Microsoft has long supported its developer community, but even there it can stumble on occasion. Developers of ad-supported apps for have been left high and dry for the month of April with no in-app advertising. Starting on March 31, ads provided to ad-supported Windows 8 apps have been almost completely absent. The ads come from , which provides ads to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 applications. For the most part, Microsoft was the primary buyer of the ads, so developers could at least count on Bing ads to show up. Since March 31, however, even the Bing ads stopped and now ad-driven apps aren't getting a thing. So apps will get millions of impressions (translation: users) that are not being converted into income, and developers are upset, to say the least. In two separate community threads () on the Bing support boards, developers have repeatedly demanded an answer from Microsoft, with only one mid-level Microsoft staffer catching the spears but having no answers.
The complexity of the Lab A/NZ product specialist, Wayne Kirby. This complexity is the result of three different types of operating systems running namely the legacy Windows desktop, Windows RT, and Windows RT running on ARM-based systems. Kirby said this approach has increased the vulnerability of the OS, as the multiple OS approach provides hackers with more places to find vulnerabilities to exploit. "Because it contains three platforms, it leaves the gateway open for a much broader opening for ways into the system," he said in a recent interview.
for the past 10 months in Greece, Turkey, Kenya, Morocco and Spain. -based and social apps and services. (I'm still a digital nomad. I'm just doing it in the U.S. for a while.) Here are the surprising things I learned.
Microsoft has confirmed that a "zero-day," or unpatched, vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer 8, the company's most popular browser. According to multiple security firms, the vulnerability has been used in active exploits, including "watering hole"-style attacks against the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Energy, targeting workers at the latter agency involved in nuclear weapons research. On Friday, Microsoft published a that acknowledged the bug. In the advisory, the company also said that other versions of Internet Explorer, including the newer IE9 and IE10, are not affected, and that the firm is working on an update to patch the problem. No timetable for a fix was provided. The next scheduled security update from Microsoft will ship Tuesday, May 14.
Google's move to make it easier for Chrome browser users to find "packaged apps," Chrome OS's souped-up Web apps, is part of its strategy to turn any Internet-capable device into a Chromebook wannabe loyal to the company's ecosystem, an analyst says. , Google said that users of Chrome 28 on Windows, currently in the "Dev" channel, and thus the least-polished version of the browser, can locate packaged apps in a special section of the company's Chrome Web Store, the distribution mart for Chrome OS and Chrome (the browser) software. Previously, users had to know the URL of a packaged app -- with that URL usually provided by the developer -- to retrieve it. Now the "Apps" category of the store shows only packaged apps to those running Chrome 28 on Windows. Packaged apps are ber-Web apps that are much closer to "native" software -- the kind written for a specific operating system, say Windows and its desktop -- that can run minus a live Internet connection and call on several Google APIs (application programming interfaces) and services barred to Web apps.
Some Google Glass users are less than thrilled with the computerized eyeglasses that supposedly will replace the smartphone one day. with skydivers jumping out of a Zeppelin sporting the headset that streamed video of their descent onto the roof of Moscone Center in San Francisco. People who won the contest included actors, entertainers and more than 50 Twitter users with more than 100,000 followers. But there are naysayers.
, the increasingly popular microblogging service, has come under quite a bit of criticism in the past few weeks. Users of the platform, which describes itself as an "information-sharing network" are struggling with what to do about false information being spread around. It may not sound like a big deal for individual users to let a white lie slip about some status update. But during the past few weeks there have been some more concerning examples of misinformation spreading across the social forum. For example, Twitter users (as well as those on other popular sites such as Reddit.com) were quick to identify certain individuals as possible culprits of the Boston Marathon bombings days after the attacks, including a Brown University student who had been missing and was later found dead with no connection to the Boston incident. Rumors about whether suspects had been captured or arrested streamed through Twitter users timelines as breaking news unfolded after the attacks, some of it true and some not. After the commotion of the marathon incident seemed to have settled down a week later, another black eye for Twitter popped up when the and perpetrators sent out fabricated updates from the venerable news agency's Twitter feed reporting that the White House had been attacked and President Obama injured.
grabbed just 0.4 percent of the tablet market in the first quarter, a dismal result that led some tech experts to urge Microsoft to scrap the platform that's in its six-month infancy. "I wouldn't be surprised if they do streamline and do drop [Windows RT]," said Brian Proffitt, an adjunct instructor of management at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business , in an interview. "Microsoft is going to remain heavily invested in its Surface tablet strategy, but that doesn't preclude them from making changes and cutting. Cutting Windows RT would be a smart move, unless the number of shipments suddenly improves." Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, was more blunt: "I believe Microsoft would be much better off killing RT and going with one unified tablet OS [with Windows 8]. The need to support ARM [processors] was why Microsoft went with RT. But it never really worked that well." IDC said last week that just 200,000 tablets running Windows RT, including Microsoft's own Surface RT, shipped . Windows RT tablets first started shipping late last October, although Samsung early on decided not to ship a Windows RT tablet in the U.S.
Most, if not all, of the intellectual property of a U.S. defense contractor whose forte includes spy satellites and drone aircraft, was apparently compromised over a three-year period by Chinese hackers. . Bloomberg reported that QinetiQ breach may have compromised information vital to national security, including the deployment and capabilities of the U.S. combat helicopter fleet.
The Pacific Bell tower in San Francisco, the high-rise headquarters of the phone company through eight decades and several name changes, was a monument to copper. When the 26-story skyscraper was built, Pac Bell's business was connecting people through a technology that many were starting to use for the first time. Phones were catching on all over the West Coast, particularly in San Francisco, and Pac Bell was buying up small carriers as part of the budding nationwide Bell System. The communications arteries that fed this growing trend were thick trunks of copper wires, each with a capacity that seems positively petite by today's standards. But when the tower reopens later this year after a nearly two-year restoration, it will be the newest office hub for a booming local tech scene that worships at the altars of fiber and wireless. And the technology advances that have revolutionized telecommunications over the past century have allowed the building's new owner to pave the way for almost limitless connectivity to each tenant. Watch an IDG News Service video of the building, .
