Ford-Chef Alan Mulally wird offenbar als Kandidat für die Nachfolge des scheidenden Microsoft-Chefs Steve Ballmer gehandelt. Mindestens drei der 20 grössten Investoren bei dem US-Softwareriesen drängen darauf, den Chefposten mit einem ausgewiesenen Konzernumbau-Experten zu besetzen, wie die Nachrichtenagentur Reuters von mit der Angelegenheit vertrauten Personen erfuhr.
Apple hat erstmals ein günstiges iPhone-Modell vorgestellt. Das Gerät heisst wie erwartet iPhone 5C und hat ein Gehäuse aus Plastik in bunten Farben. Es soll mit einem Mobilfunkvertrag ab 100 US-Dollar zu haben sein.
Telekomanbieterin Swisscom ergänzt ihr ICT-Portfolio mit einem PC-Monitoring-Service für KMU. Smart Monitoring überwacht laut Communiqué die PC-Infrastruktur von Unternehmen eigenständig und reduziere damit die Anzahl Störungen um über einen Drittel.
Mit dem Zusammenschluss von Asseco Germany, Asseco Austria sowie den bereits 2009 fusionierten Asseco-ERP-Unternehmen in Tschechien und der Slowakei zur Asseco Solutions ist mit der nunmehrigen Asseco-Gruppe ein ERP-Konzern entstanden, der in der Spitze europäischer Anbieter von Unternehmenssoftware für den Mittelstand mitmischen will. Um auch den Schweizer Markt entsprechend bedienen zu können, entschieden sich die Verantwortlichen, nun auch hier eine Landesgesellschaft unter dem Dach der Asseco Solutions aus der Taufe zu heben.
Mit der Ineltec 2013 ist heute auf dem Basler Messegelände die grösste und bedeutendste Technologiemesse für Gebäude und Infrastruktur der Schweiz gestartet. 93 Prozent der Besucher stammen aus der Schweiz, doch auch Fachleute aus dem nahen Ausland wissen die Messe zu schätzen.
Livefyre hat den Online-Dienst Storify, bei dem Nutzer Twitter-Nachrichten und andere Inhalte aus dem Web zu einem Erzählfluss verknüpfen können, übernommen. Livefyre ist darauf spezialisiert, Websites mit Social-Media-Anbietern zu verknüpfen und ihnen eine Kommentar-Plattformen zur Verfügung zu stellen. Ein Übernahmepreis wurde nicht genannt.
Mit einem Bausatz Lego und einem Mac kann man den Kopierschutz des Kindle-Systems von Amazon aushebeln. Peter Purgathofer, Professor an der Technischen Universität Wien, hat dies nun mit einem Mindstorm-Roboter-Bausatz bewiesen und gezeigt, dass sich damit ein Kopierer für Kindle-E-Books bauen lässt.
Einige der weltgrössten Internetkonzerne haben ihre Anstrengungen verstärkt, um mehr über die erzwungene Kooperation mit den US-Geheimdiensten veröffentlichen zu können. Google, Facebook und weitere Firmen hätten sich am Montag mit einem vom US-Präsidialamt eingerichteten Ausschuss getroffen, der der Überprüfung der von Ex-US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiter Edward Snowden bekannt gemachten Bespitzelungen dient.
EU-Telekom-Kommissarin Neelie Kroes muss möglicherweise ihre Pläne für den Breitband-Ausbau überarbeiten. Es gebe entschiedenen Widerstand gegen Teile ihres bestehenden 10-Punkte-Plans, sagte ein mit der Angelegenheit vertrautes hochrangiges Mitglied der EU-Kommission.
Die Microblogging-Plattform Twitter verstärkt sich durch eine Übernahme und kauft das Start-up-Unternehmen Mobpub, um sich im Bereich Mobile-Werbung zu verstärken. Nach einem Bericht von Techcrunch zufolge soll Twitter für die Übernahme 350 Mio. US-Dollar in Aktien gezahlt und damit andere Mitbieter wie Millennial Media aus dem Rennen geschlagen haben.
