Verizon Communications has reached an agreement to buy Vodafone Group's 45 percent stake in its Verizon Wireless subsidiary for $130 billion. Under the deal, Verizon will take 100 percent ownership of the wireless unit, the largest mobile operator in the U.S. This will enhance its ability to offer customers "seamless and integrated services," the carrier said in a press release. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to customary regulatory approvals. Verizon will pay a combination of cash and stock for Vodafone's stake. "As a wholly owned entity, Verizon Wireless will be better equipped to take advantage of the changing competitive dynamics in the market and capitalize on the continuing evolution of consumer demand for wireless, video and broadband services," Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam said in the press release.
Microsoft got some good news this week when metrics company Net Applications said Windows 8's user share in August is now larger than Vista's at the same point in the latter's post-launch timeline. the update slated to ship next month, jumped to 8.4 percent in August 2013, Net Applications said Sunday. The 2.5-point gain was a single-month record for the struggling operating system, and more than double the previous record set in June. Ten months after its January 2007 retail debut, Windows Vista—the operating system widely and a flop—accounted for 7.3 percent of all Windows PCs. November 2007, the tenth month after Vista's debut, was the first month that Net Applications used a new methodology that weighted data by countries, an attempt to come up with more accurate estimates for markets, such as China, for which it had relatively little data.
Microsoft plans to retire its Masters level certification exams by October 1, generating strong protests on blogs and community forums from IT professionals. The Redmond, Washington software company, however, defended the move, with an executive stating that the Masters program reaches only "a tiny proportion of the overall community," and only a few hundred professionals had bagged the certification in the last few years. The certification was designed so that professionals could aspire to it as the peak of the Microsoft certified program. The company said in an email to IT professionals that Microsoft will no longer offer Masters and Architect level training rotations and will be retiring the Masters level certification exams as of October 1. "The IT industry is changing rapidly and we will continue to evaluate the certification and training needs of the industry to determine if there's a different certification needed for the pinnacle of our program," Microsoft said in an email, reproduced in a on TechNet by Neil Johnson, a Microsoft senior consultant.
Ankur Nandwani is a news junkie who keeps hitting paywalls. He would pay for content, but not for a subscription. But he found a virtual solition. Nandwani, 27, merged his interest in news with , an open-source tool that lets publishers accept micropayments in Bitcoin for news stories. Bitmonet is just a side project for Nandwani, who has a day job as a senior software engineer in San Francisco. He started analyzing Bitcoin about six months ago and wanted to grow "It's all about encouraging bitcoin adoption," Nandwani said. "I think in the early stages of the bitcoin ecosystem.....it's better to increase bitcoin adoption. We can think of making money later."
A smart watch from Samsung Electronics, an Acer smartphone that can shoot 4K video, and a Sony smartphone with a 20-megapixel sensor are among the announcements expected at this year's IFA consumer electronics show.
Verizon and Vodafone are close to a deal that will see the U.S.-based carrier buy out the U.K. company's stake in Verizon Wireless for US$130 billion, according to press reports. Vodafone last week for the buy-out of its 45-percent stake, a deal that is not seen as having much impact on Verizon Wireless customers. Negotiators for both companies have agreed on terms of a cash and stock transaction, but both boards must still approve the deal, the Wall Street Journal . The expectation that interest rates could rise may be driving Verizon to close on the buy-out, which it has been seeking for some time, . Higher interest rates would drive up the cost of financing the deal.
The direct results of the ebook between Apple and the are one-step closer to turning into real money for millions of Amazon customers. The online retailer recently began sending out e-mail notifications to Kindle ebook buyers telling them how much credit to expect as a result of the payout from the five major publishers. “While we will not know the amount of your credit until the Court approves the settlements,” Amazon said in the e-mail. “It is estimated that it will range from $0.73 to $3.06 for every eligible Kindle book that you purchased.” An official posting on says the payout could be as high as $3.82 per ebook. Previously, credits to Amazon customers were expected to be between $0.31 and $1.32 for every purchased e-book. The new settlement increase is the result of the final two of the big five publishers (MacMillan and Penguin Group) reaching a settlement with the Attorneys General of most U.S. States over the price-fixing suit.
