The strange life and death of the TouchPad – and how it threatens HP’s grand plan
The short and yet bizarre life of the HP TouchPad continues to generate more twists and turns than a hula-hooping conference.
To recap - HP launched the TouchPad in July with the aim of taking on the all-powerful Apple iPad, mainly by touting the TouchPad's multitasking to business users.
However, within weeks, the tablet was rendered obsolete, suddenly the mayfly of the gadget world because HP decided the early response hadn't been good enough, and shuttered its webOS hardware business as part of a major corporate strategy rethink.
As a result, HP slashed the prices of the device from £349 to £89 for the 16GB TouchPad, and from £429 to £115 for the 32GB model, prompting the devices to sell like hot cakes. Read more...
You like Flash, you like cache: Put ‘em together to form …
Wasting no time in following the trend, Fusion-io has integrated recently-acquired ioTurbine flash caching software with its hardware to create ... ioCache.
Fusion bought IO Turbine in August and its ESXi plug-in software looks after a cache for virtual machines in a VMware server. Now Fusion has bundled a 600GB flash memory card with ioTurbine software.
Fusion's Virtual Software Layer (VSL) virtualises the company's flash cards into a single pool of storage. The ioTurbine software uses an O/S subsystem in VSL as a store to "house and serve data for each VM". The firm says: "Integration of VSL's host-based flash management and ioTurbine's cache management eliminates otherwise redundant mapping functions, maximising I/O performance." Read more...
HTC’s Mango phones, Titan and Radar, out next month
HTC launched two smartphones on Thursday running Microsoft's latest update of its mobile operating system, called Mango, as Microsoft struggles to gain market share from Apple and Android smartphones.
HTC said the two devices, the Radar and the higher-specification Titan, will be available next month first in Europe and Asia. An HTC official said that the Titan will cost ¬599 (US$855) and the Radar will cost ¬399 without subsidies.
HTC is the second company to launch devices running Windows Mango, known as Windows Phone 7.5, after Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications announced in July the IS12T, which will only be available in Japan.
Microsoft faces an uphill battle in the rapidly changing smartphone market, highlighted by Google's acquisition last month of Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion. Microsoft held just 2.7 percent of the smartphone OS market for the first quarter of this year, according to analyst firm IDC, losing ground from a year before despite a complete rework of its mobile operating system. Read more...
University tests ERP on new Dell cloud
University of Kentucky CIO Vince Kellen is considering moving some of the university's SAP work to a cloud environment, which would make him a relatively early adopter of ERP in the cloud.
Kellen didn't have to go into too much detail about his motivations for trying a cloud service when he spoke at the VMworld annual conference here. Like most publicly supported institutions and governments, cutting costs has become paramount.
"I have got to find sources of funds to keep our infrastructure going," Kellen said. "I got to look at a disruptive technology like cloud to do that." Read more...
Man gets six years for hacking girls to extort photographs
A 32-year-old paraplegic was sentenced to six years in prison for infecting more than 100 computers in a quest for financial information, nude photographs and thrills.
Luis Mijangos worked as a freelance computer consultant in Santa Ana, California, earning about $1,000 per week writing programs and building websites. But he lived a double life, also earning as much as $3,000 per day hacking and stealing financial information from his victims.
He built virtually undetectable malware and used a variety of techniques to trick his victims into installing it on their computers. Then, he did more than just steal bank account numbers. "He read victims' e-mails and IMs, watched them through their webcams, and listened to them through the microphones on their computers," prosecutors said in court filings. "Often, he then used the information he obtained to play psychological games with his victims." Read more...
Age bias in IT: The reality behind the rumors
Age bias: Some consider it IT's dirty little secret, or even IT's big open secret.Most high-tech employers would likely deny that age discrimination is an issue at their company. But many IT workers over 50 beg to differ, saying they have experienced age bias or know someone who has.
The bias can take several forms, they say. Their salaries might stagnate. They might have few or no opportunities for advancement. They might not be included in training and professional development programs. And they could be the first to be laid off and the last to be hired.
As a result, they may be hit harder by the recession. According to recent U.S. government data, unemployment rates for older IT professionals increased faster than they did for younger tech workers since the recession began some three years ago.
All of that can add up to a tough road for older people in high tech. Read more...
Microsoft exec: Windows 8 desktop to be ‘just another app’
The Microsoft executive who heads the company's Windows division said Wednesday that the next edition of the operating system will let users treat the traditional desktop as "just another app" that loads only on command.
In a lengthy blog post, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division, provided more detail on Windows 8's user interface (UI).
In June, when it unveiled parts of the Windows 8 UI , Microsoft said the new OS would feature a "touch-first" interface to help it compete in the fast-growing tablet market. Underneath that, however, would be a traditional Windows-style desktop. In demonstrations, Microsoft showed the touch-style start screen for Windows 8, and how users could switch to a more familiar icon-based design. Read more...
Nielsen: Android has 40 percent of the U.S. smartphone market
Google's Android OS continues to gain on both Apple iOS and Research In Motion's BlackBerry platform in the growing U.S. smartphone market, but often stodgy RIM is on the wish lists of some cutting-edge buyers, according to the Nielsen research company.
Nielsen's Mobile Insights survey for May through July showed 40 percent of all smartphones in the U.S. ran Android, while 28 percent were iPhones. RIM made up 19 percent of phones in consumers' hands. Just last November, it held 26.1 percent of the market.
However, the class of consumers that Nielsen calls "Innovators," the self-described earliest adopters of new products, were the most interested in buying a BlackBerry as their next smartphone. In survey results from consumers likely to buy a smartphone in the next year, 11 percent of Innovators named BlackBerry as the most likely OS they'll seek out, a bigger percentage than for any other group of shoppers. Read more...
Oracle vows to get full $1.3 billion penalty from SAP
A defiant Oracle Thursday vowed to continue its legal battle against rival SAP after a federal judge in California threw out the $1.3 billion judgment the company had won against SAP late last year. In a statement released shortly after the verdict, Oracle said it intends to "pursue the full measure of damages" it believes SAP owes it for the theft of its intellectual property.
"There was voluminous evidence regarding the massive scope of the theft, clear involvement of SAP management in the misconduct and the tremendous value of the intellectual property stolen," Oracle said, "We believe the jury got it right."
In a development not entirely unexpected, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, Calif., today upheld SAP's request that the court lower the $1.3 billion in damages that a jury late last year ordered it to pay Oracle. In announcing the decision, Hamilton called the jury award "grossly excessive" and asked that Oracle either accept a lower $272 million payment or submit to a new trial. Read more...
Lenovo says new ‘Ultrabook’ thinner than MacBook Air
Lenovo has jumped on Intel's "Ultrabook" bandwagon, announcing a new IdeaPad on Thursday that the company said is thinner than Apple's celebrated MacBook Air.
The IdeaPad U300S has a 13.3-inch display and is the slimmest laptop on the market, said Michael Littler, marketing lead at Lenovo's product group consumer marketing. The U300S is 0.59 inches thick (1.49 centimeters) and weighs 2.2 pounds (0.99 kilograms), Lenovo said. The 13-inch MacBook Air is 0.68 inches thick and weighs 2.96 pounds.
The U300S comes with a choice of low-power Intel processors. It provides up to eight hours of battery life during active use and 30 hours on standby. The starting price is $1,200, and the laptop will start to ship in mid-October, with worldwide availability set for November, Lenovo said. Read more...