Can CIOs learn to love Google+?
Google recently relaunched itself into the social media market with the announcement of its Google+ service, but technology executives are split as to whether they really need yet another social network to worry about.
Google's new social networking project is built around five core features: Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks and Huddle. These features allow users to connect with people they know, share content, follow updates on particular subjects of interest and even take part in group video chat.
Google is also making some attempts to woo enteprises to its latest social offering, promising the launch of corporate accounts soon and using car maker Ford as a guinea pig for the business use of Google+.
While Google+ is still early in its beta testing, it already has 25 million users. Even so, in the social media world it's tiny - Facebook has over 750 million users, Twitter around 175 million and LinkedIn is now well past the 100 million mark. Read more...
Linus Torvalds dubs GNOME 3 ‘unholy mess’
Linux daddy Linus Torvalds has dropped GNOME 3 in favor of the Xfce graphical desktop interface, dubbing GNOME 3 an "unholy mess".
Last week, on Google+, various penguins discussed the possibility of creating an incarnation of the Linux 3.0 kernel that would mascarade as version 2.6.40 – a 3.0 version number, you see, causes problems with Fedora 15 – and at one point, Linus took the opportunity to have a go at the latest GNOME.
"While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment?" he wrote. "I want my sane interfaces back. I have yet to meet anybody who likes the unholy mess that is gnome-3." Read more...
Microsoft vs Google patent ding dong gets stuck on repeat
Microsoft and Google are still engaged in a war of words over what Mountain View has claimed is a "conspiracy" against its Android platform.
We at Vulture Central recommend you take ringside seats and bring a huge bucket of popcorn for this row, as it shows little sign of slowing down.
In the latest round, Microsoft's top flack Frank Shaw wrote a series of tweets addressing the most recent catty comments from Google general counsel David Drummond, who said the software giant had tried to divert attention from the real issue behind the spat with a "false 'gotcha'". Read more...
Experts: Mobile devices a growing target for criminals
The best way to protect business information on smartphones from cybercriminals is to leave that information off smartphones, one mobile security expert said Thursday.
Mobile security is still evolving, and smartphones are vulnerable to hackers and to social engineering schemes, said Andrew Hoog, chief investigative officer at viaForensics, a security vendor. Cybercriminals are starting to target smartphones, Hoog said at a cybersecurity summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA)
Mobile devices combine personal information and corporate information, Hoog said. "It becomes a much richer target." Read more...
Former Microsoft exec, Obama donor named new U.S. CIO
Longtime Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel is set to become the nation's second federal CIO, replacing outgoing federal CIO Vivek Kundra.
The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama intends to appoint VanRoekel, who left his post as senior director of Microsoft's Windows Server and Tools Division in 2009 after 15 years at the firm to become managing director of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to the nation's top tech post.
Among VanRoekel's roles at the FCC was overseeing a redesign of the the commission's Web site. (The before and after looks of the FCC site). The new FCC site added a comment page, as shown here.
In April VanRoekel blogged about the FCC's Web site changes, which included an intuitive design and layout "optimized for the everyday citizen." Read more...
Microsoft slates 22 patches for Windows, IE next week
Microsoft today said it will ship 13 security updates next week to patch 22 vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, Windows, Visio and Visual Studio.
Next Tuesday's patch lineup is larger than July's on the update count, but matches that month's vulnerability total. That's unusual, since the company usually delivers a heavier load in even-numbered months.
"Twenty-two [vulnerabilities] is not a big month, it's more in the medium range, what with the larger numbers we've seen so far in 2011," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. Read more...
Why McAfee’s dire security report rings true
McAfee's latest report on advanced persistent threats, which detailed vulnerabilities in least 72 companies over a five-year period, has caused quite a stir. The conclusions are so stark, some have questioned whether McAfee is scaremongering in order to push more product.
Allow me to come to McAfee's defense. For one thing, the report is the first I've seen that collates the company type, location, and possible length of compromise for each victimized business. More important, I completely agree with the gist of the argument, as articulated by Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee VP of Threat Research. Think your company has escaped advanced persistent threats? Think again:
...I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact. In fact, I divide the entire set of Fortune Global 2000 firms into two categories: those that know they've been compromised and those that don't yet know...What we have witnessed over the past five to six years has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth... Read more...
New group plans 100,000 broadband-enabled jobs in US
A group of U.S. businesses has announced a goal of creating 100,000 call center jobs in the country over the next two years, using broadband as the supporting infrastructure.
Members of the newly announced Jobs4America, many of them call center providers, said Thursday that the growing ubiquity of high-speed broadband will enable them to hire more people, some working at call centers and some working at home. The new group kicked off its campaign in Indiana.
Many of the call center jobs will be brought into the U.S. from overseas, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski joined Jobs4America at the event. Read more...
Java 8 gears up for the cloud
Now that Java 7 SE (Standard Edition) has officially been released, Oracle and members of the JCP (Java Community Process) have started mulling over what features to include in the next version of the programming language, Java SE 8. On the agenda for this new release: engineering Java for the cloud.
"Java 8 is supposed to set the scene for the cloud, for a wider deployment arena," said Mark Little, senior director of engineering for Red Hat's middleware business, as well as Red Hat's primary liaison for the JCP. Oracle left out many of the advanced features planned for Java 7 in order not to further delay the release, he noted. Those releases may very well be included in Java 8. Read more...