Mit noch nie dagewesener Genauigkeit will die europäische Raumfahrtagentur ESA eine Milliarde Sterne der Milchstraße erfassen und eine Himmelskarte erstellen. Dafür soll am Donnerstag (10:12 Uhr) von der Weltraumstation Kourou in Französisch-Guayana das Astronomie-Teleskop „Gaia“ an Bord einer Arianespace-Sojus-Rakete ins All starten.
Facebook-Chef Mark Zuckerberg und Dutzende Banken müssen sich vor Gericht dem Vorwurf der Irreführung von Investoren beim Börsengang des Sozialen Netzwerks stellen. US-Bundesbezirksrichter Robert Sweet liess eine entsprechende Klage zum Milliarden-IPO zu, wie aus veröffentlichten Unterlagen hervorgeht.
Das millionenfache Datensammeln des US-Geheimdienstes NSA hat weltweit Empörung ausgelöst. Heute (nach US-Zeit) sollte eine von US-Präsident Barack Obama eingesetzte Expertengruppe ihren Bericht zum Überwachungsskandal veröffentlichen. Das gab Regierungssprecher Jay Carney bekannt. Eine genaue Zeit der Veröffentlichung nannte er nicht.
Ein Topmanager des deutschen ERP-Riesen SAP eilt dem angeschlagenen Smartphone-Pionier Blackberry zur Hilfe. John Sims, der bei SAP für mobile Services zuständig war, wird ab Jänner die wichtige Geschäftskunden-Sparte von Blackberry führen.
Die Versicherungsgruppe Visana deckt seit 2007 ihr gesamtes Angebotsspektrum It-mässig mit Adcubum Syrius ab. Wobei der Konzern die drei Krankenversicherungsmarken Visana, Sana24 und Vivacare sowie das Unfallversicherungsgeschäft bislang separat betrieben hat. Nun migrieren die Berner das gesamte Versicherungsgeschäft auf eine einheitliche Plattform.
Swisscom wird alleinige Eigentümerin von Swisscom IT Services Sourcing, der ehemaligen Sourcag. Denn die Basler und Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank verkaufen ihre Minderheitsanteile. Swisscom IT Services hatte bereits im Jahre 2009 60 Prozent der Aktien und damit die Mehrheit an Sourcag übernommen.
Der frühere US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiter Edward Snowden soll im Jänner gegenüber dem Untersuchungsausschuss des EU-Parlaments zur NSA-Affäre aussagen. Snowdens Auftreten werde per Videoschaltung im Jänner erwartet, teilte der österreichische Europaabgeordnete Josef Weidenholzer (SPÖ) heute mit.
In den deutschen Logistikzentren des Online-Versandhändlers Amazon lassen Beschäftigte auch am Mittwoch ihre Arbeit ruhen. Die Aktion sei "normal gut angelaufen", sagte Verdi-Sprecherin Mechthild Middeke. In Leipzig sollen rund 500 Mitarbeiter streiken.
Vor einer Woche präsentierte Instagram bei einem Event in New York ein neues Feature. Die beliebte Foto-App hat auf das Begehren zahlreicher User gehört und eine Funktion für Privatnachrichten umgesetzt. Fotos können so mit bestimmten Leuten geteilt werden und bleiben vor der gesamten Öffentlichkeit verborgen.
Mit Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management zieht die auf Bankenlösungen spezialisierte Schweizer Avaloq Gruppe in Grossbritannien erstmals einen Kunden an Land, der reines Wealth Management betreibt und damit ausserhalb des Bankensektors angesiedelt ist.
The team will work to include Intel-based gear at Levi's Stadium, and Intel will show off products there.
For months, Google has steadfastly maintained that it will not allow facial-recognition apps onto Google Glass. No problem. A third-party developer, Stephen Balaban, will merely offer his own FaceRec app for sideloading onto Glass devices. Nevertheless, there are several limitations to that approach: first, the Glass itself must be “rooted,” which will slice the limited number of Glass devices down into an even smaller number. And even if this is done, the user will be forced to create his own image database, or write a custom script to tap into Facebook’s image library—which violates Facebook’s terms of service. Balaban has also developed a so-called “Lambda Hat” to overcome another technical limitation with Glass and facial recognition. While operating, Glass only has the battery power to run FaceRec for a couple of hours. The “hat” is a standalone device with a longer battery life. Nevertheless, Balaban and his startup, Lambda Labs, in Berlin, which begins on December 27. (The conference, dedicated to hacking, has included lockpicking competitions, and this year will dedicate a track to “food hacking.”)
As the year ends, our podcast panel looks forward to the tech of 2014 and imagines our 2003 selves reacting to 2013 tech. Plus Apple's new Mac Pro, Facebook's video ads, and where we'll be celebrating New Year's Eve.
