today. The early look at the enterprise version of Windows 8.1 follows the release of Windows 8.1 Preview at Microsoft’s BUILD conference last month, and includes a variety of tools that show Microsoft’s commitment to both BYOD and virtualization. Aside from the slew of changes and enhancements in the regular Windows 8.1 Preview edition, Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview also includes features uniquely designed for business customers. Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview adds business-friendly elements like Direct Acess, and BranchCache. It also provides IT admins with the power to configure and lock down the Start screen on Windows 8 clients. Microsoft also has tools in Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview to help out with BYOD and virtualization: Windows To Go, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Windows To Go lets the company put an entire managed Windows 8 desktop environment on a bootable USB thumb drive, and VDI gives the business the tools to enable users to use critical business software from virtually any Internet-connected device. One of the hottest trends in business technology today is mobility and working remotely. The driving forces behind working remotely are the “bring your own device” (BYOD) trend and virtualization.
Intel has shipped its first “open-source PC,” a bare-bones computer aimed at software developers building x86 applications and hobbyists looking to construct their own computer. The PC, called the MinnowBoard (shown above), is basically a motherboard with no casing around it. It was codeveloped by Intel and CircuitCo Electronics, a company that specializes in open-source motherboards, and went on sale this month for $199 from a handful of retailers. It’s the first open-source PC to be offered with an Intel x86 processor, and the board’s schematics and design files are published and can be replicated under a Creative Commons license. Development kits based on x86 processors from Via Technologies are already sold for robotics and other projects, but those boards are not open source. Intel has also shared server designs through Facebook’s Open Compute Project, but they’re aimed primarily at large companies that design and build servers in-house. The MinnowBoard, which measures 4 inches (10.16 centimeters) by 4 inches, is Intel’s first open-source hardware design for enthusiasts and developers.
Like a juggernaut on your desk, the SteelSeries Apex will command attention with its large size, multicolored lighted zones, and vast array of macro keys. You'll feel like a starship captain with an advanced console at your fingertips—if you can fit it on your desk, that is. You'll notice right away just how large the Apex is. The palm rest isn't an optional accessory as it is with many other keyboards, so it comes out of the box in one large unit. The length is also exaggerated by the many macro and media keys on either side. Following the oversizing theme, the keys are large and easy to find with your fingers. SteelSeries boasts that the Apex is one of the fastest keyboards around thanks to a key layout that is low and flat, and to a spacebar the size of a candy bar. Not one of those fun-size candy bars either: This baby is king-size. No matter where your hands are flying to, your thumbs will be in proximity to it. Unfortunately, the Apex strays away from the popular choice of mechanical keys, going with rubber-dome switches. SteelSeries defends the decision by claiming that the rubber-dome technology offers little resistance, making your keystrokes faster. Also, the Apex is really quiet to type on, so if you prefer the tactile feedback and clicks of a mechanical keyboard, you'll want to think twice.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology never sought a federal prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the programming prodigy who was charged with stealing millions of academic papers from an online archive at MIT, according to a report by the institute. in January while facing federal charges including computer intrusion, wire fraud, and data theft, which could have led to a sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine. the government never intended for Swartz to serve more than a few months in prison. The report, which was requested by MIT President Rafael Reif in January, was issued on Tuesday, the institute said in a press release. It cleared MIT of any wrongdoing but raised questions about whether the institute should have been more actively involved. The report was prepared after conversations with about 50 people, including faculty, students, alumni, staff, police officers and lawyers, and Swartz’s family and friends.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the preview version of Windows 8.1 for enterprises, bringing all of the functionality of WIndows 8.1 to big business, with specific improvements for enterprises.
