newsguy

You might not think that a 12,000 square foot data center would be anything for the environmental lobby to get excited about, but this is no ordinary IT facility. The Green Data Center ([URL="http://syr.edu/greendatacenter/"]GDC[/URL]) has been built by Syracuse University in partnership with New York State and IBM in order …

Forget about tight budgets and economic woes impacting upon the IT business, there's a post-recession return to pre-recession spending happening and networking is likely to benefit the most. According to IDC, "transformation will impact every corner of the industry in 2010" but the most important transformational force of all is …

There is no doubt that the current server market environment is the worse it has ever been, but a new report from IDC suggests that the worse may be over as the market posts sequential quarterly revenue growth for the first time since 2008. The [URL="http://www.idctracker.com"]IDC EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker[/URL] …

Apple has long been criticised for the way it handles iPhone App approval. [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4408.html"]Inconsistency[/URL] and [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4276.html"]mind-boggling logic[/URL] are the order of the day, or at least that's the way it appears to an increasing number of iPhone application developers. The application review process has been rigorously defended by Apple, although …

Pretty much anywhere you live, it would appear that the iPhone consumes at least 50% of all mobile data traffic. Whereas the Android has a little catching up to do with just 11% of that mobile data bandwidth consumption. Of course, the iPhone entered the restaurant first and is already …

A couple of months ago DaniWeb reported how British singer Lily Allen [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story226113.html"]turned the music copyright debate into a copywrong farce[/URL] with some ill conceived blogging. Things went quiet soon after the media had swarmed all over Allen and her odd arguments, not least as she [URL="http://torrentfreak.com/lily-allen-deletes-pro-copyright-blog-and-ends-career-090924/"]closed down her blog[/URL] …

IBM has today announced a breakthrough chip-stacking technology in a manufacturing environment that paves the way for three-dimensional chips to extend Moore’s Law way beyond traditionally expected limits. The ‘through-silicon-vias’ technology allows different chip components to be packaged much closer together, resulting in faster, smaller and lower-powered systems. This breakthrough …

I can't say I have ever heard of pussy power being used as a driver for advanced chip technology development, but that's precisely what researchers at IBM are claiming. A team of boffins at IBM have been speaking about how they have arrived at something of a milestone breakthrough: a …

Now that's what I call an Android phone. Actually, that's what I call an Android phone that might just [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3944.html"]kick some iPhone ass[/URL]. The [URL="http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/specifications/xperiax10a?lc=en&cc=us#a"]Sony Ericsson Xperia X10[/URL] social networking phone is Android powered and feature rich. How rich? Well, how does 1GB RAM plus 16Gb of flash storage and …

According to the latest McAfee Labs [URL="http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/reports/7315rpt_threat_1009.pdf"]Third Quarter Threats Report 2009[/URL] instances of Distributed Denial of Service attacks are growing in popularity. In the last quarter the McAfee Labs observed many new attacks demanding ransom money including those aimed at sports betting companies which were taken out of action during …

It is something of a good and bad news day for mobile phone giant Nokia. On the same day that it announces shipping of the new N900 handset, based on the open source Maemo 5 software, Nokia is also recalling a staggering 14 million mobile phone chargers due to concerns …

Sony Computer Entertainment America has filed a patent application, number [URL="http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=laugh&OS=laugh&RS=laugh"]20090195392[/URL], which could lead to a PlayStation controller that knows when you are happy, sad or just plain angry. The patent application is officially for a 'laugh detector and system and method for tracking an emotional response to a media …

It would appear that Ask.com, the search site which used to be known as Ask Jeeves, [URL="http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080704/tc_cnet/830110784399841617"]has purchased[/URL] Dictionary.com Dropping the 'Jeeves' branding after 10 years, the search engine retained the same 'ask a straightforward question' approach to Internet searching. With the acquisition of Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com that concept …

Some people like to get their free Microsoft products by adopting the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4255.html"]eye patch and a parrot approach[/URL] via sites such as The Pirate Bay. Some of us, however, rather like the idea of getting Windows 7 totally free, totally legally, and direct from Microsoft for good measure. Yes, I …

Why so much fuss about the [URL="http://9to5mac.com/iPhone-fm-app"]rumour[/URL] that Apple is developing an in house app to bring FM radio to the iPhone? Sure, the fact that (assuming the rumour is true) this will be a native application that can run in the background just like the iPod app does on …

