Der russische Mobilfunk-Konzern Megafon nähert sich dem Sprung aufs Börsenparkett in London. Der zweitgrösste Anbieter des Landes habe inoffiziell bereits grünes Licht von den britischen Behörden für sein milliardenschweres IPO-Vorhaben erhalten, sagten mit den Plänen vertraute Personen.
Die iPhone-Erfinderin Apple zahlt der SBB laut einem Zeitungsbericht rund 20 Millionen Franken für die Nutzung des berühmten Bahnhofsuhrendesigns. Der „Tages-Anzeiger“ nannte die Zahl am Wochenende unter Berufung auf mehrere Quellen.
Die auf Websicherheit und WAN-Optimierung ausgerichtete Blue Coat Systems besetzt zwei Führungspositionen in den Bereichen Sales und Marketing neu: Shirley O’Sullivan ist ab sofort als Vice President of Marketing für Emea (Europa, Mittlerer Osten, Afrika) verantwortlich, während Pat Dunne als Channel Director für diese Region tätig wird.
Apple und sein taiwanischer Rivale HTC haben nach eigenen Angaben ihren Patentstreit beigelegt. Die beiden Unternehmen teilten in der Nacht zum Sonntag mit, sie hätten eine zehnjährige Lizenzvereinbarung getroffen, die alle laufenden und künftigen Patente einschliesse.
Sicherheitsspezialistin Trend Micro hat eine neue Methode zum Diebstahl von persönlichen Informationen entdeckt. Der Schädling sucht auf dem infizierten Rechner nach Bilddateien und Speicherabbildern und schickt diese in grossem Umfang an die kriminellen Hintermänner im Web.
Mitarbeiter von EU-Digitalkommissarin Neelie Kroes sind offenbar während einer Konferenz für Internetsicherheit in Aserbaidschan einem Hackerangriff zum Opfer gefallen. Der Attacke sei verübt worden, als sie sich in ihrem Hotel aufgehalten hätten, sagte Kroes' Sprecher Ryan Heath am Samstag.
Der US-amerikanische IT-Gigant Hewlett-Packard (HP) präsentiert eine ganze Reihe neuer "Integrity"- und "Superdome"-Server. Die neuen Maschinen basieren auf dem ebenfalls neuen "Itanium-9500"-Prozessor von Intel (Codename "Poulson"), der mit acht Kernen arbeitet und zwei bis dreimal mehr leisten soll als der Quadcore-Vorgänger "Itanium 9300" ("Tukwila").
Forschern der Bangor University ist es gelungen, eine Methode zu entwickeln, mit der sich die Geschwindigkeit von Breitband-Internetverbindungen in bisher ungeahnte Höhen katapultieren lässt.
Im Rahmen von massiven Zensurmassnahmen in Chinas Internet anlässlich des Parteitages der Kommunistischen Partei ist der Zugang zu Google-Diensten von China aus erstmals komplett gesperrt worden. Ausser der Suchmaschine waren vom späteren Freitag an auch alle anderen Google-Dienste wie Gmail und Maps nicht zu erreichen.
Trotz Fortschritten in der deutschen IT-Branche sieht Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) noch einigen Aufholbedarf. In den vergangenen Jahren sei eine Menge erreicht worden. „Dennoch sage ich, dass Deutschland natürlich noch nicht zu den weltweit führenden Ländern in dem Bereich gehört - wir können also noch aufholen“, sagte Merkel am Samstag in ihrem wöchentlichen Video-Podcast.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "With the 'fiscal cliff' just weeks away, Chris O'Brien writes that venture capital fundraising in silicon valley is down, the amount invested is down, the number of folks investing in venture capital is down, and the number of VC firms and partners are down. 'The people I talked to in the industry sounded grim even as they tried to make the case for optimism,' writes O'Brien. 'Still, it remains difficult to identify a clear path for turning things around for the battered venture capitalists who make Silicon Valley hum.' So what's wrong with the VC industry? The problems are many and complex but they can be boiled down to one thing: Not enough exits. For the size of venture capital being raised and invested, there simply aren't enough initial public offerings of stock or mergers and acquisitions to generate the returns that funds need. Venture insiders blame the global economic uncertainty. They believe that is part of the reason that giant corporations, which have amassed huge piles of cash, are just sitting on it, rather then using it to acquire startups. 'The numbers are way down,' said Ray Rothrock, a partner at Venrock. 'All these companies with these fantastic balance sheets, and nobody is really buying anything. With all the uncertainty they're facing with the economy and taxes, buying little companies is way down on their list.'"
