As IT picks up the pace, can tech workers keep up?
There's good news and bad news on the salary front for IT professionals this year. With many businesses enjoying renewed growth following an extended period of economic gloom, IT workers saw another year of modest salary increases, and they reported significantly fewer pay cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that tech professionals are working hard for every penny they bring home -- so hard that in many cases the extra workload outweighs the small boost in pay. Read more...
Court: Violating work computer-use policies not a crime
An ex-employee who persuaded former coworkers to access their company's customer lists and give them to him is not guilty of computer hacking crimes, a U.S. appeals court has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that David Nosal, a former employee of executive search firm Korn/Ferry, did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a 1986 law that outlaws the act of knowingly accessing a protected computer with the intent to defraud. Read more...
Apple, major publishers hit with federal antitrust lawsuit over e-book pricing
Apple and several of the nation's largest book publishers were hit with a federal antitrust lawsuit on Wednesday for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices.
According to the complaint, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, at least five publishers--Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin and Macmillan--conspired with Apple to fix prices for e-books ahead of the 2010 launch of the iPad tablet and iBookstore, forcing Amazon to raise prices for e-books on the rival Kindle.
Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Hachette have already settled with the Justice Department. According to Bloomberg, Apple and Macmillan "have refused to engage in settlement talks" and "deny they colluded to raise prices for digital books." Penguin plans to fight the lawsuit too, Bloomberg said. Read more...
Don’t buy a new MacBook Pro right now, slimmer 15″ notebook on deck
Apple is a company that launches products like clockwork, so it's safe to assume we aren't exactly reading the rumor-steeped tea leaves when it comes to its regular hardware updates. According to reliable Apple blog AppleInsider, some major authorized resellers have found themselves suddenly shorthanded when it comes to stock of Apple's mid-sized high-end laptop, the 15" MacBook Pro. When Apple stops shipping a given product, it's the telltale sign of a refresh just around the corner. Read more...
Apple promises Flashback malware killer
Apple on Tuesday for the first time publicly acknowledged a malware campaign that has infected an estimated 600,000 Macs, and said it would release a free tool to disinfect users' machines.
"A recent version of malicious software called Flashback exploits a security flaw in Java in order to install itself on Macs," Apple said in a support document published Tuesday. "Apple is developing software that will detect and remove the Flashback malware."
Although Flashback has circulated since September 2011, it was only last month that the newest variant began infecting Macs using an exploit of a Java bug that Oracle patched in mid-February. Read more...
Use Internet Explorer 9? You need this update, stat
Just over 8.5% of TNW readers, which amounts to a whole pile of traffic, use Internet Explorer on their normal computers (non-mobile), so this post is for them. If you use Internet Explorer (and we presume that that means you are on version 9, the good one), you need to make sure that you have the April ‘Cumulative Security Update’ for the browser.
It patches some five previously reported issues, making it an essential grab if Internet Explorer is your daily drive. Depending on how you have your Windows Update settings tuned, you might be snagging it automatically, but if not, details can be found right here. Read more...
Verizon Wireless will charge you $30 to upgrade starting April 22nd, even when you’re already eligible
Verizon Wireless has announced plans to start charging customers a $30 upgrade fee, even when they’re already eligible to upgrade under the terms of their contract. This makes Verizon the final major U.S. carrier to do so, as AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile all do as well.
AT&T doubled its upgrade fee to $36 in February after Sprint did the same last year. T-Mobile charges an $18 fee, but that’s not likely to stay that low. Verizon was the final holdout, charging $35 to new customers, but no upgrade cut. Read more...