If you drop your iPhone or iPad, it'll now cost you more to invoke your AppleCare+ coverage. But on the plus side, iPod touch and classic owners can now get in on the AppleCare+ fun.
Former Microsoft exec Jeff Raikes said Tuesday that he would step down as the chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, theoretically freeing himself up as Microsoft searches for a new CEO. However, in a posted to the Gates Foundation site, Raikes appears to be interested in retirement, rather than returning to the spotlight. "When Bill and Melinda approached me about this job in May 2008, we discussed a five-year commitment," Raikes wrote. "I am proud of the work we’ve all done together in the past five years. We are having an impact on people’s lives every single day, and we are set up to keep on having an even bigger impact in the years to come. "Now, I’m looking forward to doing some things I haven’t had time for, including my work at the Raikes Foundation, which is tackling youth and education issues," Raikes added.
The rumor mill got most of Tuesday's announcements right: Two new iPhones and a ship-date for iOS 7.
Intel provided a glimpse into the PC future by showing off a laptop based on the Broadwell architecture that is faster and more battery-friendly than current ones based on Haswell processors. During a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich showed the thin-and-light laptop running a gaming application, and it looked much like the ultrabooks currently available from top PC makers. Krzanich hinted that the Broadwell PCs could arrive in the second half of next year, but didn't provide an exact date. Core chips based on Broadwell will be 30 percent more power efficient and faster than their Haswell counterparts, Krzanich said. Analysts have estimated CPU performance improvements in Haswell at 10 percent to 20 percent compared to previous Ivy Bridge chips.
Upgrading your phone? Get ready for some extra walking around money, courtesy of a huge new trade-in program being launched by America’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart is launching a trade-in program that will give consumers , including a tidy $175 for a Samsung Galaxy SIII, provided it’s in working, non-damaged condition. The programs make sense. Merchants have only limited power over the prices they can set for new handsets: Since they are already so heavily subsidized by the service providers, there’s often not much room available for additional discounting. Could trade-in prices soon become a new tool in the ongoing smartphone price war? Given that the hardware is essentially the same from one shop to the next, it’s becoming increasingly imperative for merchants to come up with unique incentives to drive not just you buy it. In line with other companies that have trade-in operations, Wal-Mart’s trade-in prices can be immediately applied to the purchase of any new phone with a two-year contract. As well, Wal-Mart and its recycling/upcycling partner, , have stated that their policy is that phones which are traded in will never be sent to landfills either domestically or abroad.
Where would small businesses be without hosted services? They let you do everything from store files to hold meetings, without adding costly infrastructure. In most cases you can take advantage of these services without spending a cent thanks to generous free entry-level plans. But while these unpaid options are understandably attractive, there are times it makes sense to pony up for a more premium offering. We took a look at several hosted services small businesses commonly use to determine which are worth paying for and when. If there’s one thing you must drop some cash on, it’s a custom domain name for your website, complete with an attached email address. This doesn’t have to cost a lot—a domain name from GoDaddy can be purchased for around $10 per year, which is hardly a budget-breaking expense. . “It’s one thing that says, ‘I’m established, I’m trustworthy, and you can do business with me without worrying that I’ll disappear tomorrow.’” In other words, having a custom domain name will make you look like a legitimate company—even if you just created the company two days ago. Needless to say, the more established your company is, the more crucial it is to have a custom domain name and corresponding email address for each of your employees.
Apple on Tuesday unveiled two new iPhones: the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5C. "iPhone 5 was instantly the most-loved iPhone ever, and it had the most successful first year of any iPhone we've ever done," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. "The business has become so large that this year we're going to replace the iPhone 5...and we're gonna replace it with not one, but two new designs." These include the powerful iPhone 5s and the colorful iPhone 5c. "The most forward-thinking phone we've ever created," Schiller said of the new iPhone 5s (shown at top). The iPhone 5s comes in three metal finishes: silver, gold, and something called "space gray." It's made of high-grade aluminum, with chamfered edges. Schiller said that the iPhone 5s offers great, unparalleled performance, calling it a "huge leap forward." The phone uses the 64-bit A7 system-on-a-chip processor from Apple, and it's the first and only smartphone to use a 64-bit processor.