against a former partner it alleged was providing third-party support for its PeopleSoft application in an illegal fashion. “Oracle America, Oracle International Corporation, and CedarCrestone, Inc. announce that they have amicably resolved the litigation between them,” Oracle said in a brief statement on its website. “The terms of the settlement are confidential.” CedarCrestone had offered implementation services for various Oracle software products, as well as tax and regulatory updates for PeopleSoft. The latter appeals to customers that decide to go off vendor support and contract with a third party to save money, when they want to keep their systems up to date but have no need for the ongoing product updates provided under a vendor maintenance plan. It wasn’t clear whether CedarCrestone will continue offering tax and regulatory support for PeopleSoft; information suggesting as much wasn’t readily apparent on its website Tuesday, and the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peazip is one of the most versatile file compression and archiving utilities out there—possibly the most versatile—and it's free. It's also quite easy to use and offers the same features found in programs such as WinZip and WinRAR such as context menu integration, passwords, command line usage, etc. Peazip supports every compressed archive format I'm aware of: 7Zip, ARC, GZ, TAR, ACE, RAR, etc. There's also support for both ISO and UDF disc images and Linux package formats such as DEB, RPM, PET/PUP, and SLP. As a bonus, you can open Mac HFS DMG files. There are more, but the point is that there's little out there in the way of compressed file you can't browse and extract from. While I've always appreciated the effort that goes into this piece of free software, I've also installed, then uninstalled Peazip several times over the years because of operational and performance issues. This has left me using WinRAR, which while a bit old-school looking, is rock-solid and fast. Version 5 of Peazip seems quite a bit more stable, but it still has a tendency to not close and launch 100% smoothly when you're dealing with multiple instances. Also, the progress bar is still inaccurate, claiming far less progress than as actually been made. Several times, it was only 25% across when the task completed.
by $150 in an attempt to move more of the moribund tablets, Windows RT has received yet another no-confidence vote: Asus, whose VivoTab RT (pictured above) was one of the first Windows RT slates out the door, plans to pull back from the mobile-focused platform. , saying that "Our direction is more toward x86 plus the [Windows] 8.1 approach." that Asus plans to slam the brakes on its Windows RT support. The company could decide to release another Windows RT slate in the future, but for now, Shih says the company's entire focus is on Windows 8 and Intel chips. "The result is not very promising," Shih said of Asus' Windows RT endeavors.
Microsoft is giving photographers a few more reasons to store their images on SkyDrive, with a heaping helping of new options for viewing and managing photos on the Web. The meatiest improvements on SkyDrive.com are related to sharing photos and files. Previously, you could only share an entire folder or individual files. Now, SkyDrive.com lets you share multiple files at a time from anywhere in your cloud storage. You can share an entire day's worth of photos just by clicking on the date heading. The recipient will see the photos you've shared as a single album. Microsoft is also giving a much-needed makeover to the “Shared” folder on SkyDrive.com: It now shows the files you've shared, not just the ones shared with you. That should make it a lot easier to figure out what you've shared in the past and control who has access to your files. , SkyDrive.com will show higher-resolution images to match.
The 17-button mouse feels like a punchline, something you’d flip past with a chuckle in a yellowed issue of magazine. And yet here we are: third or so in its line, the Razer Naga 2014 brushes off any pretense of restraint and serves up a twelve-button number pad, coupled with a pair of buttons on the spine and the requisite scroll-wheel. It is, at a glance, the exact same mouse as later year’s model. But grip it in your hands after installing Razer's Synapse software, and you’re in for a bit of a surprise. Razer claims that the Naga is the best-selling MMO gaming mouse in the world, and while I’d take issue with drafting such a narrow category to claim top honors in, credit should be given where it’s due. The new Naga feels fantastic, eschewing the complimentary set of ergonomic grips that came in favor of a one-size-fits-all mold that I found rather comfortable in my—admittedly large—mitts. It’s a mouse, and does its job amicably. You can tweak the sensitivity—all the way up to 8200 DPI, which I find ludicrous—and even calibrate the mouse laser’s ability to track your particular mouse pad or surface. The twelve side buttons are mechanical now, which ostensibly offers improved accuracy. I do love the clicky sound of mechanical keys—hence my preference for mechanical keyboards—and the mouse’s tactile and audible feedback should help you know exactly when buttons are being clicked. It’s a marked improvement from the squishy buttons of Nagas past—you can check out PCWorld’s for the lowdown on why mechanical keys are, in general, pretty neat. That’s all well and good, but of far greater importance is the fact that each of those twelve buttons is arrayed in a seemingly haphazard but actually brilliant angled pattern, which makes it easy to find each and every button. This is crucial, as keeping track of twelve buttons can be a colossal pain—earlier Nagas featured buttons that were all uniform, which made firing off that critical spell or ability a confusing mess.
