One week with Samsung’s Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch
Within the realm of Android, it's hard to think of a name that carries more weight than Samsung's Galaxy S. Last year's first-gen model won over millions of fans -- and with the newly launched Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Sammy is clearly aiming for another home run.
After using the phone for a full week, I can safely say the company has hit it out of the park. The Epic 4G Touch, available now on Sprint for $200 with a two-year contract, is everything you'd expect it to be: It's fast, it's sleek and it's fun to use. All considered, it's easily one of the best Android phones I've tested. Read more...
Samsung-Apple patent lawsuit tally hits 21, and counting
The legal activity around Android continues to mount, with the chief antagonists - Samsung and Apple - increasing their lawsuit tally to 21. And another may follow soon, as Samsung threatens to sue to block sales of the iPhone 5 as soon as it launches, at least in its home country of Korea.
Let's face it, this is relevant to all of us in pay TV and video. If Apple gains the upper hand we all have to operate in a very closed world of Apple's making.
According to sources who spoke to Korea Times, Samsung will file suit against Apple for alleged violation of nine patents related to wireless communications as soon as possible after the next Apple handset is unveiled. As Apple is pursuing for key products such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Korean vendor will seek a ban on imports and sales of the iPhone 5, as well as flexing its intellectual property muscles more strongly than it has to date. Read more...
Yoof survey: ‘Internet as vital as air’
A third of college students and young professionals feel that the internet is as important as air, food, water or shelter, according to a new survey.
Cisco's 2011 Connected World Technology Report (PDF) found that 32 per cent thought the web was as important as the necessities of life, while over half of students and 62 per cent of employees in their 20s said they couldn't live without it.
The global report looks at the next generation of the workforce and how they are going to perform in a connected workplace. The study concluded that:
Students and young professionals share similar perceptions on the importance of the internet. For most, accessing the internet through their computer is their primary information and news source and an integral part of their daily life. Read more...
Finance software bug causes $217m in investor losses
A developer of financial software has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle charges stemming from his concealment of a bug that caused about $217 million in investment losses.
Barr M. Rosenberg, 68, of Sea Ranch, California, developed the quantitative investment modeling software and put it into production in 2007 to help clients make investment decisions. The program captured and processed huge amounts of data contained in financial reports and other publicly available information to balance publicly traded company's earnings and valuation against common risk factors.
After pioneering the field and serving as the original developer, he went on to oversee code improvements over the next few years. Read more...
‘Lurid’ malware hits Russia, CIS countries
The latest espionage-related hacking campaign detailed by security vendor Trend Micro is most notable for the country it does not implicate: China.
Researchers from Trend Micro wrote on Thursday that they discovered a series of hacking attacks targeting space-related government agencies, diplomatic missions, research institutions and companies located mostly in Russia but also Vietnam and Commonwealth of Independent States countries. In total, the attacks targeted 1,465 computers in 61 countries.
The attacks, which Trend Micro dubbed "Lurid," are not particularly unusual compared to other stealthy, long-range hacking campaigns publicized recently, said Rik Ferguson, Trend Micro's director of security research and communication for Europe. Targeted e-mails were sent to employees that were engineered to attack unpatched software and sought to steal spreadsheets, Word documents and other information. Read more...
New Oracle database appliance aims at small, mid-size firms
Oracle's new Database Appliance product, unveiled on Wednesday, should appeal to small and mid-size businesses that run both transactional and analytic applications, analysts said.
The tightly integrated hardware, software and storage bundle features Oracle Database11g Release 2 and Real Application Clusters software running on a 2-node, 24-processor core, Sun Fire server cluster hardware.
The pre-configured, pre-installed appliance should appeal to small and mid-size businesses because it can be used virtually right out of the box, analysts said. Sweetening the deal is Oracle's offer of a pay-as-you-grow database software licensing model for the new platform, they added.
The company said the hardware component of the appliance will be sold separately. A configuration that includes two Sun Fire servers, 192GB of main memory, 24 processor cores, 12TB of raw disk storage and 292GB of solid-state disk is priced at $50,000. The company didn't disclose software pricing by press time.
The full Database Appliance's starting price tag is expected to fall below Oracle's popular Exadata integrated database appliance that's targeted at large enterprises.
Like Exadata, Oracle's new product is also an optimized platform for running OLTP and data warehousing applications. However, it would be a mistake to call it a scaled down version of Exadata, said James Kobielus, an analyst with Forrester Research.
"Lacking the branding, or the optimized storage layer that Oracle built their Exadata product family around, this is in no way an 'Exadata' product,' as some have been calling it, Kobielus said in an email to Computerworld. "Oracle needed a low-end DB appliance to serve as an entry ramp for customers in the [small to mid-size business] segment that need a [high-performance] DBMS acceleration platform," Kobielus said.
