Das Geschäft mit den Schnäppchen hat sich als unrentabel herausgestellt. Das Medienhaus Tamedia stellt daher die Aktionsplattform Scoup.ch nur sechs Monate nach der Gründung ein. 37 Mitarbeitende sind vom Ende der Internetfirma betroffen.
Der Hamburger Handelskonzern Otto drängt in das Geschäft mit dem Bezahlen im Internet und per Handy. Das Projekt solle im kommenden Jahr unter der Marke „Yapital“ an den Start gehen, teilte Otto mit. Das Unternehmen habe bereits konkrete Gespräche mit ausgewählten Handelspartnern aufgenommen.
Die Bankkunden von Raiffeisen können ihre Zahlungen oder Börsenaufträge ab sofort von überall aus mobil erledigen. Auch bestehende Zahlungsvorlagen, E-Rechnungen und Daueraufträge befinden sich im Raiffeisen Mobile Banking. Die browserbasierte Lösung ist in das durch Crealogix entwickelte E-Banking von Raiffeisen integriert und mit sämtlichen gängigen Smartphones kompatibel.
Das Schweizer Fracht- und Logistikunternehmen Panalpina mit weltweit 500 Niederlassungen hat die erste Phase einer Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)-Initiative für das Finanz- und Rechnungswesen abgeschlossen, die Teil eines siebenjährigen Outsourcing-Vertrages mit Accenture ist.
In der Schweiz besitzt schon fast jede zweite Person ab 15 Jahren ein Smartphone mit Touchscreen und Internetzugang. Bei den jungen Erwachsenen haben sogar vier von fünf ein solches Gerät. Das zeigt eine Umfrage des Internet-Vergleichsdienstes Comparis.ch unter mehr als 1200 Personen zwischen 15 und 74 Jahren.
Hohe Marketing-Ausgaben haben dem Software-Spezialisten Adobe einen Gewinneinbruch beschert. In dem Anfang März abgeschlossenen ersten Geschäftsquartal fiel der Gewinn um 21 Prozent auf 185,2 Mio. Dollar (141 Mio. Euro). Der Umsatz rückte um 1,7 Prozent auf 1,045 Mrd. Dollar vor, wie Adobe mitteilte.
Das Gutschein-Portal Groupon will sein Geschäft mit einem Kalenderdienst für kleine Unternehmen breiter aufstellen. Mit dem „Scheduler“ (Planer) können Kunden Termine bei Dienstleistern rund um die Uhr online buchen, erklärte das Unternehmen am Dienstag in seinem Blog.
Als Schwarm können Bienen Aufgaben lösen, die für die meisten Tiere alleine zu schwierig sind. Dafür reichen einfache Fähigkeiten, die man auch Robotern leicht beibringen kann. Das haben Forscher der Universität Graz in einem vom Wissenschaftsfonds FWF geförderten Projekt herausgefunden.
Der japanische Chiphersteller Elpida sucht einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge über ein Bieterverfahren einen Käufer, um die Insolvenz hinter sich zu bringen. Zu den Interessenten dürften die US-Rivalen Intel und Micron Technology gehören, berichtete das Wirtschaftsblatt "Nikkei".
Die Zahl der Mobilfunkanschlüsse wird in China wohl bald die Marke von einer Milliarde knacken. Im Februar gab es 999,7 Millionen Mobilfunkzugänge in der Volksrepublik, wie aus den am Dienstag veröffentlichten Daten der drei Telekommunikationsanbieter in China hervorgeht.
JohnGrahamCumming writes "In this simple project, a hacked Linksys WRT54GL talks to a public API to get real-time bus information, and displays the times of the next buses on a model bus. Never miss the bus again! 'It's possible to reflash the Linksys with a custom Linux installation that lets me control the box completely (and still use it as a wireless router). There are various project, but I used OpenWRT. With OpenWRT it's possible to SSH into the box and treat it as any Linux server (albeit a rather slow one). But there's plenty of power to grab bus times and update an LED display connected to the WRT54GL's serial port. "
An anonymous reader writes "The United States, since the 1980s, has been trying to make missile defense work. Billions of dollars spent, tons of political capital spent, and not a lot to show. The U.S. does have two viable options: the SM-2 and SM-3, although neither are perfect. The U.S., with European allies, has been deploying missile defense in Europe to block a possible strike from Iranian nuclear tipped missiles (even though they have not made nukes or the missiles to carry them). One problem: such defenses could, in theory, also block Russian and Chinese missiles. Russia is now planning to make more missiles to counter such defenses and could pull out of the New Start Treaty. They may also stop helping U.S. forces to supply themselves in Afghanistan. Is this all worth it for something that might not even work?"
