Facebook, HP, and OpenStack join Linux patent shield
Facebook, HP, and the OpenStack project have joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), a consortium of organizations intent on protecting Linux and related open-source software from legal attack.
On Wednesday, the OIN announced that in the first quarter, 74 new organizations joined its "community" as licensees, including Fujitsu, Rackspace, and Juniper as well as Facebook, HP, and OpenStack, the latter of which is an open source "build-your-own-cloud" group co-founded by Rackspace. Licensees agree not to use their Linux-related patents against each other, and they receive free access to a collection of additional patents purchased by the consortium as a whole. Read more...
Apple Talk: iPad competitors are ghosts of machines
Apple's iPad is into its second iteration while most of its supposed rivals have yet to appear. So can they really take market share from Apple? Seb Janacek doubts it.
Never has an industry been so obsessed with market share than technology. Perhaps it's something in the geek psyche that it needs to dominate to be named victor.
Nothing is so concerned with quantity than the mindset that market share is the be-all and end-all of everything. We had the browser wars, the OS wars, the smartphone wars and now we have the tablet wars. In this industry, it's as if everything is a game of Command and Conquer or Risk. Read more...
Microsoft and Nokia ink WP7 strategic pact
Microsoft and Nokia have signed their strategic alliance over the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) smartphone operating system.
The pact was announced in February by the pair's CEOs: Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Nokia new chief and former Microsoft exec Stephen Elop.
Microsoft charges mobile makers a licence fee for use of its smartphone OS - and Nokia is no exception. The pair said Nokia will pay a "running royalty" to use Microsoft's WP7 platform from the date the first Nokia WP7 handsets ship.
However, unlike other WP7 users, Nokia will also receive "payments measured in the billions of dollars" from Microsoft for adopting WP7. Read more...
Microsoft’s new employee motivational tool — more cash, less stock
Once upon a time, Microsoft employees made millions from the stock they were given, because of the company's constantly escalating stock price. Those days are long behind us. Microsoft has just recognized that getting company stock is no longer a motivation, and has instead shifted employee compensation towards cold, hard cash. It's a smart move.
Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft has overhauled its entire employee review system. It's a top-to-bottom change, including the way in which employees are rated annually.
But likely the most important part of the change is found in this paragraph of the memo Steve Ballmer sent out to company employees. Here's the excerpt taken from the full memo as reported on Foley's blog:
For all employees, we will shift a portion of stock award targets into base salary, providing more cash up front and obvious incremental employee value. Senior leaders will continue to have a large portion of their overall compensation in stock to ensure their compensation is heavily tied to the financial performance of the company. Read more...
Banks go social to collaborate, reach customers
Financial services firms are now using social media to get customers involved in online discussion forums, advertise services and monitor what's being said about their businesses.
"Every bank is already involved in social media... whether that's part of a conscious strategy or not," said Susan Feinberg, a commercial banking analyst at TowerGroup, a market research firm focusing on the financial services industry. "Your clients today are using social media all the time for both personal and business purposes."
Feinberg spoke at TowerGroup's annual financial services conference here last week.
Businesses need to master social media, she said, pointing out how powerful social networks have become as communications tools. Currently, Linked-In is the hottest social networking site for B2B communications, growing by a million new users every 12 days, she said. Read more...
German Software Maker Ashampoo Warns of Malware After Hack
A German software company known for its Windows utilities is warning customers to be on the alert for malicious e-mail messages after its servers were hacked.
Ashampoo, which also makes multimedia programs and security software, warned customers Wednesday that it had been hacked and that customers could now be sent infected emails that give criminals a way into their computers.
"We assume that the attackers were able to purloin data of customers," the company said in an e-mail message sent to customers. Billing information such as credit card numbers was not stolen, the company said, because that data is stored on another server, operated by a contractor. The company has nearly 14 million customers, but it's not immediately clear how many have had their names and e-mail addresses stolen. Read more...
