A U.S. appeals court has ruled that an abstract idea is not patentable simply because it is tied to a computer system, signaling what one judge described as the "death" of software and business method patents. that four patents held by electronic marketplace Alice are too abstract for a patent, despite a long-standing legal assumption that software running on a computer is eligible for patents. The implications of the case are huge, wrote Judge Kimberly Moore, dissenting in part with the majority decision. The ruling in CLS Bank v. Alice gives "staggering breadth to what is meant to be a narrow judicial exception" on patent ineligibility, she wrote. "And let's be clear: if all of these claims, including the system claims, are not patent-eligible, this case is the death of hundreds of thousands of patents, including all business method, financial system, and software patents as well as many computer implemented and telecommunications patents."
The Web interface for Gmail has a very distinct look. Your office mates can probably recognize it at a glance. This Chrome extension, however, might cause a few double-takes in your office: Gmail Offline, an extension by Google, puts a completely different face on Gmail, making it more similar to the tablet version used on Android tablets.
When I first heard that Notion Music had dropped the price of its musical notation editor and scoring package from $249 to $99, I thought that the company was getting ready to close shop and having a fire sale. Or they'd gone crazy. Apparently, however, the company's experience with the iPad version of Notion has convinced them that selling more programs at a lower price might make them more money. Whatever the reason, it's nice to know that the slickest score editor on the planet is safe, sound, and improving. The first thing you'll notice when you run Notion is how good-looking everything is. The interface, the pages, the notation, the musical symbol palettes, etc. are all rendered in a very inviting style. The program simply makes you want to compose. It's also easy to use compared to most of the competition. I have a long-standing beef with the notation software industry's lack of true drag-and-drop editing. Notion doesn't support it either, but its editing methods are slightly more intuitive than those employed by Sibelius, Finale, or MuseScore, so editing is easier with Notion. Notion 4 has three excellent virtual instrument grids: a guitar, a piano, and a drum pad which allows you to enter notes. Notion Music's more guitar-oriented Progression featured a guitar, but these are new to Notion. The piano and guitar feature a preview mode so you can try things before you enter them, and both let you enter melodies or chords. If you're instrument-dependent, these are very useful features. The drum pad features a library of rhythm patterns you can drag to your score, but doesn't have a preview mode as the piano and guitar features.
Bing is adding some new social features to its search engine, by letting users comment and Like their Facebook friends' posts directly on the site. The new tools constitute yet another expansion to the Microsoft search site to make it more interactive and useful as the company seeks to distinguish itself from Google search. was scaled out to include more content from users' Facebook friends such as status updates, shared links and comments. Previously, users could see that content, but could not interact with it without leaving the Bing site. But with the latest expansion, they can.
Stuttery YouTube videos begone! Frequent fliers may eventually get a reprieve from subpar in-flight Wi-Fi, if the government allocates more wireless spectrum for airplane-friendly services like Gogo. auctioning off the rights to an additional 500 MHz of spectrum for ground-to-air wireless services. More available spectrum would result in faster speeds and more reliable connections. The move could create more competition, in turn driving prices down for in-flight Wi-Fi. when many passengers are trying to get online for free.
There's no doubt that focus more on ease of use than others do. are two examples at the forefront of this usability trend, but recently I came across another that has put friendliness at the forefront of its goals. Enter remix with tweaks and extras for additional usability. Korora recently got a key update to version 18, and it looks intriguing. Here's a summary of what's inside.
Colleges and universities are being encouraged to scrutinize their systems to keep them from being hijacked in DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks. The Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) advised academic institutions this week to review their DNS (Domain Name System) and network configurations in order to prevent their systems from being abused to amplify DDoS attacks. sent Wednesday to the organization's members. REN-ISAC's members include over 350 universities, colleges and research centers from the U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden.
You know you're not in iTunes anymore when the app you're eyeing has a $1,050 price tag, but SAP is nonetheless expanding its online shopping experience in a bid to entice its customers to purchase enterprise software the way they shop on their smartphones. SAP has made some changes and additions to its enterprise application store, including a new deal with Bazaarvoice aimed at improving the volume and quality of product reviews on the site. The store now contains more than 2,000 applications from SAP and some 1,000 partners, the ERP vendor said Friday. The offerings include mobile, cloud-based and on-premises software. Other recent improvements include the ability to buy some partner applications using PayPal, new tools partners can use to build out storefronts and expanded geographic availability of the store to 26 countries. New additions include Belgium, Denmark, Hong Kong, Norway, the Philippines, Spain and Sweden, SAP said.