Oddly enough, Google's extensive cloud services don't do much for Earth (the program, not the planet--although it probably doesn't do much for that, either). You'd expect that if you have a Youtube, Gmail, or other Google account, Earth would sync automatically. But it doesn't. Luckily, there is a workaround, even if it's a bit clumsy.
Most of us check email too much far too often. If you want to cut the ties that bind you to your inbox, but don't want to worry about missing out on important messages, meet AwayFind, a handy service that lets your email find you. To use AwayFind, you sign up for an account by supplying a few basic details, or—if you use Gmail or Google Apps—connecting to that account. It works for anyone who has an email account and a phone, and it doesn't even have to be a mobile phone. Once your account is up and running, AwayFind delivers alerts, via a phone call, text message, or push notifications, when you receive an important email. That way, you'll know when you need to check your email, rather than monitoring your inbox all day. And AwayFind makes it very easy to specify when you do—and don't—want to be notified. AwayFind doesn't decide which emails are important. Instead, you tell it exactly what you're looking for. You can set up your notification preferences using AwayFind's website, or via the browser extensions and add-ons available for Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. The mobile apps for iOS and Android also allow you to set up and manage your alerts, which is a nice touch if you want to make changes when you're already out and about. You can set up alerts by people, topic, date, or time. You can, for example, choose to be alerted anytime you receive an email from a specific person, email address, or domain. You can also choose to be alerted whenever a subject line contains a certain word or phrase. In addition, you can link a calendar to AwayFind and choose to receive alerts when anyone with whom you've scheduled a meeting in the next 15 minutes to 36 hours sends you a message.
Maybe people are listening to Microsoft’s demand that they ditch Windows XP. According to metrics company Net Applications, Windows XP’s user share plunged to 33.7% of all personal computers in August, a record-setting one-month fall of 3.5 percentage points. When XP’s share of only those PCs that are powered by Windows was calculated, the decline was slightly sharper, from 40.6% of all Windows systems in July to 36.9% in August, a drop of 3.7 percentage points. However it’s measured, XP’s plummet was dramatic. The decline easily bested XP’s previous record of a one-month slide set in December 2011, the month after the industry’s high-water mark and when Windows 7 was quickly gaining ground at the expense of XP.
This long weekend has no shortage of things to do—weed the garden, clean the rain gutters, deal with that pile of bills you've been neglecting. Whew! But while you're at it, don't neglect your tech chores—your tech gear needs a little love, too! With that in mind, here are a few things to tidy up your digital life. . and review your security and privacy settings to make sure you aren't accidentally exposing any private information that you want to keep private. Once you've done that, take a few minutes to on your devices so your kids don't accidentally learn where babies come from without you realizing it.
The tech industry’s image can seem as sleek and glossy as the products it sells, but as oh-so-many of us know, . In fact, some tech careers are wretched: soul-killing factory work, mind-numbing support gigs, and retail positions ranging from embarrassing to exploitative. And then there are the jobs involving serious, physical peril. Before you start bemoaning workplace’s lack of casual Fridays, take a gander at this list of the ten worst jobs in tech. You may just realize that an annoying cubicle neighbor isn’t such a bad deal. Imagine gawking at the most horrific images you can find online—the kind of stuff that makes 4chan’s /b/ board look tame. Now, imagine doing that , and you get an idea of what it’s like to be a Google contractor tasked with keeping tabs on YouTube and Blogger for inappropriate content. One ex-Google contractor wrote a piece for —weeding out images of child porn, sexual fetishes, bestiality, and other offensive imagery. After spending the better part of a year bathed in all that digital horror, the worker says he received little emotional support from the company and was ultimately let go despite being promised a non-contract job.
