Charting H-1B users, as attention shifts to L-1
Offshore outsourcing firms rely heavily on the H-1B visa to deliver services, and the chart accompanying this story provide data on the top users of the visa since 2009.
The chart, compiled from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) data, provides figures on approvals of both new H-1B visas and renewals of existing visas (H-1B visas must be renewed every three years). To calculate largest users of H-1B visas, Computerworld consolidated various versions (and spellings) of some company names, such as IBM Corp. and IBM India Private Ltd.
You can use the form below to search through the full, original database of H-1B visa approvals. Read more...
‘Ugly’ MongoDB defies NoSQL death rumour
Someone clearly forgot to tell the MongoDB crowd that they lost. Ever since an anonymous poster on HackerNews called the MongoDB baby "ugly", I've been watching to see if MongoDB's early rise would taper off and fall.
After all, my own company, Nodeable, has had to switch from MongoDB to Cassandra due to some significant performance problems. And yet MongoDB continues its meteoric rise.
What gives? Why is MongoDB, and its corporate sponsor 10gen, doing well despite the technology's well-publicised problems? Read more...
Firefox: In with the new, out with the compatibility
Another day, another version of Firefox -- like rival Google has done with Chrome, Mozilla has put Firefox on an endless update cycle, with new versions every six weeks or so. Unlike the case with Chrome, compatibility issues seems to be the price to be paid for having Firefox's version number change so often, with no obvious beneficial changes in exchange.
For example, the new Firefox 11 breaks compatibility with older versions of TinyMCE, the open source AJAX tool used by countless websites to provide rich text editing. If you see a row of Office-like formatting icon buttons, that's TinyMCE in action; in Firefox 11, you often see a blank window rather than your contents -- that's the bug. Read more...
School expels student for swearing on Twitter during non-school hours
From Facebook communications to tweets, you're no doubt already aware that nothing you do online is truly private. But should you have a reasonable expectation that your superiors aren't actively spying on you? That's the question a lot of people are asking after Garrett High School in Indiana expelled a high school senior for cursing over Twitter during off-school hours.
The tweet in question dropped the F-bomb a number of times, but was otherwise non-threatening. It was posted at 2:30 a.m. — a time when the student in question was most assuredly not at school. Still, despite the evidence, the school stands by its decision to expel the student. Read more...
Taiwan police: Woman kills self while on Facebook
A woman in Taiwan killed herself by inhaling poisonous fumes while chatting with friends on Facebook and none of them alerted authorities, police said Tuesday.
Claire Lin killed herself on her 31st birthday, March 18, and family members who reported her suicide were unaware of the Facebook conversations that accompanied it, Taipei police officer Hsieh Ku-ming said.
Lin's last Facebook entries show her chatting with nine friends, alerting them to her gradual asphyxiation. One picture uploaded from her mobile phone depicts a charcoal barbecue burning next to two stuffed animals. Another shows the room filled with fumes. Read more...
EU Commission wants Cyber Crime Center
The European Commission wants to set up a special center to deal with cyber crime to protect citizens against illegal online activities.
The Commission proposed Wednesday to make the center part of Europol, the European police agency headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. Read more...
Windows 8 lets users decide which IE opens links
Windows 8 users will be able to set which version of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) automatically opens Web pages when links are clicked, Microsoft said Monday.
The new operating system features dual and dueling editions of IE10, one for the traditional desktop and another designed specifically for the touch-first, tile-based Metro user interface (UI).
By default, links clicked in the Metro environment open in that UI's IE10, while links clicked from within a program running on the desktop render in the conventional browser.
The two browsers rely on the same engine, but they're not twins by any stretch. Read more...
Apple confirms imprecise iPad battery meter, says it’s by design
Apple today reacted to reports that the new iPad under-reports its battery status, saying a researcher's analysis was essentially correct but that that's how the tablet and its iOS software were designed.
Apple executive Michael Tchao told the AllThingsD blog -- operated by Dow Jones, the same firm that publishes the Wall Street Journal -- that the new iPad, like all devices powered by iOS, reports a fully-charged battery before it actually reaches 100%.
According to Tchao, Apple's vice president of marketing, the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch all display "100%" on their battery indicators before they are completely charged. Read more...
Google+ gets its first UK TV ad campaign, while its advertising budget in the US reaches $12m
With the continuous back-and-forth on Google+, with its critics calling it a ghost-town, and some fighting back, Google is pulling out the big guns, with its first TV ad campaign in the UK.
Marketing Week reports that the company’s first UK above-the-line campaign focuses on what Google+ has to offer, and what Facebook and Twitter don’t.
This is not Google’s first foray into the traditional advertising space. While it, unsurprisingly, relies almost entirely on online advertising, the company has produced its fair share of TV ads. It spent a whopping $70 million on them in the US last year, accounting for almost 33% of of its entire $213 million advertising budget, according to the Wall Street Journal. The year before, Google spent a mere $6 million on TV ads in the US. Read more...
Nokia makes its play for China with the launch of the Lumia 800C – but can it succeed?
Today Nokia has finally unveiled details of its play to rival Apple, Samsung and others in China with the launch of the Lumia 800C, a Windows Phone 7 device that becomes its first CDMA release in the country, as had been expected.
Following Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 China launch last week, Nokia CEO Steven Elop was in town as the Lumia 800C was unveiled alongside China Telecom, the country’s third largest operator, at an event in Shanghai today. Read more...