From The Editor
By Jeff Caruso, Site Editor
- Fingerprints? How about the veins in your hand?
- Ellen Messmer was at the Biometrics Consortium Conference in Tampa last week and brought back some interesting images of the latest biometric security devices at the show.
Plus, she delved into...
- Microsoft fighting uphill quite a bit lately
- Microsoft plans to release high-performance computing server software in November - in a market where the company has less than 5% market share. John Fontana has details.
Speaking of uphill...
- Enterasys CEO dies suddenly; interim CEO named
- Network World's Jim Duffy reports that Enterasys President and CEO Mike Fabiaschi passed away suddenly this week at his home in Rye, N.H., at the age of 53.
Enterasys Chairman Mark Stone has been...
Read more posts
Identity Engines shuts down; Enterprises overpay for antivirus, analyst says Listen now!
- AMD says Shanghai won't be another Barcelona
- Advanced Micro Devices said its Shanghai processor is on track to ship in servers by the end of the year and sought to reassure customers that the problems that delayed its previous server chip, Barcelona, are a thing of the past.
- YouTube improves video usage analytics
- Delivering on a pledge made earlier this year, Google has again improved usage metrics for YouTube videos, making it possible for account holders to measure the popularity of different parts of a clip.
- Konica Minolta shows prototype communicator headset
- Walk along the halls of the Ceatec electronics show here in Japan and you're likely to see all manner of gadgets and gizmos, but few sights might startle you more than Ichiro Kasai.
- Seagate drive taps eSATA for 'XTreme' speed
- USB 2.0 is the most popular connection technology for external devices, with FireWire (either 400 or 800) a close second. However, if you really want extreme speed, eSATA is the way to go, as Seagate Technologies' new FreeAgent XTreme drive proves.
- MPAA, RealNetworks sue each other over DVD copier
- RealNetworks and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have filed dueling lawsuits against each other over a product that allows people to copy DVDs.
- South Korea funds technology center in South Africa
- The government of South Korea has committed 8 million South African rand (US$980,000) to establish an Information Communications Technologies Co-operation Center (ITCC) in South Africa.
- 3Com names former Cisco manager to products group
- 3Com this week named a former Cisco manager as its new senior vice president of worldwide products and solutions.
- Kenya raises PC import tax hurdles for NGOs
- The Kenyan government has made it practically impossible for nongovernment organizations (NGOs) working with the poor to seek exemption from the 25 percent duty for importing used computers.
- Gas shortage spurs telework in southeast U.S.
- Gas shortages in the southeast United States are prompting companies to consider expanding their telework programs so employees can conserve fuel. Other options workers are weighing include greater use of carpools and public transit, along with alternative scheduling arrangements such as four-day work weeks.
- Sprint's WiMax shines on price, not on coverage
- Prices and terms for the WiMax service that Sprint Nextel launched on Monday stand up against other wired and wireless broadband options, but a key measure -- coverage -- remains a question mark.
- Still clueless: Defining corporate marketing
- Is corporate marketing more art or science?
...
- Investing to grow: Railroads move forward with IT
- Railroads are romantic. My own brother took a perfectly good education from Northwestern University and parlayed it into a job as a brakeman on the Chicago North Western Railway (too much Kerouac during his formative years). Of course, the move has long since paid off; after going back to school for a master's in business administration, he went on to become an executive there and at other railroad companies.
- iPhone owner survey shows high satisfaction
- We know a lot about the iPhone, but here's one thing we don't know: how do you feel about your iPhone? It's a hard thing to measure, to be sure, but our good friend Harry McCracken--former Editor in Chief of our sister publication PCWorld--has taken a shot at it on his new blog, Technologizer.
- Sprint's WiMax policy says it can enforce bandwidth limits
- Sprint has promised an "open Internet business model" without restrictions on services and customer choice on its new WiMax service, but its acceptable use policy says the company may limit bandwidth for some applications and protocols, including file sharing.
- How to minimize the impact of a data breach
- Thirty-one percent of customers--nearly one-third of a company's client base and revenue source--are terminating their relationship with organizations following a data breach, according to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute.
- For Microsoft shops, Silverlight 2.0 trumps Flash
- With the imminent release of Silverlight 2.0, developers and Web designers, particularly those already working in Microsoft IT environments, will have the first viable alternative technology to Adobe Flash for building rich Internet applications, analysts and developers said.
- Nokia buys mobile messaging company
- Nokia on Tuesday said it plans to acquire Canadian mobile messaging company Oz Communications in a deal that is in line with the number-one phone maker's recent announcement it will renew focus on consumer Internet services.
- 23 things I wish would just go away
- It's list season here at PC World, so I may as well join in--with something that resembles the "little list" made famous by Ko-Ko, Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan's classic The Mikado. He sings of "offenders who might well be underground, and who never would be missed." Me, too.
