Facebook, Post-IPO: With Money in the Bank, Focus Now is on Mobile

Sun, 20 May 2012 14:35:24 -0400

NEWS ANALYSIS: May 18, 2012 was an historic day in the life of 8-year-old Facebook, and the bank accounts are now loaded. But now the pressure's on to keep everyone liking it and to make it mobile-friendly. - At about 8 a.m. on May 18, 2012, several hundred employees at Facebook's new Menlo Park, Calif., campus, the one that housed much of Sun Microsystems for more than a decade, gathered in the complex's central courtyard and watched on a big-screen TV the opening of the first day of trading of quot;FB...

Microsoft Wins Patent Suit Against Motorola Android Handsets

Sun, 20 May 2012 12:00:13 -0400

The ITC rules Motorola Mobility smartphones running Google's Android OS violate a Microsoft ActiveSync patent. - Technology giant Microsoft claimed victory this weekend as the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued its final determination in Microsofts Android infringement case against Motorola, ruling Motorola violated a Microsoft patent related to ActiveSync, a mobile data synchronization technology and...

Verizon Data Share Plans to Usher in New Metrics to Measure Profits

Sun, 20 May 2012 11:59:29 -0400

NEWS ANALYSIS: Verizons data share plans will arrive this summer and encourage a new revenue metric for the industry, said CFO Fran Shammo, measuring revenue by multi-device accounts, not users. Shammo added: Verizons LTE is ready for an “iconic device.” - Verizon Wireless upcoming “data share” plans are indicative of the broad changes taking place in the mobile market and in how Americans interact with devices. These changes, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said during a hosted conversation with JP Morgan Chase analyst Phil Cusick, at a JP Morgan conference ...

Verizon-Cable Spectrum Proposal Draws Strong Resistance in Washington

Sun, 20 May 2012 11:58:44 -0400

The backlash was swift once the word got out that Verizon and its cable company partners were creating an entity that looks suspiciously like a market cartel to control competition and pricing on the Internet as well as to create technology to control access to some services. - A number of additional companies and consumer interest groups rose in opposition to the revelation that Verizon and several of the largest cable companies in the U.S., including Comcast, Cox and Time Warner, were working together to create a what looks like a non-competitive Internet market cartel,....

iPhone 5 Redesign With Enlarged Display Tailored by Jobs

Sun, 20 May 2012 11:58:32 -0400

A Bloomberg report states that Steve Jobs had a major hand in designing the iPhone 5, which will sport a larger 4-inch display. - As the week draws to a close, a new slew of rumors and reports concerning the latest iteration of Apples best-selling iPhone have hit the Web, including the news that Apple has won control of the domain name iPhone5.com, following a complaint the company filed with the World Intellectual Property Or...

Microsoft Warns Users to Upgrade to Windows Phone 7.5

Sat, 19 May 2012 11:07:45 -0400

Microsoft wants users to update to Windows Phone 7.5 so they can continue to download apps from the Marketplace portal. - Never let it be said that Microsoft fails to tell you when you need to upgrade. A blog post from Microsofts director of program management Mazhar Mohammed is aimed at getting Windows mobile users to upgrade to the latest version, Windows Phone 7.5, in order to be able to buy, download or update apps...

Apple's iCloud Data Center to Use Only Green Power

Sat, 19 May 2012 11:07:34 -0400

The company said its North Carolina facility will be powered by a combination of solar power, green fuel cells and other sources of renewable energy. - Apple, a recent target of Greenpeace for its reliance on coal energy to power its data centers, is making a push to bring renewable and environmentally friendly resources to its facilities. Apple officials said on the companys Website that by the end of the year, its 500,000-square-foot data center...

HTC Evo 4G LTE Smartphone Delayed in Customs, Sprint Apologizes

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:29:54 -0400

The ongoing legal wars between Apple and HTC has the phonemaker's new Evo 4G LTE smartphone, which was headed for Sprint, stuck in customs. Not great news for HTC or Sprint. - Neither HTC nor Sprint can afford to turn away paying customers, but thats just the boat each has found itself in. For the time being, HTC Evo 4G LTE handsets are bobbing somewhere offshore while U.S. customs officials await word that the HTC smartphones dont infringe on Apple patents and are free t...