Easing the path for organizations to launch big data-styled services, Red Hat has coupled the 10gen MongoDB data store to its new identity management package for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distribution. “The beauty of Identity Management is that it has a central infrastructure that companies can use to manage identities across many different types of applications,” said Kelly Stirman, 10gen director of product marketing. With MongoDB linked to Identity Management, those shops already using RHEL will find it much easier to set up and run applications that run on MongoDB data. of initializing new user and administrator accounts in the data store software. the user IDs and group permissions that are already managed within Identity Management, helping the organization to establish a SSO (single sign on) infrastructure for its employees and contractors.
Salesforce.com has expanded the number of mobile application development tools it supports and also created a series of templates aimed at helping coders create mobile applications faster. The focus of the 20 open-source HTML5 and CSS-based templates is on exploiting "micro-moments," or the many brief periods of interaction people have with their mobile devices each day, said Adam Seligman, vice president of developer relations, Salesforce.com platform. Salesforce.com got the idea for the templates, which cover narrow scenarios such as an inventory check or appointments, through feedback from developers during a 40-city tour it conducted recently, Seligman said. "The thing our developers are trying to do is not take massive, legacy applications and make them available in the cloud," Seligman said. "They're trying to get to what their customer wants to do," namely "super-fast," relevant and contextual business activities, he added.
SoftBank's net sales increased by over 21 percent in the second quarter as the company saw handset sales and subscriber numbers increase. The Japanese company reported Tuesday that net profit was ¥263 billion ($2.7 billion) in the quarter, up 122 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. The company had net sales of ¥881 billion in the quarter. SoftBank adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from the second quarter, prompting it to consolidate the results of gaming company GungHo Online Entertainment and mobile communications service provider eAccess, in which it holds significant stakes. The company's domestic mobile communications business, which provides mobile communications services and sells mobile handsets, saw sales increase by 26.8 percent year on year to ¥662 billion.
Alcatel-Lucent’s second-quarter revenue grew 1.9 percent year on year, driven by strong growth in sales of IP networking equipment, one of the markets on which the company is pinning its future. However, the company reported a net loss of €885 million ($1.15 billion) for the quarter, including an impairment charge of €552 million following a re-evaluation of assets, and restructuring charges of €194 million, among other things, the company said. Revenue was €3.61 million, up from €3.55 million in the same period last year. The IP networking equipment division saw particularly strong revenue growth, up almost 21 percent year on year to €624 million.
Look down at your fingers for a second, then look back up here. Chances are you’re still using the same cheap plastic keyboard that came with your PC, and that’s a pity. The keyboard is your primary tool, the unsung workhorse of your day. Without it, you couldn’t get anything done—but I’ll bet you haven’t spent 5 minutes thinking about how you could improve your typing experience. If you’re willing to pay for premium PC hardware, finding the perfect keyboard can be worth the investment in time and cash. Keyboard manufacturers have been refining their craft since IBM made the first Model M, and today the market is chock-full of premium hardware. The only trick is figuring out which model is just right for your particular needs. The first decision you have to make is whether to stick with a wired keyboard. Choosing a wireless keyboard is an easy way to start clearing a cluttered desk, but it has plenty of downsides, too.