Yes, Intel has plans for wearable computing. Intel used its Intel Developer Forum here on Tuesday to launch the Quark family of devices, a synthesizable family of embedded devices designed for embedded applications like industrial designs and wearable computing, which Intel executives said will be built by third-party partners, not Intel itself. Intel also began setting the stage for "Bay Trail," a new generation of Atom processors that will appear in a variety of products, like phones, tablets and convertible tablets. Intel also showed off a PC running Broadwell, Intel's next-generation processor technology; launched a new Xeon chip; and showed off a low-power fourth-generation Core processor, known as Haswell, that doesn't require a fan. Finally, Intel also showed off phones with its next-generation 22-nm mobile silicon, plus LTE communications technology. this past June. Renee James, who was a frequent speaker as Intel's software chief, was named president at the same time.
Swype revolutionized the keyboard experience on Android phones, and now its creator is hoping lightning will strike twice with his new Dryft virtual tablet keyboard
Android malware is following in the footsteps of Windows malware with attackers adopting some of the same distribution and monetization techniques despite the major differences between the platforms. The latest development is a mass email spam campaign being used to distribute Android scareware—applications that use scare tactics to trick users into paying for worthless services. Researchers from security vendor FireEye identified one such campaign that was launched on Sept. 6 and is still ongoing. The rogue emails use themes like failed package delivery notifications from USPS or electronic wedding invitations that have long been used in phishing emails to spread Windows malware. The emails contain links that lead to websites serving an Android package (APK) file called LabelReader.apk. This APK installs a known Android scareware application called FakeDefender that masquerades as a commercial Android security product.
Google will team with the online-learning consortium backed by Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and others to build out a new site that can be used to host courses online. , which will be open to use by academic institutions, businesses, and individuals to create and host massive online open courses online, the company and consortium said on Tuesday. Consortium members also include UC Berkeley, University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, and Tsinghua University. The collaboration will extend to research into how students learn and how technology can transform learning and teaching on campus and beyond, according to a joint press release. . A year ago, Google released Course Builder, its own experimental open source platform for online education which has been used to create courses on everything from game theory to philanthropy, Clancy wrote. “We are taking our learnings from Course Builder and applying them to Open edX to further innovate on an open source MOOC platform,” he added.
A new draft law on net neutrality and mobile roaming in Europe has caused conflict between European Union commissioners. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes was due to announce the so-called Telecoms Package on Wednesday, but other commissioners debating the proposed new rules on Tuesday raised concerns, particularly with regard to net neutrality. A leaked document from the justice department shows that Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is highly critical of the proposal. Commission Spokesman Olivier Bailly said at a Tuesday press briefing that the law would not be presented until Thursday, prompting speculation that the commissioners were struggling to agree on a final text. Later, Commission sources said that an accord had been reached and that the text would be formally adopted on Wednesday after all.
Nearly two years after the purchase of Gluster, Red Hat continues to polish the scale-out storage software for enterprises, making it more compatible with cloud services and Microsoft enterprise software. The latest version of the software, now called Red Hat Storage Server, works easily with Microsoft Active Directory and the open source OpenStack cloud software stack, particularly with Red Hat’s own OpenStack distribution. Replication has also been improved and Red Hat Storage Server 2.1, like most other Red Hat products, can now be automatically updated through the Red Hat Network Satellite. its VSAN (virtual storage area networking) technology, also designed to manage commodity servers as a storage network. “For the customers to gain true benefit from the convergence of compute and storage, you need compute and storage to peacefully coexist,” said Ranga Rangachari, Red Hat vice president and general manager of Red Hat’s storage business unit.