After seeing its popularity decline, Yahoo's Internet portal in China has formally closed down, in a sign that e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is transitioning away from the brand. The portal went offline on Sunday. Its closure is rooted in an agreement Yahoo made last year with Alibaba Group, which has control over the Yahoo brand in the country. For years now, Yahoo's China business as part of $1 billion deal investment from the U.S. company made back in 2005. In exchange, Yahoo acquired a 40 percent stake in Alibaba. But last year, Yahoo agreed to back to the Chinese e-commerce company, following ongoing disagreements between the two Internet giants. The share buy-back resulted in Yahoo granting Alibaba "a transitional license" to continue operating its brand for up to four years.
Researchers in America say they have created a wireless communication system that allows devices to communicate with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power and could play a vital role in the Internet of Things. The communication technique—dubbed "" by the University of Washington scientists—allows devices to communicate with each other by reflecting or absorbing preexisting radio signals from TV and mobile transmissions. The energy-saving breakthrough could be particularly well suited to a home-based where devices are usually within a few meters of each other. The team has built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect, harness, and reflect a TV signal, which is then picked up by other similar devices.
If you've ever felt isolated among your smartphone-obsessed friends and family, you're not alone. Do our mobile devices connect us or sentence us to solitary confinement?
In a study conducted by TNS Global for Halon, an email security service, 30 percent of those surveyed admitted they would open an email, even if they were aware that it contained a virus or was otherwise suspicious. The study included only 1000 adults within the U.S., so this isn't a national index by any means. But of those surveyed, one in 11 admitted to having infected their system after they opened a malicious email attachment. Given the fact that email is still an (phishing/spear phishing), the survey's results are somewhat alarming. The reasons given for (15.9 percent), social media sites like Facebook or Twitter (15.2 percent), and online payment services, like PayPal (12.8 percent). According to the stats form the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), in its 2013 First Quarter , there were more than 74,000 unique phishing campaigns discovered during the reporting period, leveraging over 110,000 hijacked domains and targeting more than 1100 brands.
Since its inception, the Apache Software Foundation has had a profound impact in shaping the open source movement and the tech industry at large. Founded by the developers of the Tomcat, newcomers Cassandra, Lucene, Hadoop—all have come of age under the aegis of the ASF and its core principles, informally known as "the Apache Way." But tensions within the ASF and grumbling throughout the open source community have called into question whether the Apache Way is well suited to sponsoring the development of open source projects in today's software world. Changing attitudes toward open source licensing, conflicts with the GPL, concerns about technical innovation under the Way, fallout from the foundation's handling of specific projects in recent years—the ASF may soon find itself passed over by the kinds of projects that have helped make it such a central fixture in open source, thanks in some measure to the way the new wave of bootstrapped, decentralized projects on GitHub don't require a foundationlike atmosphere to keep them vibrant or relevant. Ask most anyone involved with the ASF, "What sets the foundation apart?" and a common answer will likely dominate: "The Apache Way."
Just because Microsoft doesn't plan on to the public after April 8, 2014, doesn't mean it's going to stop making those patches. In fact, Microsoft will be creating security updates for Windows XP for months—years, even—after it to the general public. Those patches will come from a program called "Custom Support," an after-retirement contract designed for very large customers who have not, for whatever reason, moved on from an older OS. As part of Custom Support—which according to analysts, for the first year and more each succeeding year—participants receive patches for vulnerabilities rated "critical" by Microsoft. Bugs ranked as "important," the next step down in Microsoft's four-level threat scoring system, are not automatically patched. Instead, Custom Support contract holders must pay extra for those. Flaws pegged as "moderate" or "low" are not patched at all.
