Lenovo packs ‘thinnest’ ThinkPad ultrabook with 4G LTE
Lenovo on Tuesday announced a range of new ThinkPads with Intel's latest third-generation Core processors, including a ThinkPad ultrabook that the company claims is the "thinnest ultrabook in the world."
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook has a 14-in. screen, weighs under 1.8 kilograms (3.9 pounds) and is 18.8-mm (.74 inches) thick. It will have the latest Intel ultrabook processors, code-named Ivy Bridge, which are expected to be officially announced next month.
Lenovo also updated the popular ThinkPad T-series and X-series lineups, making them faster while adding more battery life to the models. The company also has new connectivity and multimedia capabilities that could be helpful for business users. The laptops will be available on June 5. Read more...
Red Hat preps RHEL 7 for second half of 2013
The next major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), version 7, is targeted for release in the second half of 2013, Red Hat said on Tuesday, as it also celebrated the 10th anniversary of its enterprise OS.
Red Hat aims to release a major new version of its OS every three years and updates about every six months, according to Jim Totten, vice president and general manager at Red Hat's Platform business unit.
"While we are not at a place where we are making announcements ... our general target is the second half of 2013 to see RHEL 7 enter the marketplace," Totten said in a webcast.
Red Hat is keeping details of the release close to its chest, but Totten said the OS will have improvements across its more than 2,000 packages and that key focus areas are supporting new hardware, file systems, security and performance, he said. Read more...
Fraunhofer Institute finds security vulnerabilites in cloud storage services
The Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technologoy (SIT) has tested seven cloud storage service providers and published its results in a freely available report
. The authors of the report found vulnerabilities affecting registration and login, encryption and shared access to data for several of the services.
The study looked at CloudMe, CrashPlan, Dropbox, Mozy, TeamDrive, Ubuntu One and Wuala. Each of these services can be accessed directly by means of client software installed on a user's system; the researchers did not look at services such as Amazon's S3 which are only accessible via an API. In response to enquiries by The H's associates at heise Security, a spokesperson confirmed that a follow-up study to look at other major providers is being planned. Read more...
Flashback removal tool arrives for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Apple has announced the release of a standalone Flashback malware removal tool for computers running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, even though the operating system is no longer officially supported. Like the security updates for 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion, the 1.23MB tool removes "most common variants of the Flashback malware", which reportedly infected more than 600,000 systems, exploiting flaws in earlier versions of Java. Read more...
IP-Address Can’t Even Identify a State, BitTorrent Judge Rules
The mass-BitTorrent lawsuits that are sweeping the United States are in a heap of trouble. After a Florida judge ruled that an IP-address is not a person, a Californian colleague has gone even further in protecting the First Amendment rights of BitTorrent users. The judge in question points out that geolocation tools are far from accurate and that it’s therefore uncertain that his court has jurisdiction over cases involving alleged BitTorrent pirates. As a result, 15 of these mass-BitTorrent lawsuits were dismissed.
In recent years more than a quarter million people have been accused of sharing copyrighted works in the United States.
Copyright holders generally sue dozens, hundreds or sometimes even thousands of people at once, hoping to extract cash settlements from the alleged downloaders. The evidence they present to the court is usually an IP-address and a timestamp marking when the alleged infringement took place. Read more...
Etiquette expert: No phone calls in bathroom — and stop shouting!
Like her great-great-grandmother and etiquette expert Emily Post, Anna Post strives to make the world politer. She speaks with msnbc.com's Rosa Golijan about smartphone etiquette — and rude phone users.
Post explains that attempting to be a bit more courteous while using our smartphones (and other mobile devices) is quite important as many people list misuse of mobile technology among their top pet peeves. According to a survey sponsored by Intel, 73 percent of people complained about seeing someone use a cellphone while driving, 65 percent were annoyed by people shouting into phones, and 28 percent were irritated by those who use mobile devices while walking down streets. Read more...
Facebook raises IPO price as offering nears
Already expected to be the largest-ever initial public offering for an Internet company, Facebook is making its IPO even bigger.
The world's largest online social network on Tuesday increased the planned price range for its stock to $34 to $38 per share in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's up from its previous range of $28 to $35. At the upper limit of $38, the sale would raise about $12.8 billion. Read more...
Twilio Calling: Cloud Telephony Startup Adds An Android SDK, Now Works On 75% Of All Smartphones
Cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio has made significant inroads into VoIP and other carrier services like SMS by launching products that work on the web and in iOS apps, supporting 30,000 developers in the process. Today it’s widening that net considerably with the launch of a new Android client, the first SDK from the company to work on Google’s platform. And it hints that Windows Phone may be next in line.
Considering that Android is currently the most popular smartphone platform globally, this potentially gives Twilio a much bigger opportunity to deliver services to the wider smartphone market — with Android and iOS together accounting for 75 percent of the existing smartphone market, according to Gartner. Read more...
Avira antivirus upgrade wreaks ‘catastrophic’ havoc on Windows PCs
German security firm Avira yesterday issued a service pack for its antivirus software that crippled an unknown number of Windows machines, with one customer calling the gaffe "catastrophic" to his company.
Today, Avira updated the software to sidestep the problem.
"Following the release of Service Pack 0 (SP0) for Avira Version 2012, the ProActiv feature blocked legitimate Windows applications on customers' PCs," Avira acknowledged on its support site. "We deeply regret any difficulties this has caused you."
Avira is the world's second-biggest antivirus maker, according to usage statistics. Read more...
Japan’s DoCoMo unveils cloud services, including a translator and 5GB of storage
Japan’s leading operator DoCoMo has announced a series of cloud based services that will soon launch under its new ‘docomo cloud’ initiative, that seeks to tap into the country’s growing smartphone market.
DoCoMo has been working on language translation technology for some time and, on June 1, it will introduce a Mail-Hon’yaku-Concier service that helps non-Japanese readers. The application will translate SMS, email and social network messages between Japanese and English, Chinese and Korea using cloud-based technology, the company says. Read more...