More than nine months into the great revamping known as Windows 8, a clear vision of its core is finally starting to emerge. The , ready to polish the numerous rough edges found in the original release of the operating system. But Microsoft alone can’t improve what is truly the beating heart of Windows 8: The Windows Store. Windows 8 revolves around the Windows Store. Every Live Tile that glimmers on the modern-style Start screen is the iconic representation of a Windows 8 app—and you can only snag Windows 8 apps in Microsoft’s own Windows Store. As the Windows Store goes, so goes the Windows 8 experience. How, exactly, is the Windows Store doing? The obvious indicators are mixed. Windows RT devices can run in early July, and they’re still going (relatively) strong. That’s a great milestone for Microsoft, but it’s still paltry compared to the approximately 1 million apps in Google Play and 900,000 apps in Apple’s App Store. So it’s a good time to take the pulse of the Windows Store again: Is 100,000 apps enough to keep a body happy? , I spent days scouring the Windows Store and taking notes in five major categories: games, music apps, video apps, social apps, and a catch-all “other” category—to see how well Microsoft covered each. Here’s how they all measured up.
In the ongoing quest for faster access to data, Diablo Technologies has taken what could be a significant next step. Diablo’s Memory Channel Storage (MCS) architecture, expected to show up in servers shipping later this year, allows flash storage components to plug into the super-fast channel now used to connect CPUs with memory. That will slash data-access delays even more than current flash caching products that use the PCI Express bus, according to Kevin Wagner, Diablo’s vice president of marketing. The speed gains could be dramatic, according to Diablo, helping to give applications such as databases, big data analytics and virtual desktops much faster access to the data they need most. Diablo estimates that MCS can reduce latencies by more than 85 percent compared with PCI Express SSDs (solid-state disks). Alternatively, the flash components could be used as memory, making it affordable to equip servers terabytes of memory, Wagner said. Other than on-chip cache, the memory channel is the fastest route to a CPU, Wagner said. Not only do bits fly faster over this link, there are also no bottlenecks under heavy use. The connection is designed to be used by many DIMMs (dual in-line memory modules) in parallel, so each component doesn’t have to relinquish the bus for another one to use it. That saves time, as well as CPU cycles that would otherwise be used managing the bus, Wagner said.
Mashing mobile technology together with traditional PC designs has a hit-and-miss track record—cough, cough—but Monday, Corning announced that one of the more practical smartphone innovations out there is coming to touchscreen PCs, in the form of Gorilla Glass NBT. —Corning hasn’t made a concerted effort to crack the laptop arena until now. With touchscreens regularly appearing on PCs these days, Corning is trying to transfer its mobile success to the x86 crowd. get scraped, the company claims that Gorilla Glass NBT boasts both reduced scratch visibility and “better retained strength once a scratch occurs to help protect notebook displays from breakage.”
Two of the leading names in DVD and Blu-ray technology announced a joint effort to develop a next-generation standard for optical discs. Sony and Panasonic will collaborate on a new standard, and plan to produce new super discs that can hold up to 300GB of data on a single disc by 2015. The first question to ask is whether or not such technology will even be relevant in 2015. Is it even relevant today? Or, more importantly, what value or impact will it have for your business? Not too long ago, recordable optical discs were a primary means of storing and archiving data. Blank disc media is cheap, and burning data to disc is a relatively simple process that small and medium businesses can easily manage. Current Blu-ray discs can hold 25GB of data—or 50GB on a dual-layer disc. But, removable media often has trouble keeping up with the skyrocketing storage demands of newer technology. , the explosion of mobile devices, embedded technologies, wearable computers, and sensors in clothing, medical devices, and building will result in the overall amount of data expanding by 50 times by 2020.