First time accepted submitter Type44Q writes "Well, the latest edition of Mint is finally here (the release candidate, anyway); according to The Linux Mint Blog, 'For the first time since Linux Mint 11, the development team was able to capitalize on upstream technology which works and fits its goals. After 6 months of incremental development, Linux Mint 14 features an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience. We're very proud of MATE, Cinnamon, MDM and all the components used in this release, and we're very excited to show you how they all fit together in Linux Mint 14.'"
chicksdaddy writes "We hear a lot about vulnerabilities in industrial control system (ICS) software. But what about real evidence of compromised SCADA and industrial control systems? According to security researcher Michael Toecker, a consultant at the firm Digital Bond, the evidence for infected systems with links to industrial automation and control systems is right under our eyes: buried in public support forums. Toecker audited support sites like bleepingcomputer.com, picking through data dumps from free malware scanning tools like HijackThis and DDS. He found scans of infected systems that were running specialized ICS software like Schweitzer Engineering Labs (SEL) AcSELerator Software and GE Power's EnerVista Software (used to configure GE electric power protection products). The infected end user systems could be the pathway to compromising critical infrastructure, including electrical infrastructure. 'With access to a protection relay through a laptop, a malicious program could alter settings in the configuration file, inject bad data designed to halt the relay, or even send commands directly to the relay when a connection was made,' Toecker wrote."
KermMartian writes "It has been nearly two decades since Texas Instruments released the TI-82 graphing calculator, and as the TI-83, TI-83+, and TI-84+ were created in the intervening years, these 6MHz machines have only become more absurdly retro, complete with 96x64-pixel monochome LCDs and a $120 price tag. However, a student member of a popular graphing calculator hacking site has leaked pictures and details about a new color-screen TI-84+ calculator, verified to be coming soon from Texas Instruments. With the lukewarm reception to TI's Nspire line, it seems to be an attempt to compete with Casio's popular color-screen Prizm calculator. Imagine the graphs (and games!) on this new 320x240 canvas."
dryriver writes "George Entwistle, the new Director General of the BBC who had been on the job for a mere 54 days, has voluntarily resigned over a BBC program that featured 'poor journalism'. The program in question was 'Newsnight', which typically features hard-hitting investigative journalism similar to American programs like '60 Minutes'. On Friday night, Newsnight accused a prominent Conservative MP and former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Alistair McAlpine, of having sexually abused a number of young boys at Bryn Estyn Children's Home in the 70s and 80s. Only after Newsnight aired with the allegations in the UK did the BBC realize that 'the wrong photographs were shown' to the alleged sexual abuse victims, who are now adults, and that Lord Alistair McAlpine had nothing whatsoever to do with the abuses committed. Newsnight's 'poor journalism' caused George Entwistle, the Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation, to resign voluntarily over the scandal caused by the erroneous allegations. This example of an important media chief 'resigning voluntarily due to bad journalism' is interesting, because many TV, Web and Print journalists make 'serious mistakes' in their coverage at some point or the other, and quite often no heads roll whatsoever as a result."
First time accepted submitter GinaSmith888 writes "This is a deep dive in the BP protocol Vint Cerf developed that is the heart of NASA's Delay-Tolerant Networking, better known as DTN. From the article: 'The big difference between BP and IP is that, while IP assumes a more or less smooth pathway for packets going from start to end point, BP allows for disconnections, glitches and other problems you see commonly in deep space, Younes said. Basically, a BP network — the one that will the Interplanetary Internet possible — moves data packets in bursts from node to node, so that it can check when the next node is available or up.'"