- SOA implementation pays off for Synovus Financial
- What does it take to achieve a successful, award-winning SOA implementation? Try asking Synovus Financial Corp., a provider of investment services, commercial and retail banking to 35 banks in the southeastern U.S. In late September, Synovus won a service-oriented architecture (SOA) case study competition sponsored by the SOA Consortium and CIO magazine. The competition highlighted business success stories and lessons learned for organizations pursuing SOA adoption.
- RFID ROI: Think servers and laptops
- For too many years, the value of RFID technology has been intimately (and unjustly) linked to the relative success of Wal-Mart's ambitious plans to transform its supply chain by using radio frequency identification tags laced with electronic product code (EPC) data.
- Aruba extends radio management to wireless LAN clients
- Aruba Networks has unveiled a new release of software that’s designed to improve wireless LAN throughput and reliability.
- FreeAgent Desk for Mac
- Seagate's FreeAgent Desk for Mac 1TB FireWire 800 external hard drive is designed to be a stylish storage solution for your desktop. Time Machine-ready and formatted for the Mac right out of the box, it's ideal for backing up files, storing photos, or providing more storage space when your internal drive fills up.
- V550 Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks
- I desperately wanted to hate Logitech's V550 Nano Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks, but I instead found it to be the best notebook mouse I've ever used.
- Instapaper for iPhone
- Instapaper is a fabulous application for the iPhone or iPod touch--truly first rate. As one who reads a lot online and off, I've quickly come to appreciate Instapaper as one of my favorite apps. It's so easy to use, in fact, it's tough to resist saving articles for later as just for excuse to whip out the phone and read something. Drives my wife and kids crazy.
- The etiquette of social networking
- Social networks like Facebook and MySpace have turned many social norms inside out. Your online friends may not be friends offline--and you may not be exactly whom you claim to be, either. How to approach strangers online, handle unwelcome solicitations, or make real friends out of virtual ones is stuff your parents probably never taught you. Here's how etiquette experts would politely navigate the worlds of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
- IronKey adds remote wipe feature for USB drives
- A new service called Silver Bullet from encrypted thumb-drive vendor IronKey will let administrators wipe out or lock the data on USB sticks in the field.
- African regulators to impose fines for poor mobile service
- African communications regulators are moving to combat poor services by mobile service providers by imposing heavy fines.
- Top 10 ways collaboration, mobility amplify data leakage dangers: Cisco study
- Numerous behavioral risks taken by employees in increasingly distributed and remote locations can lead to the loss of corporate information, according to a study commissioned by Cisco.
...
- Sun goes commercial with OpenSSO
- Sun Tuesday released a commercial version of OpenSSO offering full support and indemnity as it works towards its promise to open source all its software.
- Sophos concludes $314 million Utimaco buy
- Antivirus vendor Sophos has concluded its acquisition of Utimaco Software, a seller of data encryption software.
- Road test: Does WiMAX work in the real world?
- Just a couple short years ago, many people were abuzz over metro Wi-Fi experiments in Philadelphia, Houston, and San Francisco, only to see those efforts largely collapse as slow speeds, expensive deployments, and economic tussles between carriers and municipalities resulted in low adoption. But waiting in the wings for several years has been the promise of WiMAX technology to deliver broadband connectivity wirelessly across entire cities with less equipment to deploy than metro Wi-Fi. After nearly two years of uncertainty, Sprint and its partner Clearwire are now starting to set up WiMAX networks in several cities.
- Prominent Web sites found to have serious coding flaw
- Two Princeton University academics have found a type of coding flaw on several prominent Web sites that could jeopardize personal data and in one alarming case, drain a bank account.
- Nokia drops enterprise e-mail platform to focus on consumers
- Nokia will stop developing its enterprise mobile e-mail platform Intellisync: its future enterprise e-mail systems will be based on platforms from Cisco, Microsoft and IBM, among others.
...
- Clickjacking vulnerability to be revealed next month
- After shelving plans to detail a browser clickjacking vulnerability that is indirectly related to Adobe Systems' products at the company's request earlier this month, a security researcher plans to detail the flaw next month.
- New trans-Pacific submarine cable completed
- A six-company consortium has completed the first phase of a new submarine cable that will connect the United States with China and Taiwan, allowing for faster telecommunications speeds between the U.S. and Asia, the companies announced Tuesday.
- Toshiba puts DMFC in a cell phone
- Toshiba has put a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) inside a cell phone, but commercial availability of the technology isn't expected soon.
- Panasonic working on multi-touch remote for IPTV
- Panasonic showed off a prototype remote control on Tuesday that's designed for future IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) services and uses twin trackpads instead of a keypad for user input.
- Look Ma, no keys!
- Cell phones and cars are unusual driving partners but a new phone from Sharp may actually become a driver's best friend.
- Toshiba shows prototype fast-charging laptop battery
- Toshiba showed off a prototype of its fast-charging SCiB battery designed for laptops on Tuesday, but said the technology is still a ways off from making its way into computers.
- Murata demonstrates unicycling robot
- Murata Manufacturing might not be a household name, but the Kyoto-based company is high-up on the list of most visitors coming to the Ceatec electronics show that opened here on Tuesday.