Privacy and digital rights groups have dug in for a longer fight against massive surveillance programs at the U.S. National Security Agency, even after the House of Representatives voted last week against an amendment to curtail the agency’s data collection. for the NSA programs in Congress. Lawmakers have introduced several bills to curb the NSA data collection, and privacy advocates may push for another amendment to a bill on the House or Senate floor, said David Segal, executive director at Demand Progress, a digital rights group. The vote last Wednesday “demonstrated that a majority of rank-and-file members agree with us, while the institutionalists—leadership, committee chairs—disagree,” he said by email. “So it could be difficult to move things through the committee process ... but there’ll be some relevant floor votes in coming months.”
In its , Concur, a developer of expense report software, has found that business travel expenses fell off dramatically at the end of 2012. The average travel and entertainment expense report fell 4.5 percent from 2011 to 2012. The decline dramatically accelerated in the last quarter of the year, when a huge 21 percent drop in T&E expenses was measured. The report notes that, “While 2012 was overall a year of tighter budgets for U.S. travelers, the sudden and extreme decline in Q4 T&E spend in particular is a bit of an outlier. The dip is likely due to a set of exogenous macro-economic events, such as the impact of Hurricane Sandy, uncertainty about the U.S. presidential election in November, and the ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations that extended into the first days of 2013.” Curiously, Concur notes that small businesses are spending considerably more on travel than their large-company counterparts. On a quarterly, per traveler basis, SMBs pay more for airfare (13.6%), lodging (21.0%), car rentals (56.7%), and even dining out (17.8%). Partly this is because small-business employees are traveling more than large ones, but also because they are often subject to higher rates. In explaining this, Concur notes that private rate agreements with hotel chains, for example, are responsible for offsetting many of the costs that large businesses pay.
devices to early beta testers. PC sales are already suffering at the hands of mobile devices, and now Dell’s Android PC-on-a-stick threatens the relevance of traditional PCs from a different angle. First, a little about Project Ophelia. The device is about the size of a large USB thumb drive. Instead of just flash-based storage, though, Project Ophelia packs a Rockchip RK3066 processor and 1GB of RAM, as well as both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity into that small space. It also has a microSD card slot to add additional storage if necessary. It runs on Google’s Android mobile OS. The device demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year ran Android 4.1 (a.k.a. “Jelly Bean”), but it seems reasonable to assume Dell will ship the device with the current version of Android before its official launch, which is expected to be the end of this year. Project Ophelia is not a revolution that will make PCs irrelevant overnight. Android is great at what it does, but much of the business world runs on the Microsoft Office productivity suite and line-of-business or custom applications developed for a Microsoft Windows environment. Project Ophelia is rumored to be a meager $100 and plugs into an HDMI or MHL port on a TV or monitor. HDMI doesn’t transmit power, so it requires a separate USB connection when using that input.
Reddit can be a confusing place. There are thousands of subreddits, so finding the most interesting ones can be difficult. For an overview of all the Reddits out there, along with their popularity, then the aptly named SubReddit Finder is the place to go to.
SAP has broadened its partner program for companies that want to develop applications using its technology and then sell them through the SAP online store. While SAP already had programs aimed at mobile application development and its HANA Cloud service, the expanded offering brings in more technologies and also accommodates partners who want to build products that run on-premises, according to Monday’s announcement. Partners will also be able to bundle and sell runtime licenses for SAP platform software with any applications they build, “so you can join the program once and then decide on your application scope, architecture, business model and routes to market,” according to an . This approach also gives partners the ability “to act as ‘one face to the customer,’” SAP said. SAP will charge partners royalties for the platform products “as a percentage of the net revenue of your packaged application (based on license list price and considering standard discounts such as volume discounts),” according to the FAQ.
The Boy Scouts got it right: be prepared. Whether you've just purchased a new PC or you've been using the same one for years, chances are good that at some point, you're going to need help and/or information. This could be anything from needing to know the wattage of the power supply (so you'll know if a particular video-card upgrade is compatible) to needing a specific driver after reinstalling Windows. That's why I've prepared this list of handy destinations you'll want to keep bookmarked in your browser. Because when the time comes, you'll be glad to have them at your fingertips.