Writing for Boing Boing, Carl Malamud describes the campaign he's been waging to let U.S. citizens read the public safety standards that have become part of federal law — without needing to pay for the privilege. "These public safety standards govern and protect a wide range of activity, from how bicycle helmets are constructed to how to test for lead in water to the safety characteristics of hearing aids and protective footwear." Despite a U.S. Appeals Court ruling which said 'the law' should be in the public domain, many safety codes are still privately produced and then distributed for a fee, to recoup development costs. "Public.Resource.Org has a mission of making the law available to all citizens, and these technical standards are a big black hole in the legal universe. We've taken a gamble and spent $7,414.26 to buy 73 of these technical public safety standards that are incorporated into the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations." Malamud and his Public.Resource.Org foundation are trying — very cautiously — to make these laws more broadly available. "...even though we strongly believe that the documents are not entitled to copyright protection, and moreover that our limited print run is in any case definitely fair use, if a judge were to decide that what we did was breaking the law, 25 copies of 73 standards works out to $273,750,000 in potential liability. While whales may make bigger bets, we draw the line at $273 million."
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes reports that a middle school teacher in South Carolina has been placed on administrative leave for reading sci-fi classic Ender's Game to his students. According to blogger Tod Kelly, '[A parent] reported him to the school district complained that the book was pornographic; that same parent also asked the local police to file criminal charges against the teacher. As of today, the police have not yet decided whether or not to file charges (which is probably a good sign that they won't). The school district, however, appears to agree with the parent, is considering firing the teacher and will be eliminating the book from the school.'"
suraj.sun writes with a followup to last week's news that Mozilla was thinking about reversing their stance on H.264 support. Mozilla chairman Mitchell Baker and CTO Brendan Eich have now both written blog posts explaining why they feel H.264 support is no longer optional. Eich wrote, "We will not require anyone to pay for Firefox. We will not burden our downstream source redistributors with royalty fees. We may have to continue to fall back on Flash on some desktop OSes. I’ll write more when I know more about desktop H.264, specifically on Windows XP. What I do know for certain is this: H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile. Losing a battle is a bitter experience. I won’t sugar-coat this pill. But we must swallow it if we are to succeed in our mobile initiatives. Failure on mobile is too likely to consign Mozilla to decline and irrelevance." Baker added, "Our first approach at bringing open codecs to the Web has ended up at an impasse on mobile, but we’re not done yet. ... We'll find a way around this impasse."
First time accepted submitter jeffrlamb writes "Cheating in live chess matches — fueled by powerful computer programs that play better than people do, as well as sophisticated communication technologies — is becoming a big problem for world championship chess. Kenneth W. Regan is attempting to construct a mathematical proof to see if someone cheated; the trouble is that so many variables and outliers must be taken into account. Modeling and factoring human behavior in competition turns out to be very difficult."
New submitter LordDCLXVI writes with a review at Tom's Hardware that starts out with some loaded questions about GNOME 3, as included in the newest version of Red Hat's Fedora: "While most other distros are passing up or postponing GNOME Shell, Fedora is full steam ahead. Does Red Hat know something the rest of us don't? Or is GNOME 3 really as bad as everyone says?" Writes LordDCLVXI: "This massive article amounts to a full-blown guide to Fedora 16 'Verne' and complete dissection of GNOME Shell. It begins with an installation guide, with instructions for enabling third-party repos, proprietary graphics drivers, Wi-Fi, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs, and 32-bit libs. Next up is a GNOME Shell tear-down, including customization options and methods to 'fix' the Shell or mimic GNOME 2. Finally, Fedora is benchmarked against Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7. [While the author] adds to the voices criticizing GNOME Shell, he also points out that the extensions can empower distributors to create unique, yet compatible layouts. One of the most fair and constructive critiques of GNOME 3 — definitely worth the read, and even makes GNOME 3 worth a second look."
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "Many mobile apps include ads that can threaten users' privacy and network security, according to North Carolina State University researchers. The National Science Foundation-funded researchers studied 100,000 apps in Google Play (formerly Android Market) and found that more than half contained ad libraries, nearly 300 of which were enabled to grab code from remote servers that could give malware and hackers a way into your smartphone or tablet. 'Running code downloaded from the Internet is problematic because the code could be anything,' says Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State."
ananyo writes "By combining spy-satellite photos obtained in the 1960s with modern multispectral images and digital maps of Earth's surface, researchers have created a new method for mapping large-scale patterns of human settlement. The approach was used to map some 14,000 settlement sites spanning eight millennia in 23,000 square kilometres of northeastern Syria — part of the fertile crescent of the Middle East. Traditional archaeology has focused on the big features such as cities or palaces but the new technique uncovers networks of small settlements, revealing migration patterns and sparking renewed speculation about the importance of water to city development."
cold fjord writes "Sweden is rapidly moving towards a cashless economy. How will Sweden, and other countries in the future, balance efficiency, privacy, government control, and civil liberties? Or will they do all that technology allows? 'Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden's economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S. ... The Swedish Bankers' Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy is already making an impact in crime statistics. The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down. The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000.'"
zrbyte writes "A growing number of complexity theorists are beginning to recognize some potential problems with cloud computing. The growing consensus is that bizarre and unpredictable behavior often emerges in systems made up of 'networks of networks,' such as a business using the computational resources of a cloud provider. Bryan Ford at Yale University in New Haven says the full risks of the migration to the cloud have yet to be properly explored. He points out that complex systems can fail in many unexpected ways, and he outlines various simple scenarios in which a cloud could come unstuck."