Earlier today my dad called the Hassle-Free Hotline (also known as my home phone number). The poor guy seems to encounter more than his fair share of inadvertant computer problems. For example, somehow, while using his laptop's touchpad, he'd made everything in his browser bigger. Consequently, he had to scroll pages left and right, not just up and down. Welcome to the Curse of the Multitouch Touchpad. Most laptop owners know that dragging a finger across the touchpad moves the cursor. On some systems, dragging two fingers up and down enables scrolling. But there's another "gesture" that's easy to perform by accident, and the results often leave users scratching their heads. It's the pinch-zoom gesture, which works just like on a smartphone or tablet: you pinch two fingers together to decrease the zoom (i.e. zoom out), or pinch them away from each other to increase the zoom (i.e. zoom in).
has been the go-to music and video manager for Windows and Mac users. If you use a Windows RT tablet or are partial to the Windows 8 modern UI, however, iTunes is not available to you; a touch-centric version of Apple’s desktop software has yet to appear in the Windows Store. That won’t change in the near future either, according to Tami Reller, chief financial officer for Microsoft’s Windows division. Despite courting from Microsoft, the Mac maker is not interested in putting iTunes on Windows 8. , dashing the hopes of longtime iTunes users everywhere. "iTunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It's not for lack of trying." Reller’s comments were part of a larger conversation when the Windows co-chief said Microsoft expects the Windows Store to offer versions of nearly every major iOS app title by the fall.
A vast debit card fraud scheme that allegedly netted $45 million has been linked to the hacking of credit card processors in the U.S. and India. on Thursday whom they accuse of a scheme centered on raising the limit on prepaid debit cards and then withdrawing the cash from ATMs. "In such operations, hackers manipulate account balances and in some cases security protocols to effectively eliminate any withdrawal limits on individual accounts," the indictment reads. "As a result, even a few compromised bank account numbers can result in tremendous financial loss to the victim financial institution," it said.
Hackers who commandeered The Onion's Twitter account used simple but effective phishing attacks to obtain passwords, according to a writeup by the publisher's technology team. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a group supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has also compromised prominent Twitter accounts, including those of the Associated Press, The Guardian, the BBC and NBC News. that it had changed its Twitter password to "OnionMan77." on Thursday explaining how it temporarily lost control of the account.
Okay, say you have this shiny new car. It looks great, it performs like a demon, it features all the latest safety gadgets, and it's crawling with creature comforts. Just one problem, though. The local tinkerer, clearly consumed by jealousy, comes by sometime during the night to disassemble the entire thing. Sitting in the middle of a zillion bits and pieces the next morning, you quickly realize how totally useless this marvelously complicated car has become. is the Internet without a browser. Far more than the blank slate it appears to be, a Web browser is ridiculously sophisticated and entirely capable of morphing the code-crazed reality of the Internet into the Matrix-like façade we now can't live without. But how did we get where we are today? We thought you'd never ask...
Acer got a few things right and a number of things wrong with the Predator (specifically, Predator model AG3620-UR12). On the “right” side of the ledger, it has one of Intel’s better processors—a 3.4GHz Core i7-3770—and 32GB of DDR3/1600 memory. With those components, the asking price of $1299 is very reasonable. On the “wrong” side of the ledger, the Predator has an AMD Radeon HD 8760 video card (the OEM version of the milquetoast Radeon HD 7770), a chintzy custom motherboard with just PCIe x16 slot (occupied), and a miniscule 16GB SSD that serves as a cache to the 2TB, 7200-rpm mechanical hard drive. The all-steel case is wrapped in painted satin black, with glossy black accents on top. Three doors in its face flip down to reveal 5.25-inch drive bays. Of these, one is occupied by a 16x DVD burner, and a second has a slide-out tray with SATA power and data connectors in the rear of the bay. Though this isn’t a hot-swappable drive bay, it does provide an opportunity for data backup that you can remove to an offsite location. Also included are two empty 3.5-inch drive bays (accessible only from inside the case), but you’ll need to supply your own SATA cables and Molex-to-SATA power adapters if you decide to populate them (leads from the 500-watt power supply are available).
Today ends the last full week of Paul Otellini's reign as Intel's CEO. in 2012, a 50-plus-percent increase over Otellini's rookie stats. “When Otellini walked into the job, Intel was in chaos,” says Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, and a former vice president at AMD—a.k.a Intel’s bitter rival—during most of Otellini’s tenure. Now, Intel is in a clear leadership position, and the company's actions during Otellini's tenure have made an indelible mark on the entire PC industry. Just how did he do it? Simple: by focusing on Intel's core strengths and going from hit to hit.
