat im vergangenen Jahr den starken Franken zu spüren bekommen. Wegen des negativen Einflusses des Wechselkurses sank der Umsatz um 2,2 Prozent auf 1,29 Mrd. Franken. Bei unveränderten Wechselkursen erarbeitete die Gruppe indes ein organisches Umsatzwachstum von 5,4 Prozent, wie Dätwyler am Freitag mitteilte. Die Frankenstärke kostete das Unternehmen 100,6 Mio. Franken an Umsatz.
Die im Gesundheitswesen tätige IT-Dienstleisterin Hint mit Sitz in Lenzburg will künftig mit der Regensdorfer SAP-Integratorin ATSP zusammenarbeiten, um gemeinsam Lösungen für SAP-Services im Gesundheitswesen anzubieten. Ein entsprechender Partnerschaftsvertrag sei bereits unterzeichnet, lassen die beiden Unternehmen verlauten.
Die Winterthurer IPG und Crossideas mit Hauptsitz in Rom wollen künftig ihre Kräfte bündeln. Ziel der Kooperation ist es laut Mitteilung, eine Identity & Access Governance (IAG) Lösung anzubieten, die den heutigen Legal- und Compliance-Anforderungen respektive dem Schutz von Benutzerdaten und Zugriffsrechten entsprechend gerecht werde.
An anonymous reader writes "According to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, there's 'no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy'. From the article: 'The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2. The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.'"
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this excerpt from a CNN story:"Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday. Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses. The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said."
Hugh Pickens writes "For more than half a century, the CIA and US military have relied on a skinny, sinister-looking black jet, first designed during the Eisenhower administration at Lockheed's famed Skunk Works in Burbank, headed by legendary chief engineer Clarence L. 'Kelly' Johnson, to penetrate deep behind enemy lines for vital intelligence-gathering missions. Although the plane is perhaps best known for being shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 with the subsequent capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 continues to play a critical role in national security today, hunting Al Qaeda forces in the Middle East. The fleet of 33 U-2s was supposed to be replaced in the next few years with RQ-4 Global Hawks, but the Pentagon now proposes delaying the U-2's retirement as part of Defense Department cutbacks." (Read on, below.)
First time accepted submitter Capt.Albatross writes "At Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza reports that, in an act of delicious irony, Swiss ISP Ort Cloud [sic] has acquired Righthaven's domain name and has relaunched Righthaven.com as a web hosting service diametrically opposed to the practices of its original owner, a notorious but ultimately unsuccessful copyright troll. The new owners, in partnership with first amendment lawyer Marc Randazza (who was instrumental in the original Righthaven's demise), promise 'infrajuridsictional infrastructure' — uptime that would require international cooperation to bring down. 'Frivolous plaintiffs will find little comfort here' says Ort Cloud's Stefan Thalberg. The domain name became available in a court-ordered auction of Righthaven LLC's assets, to pay its creditors."
The Bad Astronomer writes "The sunspot cluster that erupted in a solar flare and coronal mass ejection last Monday burst into life again on Friday, blasting out an X2 class solar flare, twice as energetic as the last one. This one was on the Sun's limb and was pointed away from us, so we're in no danger; all we got was a very minor radiation storm that's on the lowest ranking of such things. But it did put on quite a light show, which you can see in a video created with images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory."
adeelarshad82 writes "As reported yesterday lucky residents of Wilmington, N.C., will be the first in the nation to have access to a 'Super Wi-Fi' network. However, the only issue is that Super Wi-Fi isn't really Wi-Fi: Mobile analyst Sascha Segan explains the difference and also gets into why it's incorrectly being dubbed as Super Wi-Fi."
New submitter ThatGamerChick writes "I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I'd like to be a work-at-home mom. I've done a few writing gigs, but I'm not a really good writer and cannot charge the fees needed for it to be worth my time. I'm just looking for something that I can teach myself in a few months and start taking small projects and working my way up from there. I've found that PHP, HTML and CSS to be the most demanded skills on sites like Elance, but the talent pool is flooded with overseas workers and Americans with so much more experience than me. Even when I was offering writing and virtual admin services on Elance I was having a hard time against them. So I'm asking here, because I think most of you may have a good insight on this type of thing as an employer of freelancers or as the freelancer themselves." What success have you had, either working from home, or employing those who do?
coondoggie writes "Encryption keys on smartphones can be stolen via a technique using radio waves, says one of the world's foremost crypto experts, Paul Kocher, whose firm Cryptography Research will demonstrate the hacking stunt with several types of smartphones at the upcoming RSA Conference in San Francisco next month."
hypnosec writes "Google+ made a landmark move and opened itself to users who are over the age of 13. Google+ did not initially target the younger crowd and kept itself available only for users above the age of 18. Besides, opening up to youngsters over the age of 13 the social network also added improved safety features to keep the younger crowd protected. Now it features more rigid default settings for privacy but, they can be overridden none the less. Vice president Product management at Google+, Bradley Horowitz, in a Google+ post stated, 'With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we're doing both, for everyone who's old enough for a Google Account.'"
dutchwhizzman writes "The surviving members of Monty Python have announced they will make a new movie. It will be titled Absolutely Anything. Graham Chapman won't be there to join them anymore, but they think the movie will still be in the spirit of Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and other movies they made in the past."
pigrabbitbear writes "Iconic comic book writer (Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Red), cult novelist (Crooked Little Vein), futurist intellectual, and beloved Internet curmudgeon, Warren Ellis, known for his impassioned arguments for space travel, talks to Motherboard about Newt Gingrich's presidential plans for lunar colonies and conquering Mars." Warren Ellis does not mince words.
sweetpea86 writes "Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the U.S. Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn't end up in the hands of U.S. authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction."
Frankie70 writes "'Siri's dirty little secret is that she's a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.' A study by Arieso shows that users of the iPhone 4S demand three times as much data as iPhone 3G users and twice as much as iPhone 4 users, who were identified as the most demanding in a 2010 study. 'In all, Arieso says that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S "appears to unleash data consumption behaviors that have no precedent."'"
bonch writes "A massive Android malware campaign may be responsible for duping as many as 5 million users into downloading the Android.Counterclan infection from the Google Android Market. The trojan collects the user's personal information, modifies the home page, and displays unwanted advertisements. It is packaged in 13 different applications, some of which have been on the store for at least a month. Several of the malicious apps are still available on the Android Market as of 3 P.M. ET. Symantec has posted the full list of infected applications."
New submitter Required Snark writes "UC Davis researchers have found a mechanism where the sodium in sea water can cause uranium nano-particles to be released from nuclear reactor fuel rods. Normally the uranium oxide compounds composing the rods are very resistant to leaching into water. This could have serious consequences for the Fukushima disaster, since sea water was used for emergency cooling."