Within the next five years, Citizen Developers will be responsible for building at least 25% of all new business applications. That is the rather startling claim being made by Gartner analysts ahead of the Gartner Symposium and ITexpo in Cannes, France next month. So what is a Citizen Developer then? …

They say it ain't over until the fat lady sings, well it looks like this particular Opera story is far from over folks no matter what some might tell you. Perhaps the most famous Norwegian export since the Vikings, [URL="http://www.opera.com"]Opera[/URL] the web browser has certainly lost favour with the technology …

Once upon a time, Usenet newsgroups were the Twitter, Facebook and forums of the online world. All the early Internet community makers were there, and important announcements such as the arrival of Mosaic by Marc Andreesen broke there first. Then the inevitable happened, and Usenet slowly imploded. That could have …

Apparently, women are more than twice as likely to go online and vent when stressed than speak to their partners. That's according to the results of a recent survey which also suggests that when stressed many women go and blog instead of turning to alcohol or chocolate. The survey, conducted …

Jon Lech Johansen is perhaps best known as DVD Jon, the chap who cracked DVD movie encryption at the tender age of just 15. He may soon have to adopt a new nickname, how about iTunes Jon, as he releases software that takes iTunes out of the iPod music equation. …

Sky, better known for news and sport television broadcasting, has today announced that it is entering the online music business with an ad-free streaming download service. All of the four million songs accessible by users of the service will be available by way of unlimited online streaming as well as …

If you are in the market for a new Apple computer, you might want to wait a few days. It would appear that new super thin iMacs, MacBooks and even a cheaper Mac Mini are on the way real soon. According to [URL="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/03/apple_ads_hint_at_thinner_imacs_lighter_macbooks_cheaper_mac_minis.html"]AppleInsider[/URL] a raft of advertisements were published ahead …

Mobile developers will be pleased to learn that Recursion Software has announced the availability of a C++ Toolkits Symbian bundle. The cross-platform, mobile and embedded app development tools specialist took the opportunity at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment Expo 2009 to announce that C++ libraries for the iPhone and …

It seems that Google searches on terms that are related to iPhone SMS information are being used to return results that direct unsuspecting users to rogue AV sites. According to the Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network [URL="http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/blogs.aspx"]blog[/URL] malicious URLs related to Apple iPhone SMS/MMS searches are ranking as high as …

The Microsoft Windows embedded product portfolio has just been given a hefty push into the limelight with the official release of Windows 7 technologies over to what Microsoft refers to as manufacturers of specialized devices. During an industry address at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston yesterday, Microsoft announced the …

Symantec has detected a new Trojan which targets Skype users in order to monitor and record conversations made using the Internet telephony service. Apparently the source code for this particular Trojan, called Pesky Spy, is already being touted around the usual places where the bad guys can pick up such …

Continuing on its charm offensive, the music industry is apparently not satisfied with the $675,000 fine for sharing 30 songs imposed on Joel Tenenbaum or the $1.92 million Jammie Thomas-Rasset was hit with for illegally downloading 24 tunes. Now it is going after the lyrics pirates. The what? Well, exactly. …

I love a [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20193/53/"]good patent story[/URL], I love my [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1264.html"]Nintendo Wii[/URL] and I love bouncy cushions. However, it is a rare thing to be able to write a news story which covers all three. Yet it would appear that Nintendo has, indeed, filed a European patent for a bouncy cushion …

Safari 4.0.3 is out now and available for [URL="http://support.apple.com/downloads/Safari_4_0_3"]download[/URL] from Apple, for both Mac OS X and Windows operating systems. While there are the usual claims of making things more stable when using third party plugins and in particular for handling the HTML 5 video tag, it is with regards …

Do cats have a taste for porn? Somehow I doubt it, and I doubt that a jury will fall for it either no matter how much one alleged downloader of the most disgusting of pornographic images tries to insist that's what actually happened in his case. When found in possession …

Mike Maser, Chief Strategy Officer at Digg, has [URL="http://blog.digg.com/?p=928"]confirmed[/URL] that Digg Ads will start rolling out in an early beta format during the next few days. So expect to start seeing sponsored Diggs mixed up with the real stuff, although the adverts will carry a 'sponsored by' title the screenshots …

The independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industry, OFCOM, was charged by the government to reveal consumers' experiences of electronic communications services, including broadband provision, and the results do not make for happy reading. The research saw in excess of 60 million separate service performance tests carried …