In its bid to boost its acceptance in physical retail stores, PayPal has introduced technology that will enable people running its app on smartphones to automatically check in at stores and restaurants. Paying only requires a verbal confirmation, the payment processor said in a describing its hands-free Beacon technology that uses the Bluetooth Low Energy standard for wireless communications between the store’s point-of-sale system and the customer’s smartphone to identify and authenticate users. Beacon also does away with the requirement to swipe credit cards when making payments. PayPal said its team started working “on designing an integrated solution that would enable a transaction to take place without having to open up an app, without GPS being turned on, and even without a phone signal for those places with thick concrete walls.” Consumers will be able to choose those stores they will want to get prompted to confirm payment for, and stores where their walking into the store will trigger a vibration or sound to confirm a successful check in. “If you enter a store and decline to check in, or just ignore the prompt entirely, no information is transmitted to PayPal or the merchant,” PayPal said.
Today may be all about Apple in the grand scheme of things, but while the world waits to hear all the details about the latest and (presumably) greatest iPhone, Intel has tossed hardcore PC enthusiasts a significant turbo-charged bone: new Ivy Bridge-E Extreme Edition processors, a.k.a. the most blistering CPUs enthusiasts can readily buy. , while the hexacore Core i7-4930K and Core i7-4960X go for $580 and $1050, respectively. And those prices don't even include the stock air coolers that ship standard with mainstream processors—if you're spending this much cash on a CPU, Intel figures you're going to want to BYO cooling solution. In other words, Intel's Extreme Edition processors alone cost more than many people spend on their entire PC, but that's the price you pay for cutting-edge computing capabilities.
The sadder phone will be a Best Buy exclusive through the end of the year.
Smartphones are taking over, but feature phones still matter to Google, which has updated Gmail for the cheap devices with an improved user interface.
Rooting your phone just got a bit more appealing for the security conscious.
Nonprofit organizations will be able to sign up for Office 365 for free or at a reduced price as part of a new program Microsoft launched on Tuesday. . Microsoft expects to offer the program in 90 countries by July. “Nonprofits are seeing more and more the advantages of cloud computing, but they often can’t access it because of costs and other reasons,” said Lori Harnick, general manager of Microsoft’s Citizenship & Public Affairs group. While Microsoft has had a software donation program for years, this is the first time it will offer Office 365 in this manner, she said.
($80) being their latest (admittedly excellent) entry in the input arms race. skunkworks project dreamt up by a jaded TIE fighter pilot, forever lost after one last fateful trip to that nondescript, not-a-moon space station. Yes, it costs $150. But If you want a gaming mouse and can spare the cash, you should probably buy this one. Let’s get into why. We’ll start with the important bits: it’s incredibly comfortable, eventually. You’ll need a screwdriver to loosen screws underneath the mouse and remove the rear panel, which gives you access to the AA battery compartment and lets you adjust the mouse’s length. It’s feels a bit small, but once stretched out it fits perfectly into my fairly large hands. A wheel on the rear end also lets you adjust the angle of the palm rest so your hand sits just right. The mouse is incredibly sturdy, and the soft matte panels hold up rather well after extended use. There are also a pair of interchangeable magnetic panels for the mouse’s sides, offering up flat, textured plates or smooth, contoured winglets—the latter clearly being the only correct choice.
The feud between Cisco Systems and maintenance service provider Multiven has come to Europe with the filing of a new antitrust compliant over how Cisco provides software updates. Multiven offers cloud-based services with which organizations can manage, monitor and maintain their IT network assets. Because of Cisco’s dominance in the networking sector any management vendor’s tools and services need to be compatible with its equipment. The antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission on Aug. 20 is just the latest encounter in the feud between Multiven CEO and founder Peter Alfred-Adekeye and his former employer Cisco. Multiven filed an antitrust suit with the Swiss Competition Commission in February last year, while the companies settled a case in the U.S. back in 2010. on hacking charges, which Cisco vehemently denied. Multiven earlier this year also accused Cisco of stealing thousands of proprietary and copyright data files from its knowledge base.