Yahoo Hadoop Spin-off Could Propel Software’s Growth
Yahoo's reported plan to spin off its Hadoop engineering unit into a separate company, should it happen, could spur more competition in the already-growing field of providing support for this data processing framework, observers said.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo is mulling the idea of setting up its Hadoop development team as a new standalone company, one that would continue to develop the software and offer Hadoop-related consulting services.
"This is another good sign that the Hadoop space continues to grow," said Justin Borgman, co-founder and CEO of Hadapt, which provides tools for bridging Hadoop with data warehouses. "This will put the pressure on other Hadoop companies. The more competition the better." Read more...
Microsoft 3Q growth overshadowed by tablet threat
Even as Microsoft Corp.'s earnings grow at a robust rate, investors can't seem to shake the feeling that the boom days are winding down for the world's largest software maker.
The company's fiscal third-quarter results, released Thursday, provided little reassurance despite a 31 percent increase in earnings, exceeding analyst estimates. Microsoft shares still dipped.
The main reason for the anxiety: Revenue in the division that includes Microsoft's foundation, the Windows operating system, declined from the same time last year for the second-straight quarter. The slide stems from consumers buying fewer personal computers that run the company's software. Read more...
MSI’s Wind Top AE2070 Enhances Touch Experience with Wind Touch 4 Interface
MSI has pushed out yet another all-in-one desktop PC with a multitouch screen. However, it features the 4th generation of its "Wind Touch" interface that helps support and encourages use of the touch functionality - which it has hopefully improved since its last iteration we saw in the MSI Wind Top AE2220.
Hardware wise, the new Wind Top AE2070 has a 20-inch screen with a 1600-by-900 resolution, perfect for viewing HD videos. Unfortunately, your high-def content will likely be limited to digital downloads since the AE2070 only comes configured with a SuperMulti DVD drive—no Blu-ray. Above the screen is a .3 megapixel webcam and below it is an integrated 3W SRS Premium Sound speaker. Read more...
Google Android 2.3.4 Adds Video Chat
Google on Thursday introduced video chatting capabilities to Android phones, akin to Face Time on Apple iOS devices, as part of version 2.3.4 of the mobile operating system. Other Android apps already offer video chatting capabilities, but Google has built the feature into the OS and also allows interoperability between Android phones and tablets and computers.
The video chatting feature has been integrated into the Google Talk application, and unlike Apple's Face Time, works over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G (as long as your carrier and data contract allows you). Read more...
Microsoft Admits to More Windows Phone Update Problems
Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February.
Microsoft acknowledged that some Samsung Focus owners in the U.S. haven't yet received notification that the updates are available for them. "They're looking into the situation, but I'm afraid there's not much to report yet," wrote Michael Stroh, a Microsoft employee who is answering questions posted to the comments section on the Windows Phone blog. Read more...
Getting to know “Neo” the Latvian hacker
Exclusive interview of "Baltic Reports" with "Neo" Latvian hacker.
RIGA — Hero, criminal, hacker, activist, revolutionary. These are the words being used in Latvia to describe Ilmārs Poikāns.
Poikāns, 31 of Riga, was arrested in May for illegally accessing and enabling the publication of tax records of Latvia’s political and business elite using the moniker “Neo.” He confessed his actions to police forthright and was subsequently released until his pre-trial hearing.
An official from the State Revenue Service told parliament that 120 people illegally downloaded documents from the service’s electronic declaration system and that the “hole” existed from the end of 2007 until Feb. 4, 2010, when it was first discovered and promptly closed.
An estimated 7.4 million documents, equaling 120 gigabytes of data, were downloaded from the site, including income statements and tax declarations of public officials, bureaucrats, and businesses.
Data shows that top executives of the municipal companies received huge monthly salaries — 4,000 lats (€5,700) and higher — while enormous bonuses, including 16,000 lats (€22,500) to Riga Heat CEO Āris Žīgurs last March, went out the door all while regular employees took wage reductions in light of budget cuts. Read more...
Zombies up 71%
It’s been almost one month since the huge increase of email-borne malware attachments were reported. The outbreaks have continued on an almost daily basis since then and we have noted a corresponding dramatic increase of over 70% in the number of zombies.
Latvian hack’s hack story leads to hack-hacking
'Don't try jumping higher than your own...'
An enraged Latvian hacker went batshit over an article criticising security at small, low-cost hosting companies and defaced the website of the news agency LETA.
