Twitter To Censor Content in Select Countries
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 26, 2012 - 8:08 PM
On Thursday Twitter announced
plans to begin putting restrictions on Tweets in certain countries. Previously if the company removed a Tweet, it
had to be removed on a global basis unlike today where it can block a tweet in
one country and allow it to be seen elsewhere. The company mentioned “pro-Nazi content” in
Germany and France as an example of restrictions it may conform with. "As we continue to grow internationally,
we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom
of expression," Twitter wrote in a statement. "Starting today, we give ourselves the
ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while
keeping it available in the rest of the world," the company blogged.
|
Symantec: For now disable pcAnywhere
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 26, 2012 - 8:07 AM
Symantec says that the pcAnywhere product is
vulnerable to the Anonymous hackers group and is taking the unprecedented step
of recommending that product owners unplug or disable the software
while security bug fixes are developed. The pcAnywhere software is popular
with users that want remote access to their desktop computer while they are on
the road. "This is the first time
I have seen a company of Symantec's scale tell their customers to stop using a
shipping product, especially one that many users depend on for remote
access," stated HD Moore, chief technology officer of Rapid7. It seems that source code leaks are a major
source of concern.
First there was a pcAnywhere source code leak in 2006 and then last week
Symantec admitted that its network experienced a breach in 2006 and that a
segment of its source code had been accessed.
"It's certainly a new precedent for a security breach,"
commented Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security.
"Talk about dirty laundry getting aired."
|
Google Explores Ways to a Faster Internet
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 24, 2012 - 10:25 PM
Google’s
engineers and technicians believe that by transforming the Web TCP
(Transmission Control Protocol) transport layer as well trying new ways to
minimize latency there can be real gains in improving the speed of the
Internet. In fact Google has
established a “Make the Web Faster” team which following through on
recommendations to maximize TCP speed through various means including
optimizing the initial congestion window.
In a team blog, Yuchung Cheng called TCP "the workhorse of the
Internet," because it delivers Web
content and is designed to work of a wide range of network types. Currently Web browsers often open parallel
TCP connections prior to making their requests, which solves the TCP connection
limitation problem, but creates challenges because of high latency and its lack
of scalability. "Our research
shows that the key to reducing latency is saving round trips. We're
experimenting with several improvements to TCP", Cheng said.
|
2012 Brings 1st Super Bowl Command Center
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 24, 2012 - 5:25 AM
As this year’s host city to
the Super Bowl, Indianapolis has come up with a high tech solution to managing
the hectic high profile sporting event with the first-ever social media command
center. It will dedicate 2,800 square
feet of space downtown to an extensive team of analysts, strategists and tech
savvy assistants that monitor online conversations held on Facebook, Twitter
and other social media platforms. The
social media command center team is slated to open Monday January 30th
to tweet or post information related to parking, events and area attractions
and provide information should a disaster occur. The command center will operate 15 hours a
day through Super Bowl XLVI on February 5th and be manned by more
than 20 people who will use of 150 square feet of networked screen space to
keep a watchful eye. The Super Bowl’s host committee has selected the Raidious digital
marketing agency to manage communications at the command center.
|
SOASTA Offers Smart Mobile App Testing Via the Cloud
Author: Leanne Westphal
on January 23, 2012 - 7:40 AM
SOASTA, a six year old company
based in Mountain View, California, is announcing its plans this week to update
it CloudTest Platform to make it possible for developers to automated testing of
their iOS and Android apps. In an interview with Information Week, Tom Lounibos, SOASTA CEO indicated that the
human-technology interfaces has moved well beyond traditional keyboard
keystrokes, to inputs based on touch and gesture interactions. SOASTA’s TouchTest technology captures interactions
on both iOS and Android devices in record and playback mode to allow developers
and publishers to have automated feedback on mobile app performance. The CloudTest Platform is well suited to
testing mobile devices says Lounibos which require testing "new forms of
interaction and movement that have been impossible to test with traditional
tools."
|
Overtime Pay for Responding to Email after Hours?
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 19, 2012 - 9:46 PM
New legislation that
authorizes workers to request overtime for answering email outside of work
hours was signed into law last month by Dilma Rousseff, the President of
Brazil. The Star.com reports that the new legislation
categorizes emails to worker as being equal to giving orders to an employee,
and as a result employees should be allowed to ask for overtime pay. Meanwhile at Volkswagen, the company has
granted a union request to restrict email directed to employee smartphones outside
of work hours. In the case of Volkswagen, the catalyst for
change was union pressure, not government legislation.
|
Microsoft Gears Up For Cloud Management Launch
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 18, 2012 - 10:16 PM
Microsoft’s New System Center
suite is being positioned as an enterprise data center Windows Server central
management console, but also workload management of Windows Azure public cloud
and on-premise cloud resources. As a
result, System Center 2012, which is slated for the first half of 2012 will
take on competitive system management offerings from CA Technologies, BMC
software, HP and IBM. The primary
target for Microsoft however is clearly VMware, which extended its offerings in
the systems management segment with the introduction of its vCenter Operations
in March of 2011. VMware and Microsoft
both contend that virtual machine management is the most important single element
for workload cloud management and data center operations.
|
Jerry Yahoo, Co-Founder of Yahoo Steps Away
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 17, 2012 - 10:19 PM
Only two weeks after Yahoo
hired Scott Thompson as its new CEO, co-founder Jerry Yang has made the
decision to leave the company. Yahoo
hired Thomson as its fourth CEO in the last five years to improve the company’s
fortunes. “My time at Yahoo, from its
founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and
rewarding experiences of my life," Yang wrote to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. "However,
the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo." Yang began the company with David Filo while
they were both students at Stanford University. His current net worth is valued at about
$1.1 billion according to Forbes magazine.
|
Lotusphere: IBM Targets Social Analytics Applications
Author: John Duckgeischel
on January 17, 2012 - 7:22 AM
IBM is providing a glimpse of
its plans for the IBM Connections enterprise social networking platform at this
year’s Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Florida. A key focus of this year’s conference, called
Connect 2012, will feature many social business related success stories. The company’s announcements target a growing number of social
applications or social extensions to existing products IBM Connections version 4, or “Connections
Next”, allows applications to integrate with the social media stream as it
builds off of the Open Social 2.0 standard.
With Notes Social Edition, Notes can act as the social media client as
well as the email client, allowing organizations to utilize both Notes and
Connections. In addition Connections Next lets users view
their calendar and email without leaving the social environment and it allows
Notes to work in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange.
|
Apple Opens Supplier Factory Doors to Monitors
Author: Leanne Westphal
on January 15, 2012 - 10:00 PM
After admitting that there have been problems with treatment of workers by some of its suppliers, Apple Computer made the decision to open its supplier factory doors to independent monitors. One plant in China has been hit by reports of multiple suicides by workers. The pressure continued to grow, as many detailed questions about worker conditions at plants that build iPhones and iPads remained unanswered. On Friday, Apple decided to disclose its supplier lists and announced that it would allow monitoring of the plants by an independent labor rights organization.
|