It happened early last week: Twitter started buzzing; one of the world's largest news portals was offline, and a hacking group was claiming responsibility. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-Assad hacking group known for their previous campaigns against media organizations, for the New York Times, Twitter, and the Huffington Post. The group also targeted ShareThis.com, a platform that enables readers to share links to content on a wide range of services, including social media, sites like Reddit, Slashdot, and more. Twitter had the most issues to deal with, as its domain shortening service (t.co) well as its primary domain and image hosting service (twimg.com) all had The attack was possible due to a social engineering campaign launched by the SEA that targeted MelbourneIT, the registrar responsible for hosting the targeted DNS servers. According to reports, including those from MelbourneIT themselves, the SEA spent some time on this campaign, and created a that eventually snared an unknown reseller's username and password, which granted them access to the domain controls needed to alter DNS settings. While this attack was bad, things as other large brands also use MelbourneIT for their DNS. Among the other customers are Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IKEA, and AOL. Fortunately, the account that the SEA compromised didn't share access to those domains.
The tech industry has been promising apps that interrupt us with important contextual information for two years. So where are they?
A team of scientists off the coast of Cape Cod has been catching and tagging great white sharks with wireless transmitters to learn more about their behavior.
Researcher IDC has slightly lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2013 and beyond, blaming competition from larger-sized smartphones and futuristic wearable computing devices.
Craigslist has made some strides over the years in protecting its users from Internet predators, but for some hackers those strides are just another challenge to be surmounted. That's the case with a Trojan aimed at the online classified advertising service and revealed last week by Solera, a Blue Coat company. The malware is ending up on the computers of unsuspecting users who click an infected link they encounter on the Internet, expecting to receive an update to a fictitious program called Adobe Photo Loader. (See also ) After infecting a machine, the malware transforms the computer into a zombie for a botnet making spam postings to Craigslist for a program called Stealth Nanny. The Android app is designed to be planted on a person's phone so all their activity on the handset can be monitored by a snooper.
Two developers have cracked Dropbox's security, even intercepting SSL data from its servers and bypassing the cloud storage provider's two-factor authentication, according to a they published at USENIX 2013. "These techniques are generic enough and we believe would aid in future software development, testing, and security research," the paper says in its abstract. which claims more than 100 million users upload more than a billion files daily, said the research didn't actually represent a vulnerability in its servers. "We appreciate the contributions of these researchers and everyone who helps keep Dropbox safe," a spokesperson said in an email reply to Computerworld. "In the case outlined here, the user's computer would first need to have been compromised in such a way that it would leave the entire computer, not just the user's Dropbox, open to attacks across the board."
In releasing its first report on government requests for user information, Facebook is reminding businesses and consumers that use of the Internet today requires self-censorship. The shows also that the U.S. government—which is the single biggest requester with between 11,000 and 12,000 requests—is only one of many seeking data from Facebook. Total non-U.S. requests numbered about 15,000 during the first half of this year. Facebook's . The number of users specified in the requests was from 20,000 to 21,000. The majority of the requests were related to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings.
Everyone loves a long weekend, and these apps can help you make the most of it by finding great activities, events, meals, and hotels in your city.
Facebook hopes a large wood working shop installed in one of its buildings on the Facebook campus will inspire some of its employees to apply some new thinking to the jobs they were hired to do.
A week after Steve Ballmer said he plans to step down as CEO of Microsoft, ValueAct Capital, one of its biggest investors, has secured the right to appoint its president to Microsoft’s board. Microsoft has signed a “cooperation agreement” with ValueAct that allows its president, Mason Morfit, to meet regularly with Microsoft board members to discuss “a range of significant business issues,” Microsoft said in a statement Friday. The agreement gives ValueAct the option of having Morfit join Microsoft’s board, beginning at the first quarterly board meeting after Microsoft’s next annual shareholder meeting. Those meetings usually take place in mid-November. ValueAct Capital, in San Francisco, holds about 0.8 percent of Microsoft’s outstanding stock and is one of its largest shareholders, Microsoft said. The firm manages about $12 billion in assets.
17 Prozent der Kinder und Jugendlichen in der Schweiz bringen zu viele Kilos auf die Waage – egal ob auf dem Land oder in der Stadt. Dies zeigt eine neue Studie. Allgemein gilt: Je älter desto dicker.
