Google plus Google Plus: You give us info, we sell it!
Google has bolted posts created in its invite-only social network Google+ into its search estate.
Mountain View began applying "social" elements to its search engine in 2009.
But it is now ramping up that effort after launching Google+ in late June this year.
Search queries that include results from Google+ will only be available for those users who sign into a Google account first. Additionally, the web surfer needs to be linked up to Google+, which is still in what the world's largest ad broker has described as a "test field". Read more...
Adobe automates website design for arty Luddites
Adobe is looking for beta testers for its web design software, which it claims removes the need for coding.
Aimed at graphic designers with limited technical skills, Muse claims to make it possible to design complex websites using point-and-click and drag-and-drop rather than hand coding. Read more...
Hands on: Norton Mobile Security protects your Android phone
Worried by the spate of news stories about malware targeting Android phones and tablets? There's a way to get some peace of mind: Symantec's just-released Norton Mobile Security, which promises the same type of security for Android devices that its big brother counterpart offers for PCs. (The app was previously available as a beta.)
Norton Mobile Security comes in free and for-pay versions. The free version (which Symantec labels Lite) includes an anti-malware module and an anti-theft module that lets you remotely lock an Android device if it's lost or stolen.
The malware scan is simple and straightforward. You can scan manually or have Norton scan on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule. You can also scan your SD card -- an option that's turned off by default because it may slow down your system during the scanning operation. On my Droid X, it took 15 seconds to scan normally, and one minute and 56 seconds to scan the SD card as well -- not, in my opinion, a significant difference, and a small price to pay for more complete protection. Read more...
Apple’s 13-in. MacBook Air: All this style and speed, too
I'm not going to hem and haw: As far as I'm concerned, Apple's new 13-in. MacBook Air is just about perfect.
Usually, when I'm reviewing laptops, I wind up with a variety of caveats that weed out potential buyers for whatever I have in hand. The screen isn't big enough. There's not enough RAM. The processor is outdated. The keyboard is spongy.
I'm having a tough time finding similar flaws in the new Air, which Apple rolled out last month when it released OS X 10.7, better known as Lion. Part of what makes the Air such a great little laptop is Lion. Part of it is the hardware itself. Put those two pieces together and you have a solid nexus of modern OS and top-notch hardware that makes this laptop a real pleasure to use.
And I'm saying this as someone who always -- always -- defaults to a larger screen, aiming for as much high-resolution real estate as I can get. Preferably with the fastest processor available. (Right now, my personal laptop of choice is the top-of-the-line 17-in. MacBook Pro.) Read more...
Anonymous breaches San Francisco’s public transport site
The hacking collective Anonymous released personal data on Sunday belonging to more than 2,000 public transport customers in the San Francisco area in retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's shutdown of mobile phone service on Thursday night.
The data came from myBART.org and consists of user names, last names, addresses and telephone numbers for riders who used the website to manage their accounts. On Monday, the site was a blank white page with the message that it was unavailable for "renovation." Read more...
Preparing for the real costs of cloud computing
At a cloud computing conference in New York in June, a number of speakers pointed out that the cloud is moving past the hype stage and is beginning to deliver tangible benefits to organizations. These improvements include increased flexibility and agility.
But moving to the cloud can also mean added costs, some of which might be unexpected, according to IT executives whose organizations have implemented cloud services or are considering them.
While these types of costs don't necessarily prevent companies from getting real business value out of cloud computing initiatives, they will have an impact on the overall cost-benefit analysis of cloud services. Read more...
RIM launches smartphone management for small businesses
Research In Motion launched a free online service for small businesses to help them centrally manage BlackBerry smartphones in the cloud, providing protection for business content saved on the devices.
The service, BlackBerry Management Center, is a cloud-based, small business alternative to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which has become the gold standard for large companies that want to secure and manage data on BlackBerry smartphones.
BES, however, requires that server hardware and software be installed on a company's premises and incurs costs that are usually out of the reach of smaller companies. Read more...
Apple eggs Intel into making better mobile CPUs
With the speed of a limping slug, Intel is slowing coming 'round to accepting that fact the future of end-user computing lies in lightweight mobility -- and hey, it might be a good idea to come up with a low-power, high-performance chip that can compete with the incredibly successful ARM processors.
All it took for Intel to reach this revelation was recent threats of losing business with the world's most valuable IT company, Apple, even though user preferences have pretty clearly been shifting toward smaller, lighter, wireless-only, battery-driven devices from some time. The fact that ARM chips have become all but synonymous with mobile processors should have been a sufficient hint. Read more...
Suspected Chinese spear-phishing attacks continue to hit Gmail users
Months after Google said that Chinese hackers were targeting the Gmail accounts of senior U.S. government officials, attempts to hijack Gmail inboxes continue, a researcher said Thursday.
"Once compromises happen and are covered in the news, they do not disappear and attackers don't give up or stop. They continue their business as usual," said Mila Parkour, an independent security researcher based in Washington, D.C., on her Contagio Malware Dump website.
In early June, Google announced it had disrupted a targeted phishing campaign designed to compromise Gmail accounts belonging to senior U.S. and South Korean government officials, military personnel, Chinese activists and journalists. Google said it had traced the attacks to Jinan, China, a city in eastern China that has been linked to other hacking campaigns, including one in late 2009 against Google's own network. Read more...
HP updates dependency mapping software
Hewlett-Packard has updated its dependency mapping software to help customers figure out which departments are using which systems and applications, to enable chargeback programs and other management tasks.
Dependency mapping helps data center architects uncover the connections between applications, servers, and storage systems, so that when they consolidate systems, replace legacy gear, or do virtualization projects they don't accidentally break something in the process.
"We've found that most data center managers know with a fair degree of accuracy about 80 percent of what's in their data center. It's the other 20 percent that keeps them up at night," said Jimmy Augustine, a group marketing manager in HP's software division. Read more...