IBM SmartCloud Helps Empower Medical Workers in Haiti

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:44:06 -0400

IBM announced a collaboration with Colleagues In Care to empower medical workers in Haiti through use of the IBM SmartCloud cloud computing platform. - IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that its cloud technology is being used as part of an effort to improve healthcare delivery in Haiti through a collaboration with ‘Colleagues In Care Global Health Network. The organization is using IBM cloud-based social analytics and collaboration services to provide the...

ATandT, Like Verizon, Pushing Shared Data Plans, Lower Device Subsidies

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:59:23 -0400

AT&T plans to swallow fewer device costs for subscribers, CEO Ralph de la Vega said during an investors call, in an effort to raise revenue. Like Verizons CFO the day before, he also spoke of devices sharing data plans. - AT amp;T plans to increase revenue by reducing mobile phone subsidies and encouraging consumers to share data allowances between multiple devices, according to a May 17 Reuters report on an AT amp;T investors meeting that day. The news follows Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammos statement, at a JP Mo...

Carriers Roll Out Mobile Emergency Alerts

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:27:34 -0400

Wireless carriers are deploying an emergency alert system along with FEMA to notify the public about weather conditions, AMBER alerts and presidential messages. - Look out for emergency messages from the government on your smartphone. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and wireless carriers are rolling out emergency alerts, called the Wireless Emergency Alert, or WEA, system, via text-like messages on mobile phones to allow federal, state and local gover...

Microsoft Beefs Up JavaScript Support in Visual Studio 11

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:24:17 -0400

Microsoft has added improved support for JavaScript development in Visual Studio 11, the next version of its flagship development platform that will support Windows 8. - Microsoft has added new tooling support for JavaScript in Visual Studio 11. In a recent blog post, Jason Zander, Microsofts corporate vice president for the Visual Studio team said Microsoft has added a slew of improvements to Visual Studio 11 to make things easier and better for JavaScript develop...

Facebook Class Action Lawsuit Seeks $15 Billion for Privacy Violations

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:53:19 -0400

A class action lawsuit filed against the social networking giant combines 21 lawsuits from across the country. Separately, a German official has also expressed concerns about Facebook's privacy approach as well. - A class action lawsuit filed against Facebook in California is seeking a whopping $15 billion in damages for privacy violations tied to the tracking of Web users. The suit, which was filed by law firm Stewarts Law US, combines 21 privacy lawsuits filed against the social network in more than a do...

Alcatel-Lucent Preparing to Challenge Cisco, Juniper in Core Routers

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:26:49 -0400

The networking company, which has an edge router portfolio, is expected to announce new core router capabilities, drawing it into tighter competition with Cisco and Juniper. - Alcatel-Lucent seems poised to challenge Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks in the core router market. Alcatel-Lucent officials sent out an announcement about a press conference May 22 during the companys two-day annual Technology Symposium 2012 in Santa Clara, Calif. During the press conferenc...

Tape Data Storage Remains an Enterprise IT Workhorse After 60 Years

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:29:29 -0400

It's no secret that explosive data growth and shrinking IT budgets are putting pressure on companies to find creative storage solutions to meet their organizational demands. Despite vocal naysayers from the spinning-disk school, tape storage& which turns 60 years of age in 2012& continues to hold its own, by and large, throughout enterprise IT. This, of course, is due to its significant cost advantages, reliability and continued improvement in capacity, speed and ease of use. While many organizations are already familiar with tapes traditional uses& backup, disaster recovery and compliance& most probably don't realize that modern applications now enable tape to be used as an active file archive and as low-cost network-attached storage for latency-tolerant data. For access to large quantities of stored data, tape's role in big data, cloud, high-performance computing and IT operations is expanding dramatically. These markets take advantage of the integration of tape's historical benefits (cost effectiveness and media longevity) and updates (data-integrity verification and file-system interfaces) to use tape to protect large data sets. A recent ExecEvent Tape Summit in San Francisco, organized by storage analyst Greg Duplessie, highlighted these points, as did a webinar produced by the LTO Program May 15. Here's a list of data points, as presented by both organizations, that are aimed at setting the record straight against the unfounded claims of tapes obsolescence that have long been spread by disk-storage advocates. - ...