"Oracle realized it needed a database appliance for the broad business market, and it's targeting this new one at existing Oracle shops that would like to migrate their DBMS licenses to a more optimized platform at an affordable price," he said.
The product is also likely to appeal to those who are involved in enterprise database consolidation projects and need an easy-to-implement system to consolidate to, Kobielus said.
"It's not Exadata at all," added David Menninger, an analyst at Ventana Research. "It's a packaging of the Oracle database on Oracle hardware with the advantages that it is pre-installed, preconfigured and supported as a single bill of materials."
The primary competition for the product would likely be Microsoft's SQL Server technology which is extremely popular among small and mid-size businesses, Menninger said.
"To a lesser extent it may also compete with cloud-based database offerings," Menninger said. "If you look at Oracle's advertising campaigns, it's not surprising to see new combined offerings of hardware and software. The market now seems to be very receptive to appliance-based solutions."
The new offering will likely see some competition from other Oracle products as well, Kobielus added.
Oracle needs to be careful how it prices, positions and markets its Database Appliance product if it wants to avoid cannibalizing sales of lower-end Exadata boxes, he cautioned.
Beyond that, other rival products in the same category Teradata's 2600-series appliances, the IBM Netezza TwinFin and EMC Greenplum's Modular Data Computing Appliance. "Among them, Oracle has the most OLTP-optimized appliance that is also a strong data warehouse appliance," Kobielus said.
Curt Monash, a principal at Monash Research said he doubts that the new product will boost Oracle's place in the small to mid-size business market.
In a blog post, Monash said that Oracle has long had problems selling to small and mid-size firms because its products have been too difficult and costly to administer.
While the appliance will help, "it's not any kind of game-changer, because the issues relate to the antique design of the Oracle DBMS," Monash said.
(Source: computerworld.com)
What will Whitman bring to HP?
Doubt may now be the default for assessing Hewlett-Packard's choice of CEOs.
After the ousting of Leo Apotheker, and before that Mark Hurd and Carly Fiorina, HP's board looks shaky when it comes to appointing its top executive.
It was no surprise then that financial analysts were tough on HP's board during a conference call Thursday to hear why Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, was picked as HP's new leader. They wanted details about the selection process and the timeline behind the decision to replace Apotheker.
Ray Lane, HP's executive chairman, was on the defensive about the board's decision-making and, at one point, his frustration showed. Read more...
10 lessons learned for managing mobile devices
Modern CIOs and their IT departments face a new, complex set of mobile device security and manageability challenges as employees bring their various smartphones and tablets into the workplace and as additional devices are rolled out across the enterprise.
Many IT managers are looking to outside MDM (mobile device management) products for assistance in securing and managing these disparate devices, but with the majority of these services still in their infancies, it pays to wade slowly into the MDM waters -- and with caution.
Technology research firm Forrester Research wants to help, and it has just released a new report, titled "10 Lessons Learned From Early Adopters Of Mobile Device Management Solutions." Read more...
Alleged LulzSec Sony hacker arrested
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Phoenix student, claiming that he is one of the LulzSec hackers responsible for a database attack on Sony Pictures computers that claimed more than 1 million victims.
Cody Kretsinger, 23, was arrested Thursday morning on hacking and conspiracy charges. Prosecutors say he was "Recursion," an LulzSec hacker who used a database attack technique called SQL injection to break into Sony Pictures systems. Kretsinger allegedly provided data that was used in a mammoth June 2, 2011, data dump by LulzSec that included coupon codes along with email addresses and passwords belonging to Sony customers.
At the time that LulzSec posted its data, Sony was already recovering from a devastating break-in to its PlayStation Network. That intrusion knocked the service offline for more than two months and cost the company an estimated ¥14 billion ($183 million) to clean up. Read more...
HP to decide on PC spin-off plans by year end
Just over a month after Hewlett-Packard said it would sell or spin-off its PC business, new CEO Meg Whitman on Thursday said the company will decide on a proposal to spin-off the PC unit by the end of the year.
Under former CEO Leo Apotheker, HP in mid-August said it would explore the sale or spin-off of the Personal Systems Group (PSG) unit, which deals in PCs, smartphones and tablets. News agency Bloomberg earlier reported that HP was reconsidering a proposal to spin-off the PC unit, citing a source familiar with the company's plans.
Speaking on a conference call Thursday, Whitman said that a decision on the group's future would come sometime in the next three months. "With regard to the potential spin off of PSG, we're committed to doing the work right now to determine the best path forward and we expect the board to make a determination by the end of the calendar year if not sooner. This decision is solely based on the value to investors and value to customers," Whitman said. Read more...