Red Hat, Dell announce OEM partnership
The announcement Tuesday of a new partnership between Dell and Red Hat could mark a further expansion of open-source software use in the enterprise.
OEM customers looking to Dell for custom products will now have additional open-source options. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss join SUSE as standard choices for Dell OEM.
Red Hat's recently acquired status as the first billion-dollar open-source business underlines the importance of open technologies and their growing appeal to a wide variety of firms. Read more...
Half of all Macs will lack access to security updates by summer
Unless Apple changes its security update practice, nearly half of all Mac users will be adrift without patches sometime this summer.
Apple will launch OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, in the next few months, and then will -- baring a change in a decade-old habit -- stop serving patches to OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard.
Although Apple has never spelled out its support policy for older operating systems, it has always dropped an edition around the time it has two newer versions in play. If the current OS X is dubbed "n," then "n-2" support ends at the debut of "n." Read more...
Yahoo CEO apologizes for tumult
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson says he's sorry, but is not admitting any wrongdoing.
Thompson, under heavy fire for a discrepancy in his resume, sent an apology via email to company employees for the tumult that has embroiled Yahoo for nearly a week now.
The new CEO, however, did not say he was stepping down, and did not address the issue of his resume.
"As I told you on Friday, the board is reviewing the issue and I will provide whatever they need from me," wrote Thompson in the memo that was reprinted by the Financial Times. Read more...
4G LTE networks hit battery life on some smartphones
While battery capacities in smartphones has increased, 4G LTE networks are taking their toll on battery life for Web browsing and video streaming, according to a new analysis by Metrico Wireless.
Four new smartphones tested 20,000 times on live AT&T and Verizon Wireless LTE networks all delivered less than five hours of battery life for either streaming video or Web browsing, testing service Metrico said in a 10-page report released today.
Streaming video and Web browsing are seen as key selling points behind customer interest in LTE smartphones, making the test findings that much more important, Metrico noted. Read more...
Chrome beats IE for a weekend
Fresh from knocking off Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the web's most-used browser for a single day in March, Google's Chrome browser has now claimed more users than Redmond's HTML-cruncher for a whole weekend.
Data gathered by StatCounter shows Chrome has enjoyed a day of dominance on most weekends since its March ascendancy. On May 5th and 6th, however, it opened a gap over IE. Sunday the 6th even saw Chrome take a lead of nearly three percent. Read more...
Dell announces first server with Intel’s Ivy Bridge Xeon chips
Dell on Tuesday announced a new microserver with Intel's first Xeon server processors based on the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture, which has not been officially announced by the chip maker yet.
Dell's PowerEdge C5220 is one of the first servers with Xeon chips based on the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture. The server is targeted at Web 2.0, cloud and high-performance applications, Dell said in a statement.
The server runs on Intel's Xeon E3-1200 V2 series processors, which are faster and more power-efficient than previous E3 chips based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. Read more...
Apple updates iOS, mum on Wi-Fi, battery fixes
Apple has released an update to its iOS mobile operating system, version 5.1.1, which it claims remove some bugs and improves reliability of some options, but which does not address the wireless connectivity problems – well, at least not overtly – that have had some fanbois fuming.
The update, released Monday, is for the iPhone 3GS and later, the third and fourth-generation iPod touch, and the iPad and iPad 2 – presumably by "iPad", Apple means both the original iPad and the third-generation iPad, aka "The new iPad". Read more...
Oracle-Google verdict signals need for copyright reform
Today, the jury in the case by ruling in favor Oracle against Google over Android's use of Java demonstrated how badly the copyright laws of the 19th and 20th century fit the technology market of the 21st century. The jury found that Google had infringed Oracle's copyrights on the overall design of Java (procured by Oracle in its purchase of Sun Microsystems), but Google's use of the Java documentation did not infringe -- and it was unable to determine whether Google's usage was justified as "fair use," which is a legally acceptable form of infringement. Read more...
Avaya revs Identity Engines for more secure BYOD
Network and security vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, and Enterasys are lining up at Interop this week with products aimed at easing security admins' BYOD-spawned migraines. Also in the queue: Today's release of Avaya Identity Engines (AIE) 8.0, designed to help organizations better secure and control who can access wired and wireless networks, as well as how they do it.
The move represents the struggling networking company's attempt to broaden its mobile strategy, which has included the Flare Experience -- a videoconferencing product to rival to the Cisco Cius -- followed by a Flare client for the iPad. Read more...
MasterCard’s PayPass Wallet will span online, mobile, in-store shopping
MasterCard WorldWide announced a digital wallet on Monday that consumers will be able to use for purchases in stores, on the Web and on their mobile phones.
The global credit-card company's entry into digital wallets will tie into its PayPass point-of-sale system, with nearly 500,000 locations around the world where consumers can tap a card or phone with NFC (near-field communications) to make a purchase. But with the new offering, called PayPass Wallet Services, MasterCard will also allow third parties to create payment systems under their own brands. Read more...