White House raises concerns over CISPA bill
The White House joined the growing chorus of voices expressing concern over the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) legislation that is scheduled for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives next week.
The bill would allow Internet service providers and Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to collect and share a wide range of user data with the government. Privacy and civil rights groups have blasted the bill , saying it would dismantle privacy protections and enable unprecedented surveillance of online activities under the pretext of cybersecurity.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House's National Security Council echoed those sentiments in a statement made to The Hill newspaper late Tuesday. Read more...
Beefy Fedora could use a dash of miracle whip
If you’re called Beefy Miracle, you better pack a punch. And when the Fedora crew christened their next Linux desktop, that was certainly the plan.
On the menu was “over and under the bun improvements that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software.”
While Fedora 17 is certainly beefy, what's been delivered with this first and only beta is not particularly miraculous. Read more...
Apple throws free Snow Leopard bone at MobileMe punters
Apple is now giving away an OS upgrade to as a ploy to wean punters off its MobileMe service and onto its iCloud storage offering. Cupertino's older OSes do not support iCloud.
Cupertino has informed MobileMe customers still using the 2007 Mac operating system Leopard that they can have the next version of the OS – the 2009 release, Snow Leopard – for free.
Apple hopes that after the punters have installed the software freebie, they will whip out their wallets and upgrade again to the latest Mac OS X (Mountain Lion), where they can use the new Apple cloud, iCloud, leaving MobileMe behind. Read more...
What to consider before signing up for Google Drive
Just as with an Apple product launch, Google has had to do next to nothing to create buzz around its long-awaited Google Drive cloud storage service. The latest: Google Drive will launch next week.
Of course, prognosticators have predicted much the same thing numerous times in the past, predictions that turned out to be wrong.
"Frankly, Google has been out to lunch on this," said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research. "The real question is: What took you guys so long? And have to got anything original or is this a 'me too' play."
Regardless of whether Google Drive does indeed launch soon, would-be users need to ask themselves a number of questions about their needs before choosing a cloud storage service. Read more...
Workday ERP update pushes it deeper into Oracle, SAP’s turf
Workday is rolling out version 16 of its cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) software to customers this week, an update that includes upgrades to the financials component that could help it steal away deals with large enterprises from the likes of Oracle and SAP.
The company has already gained notice for large contracts it has landed for its HCM (human capital management) module with companies like Flextronics and Kimberly-Clark. Read more...
Amazon offers cloud apps at hourly rates from IBM, SAP, others
Amazon Web Services on Thursday announced a new online marketplace that allows customers to buy software and services from a variety of vendors at hourly rates through its cloud infrastructure platform.
Commercial software vendors including IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and CA Technologies are offering products for sale on the site. A variety of open-source software is also available, including the Drupal content management system, SugarCRM and a number of application development stacks. Read more...
Major Book Publisher Demands Jury Trial Against BitTorrent Pirates
John Wiley & Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers, is continuing its efforts to crack down on BitTorrent piracy. The company has now named several people who allegedly shared Wiley titles online, and is demanding a jury trial against them. If these actually go ahead it will be the first time that BitTorrent-related evidence is tested in a US court.
Last fall, John Wiley and Sons became the first book publisher to go after BitTorrent users in the US.
By filing a mass-BitTorrent lawsuit the company followed mostly in the footsteps of several movie studios, who together have sued more than 250,000 people in the US since early 2010. And the publisher didn’t stop at just one.
In recent months Wiley has filed more than a dozen mass BitTorrent lawsuits involving a few hundred John Doe defendants in total. The Does are all accused of sharing digital copies of titles including “WordPress for Dummies,” Hacking for Dummies” and “Day Trading for Dummies.” Read more...
Microsoft remains mum on Windows 8 upgrades from Vista, XP
Microsoft today declined to confirm whether users of Windows XP and Vista will be able to upgrade their PCs to Windows 8 when the latter launches later this year.
On Monday, Microsoft spelled out the editions it would offer customers working with 32- and 64-bit Intel and AMD processor-powered PCs and tablets.
In that blog post, the company also noted the upgrade paths to Windows 8 for existing machines, saying that people now running Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic or Home Premium could upgrade to the consumer-oriented Windows 8. Systems running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate will be upgradable to Windows 8 Pro. Read more...
Chinese Web giant Sina’s new citizen reporting platform pulled amid rumor of government interference
We’ve seen plenty of efforts aimed at creating citizen news channels — the last few days alone saw Dabble and Signal launch — but Chinese Web giant Sina‘s effort to join the grouping cluster of news-gathering services has been the most curious yet.
Earlier today Sina, which runs popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo, launched Baoliao, a real-time news reporting platform. However, there’s a problem. As Tech in Asia points out, Baoliao is nowhere to be found.
The Chinese government has been hot on cracking down on anonymous Internet users and the reporting of ‘harmful information’, could it be that the state stepped in to bring down the service just hours after it launched? Read more...
Major Book Publisher Demands Jury Trial Against BitTorrent Pirates
John Wiley & Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers, is continuing its efforts to crack down on BitTorrent piracy. The company has now named several people who allegedly shared Wiley titles online, and is demanding a jury trial against them. If these actually go ahead it will be the first time that BitTorrent-related evidence is tested in a US court.
Last fall, John Wiley and Sons became the first book publisher to go after BitTorrent users in the US.
By filing a mass-BitTorrent lawsuit the company followed mostly in the footsteps of several movie studios, who together have sued more than 250,000 people in the US since early 2010. And the publisher didn’t stop at just one.
In recent months Wiley has filed more than a dozen mass BitTorrent lawsuits involving a few hundred John Doe defendants in total. The Does are all accused of sharing digital copies of titles including “WordPress for Dummies,” Hacking for Dummies” and “Day Trading for Dummies.” Read more...