Microsoft finally pushed its Xbox Video and a preview of Xbox Music to Windows Phone 8 on Wednesday, finally tying together its phone, PC, and living-room entertainment services. Microsoft launched Xbox Music as a replacement for its Zune music service . Xbox Video for Windows Phone 8. Fortunately, both apps appear to be relatively full-featured, and integrated into the other platforms. With Xbox Video, for example, users can buy or rent movies and TV shows on any of the supported platforms, pause the playback, and pick up on another platform, including Windows Phone. Rotten Tomatoes ratings and Metacritic reviews are highlighted, making the decision easier. As with other services, you can buy a season pass, and new episodes are automatically pushed to your subscription. Movie prices are relatively comparable with other services; at press time, Microsoft offered a daily deal to purchase in HD for $5.99. (Xbox Video on the One can be controlled via the SmartGlass app for Windows phones and tablets.)
This year's offering will turn your (non Windows Phone) smartphone into a seasonal karaoke machine!
The company is looking for beta testers in the US
Glass gets a slew of new goodies in the latest update.
I have seen the future of typesetting. It happens in your browser, it doesn’t need Flash, and it looks and feels just as nice as Adobe InDesign. It’s also free, at least for now. isn’t even out of Beta yet, but it is already one of the slickest and most surprising Web apps I’ve seen in recent memory. Surprising, as in the multiple times I found myself thinking, “I didn’t know you can do that in a browser” while working on my mock document. Just like InDesign, Lucidpress presents you with a document containing multiple pages onto which you can lay out your content. You can drag and drop textboxes and images around, recrop images, pick from hundreds of included fonts or upload your own, and more. But Lucidpress goes further, and lets you create documents that are meant to be viewed online, or using a tablet. If you wish, you can include YouTube videos and scrolling areas in your document—ending up with an interesting hybrid that looks as polished as a traditional brochure while seamlessly melding interactivity. It feels sort of like a Harry Potter newspaper. Reading about it, it’s all too easy to mistake Lucidpress for another website-making tool. That is not the case: You don’t make a website, but a PDF, with all the trimmings of professionally produced documents. You get layers, advanced text controls, textbox reflowing, page templates, and just about anything else you would expect from a full-fledged desktop publishing application used for creating magazines, brochures, and other commercial items. This sort of thinking, which lets you enjoy the benefits of traditional desktop publishing while extending it with modern features, is used across Lucidpress. For example, you can easily import images from Dropbox using the service’s sophisticated Chooser interface. I didn’t even have to sign into Dropbox or grant Lucidpress access to my account—Dropbox’s Chooser did all of the work, letting me browse my Dropbox, preview images, and pick the one I wanted.
Looks like all those letters I’ve written to Santa over the years finally got his attention, because with the been a very good boy). Santa threw in a couple of big surprises, as well—it’s a terrific holiday for FileMaker users in particular, and more generally for Mac OS X or iOS users with database needs. For years, at the top of my own FileMaker wish list has been the ability to use custom to control the look of my databases. With FileMaker Pro 13, my wish has been granted. Like character and paragraph styles in your favorite word processor, object-formatting styles in FileMaker Pro 13 and FileMaker Pro 13 Advanced are double-barreled time-savers. Once styles are defined, it’s far quicker to format objects by applying a style than by applying ad hoc formats for font, font size, field color, field alignment, padding, etc. And once objects are formatted using styles, it’s breathtakingly easy to reformat an entire database simply by redefining a couple of styles. Say my default buttons throughout a database with 187 layouts use Arial 10 labels with a gray background and black borders, and now I want to change that to Helvetica Neue 11 with a light blue background and no borders. In the past, I’d have to reformat every single button on every single layout—work that often took hours. With FileMaker 13, I can just redefine the button style and be done in about 30 seconds. For the first time in my life, I know what Renee Zellweger was thinking when she told Tom Cruise to stop talking in that —“You had me at ‘custom styles.’” Hang on while I get a tissue. The inspector panel used to manage styles in FileMaker Pro 13. Here I'm about to save a change to the 'gray buttons' style, based on the look of the selected, light-gray Send Email button. When the change is saved, the dark-gray button labeled More Actions will magically switch to light gray, because it has also been formatted using this style.
It’s out! SteamOS—Valve’s living room-oriented operating system created primarily to run games—is finally here, in our office, running on a real machine. But notice how I didn’t say that it’s running on every machine in the office. Notice how I also didn’t say that it’s running on my home machine. We weren’t kidding when we wrote that you might want to . It all begins with the installation process. As Valve’s stated, “Unless you’re an intrepid Linux hacker already, we’re going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out.” Installation, while possible, definitely isn’t polished enough for the general public.
2013 hasn't been especially kind to Facebook. The of privacy advocates as information surfaced about Silicon Valley's relationship with the NSA. But perhaps most damning of all, research suggested that Facebook might not be the super-fun, up-with-people service that Zuck and company envisioned. In January, a study published by Berlin's Humboldt University reported that . Have you had similar reactions? Compare your own Facebook experience to the sample index below, and ask yourself if Facebook is, on balance, a good thing or a bad habit.