Investor Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have countered Dell's plan to go private with an offer that would give shareholders a large payout and still keep the computer company publicly traded. In a letter Thursday to Dell's board, the two large shareholders in the company offered to give shareholders the option to continue holding shares in the company, and take an additional $12 a share in cash or stock. ] Financing for the new proposal is to come from existing cash in Dell and $5.2 billion in new debt, making it similar to a "leveraged recapitalization" proposal Icahn and related entities made in March. In a leveraged recapitalization, a company typically takes on debt in order to pay a dividend to shareholders or repurchase its own shares.
A former support employee in Rochester, New York, has pleaded guilty to illegally selling Intuit software through eBay, taking advantage of the software company's policy to supply free replacement disks of its products at the request of customers. Raymond Locklin, 29, a former employee of outsourcer Sutherland Global Services in Rochester, was assigned when on the job to provide support to Intuit's customers and had access to its computer system. He has pleaded guilty to having obtained fraudulently disks for Intuit's products including TurboTax and Quicken software, taking advantage of the software vendor's policy of providing free replacement of software disks by mail to its customers, according to court papers. Locklin then advertised the software for sale on e-commerce site eBay, and mailed the software to the customers after receiving payment through online payment processor PayPal. The defendant entered a plea agreement Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in which he pleaded guilty to conspiring with one Christi Meehan between Oct. 20, 2009 and July 1, 2011 to obtain copies of Intuit software and sell it online, according to court documents.
Salesforce.com is to acquire Clipboard, a Web clipping and sharing service, and is closing down the service. on Thursday. The Clipboard service and its apps and extensions will be discontinued on June 30. Until then, existing users of Clipboard will be able to export their clips for offline use. User data will be deleted a week after the final date of service. Existing users will still be able to create, view and organize their clips until the discontinuation of service, but Clipboard will not accept any new user registrations. In nearly two years, 140,000 users created nearly 3 million clips using the service, while over a million interacted with them, Clipboard said.
The first mobile devices to use Nvidia’s Tegra 4 chips will be announced this quarter, meaning smartphones and tablets based on the new processor should be available soon. . On Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said tablets are in development and that other devices with Tegra 4 will be announced this quarter. Calling it the “highest performance” mobile processor, Huang said many Android devices are being built around Tegra 4. More products will launch through the second half of the year. “Outside of phones, where we see these new computing devices becoming like entry-level PCs, performance matters,” Huang said, during Nvidia’s quarterly earnings call Thursday.
Box has acquired Crocodoc in a move to significantly improve the way documents are rendered for viewing on its enterprise storage and file sharing service. Box will integrate Crocodoc’s HTML5 technology into its product and use it to eventually replace its existing document preview feature, Box on Thursday. Crocodoc was founded in 2007, and its document rendering and viewing technology is used by services including Microsoft’s Yammer, Facebook, LinkedIn and BlackBoard. Box, which has more than 150,000 business customers and 15 million end users, also plans to make the Crocodoc API (application programming interface) a core piece of its application development platform so that the technology can be tapped by third-party application vendors.
. ” for testing and refinement. . “Really eat our own dog food, so to speak.”
With the backing of its new parent company, Yammer more than tripled its revenue year on year in the quarter that ended in March. Sales of Yammer’s cloud-based enterprise social networking (ESN) software shot up 259 percent in Microsoft’s third fiscal quarter, compared with the same quarter in 2012, when Yammer was still an independent company, Microsoft on Thursday. Microsoft isn’t disclosing Yammer’s revenue in dollar figures, but the growth and momentum—Yammer added 312 new customers in the quarter—is a validation of the $1.2 billion it paid for Yammer last July, a Microsoft executive said in an interview. “We’re really pleased with the acquisition, with the process of the teams coming together and with the continued customer acceptance and demand,” said Jared Spataro, senior director of the Microsoft Office Division.
Nach Ubiquiti Networks kündigt nun auch Motorola Solutions WLAN entsprechend dem IEEE-Standard 802.11ac an. Der Access Point 8232 erlaubt die Integration einer Videokamera. Die Auswahl für Unternehmenskunden steigt damit bald. Bisher ist der Gigabit-WLAN-Standard überwiegend Heimnutzern vorbehalten.
Die Wissenschaftlerin Kate Darling erforscht, warum Menschen Mitleid mit Robotern haben. Eine ihrer Schlussfolgerungen: Wir sollten Roboter schützen, wie wir es mit Tieren tun.
Ermittler haben offenbar Probleme damit, die Passwortsperre und Verschlüsselung auf dem iPhone zu brechen. Apple könne diese Sicherungen aber umgehen, heißt es in Unterlagen einer US-Bundespolizeibehörde.