Nokia sees weaker times after strong first quarter
Nokia Oyj warned operating profit margins at its key phone unit would slip through the rest of the year, taking the shine off higher-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Thursday.
The company signed a final agreement to start using Microsoft Corp software, enabling it to slash annual costs by 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion). Yet it faces an awkward transition in which profitability is getting squeezed.
Nokia's key phone unit reported an operating profit margin of 9.8 percent for January-March, well ahead of analysts forecast of 8.6 percent, but the group said for the full year the margin would fall to within a 6 to 9 percent range.
Analysts on average had expected the margin to drop to 8.5 percent. Read more...
PowerDVD 11 Launches with iPad and Android Remote Apps
CyberLink's just-released PowerDVD 11 Windows video-watching software now boasts complementary iOS and Android apps that turn tablets running those OSes into a full-featured multi-touch remote control and a streaming media source. The new software also adds better 2D-to-3D video conversion, photo viewing, and the ability to play content directly from Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.
The mobile app is free for purchasers of the Ultra and Deluxe editions of PowerDVD ($99.95 and $69.95, respectively) and $4.99 for users of the $49.95 Standard edition. The app uses your local Wi-Fi network to communicate with the PC software, which in turn can send signals to any DLNA player or TV. The PC software also lets you go the other way, transcoding content for viewing on the mobile device. Read more...
Response to Firewall Report Shows Contrasts in Customer Service Philosophy
One of the most important aspects of choosing a hardware or software vendor is the customer service relationship, and the confidence that the vendor will be there to support you when the need arises. The response from vendors to the recent NSS Labs firewall report illustrates the stark differences in how vendors address and resolve issues.
NSS Labs is an independent third-party firm that provides research and analysis for its customers. It is not trying to sell a competing product or service, and its ability to get and keep customers depends on the accuracy of its report findings and remediation advice. In a nutshell, NSS Labs does not have an axe to grind, and it would be a very poor business model to exaggerate issues just to grab headlines. Read more...
Adobe Updates Acrobat, Reader to Guard against Flash Zero-Day
Adobe is once again releasing software updates to address a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash. Adobe already unleashed an updated version of Adobe Flash itself, but today it is also releasing updated versions of Acrobat and Reader which both rely on a vulnerable component of Flash.
The updates arrived sooner than expected, perhaps in response to new exploits in the wild. The Adobe security advisory explains, "There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat, as well as via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Word (.doc) or Microsoft Excel (.xls) file delivered as an email attachment targeting the Windows platform." Read more...
Facebook adds two-factor authentication, other new security features
Facebook enhances security of the site with two-factor authentication, improved HTTPS. But is it enough for security pros?
Just a day after security firm Sophos publicly took Facebook to task for lacking important security features, the social network has added some new security elements in what it says is an effort to "make Facebook a more trusted environment ."
In a blog post this week, Arturo Bejar, a director of engineering with Facebook, explained the new upgrades. The most noteworthy feature in the announcement is the introduction of two-factor authentication. According to the blog post, users who turn on the new feature will be asked to enter a code anytime the user tries to log into Facebook from a new device. Read more...
Obama at Facebook: “We Want To Start Making Science Cool”
"One of the reasons that we had one of the first science fairs at the White House in a very long time [was] just because we want to start making science cool."
- President Obama
President Barack Obama and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down at Facebook headquarters this afternoon to have a townhall meeting that was streamed live to the Web.
Via Facebook Live and Livestream, Obama answered questions from Zuckerberg, the crowd and participants across the Web. Even though Obama was sitting on stage at the quintessential Web 2.0 corporation, not much of the conversation veered towards technology.
Questions included the national debt, the budget, the economic recovery, the Dream Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), immigration, Medicare and Medicaid and education. For a while it sounded more like an "Obama For Re-Election in 2012" campaign stop than it did a conversation with one of the leaders of the Internet industry. Read more...