Unbeirrbar und wider alle Evidenz beschwören die Grünen weiterhin die Gefährlichkeit der Fracking-Methode zur Öl- und Gas-Gewinnung. Warum die Angst der Umweltaktivisten vor Fracking ungerechtfertigt ist.
Dank ihrer erstaunlichen Flexibilität werden Wälder Trockenperioden überstehen. So der Tenor unter Forschern, die sich in Zürich zum Klimawandel austauschen. Veränderungen wird es dennoch geben.
Auch im 150. Jahr des SAC werden Hütten saniert – unter anderem im Berner Alpenraum. Was bei Hollandiahütte, der Finsteraarhornhütte und der Geltenhütte anders wird.
Die Schauspielerin Angelina Jolie hat sich nach einem Gentest vorsorglich beide Brüste amputieren lassen. Dies löste bei Schweizer Frauen einen regelrechten Boom für Beratungsgespräche in Kliniken aus.
Die Skala des Messgeräts reichte nicht aus: Die beim neuen Zwischenfall entwichene Strahlung war weit stärker als zunächst gemessen. Das Konzept zum Rückbau von Fukushima I wird immer unrealistischer.
Wenn der deutsche Kolumnist und Marathonläufer Achim Achilles auf das Matterhorn will, bleibt kein Stein auf dem anderen. Eine Plädoyer für mehr Humor im Sport.
Die Europäer sind im Durchschnitt elf Zentimeter grösser als noch vor hundert Jahren. Dies zeigt eine Analyse von Daten aus 15 Ländern. Die Schweizer sind sogar noch mehr gewachsen.
Das Satellitennavigationssystem ist nicht nur im Verkehr unverzichtbar geworden, es hat so viele Anwendungen, dass das Risiko einer globalen Panne die US-Regierung beunruhigt.
Vor wenigen Tagen hat sich der Obere Grindelwaldgletscher im Bereich des Beesibergli zweigeteilt. Somit ist der ganze untere Bereich des Gletschers ein mächtiger Toteisriegel – einer der grössten Europas.
Die Walliser Behörden haben den Wolf M35 zum Abschuss freigegeben. Die Gommer sind erleichtert, aber noch nicht zufrieden. Ihre Forderungen gehen weiter.
Ein Waldbrand wütet nahe dem Yosemite-Nationalpark in Kalifornien. Eine Katastrophe für die Region und gleichzeitig eine eindrückliche Kulisse für Fotografen.
Eine Gaswolke rast am schwarzen Loch der Milchstrasse vorüber und überrascht Astronomen.
Wer überlebt auf dem umkämpften Pressemarkt in London? An der britischen Medienfront wird diesen Sommer mit neuen Ideen experimentiert.
Bundesrat Philipp Etter, der Vater der Geistigen Landesverteidigung, war ein Mann mit gefährlichen Ideen. Ende dieses Jahres wird sein Nachlass öffentlich. Was wird er über den Minister und seine Zeit verraten?
Der Grund für das mysteriöse Delfinsterben im Atlantik ist nun bekannt. Doch gebe es laut US-Behörden keinen Schutz gegen das Morbillivirus.
Vertrauen ist durch Geld ersetzbar: In einem Experiment zeigten Forscher, dass sich in kleinen Gruppen viele Menschen freiwillig helfen. Als sie die Gruppengrösse steigerten, änderte sich dies jedoch drastisch.
Um den Hirschkäfer ranken sich zahlreiche Mythen. Und die alten Griechen benutzten ihn sogar zum Spielen. Jetzt zeigen Studien, dass der grösste Käfer Europas mit unserer Kultur gut zurechtkommt.
Die Aufständischen bauen einen Teil ihrer Waffen selbst. Diese sind erstaunlich primitiv – und dennoch tödlich.
Spektakuläre Bilder und 7000 beschädigte Gebäude: Vor einem halben Jahr stürzte ein Meteorit über Russland ab. Wissenschaftler untersuchen die Ursache dafür und präsentieren nun erste Ergebnisse.