Neben einem runderneuerten Web-Interface beinhaltet Opennebula 4.0 die Möglichkeit, Schnappschüsse von virtuellen Maschinen zu erstellen.
Statt einer eigenen Linux-Distribution verwendet Googles Compute Engine nun Debian als Standard-Image. Das Unternehmen strebt zudem eine noch engere Zusammenarbeit mit Debian an.
Über 175.000 Menschen haben eine Petition gegen die DSL-Drosselungspläne der Telekom unterzeichnet. Nun soll es auch auf der Straße Proteste dagegen geben.
Der Python-Interpreter Pypy 2.0 unterstützt nun auch Stackless Python und enthält Cffi 0.6 als eingebautes Modul, um C-Code aufzurufen. Außerdem wird experimentell die ARM-Architektur unterstützt.
HTC bietet das Desire SV nun doch in Deutschland an. Das Android-Smartphone mit Dual-SIM-Funktion ist aber hierzulande nur bei zwei Händlern verfügbar.
Um die Installation von Ubuntu-Apps auf Touch-Geräten zu vereinfachen, plant das Team ein neues Paketformat. Eine erste Idee ist ein abgespecktes Deb-Paket, andere Lösungen sind aber möglich.
Olympus hat mit der Pen E-P5 eine neue Systemkamera vorgestellt, die optisch an die Kleinbildkamera Pen F aus den 60er Jahren erinnert. Die neue Kamera nimmt Fotos mit 16 Megapixeln auf, bietet WLAN und erreicht eine sehr hohe Verschlussgeschwindigkeit.
Amazons Lab126 hat ein Smartphone mit 3D-Display und Eye-Tracking in Vorbereitung. Damit könnte ein weiteres Amazon-Gerät "fast zum Selbstkostenpreis" erscheinen.
Nach Left 4 Dead 2 hat Valve jetzt auch Half Life 2 auf Linux portiert. Beide Spiele sind als Betaversionen erhältlich.
Mit dem europäischen Projekt iPhos soll ein Standard für sehr schnellen Datenfunk gesetzt werden. Erste Bauelemente gibt es schon, und eine Zielanwendung auch: Flugzeuge sollen beim Beladen mit Wetterdaten, aber auch Spielfilmen versorgt werden.
Entwickler können von Mozilla gratis ein Firefox-OS-Smartphone erhalten. Dazu müssen sie Mozilla eine gute App-Idee melden, um ein Geeksphone Keon im Wert von 110 Euro zu bekommen.
Youtube startet kostenpflichtige Kanäle, die im Monatsabo abgerechnet werden. So will Google seinen Video-Produzenten neue Einnahmemöglichkeiten erschließen.
Das Cyanogenmod-Team hat für etliche Android-Geräte einen ersten Release Candidate von Cyanogenmod 10.1 veröffentlicht. Die aktuelle Version basiert auf Android 4.2.2. Seit Cyanogenmod 9.0 alias Android 4.0.x gab es keinen Release Candidate der alternativen Android-Distribution mehr.
Facebook soll viel Geld für die GPS-basierte Navigations-App Waze bieten. Zuvor wollte bereits Apple das israelische Startup kaufen.
Durch den Boom von mobilen Geräten werden die Speicherchips knapp. Schon jetzt sind Speichermodule für PCs deutlich teurer als zu Beginn des Jahres, und ein Ende des Trends ist nicht abzusehen.
Die Laptops auf der Internationalen Raumstation sollen künftig mit Debian GNU/Linux 6 alias Squeeze statt mit Scientific Linux laufen. Außerdem werden Schlüsselfunktionen der LAN-Rechner auf der ISS von Windows auf Linux migriert.
Crocodoc bietet einen Cloud-Dienst an, der Office- und PDF-Dokumente in HTML5 umwandelt und unter anderem von Dropbox und Microsoft genutzt wird. Ab sofort gehört Crocodoc dem Dropbox-Konkurrenten Box.
Facebook wäre sehr erfreut, wenn sich Mozilla dafür entscheiden würde, das von Google entwickelte freie Bildformat WebP zu unterstützen.
Trotz aller Kritik hat das W3C einen ersten Arbeitsentwurf für "Encrypted Media Extensions" vorgelegt. Diese sollen die notwendigen APIs bereitstellen, um in Webseiten eingebettete Audio- und Video-Dateien per DRM zu schützen.
