Parents get new weapons in war over kids’ phones
Parenting is war. As the father of two adult children, I have the battle scars (if not the shell shock) to prove it.
But I had it easy compared with the parents of young children today. Mobile consumer technology, especially the ubiquitous cellphone, is putting a world of risks into the hands of very young children.
It's an arms race. And finally, parents are being offered an arsenal of powerful weapons to protect their kids. Read more...
Facebook bolsters efforts to build smartphone
Facebook is revitalizing its effort to create a smartphone, recruiting engineers who have experience with mobile devices, according to a story in the New York Times Sunday.
Facebook has kept its renewed effort to come up with a smartphone quiet, avoiding putting ads on public sites, according to the article, which cited unnamed sources inside the company, people briefed by the company and people who had been the target of recruitment initiatives.
Facebook wants to release a smartphone by next year, and has picked up former Apple engineers who had worked on the iPhone, as well one who worked on the iPad, according to the article. Read more...
RIM said to plan to lay off 2,000 staff
Research In Motion, the ailing maker of the BlackBerry, is planning to cut at least 2,000 staff as part of a global restructuring plan, according to reports.
The restructuring could begin in the next couple of weeks, and would affect staff worldwide, The Globe and Mail said citing several unnamed people close to the company. One person familiar with the company's plans said the layoffs may cut even deeper, the Canadian newspaper said on Saturday. Read more...
Free Windows 8 desktop app development is dead
The next free version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio programming suite won’t build normal Windows desktop apps, it has emerged.
Visual Studio 2011 Express edition will only allow developers to build touchscreen-friendly programs for the new Windows 8 Metro UI, according to the software's product page here. Read more...
Oracle NetBeans 7.2 supports the latest PHP, C++
The newest version of the Oracle NetBeans IDE (integrated developer environment) will come with support for the latest versions of PHP and C++.
NetBeans 7.2, released in beta form Thursday, will also offer the ability for users to easily deploy their applications on the Oracle Public Cloud, now offered as a preview service. Applications can also be uploaded to the Amazon Beanstalk service, also in beta mode.
Oracle plans to release the full, production-ready version of the software in July. Read more...
Computing fossils: Old tech holding on for dear life
Consider the abacus. Developed perhaps as long as 4,500 years ago, this handy gadget served the mathematical needs of merchants and accountants until the development of mechanical calculating machines in the 19th century. But the abacus hasn't been forgotten. Instead it still lives on in niches -- for instance teaching preschoolers the basics of counting.
There are a number of obsolete technologies and gadgets that have persisted from slightly less ancient times right down to the current day, though again in greatly diminished numbers and scope. A brief tour through these technological fossils serves as a lesson on the durability of items we sometimes think of as ephemeral. Read more...