The hacker used sophisticated techniques to fight off efforts to restore service to hundreds of the news agency's customers.
LETA, which is privately owned, calls itself the national news agency of the small Baltic republic and has been operating for more than 90 years, including some 50 years under Soviet rule or occupation, as Latvians call it. Its only competitor is Baltic News Service (BNS), a regional news agency with branches in all three Baltic countries. Read more...
Google Announces WebM Community Cross Licensing
Initial participants include 17 companies, including AMD, Cisco, Google, LG, Logitech, MIPS Technologies, Mozilla, Opera, Quanta, Samsung, STMicro, and Texas Instruments. Among the obvious candidates missing are Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Qualcomm.
The cross-licensing move is pushed by Google, Matroska and the Xiph.org foundation and will make all components of the WebM platform available on royalty-free terms, Google said. All participants agreed that all patents they have and that may relate to WebM are licensed to other members of the initiative. Read more...
Iron Mountain going back to roots in storage services
A week after Iron Mountain announced that it had replaced its CEO, the company said it's considering selling its archiving, e-discovery, and online backup and recovery business to return to its roots in document and tape storage services.
"There's no guarantee a deal will get done, because we're still early in the process, but we have good interest. And as you can imagine, these processes take a matter of a few months before we know it will unwind itself," said Richard Reese, who abruptly took over as CEO on April 14. Read more...
Too-high Android tablet prices spook developers
While developer interest in Apple's mobile devices remains solid, interest in Android has stalled among programmers disappointed with tablet prices and pressed by Android fragmentation, a survey published today showed.
"Interest in Android on tablets has stalled, or plateaued, however you want to put it," said Scott Schwartzhoff, vice president of marketing at Mountain View, Calif.-based Appcelerator.
The poll, conducted two weeks ago by Appcelerator and research firm IDC, polled more than 2,700 developers who use Appcelerator's Titanium cross-platform compiler to produce mobile applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
The numbers reflect a growing frustration that Android tablets don't stack up against Apple's iPad, and that their biggest weapon -- lower prices -- has not been used. Read more...
Sony warns users of data loss from PlayStation network hack
It's been six days and the PlayStation Network is still offline, and now Sony has acknowledged that the problem involved a security breach.
The online multiplayer gaming site, along with Qriocity, Sony's cloud music subscription service, went down last Wednesday and may not be back for another week.
After the outage, Sony told users their sites had been hacked, prompting PlayStation engineers to take them offline to investigate.
Today, the company posted information online admitting that the hack had breached users' account information, including name, address, birth date, purchase history and online ID.
Patrick Seybold, a senior director at Sony, also noted in the blog post that there's no evidence users' credit card information was stolen. However, he added that "out of an abundance of caution," Sony is advising users that their credit card number and expiration date may have been obtained. Read more...
MIPS Porting Google’s Android 3.0 OS for Its Processors
MIPS Technologies on Tuesday said it was porting Google's Android 3.0 operating system, code-named Honeycomb, to work with its microprocessors.
The port could lead to the faster release of Honeycomb tablets running on MIPS processors, said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development at MIPS. Customers asked for Honeycomb support, and porting the OS could speed up tablet development, Swift said. Read more...
Android Devices Popular, But Developer Interest Is Falling
Nielsen reports that consumer interest in smartphones running Google's Android is rising in the U.S., with slightly more prospective buyers looking to buy an Android handset than Apple's iPhone. According to its latest survey, 31 percent of consumers who plan to get a new smartphone indicated Android as their preferred operating system, while 30 percent favored Apple's iPhone and 11 percent favored a Research In Motion BlackBerry.
By contrast, during the same period last year, 33 percent of respondents wanted an iPhone, 26 percent favored Android, and 13 percent a BlackBerry. Moreover, Android's rise in popularity became even clearer when Nielsen surveyed consumers who purchased a smartphone recently. Read more...
Customer Fights Subpoena in Oracle-Rimini Suit
Oracle has subpoenaed scores of Rimini Street customers in connection with its intellectual property suit against the third-party software maintenance provider, but at least one has no interest in complying with its demands.
The subpoena issued to Petroleum Geo-Services seeks a wide range of information pertaining to Rimini Street's development of software and services for Oracle products, as well as regarding the use of "crawlers, robots, indexing tools, or automated methods of downloading" to obtain support materials, according to a motion filed Friday by PGS in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Read more...