Nokia hat mit dem Asha 501 nicht nur ein neues Mobiltelefon, sondern auch gleich eine neue Smartphoneplattform vorgestellt. Sie geht auf Nokias Übernahme von Smarterphone zurück und ermöglicht Java- und Web-Apps. Das Asha 501 kommt für 100 Euro auf den Markt.
Tesla präsentiert hervorragende Zahlen, und die Aktie legt fast 25 Prozent zu. Der Hersteller von Elektroautos hat große Pläne. Schon bald möchte Tesla den deutschen Markt erobern.
Nach Mainboards, Storage-Servern und Racks will das von Facebook gegründete Open Compute Project nun auch einen freien Switch entwickeln. Dabei hat es prominente Unterstützer.
Electronic Arts' Finanzchef Blake Jorgensen hat den Umfang des Stellenabbaus bei dem Unternehmen bestätigt. Rund 10 Prozent der Mitarbeiter werden demnach ihren Job verlieren. In den vergangenen Monaten hat EA bereits zahlreichen Spieleentwicklern gekündigt.
Adobe warnt Nutzer von Coldfusion vor laufenden Angriffen im Netz und fordert Administratoren von Coldfusion auf, die Installationen abzusichern. Ein Patch kommt erst nächste Woche parallel zum Microsoft-Patchday.
Noch vor dem monatlichen Patchday hat Microsoft nun eine Zwischenlösung für die Zero-Day-Lücke im Internet Explorer 8 veröffentlicht. Der Hotfix soll zumindest fürs Erste den Internet Explorer 8 absichern.
Fünf neue Sprachen für 183 Millionen Sprecher: Google hat den Übersetzungsdienst Translate weiter ausgebaut. Eine europäische und vier asiatische Sprachen sind hinzugekommen.
Mit besonderer Ausstattung will ASrock seine Mainboards für Intels Core-i-4000 alias Haswell attraktiv machen. Die wasserfeste Beschichtung spricht Übertakter an, der HDMI-Eingang soll Komfort mit mobilen Geräten bringen.
Er hört Warhol-Pop, Picasso-Jazz und in jedem Supermarkt die Filmmusik zu seinem Leben: Der Cyborg Neil Harbisson hört Farben, die er nicht sehen kann. Nachts träumt er Klänge, auch ohne seinen Eyeborg.
Syrien ist seit Dienstagabend vom Internet abgeschnitten. Experten gehen davon aus, dass es sich um eine vorsätzliche Aktion handelt. Es nicht das erste Mal, dass das Bürgerkriegsland offline ist.
Kaum ein Tag vergeht, an dem kein Aufruf für eine Online-Petition in der Mailbox landet. Wie sinnvoll ist die Flut dieser Unterschriftenlisten noch?
Huawei hat für das Ascend P1 ein Update auf Android 4.1.2 alias Jelly Bean veröffentlicht. Damit erhält das Smartphone auch Huaweis Bedienoberfläche Emotion UI in der Version 1.5; eine drahtlose Update-Verteilung wird nicht angeboten.
Neben Potlach 2 ist nun auch der iD-Editor für Openstreetmap direkt freigeschaltet worden. Wer einen Zugang für das Kartographieprojekt hat, kann den leicht bedienbaren Editor, der auf Flash verzichtet, nun benutzen.
Die Telekom will wegen des massiven Unmuts der Nutzer und Drucks von Verbraucherschützern und Bundesnetzagentur weiter Flatrates anbieten, nur eben teurer. Die Telekom ignoriere die Kritik an ihrer DSL-Drosselung nicht, verspricht Obermann.
Viele Unternehmen und Behörden geben bereits ihre Daten frei - Open Data wird zum Buzzword. Wie sollen Entwickler aus dem Sammelsurium Daten sinnvoll verknüpfen und welche wichtigen fehlen? Diese Fragen treiben OpenplanB-Initiator Michael Kreil um.
Der Spielentwickler Patrice Desilets verlässt bereits zum zweiten Mal Ubisoft - diesmal unfreiwillig: Nach eigenen Angaben wurde der Schöpfer von Assassin's Creed gekündigt. Er will sich mit allen Mitteln dagegen wehren.
Noch in diesem Monat erscheint Acers Iconia A1 in Deutschland. Für 190 Euro gibt es ein 8-Zoll-Tablet mit Android 4.2 und einem Quad-Core-Prozessor. Für 50 Euro Aufpreis ist auch ein Modem dabei.
Will Yahoo Hulu kaufen? Chefin Marissa Mayer hat sich mit leitenden Mitarbeitern des Videodienstes getroffen. Trotz des Widerstandes der Chefin hat Yahoo die Kooperation mit Microsoft um ein Jahr verlängert.