According to the latest [URL="http://www.messagelabs.com/mlireport/MLIReport_2009.07_July_FINAL.pdf"]MessageLabs Intelligence Report[/URL] from Symantec, things are looking good as web malware writers have taken a sabbatical. Unfortunately the spammers have gone multi-lingual in a lazy-ass automated kind of a way with great effect. Spam levels have, say Symantec, stayed at their highest level for two …

According to a new Gartner survey, despite companies driving down overall IT budgets this year things are looking good for global software spending in 2010. Well, I say good, but perhaps I should say a teensy weensy little bit better than this year. Gartner reckons that organisations surveyed indicated that …

The High Court in the UK will this Friday decide if an appeal against the Home Office backed decision to extradite Gary McKinnon on hacking charges to the US is to be upheld or, as seems likely, not. McKinnon has been accused of what US prosecutors refer to the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2863.html"]biggest …

So Google reckons that it can provide [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/26281/53/"]the perfect operating system[/URL] in Chrome, even to the point where according to Google's Engineering Director, Linus Upson, it will herald the end of malware. That's what he went [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html"]on the record[/URL] to say, promising that Google was "completely redesigning the underlying security …

Can anyone top this: the Ministry of Defence here in the UK has admitted that last year it managed to lose a server. A whole one, and get this, it was meant to be located in a secure government building for good measure. Over the years I have become more …

Mainframe literate IT professionals are becoming as rare as rocking horse crap courtesy of demographics, the economy and the fact that the mainframe came close to death some years back. So what, you might think, but business is starting to embrace the mainframe once more and the dramatic exodus of …

According to a new [URL="http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/polls/2245397/poll-summer-smartphones"]poll[/URL] the Apple iPhone 3GS is the smartphone that most Brits would want to be seen with on the beach this summer. The poll asked some 1500 people which smartphone they would be taking to the beach, and 28 percent of them said it would have …

Lawrence 'Larry' Roberts is something of an Internet legend, and for good reason: he helped build it. Way back in 1967 Roberts not only drew up the plans for the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) which would eventually lead to the Internet, but he also headed up the team …

[URL="http://www.comscore.com"]comScore[/URL] has just published data from the Video Metrix service which shows that the number of online videos being viewed here in the UK is up 47 percent on a year ago and fast approaching 5 billion in April 2009 when the measuring period ended. Google did best out of …

With the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4487.html"]iPhone 3GS[/URL] slowly coming back into stock after [URL="http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2009/06/30/o2-runs-out-of-iphone-3gs/"]selling out[/URL] during the first week of release, there is more good news for potential buyers: the 3GS has been jailbroken. Yes, 19 year old George Hotz who you might remember shot to hacking fame a couple of years back …

Generally speaking I would not recommend reading a newspaper in the hot tub. If that hot tub happens to be of the spa-jet variety then that only makes it worse. If the newspaper is a rare item from the 19th century then surely only a fool would consider it. Yet …

I am probably showing my age here, but I can recall when relationships started as a result of face to face meetings. If those relationships came to an end, they ended the same way as a rule. OK, a few cowardly types might have resorted to a 'Dear John' letter …

Over the years there has been plenty of [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20745/53/"]speculation regarding the sanity[/URL] of Steve 'Monkey Dancing' Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO. But what is it with Microsoft and this obsession to pursue the search supremacy dream at any cost? Sure, I know [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3327.html"]Ballmer has sworn to kill Google[/URL] before but the …

Seems like a silly question, right? But $80,000 per track is exactly how much Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother from Minneapolis, has been charged. Well, I say charged but actually she was fined this amount for each of 24 songs downloaded via a file-sharing site at the end of a …

UK iPhone 3G users hoping that the network operator with the exclusive contract on the new iPhone 3GS might see sense and let them upgrade have been dealt a body blow as O2 confirms they can go and swivel on Twitter. The iPhone 3GS will be upon us in a …

"Opera Retakes Leadership from iPhone in Mobile Browser Market" reads the press release that arrived in my email this week. "Opera is the world's number one mobile browser, overtaking iPhone in May according to data from StatCounter Global Stats" it continues, which certainly peaked my interest. Not least because, according …

Just as British MPs line their pockets with taxpayer cash, just as Hollywood epics re-write history with happy endings, so Google was always going to want to compete with the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4111.html"]Wolfram Alpha[/URL] computational engine head on. And so it is that we get a sneak look at [URL="http://www.google.com/squared"]Google Squared[/URL] in …

This is interesting, as we are all used to reading about online resources being optimised for mobile devices. Take YouTube which has been successfully shrunk to fit the iPhone and other mobiles, but has now been writ large by way of a change. Google informs me that it has now …