Shoppers love fondling iPads to fill out sex health survey
A survey conducted using iPads has helped an NHS cluster reach out more people in quicker time for their views on local health services.
The Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire NHS cluster gave researchers iPads that had a special software installed and asked them to gather opinions at Eden shopping centre in High Wycombe.
The method resulted in more public responses than the traditional paper and online surveys.
"A survey accessible by mobile devices was created, requiring no registration and asking only key questions so that the public could answer it quickly and conveniently," said a spokeswoman for the cluster. Read more...
Her Majesty’s £444m court IT system can’t even add up fines
The Libra magistrates' courts case management system has contributed to the inability of HM Courts Service to produce basic financial information to support its accounts, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO).
The courts service uses Libra, plus information produced by local police forces' IT systems, to provide the auditor with accounts of the revenues it collects from fines, confiscation orders and penalties. On receipt of cash, for example, the courts service uses Libra to record the payment against the person on whom the fine was imposed.
A similar system operates at the courts service's fixed penalty offices, using information from police forces, based principally on the Vehicle Procedures and Fixed Penalty Office system. Read more...
Cox to sell spectrum to Verizon for $315M
Cox Communications plans to sell wireless spectrum licenses covering 28 million U.S. residents to Verizon Wireless for $315 million, becoming the latest cable operator to join with Verizon for mobile services.
Earlier this month, a joint venture of three of the largest U.S. cable companies agreed to sell their AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) spectrum to Verizon for $3.6 billion. The venture had acquired the licenses, which cover about 265 million people, in 2006 but had never used them. The group, called SpectrumCo, included Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
If the spectrum purchases receive antitrust and Federal Communications Commission approval, they will give Verizon Wireless a rich source of spectrum to strengthen its mobile network and more channels through which to sell its services. The deals also represent a retreat from mobile by U.S. cable operators, which have not had much luck selling wireless along with their packages of home video, data and voice services. Read more...
Microsoft-Novell antitrust case ends in hung jury
After a two-month trial, Novell's $1.3 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft ended on Friday in a hung jury, according to a spokesman for Microsoft who was at the court. "It is confirmed that the jury could not come to an accord and that no length of further deliberation would alter that," said the spokesman, who is with one of Microsoft's public relations agencies.
The jury had been deliberating for almost three days after closing arguments were presented earlier this week. Microsoft and the Attachmate Group, which is the parent company of Novell, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The jury had asked for clarification on several points during deliberations, including questions about the definition of "middleware." The terminology apparently caused some confusion. At one point, the jury asked whether Windows 95 was considered "an operating system or middleware," court filings show. Read more...
House committee to push ahead on SOPA
The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will continue its hearing on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on Wednesday, not until after Congress' holiday break, as originally believed.
Late Friday, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and committee chairman, scheduled a continuation of the hearing to amend the bill for this Wednesday at 9 a.m., even though many members of the committee may be out of town for the holidays. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and opponent of the bill, tweeted the hearing announcement late Friday.
At the urging of some SOPA opponents, Smith said Friday he will consider a hearing or a classified briefing on the bill's impact on cybersecurity. More than 80 Internet engineers and cybersecurity experts have raised security concerns about the bill, which would require Internet service providers and domain name registrars to block the domain names of foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. Read more...
Two IT managers fatally shot by co-worker at Calif. utility
Two IT managers were killed Friday by a co-worker at Southern California Edison in a workplace shooting.
The gunman, Andre Turner, 48, an employee at the company, took his own life, the utility said, citing information it had received from authorities.
Two other people were wounded in the shooting, which took place at mid-afternoon Friday.
The California utility on Saturday identified the two people killed as Robert Scott Lindsay and Henry Serrano. In a statement, the company said Lindsay, 53, was a manager in the information technology area with 29 years at the company; Serrano, 56, was a manager in the same area who had worked for the utility for 26 years.
The two wounded Edison employees were Angela Alvarez, 46, and a contractor, Abhay Pimpale, 38. Their specific job roles were not identified. Read more...
How to launch your career 2.0
Comedian Louis CK recently produced an "HBO special"-style show, but with a difference: HBO wasn't involved -- and neither was any other network.
CK did all the work and took all the risks. But he also kept all the money.
The project was made possible by technology unavailable 10 years ago. The cost of the cameras, website, editing equipment and other necessary elements would have been far too high in the past.
The special, called "Live at the Beacon Theater," cost CK $170,000 to make. It was edited by CK himself on a regular MacBook Pro. Distribution, which happened entirely on the Internet with a digital rights management-free download costing $5 for each user via PayPal, took place on a site built for $32,000.
That's a lot of money. But the whole project paid for itself in a few hours after the special went on sale. Within four days, CK had made $500,000. And the money is still rolling in. Read more...
Sony’s PlayStation Vita hits stores in Japan
Sony's long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hit stores in Japan on Saturday as thousands of game enthusiasts lined up early in the morning to be among the first to buy it.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is predicting brisk sales, even though the launch may have missed some holiday shoppers. A successful debut would help the company offset the rest of its struggling business. Sony projects a loss of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year through March 2012, which would be its fourth straight annual loss.
In Tokyo's Ikebukuro shopping district, some 300 game enthusiasts lined up outside a major electronics chain that opened a few hours earlier than usual for the event. Many of the purchasers had made advance orders on the Internet so they could start playing immediately. Read more...