First time accepted submitter DustyMurray writes "I am considering adding forums to my website, and am just getting confused by all the options. My first reaction is always DIY. You get better website integration, and it looks and feels 100% how you want it to look and feel. However looking at things like phpBB and Vanilla forums, I will be hard pressed to build a better user experience in a reasonable amount of time. Also these out-of-the-box solutions seem to be shouting 'Easy to integrate with your website.' So, considering this, how easy are these ready build forums really to integrate? I want to be able to insert stuff on certain pages, so it's not either the forums, or my site... It must be a mix. I do not want a second login system on my site. And last but not least, I definitely don't want to have this typical generic look that most forums sport. Can all that be delivered with the out-of-the-box forums that exist today? Which one is the most flexible regarding these wishes."
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Megan Garber writes that in the age of the quantified self, biases are just one more thing that can be measured, analyzed, and publicized. The day after Barack Obama won a second term as president of the United States, a group of geography academics took advantage of the fact that many tweets are geocoded to search Twitter for racism-revealing terms that appeared in the context of tweets that mentioned 'Obama,' 're-elected,' or 'won,' sorting the tweets according to the state they were sent from and comparing the racist tweets to the total number of geocoded tweets coming from that state during the same time period. Their findings? Alabama and Mississippi have the highest measures followed closely by Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee forming a fairly distinctive cluster in the southeast. Beyond that cluster North Dakota and Utah both had relatively high scores (3.5 each), as did Missouri, Oregon, and Minnesota. 'These findings support the idea that there are some fairly strong clustering of hate tweets centered in southeastern U.S. which has a much higher rate than the national average,' writes Matthew Zook. 'But lest anyone elsewhere become too complacent, the unfortunate fact is that most states are not immune from this kind of activity. Racist behavior, particularly directed at African Americans in the U.S., is all too easy to find both offline and in information space.'"
An anonymous reader points out a report at the Guardian of a potential problem for early adopters of the Microsoft Surface tablet. The Touch Cover is one of the available protective covers for the device; it acts as a keyboard, and has both a gyroscope and an accelerometer on board. Unfortunately, some users have found that the edges of the Touch Cover have split open after only a few days of use. "The defect is identical in each case: the cover ... begins to split at its seam where the device attaches magnetically to the main computer. [One developer] was told to return his Touch Cover to Microsoft for a replacement, and Microsoft has been swapping faulty covers for users where it has retail stores. It's unclear whether the problems that people have encountered are due to a faulty batch or are a subtle problem that will become more apparent as more people use it for longer — but the fact that users in the US and the UK have reported the problem suggests that it is not isolated to a single manufacturing batch."
New submitter speedlaw writes "Rovi has just announced that they are stopping the TV Guide OnScreen service as of April 13th, 2013. This was announced via the service itself. This is an on-air listing service that provides listings over the air, as part of an OTA TV signal. Many devices, notably the Sony HDD 250 and 500 Digital Video Recorders, will no longer function without the clock-set data this stream provides. When other companies decide to stop supporting something, they don't make older systems useless. Worse, Sony never came out with another DVR in the U.S. market. Why do we have to rent them? How do we get Sony or Rovi to provide at least a software patch to set the clock so the DVR can at least retain 1980s VCR functionality? Sony admits there is no fix. A thread on AVS forums has a bunch of information on TV Guide OnScreen. The TV stations who broadcast the data have been ordered by Rovi to disconnect the data inserters and ship them back. I have a TiVo, and yes, I know all about HTPC, but this data stream was 'lifetime listings' like TiVo has 'lifetime listings' — now that Rovi is looking to cut service, my two DVR units are about to become useless."
MojoKid writes "Nike+ FuelBand is a $149 wristband with LED display that tracks your daily activity, tells you how many calories you've burned, lets you know how much fuel you have left in the tank, and basically keeps track of 'every move you make.' If you think that sounds like a privacy nightmare waiting to happen, it pretty much is. A source directly connected to Nike reported an amusing, albeit startling anecdote about a guy who got caught cheating on his girlfriend because of the Nike+ FuelBand. 'They shared their activity between each other and she noticed he was active at 1-2AM, when he was supposed to be home.' That's just one scenario. What if the wristband gets lost or stolen? How much data is actually stored on these sorts of devices? And remember, you're syncing it to the cloud with an iOS or Android app."