The takeover bout for Dell resumed on Monday, with investor Carl Icahn sounding off on the proposal from Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners to change rules governing the shareholder vote for a revised bid to take the PC maker private. Company founder Michael Dell and his buyout partner, Silver Lake, last week offered shareholders $13.75 per share for the company, an increase from the $13.65 proposed in February. As part of the revised offered, the parties proposed a change in the shareholder vote in which only “yes” or “no” votes will be counted, and non-votes or abstentions will not count. Icahn on Monday urged Dell’s board not to support the proposed shareholder vote change as it could disenfranchise voters. “The plain and simple fact is that Michael Dell and Silver Lake have underestimated the extent of stockholder opposition to the Michael Dell/Silver Lake transaction and are unwilling to pay fair value to obtain approval of their interested-party freeze-out transaction,” Icahn wrote in a statement.
Chalk this up in the "funny, but not really" category: Last week, a company working with Microsoft to combat copyright pirates asked Google to remove multiple Microsoft web pages from Google searches—for infringing Microsoft copyrights. first spotted. This wasn't a case of internal idiocy or revenge, and it's also not quite as amusing as it may appear at first glance. Instead, it highlights the harmful way copyright holders use automatically generated DMCA takedown requests to try to scrub the net of pirated content, casting a wide net that often ensnares innocent webmasters with false infringement claims. If a copyright holder feels that a particular website is ripping off its work, it can send Google a DMCA takedown request and ask for the infringing site to be removed from the search engine. If Google determines that the site does indeed stomp on the copyright holder's intellectual property rights, the site's links disappear from Google Searches. So far, so good, right?
A court ban on a research paper that analyzes flaws in a car-lock system should be overturned, according to the Dutch university that employs two of the three researchers who wrote the analysis. published a story about it over the weekend. The U.K. court issued an interim block on the research paper, while considering a permanent ban on request of car manufacturer Volkswagen, the university added. French defense group Thales also requested the ban, according to a report by the BBC. Roel Verdult and Baris Ege, of the Digital Security faculty at Radboud University, were planning to present their paper with Flavio Garcia a lecturer in Computer Science of the University of Birmingham during the USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., in August, the Dutch university said.
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Attend a comprehensive workshop conducted by leading experts in internet marketing on November 19, immediately preceding SMX Social Media Marketing November 20-21 in Las Vegas. SMX Social Media Marketing registration is open and super early bird rates are now available. Check out the topic sneak...
Friday we broke the news that Google updated their link schemes webmaster guidelines. Now that the dust has settled, I aimed at getting more clarification on what Google meant by the new example around keyword-rich anchor text links within articles or press releases. The specific line in the link...
Launching a new website is one of the hardest things you do. It’s also one of the best ways to get a nice influx of links pointing your way. I know this because for the past 2 1/2 months, I’ve been living it. On Tuesday, July 16 at 3:52 p.m., 352 Media Group officially became [...]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Matt Cutts: Websites Using ccTLDs Should Contain Content Relevant To The Specific County Code In his latest video, Google’s head of search spam Matt...
In his latest video, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts addresses whether or not it is a good idea for a website to use a ccTLD (country code top level domain) as a novelty domain. The video was a response to the question: As memorable .COM domains become more expensive, more developers...
Last week, Google killed the Google+ Local mobile app for iOS, saying that all the same content was available in Google Maps for iOS. Today, the company announced the relaunch of the Zagat site and mobile app for Android and iPhone. All the Zagat content is now free and there’s no...
Bing has added new pop-up alerts that are triggered when people search for terms considered to be related to child porn, according to the BBC, in reaction to the UK’s prime minister attacking Google, Bing & Yahoo over not doing enough to stop child pornography. But Google has reportedly...
I recently conducted a series of interviews with four successful and respected local search experts. The interviews focused on the all-important client-agency relationship and examined four key stages, from winning new customers to retention of long-term clients. The objective of the interviews was...