Microsoft cracks live migration problem
With the next release of Windows Server operating system, Microsoft has conquered one of the thorniest problems in virtualization: moving an operational VM (virtual machine) across a WAN (wide area network).
Microsoft unveiled this new feature at the Microsoft Build conference, being held this week in Anaheim, California. It will be available in Microsoft's Hyper-V version 3 hypervisor, included in Microsoft's next server operating system, Windows Server 8.
The capability, while viable in only a handful of use cases, nonetheless shows Microsoft's growing expertise in virtualization, analysts said.
With live migration, a working VM is moved from one computer to another without any disruption of the services offered by applications within the VM. Read more...
Gmail now ‘viable alternative’ to Microsoft, says Gartner
Google's Gmail is now a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange Online and other cloud email services, according to analyst house Gartner, which said the enterprise-focused cloud email package is gaining momentum among commercial organisations with more than 5,000 seats.
Matthew Cain, research vice president at Gartner, said while Gmail's enterprise email market share currently hovers around one per cent, this accounts for half of the market for enterprise cloud email. Read more...
Intel extends JavaScript for parallel programming
Intel is developing an extended version of JavaScript that brings parallel programming to web applications.
Codenamed River Trail, the project was revealed this week at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, and the company has open sourced an early version of the technology in the form of a Firefox add-on.
For the most part, JavaScript – the web's standard scripting language – does not give applications access to multiple processor cores, or even a processor's vector instructions. This puts web applications at a significant disadvantage next to traditional native software. Read more...
Google patches 32 Chrome bugs, revs browser to v.14
Google today patched 32 vulnerabilities in Chrome, paying more than $14,000 in bug bounties as it also upgraded the stable edition of the browser to version 14.
The company called out a pair of developer-oriented additions to Chrome 14 and noted new support for Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, including full-screen mode and vanishing scrollbars.
Google last upgraded Chrome's stable build in early August. Google produces an update about every six weeks, a practice that rival Mozilla also adopted with the debut of Firefox 5 last June.
Fifteen of the 32 vulnerabilities were rated "high," the second-most-serious ranking in Google's four-step scoring system, while 10 were pegged "medium" and the remaining seven were marked "low." Read more...
The great Dropbox-Twitter-Facebook mashup arrives
Today's Web is brimming with a staggering number of services where users can speak their mind (Twitter), grab vital information (any news or blog source), store important files (Dropbox or Box.net), collaborate with peers (Facebook or Google+), and much more. The dream has long been to devise ways to get these often disparate and siloed services to interact with one another, creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
A new Web application dubbed ifttt.com serves as an excellent yardstick of how far we've come from the early days of specialized, single-purpose mashups, or more complicated SOA where services were cobbled together with complex tools and the coding equivalent of duct tape.
Ifttt.com -- "ifttt" stands for "if this, then that" -- draws on the wealth of APIs for many of today's most popular Web services; it serves as a hub through which users can easily get separate services to work in tandem and carry out incredibly useful, time-saving tasks, called recipes. Read more...
Obama signs patent overhaul legislation
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed the America Invents Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in about 50 years.
The America Invents Act, passed 89-9 by the U.S. Senate last week, would allow new challenges to patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It allows third parties to file a challenge to a patent within nine months of it being awarded.
The new law also creates a new challenge for finance-related business-method patents by companies that have been sued or accused of infringing them. The new mechanism for challenging business-method patents will apply retroactively to those patents, and the law opens an eight-year window for the USPTO to review business-method patents. Read more...
Microsoft CEO hints at ‘Metro-ization’ of Office
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Wednesday strongly hinted that the company will craft a Metro-style version of the next Office suite.
"You ought to expect that we are rethinking and working hard on what it would mean to do Office Metro style," said Ballmer, when asked by a Wall Street analyst whether Microsoft is working on a version of Office for Windows 8's Metro touch-based interface.
Metro is the name Microsoft has given the tile- and touch-based interface borrowed from Windows Phone 7, the smartphone operating system, and before that, Zune, the company's portable music player. The interface is the first thing users see when they launch Windows 8, and apps must be specially-coded to run in Metro. Read more...
Sony makes gamers promise they won’t sue with new mandatory Terms of Service agreement
When Sony's PlayStation Network went down for the count earlier this year, it did more than hurt the company's reputation and scare consumers — it led to a litany of class action lawsuits. Consumers take their privacy very seriously, and the breach — which exposed the accounts of millions of registered users — could have been catastrophic. Thankfully, while customer information such as name, address, birthdate, and password was compromised, it appears as though the perpetrators weren't able to utilize the information for nefarious purposes. That's not stopping Sony from taking every available measure to cover themselves in the event of a relapse, and that includes mandating that anyone who uses the PSN is unable to levy legal action against the company. Read more...
Looking for iPad 3? Expect to wait until late 2012
A Broadway producer once said that it wasn’t enough for him to succeed, but his rivals must fail.
That seems to be the approach Apple is taking in the tab world.
Apple’s iPad 1 and 2 has been dominating the tab world as competitors one-by-one have tumbled, stumbled and flopped.
Hence, even though Apple has prototypes -- plural -- waiting in the wings for next-gen tabs, it isn’t feeling pressure to put iPad 3 on a fast track.
There have been rumors about high-resolution versions, pro versions and radical new designs. Read more...
Lost iPhone just one headache for Apple security
Wanted: experienced security professional. Must have plan to thwart Chinese counterfeiters, protect secret blueprints from spies and keep workers from leaving super-secret unreleased smartphones behind in bars.
A day after a recent report surfaced that an Apple employee had lost a prototype for a new but unreleased iPhone at a Northern California watering hole, two job listings appeared on Apple's website for managers of "new product security."
Such workers would join a team at the $350 billion company that has included ex-FBI agents and other highly trained pros with backgrounds in intelligence and law enforcement.
While a private security force might not seem in keeping with its user-friendly image, Apple and other companies in its league need the best protection they can buy, corporate security experts say. And lost iPhones likely don't come near the top of the list of anxieties. Read more...