news4geeks.net
6Mar/130

U.S. military networks not prepared for cyber threats, report warns

Posted by vica

The U.S. is dangerously unprepared to face a full-scale cyber conflict launched by a peer adversary, a report by the military's Defense Science Board (DSB) warns.

The report, released in January, and first reported on by the Washington Post on Tuesday, is based on an 18-month study of the resilience of U.S. military systems to cyberattacks.

It reflects the perspective of 24-members of a DSB Task Forcem who interviewed more than four-dozen Department of Defense (DoD) officials, members of the U.S. intelligence community, policy makers and security practitioners from private industry, academia and national laboratories. Read more...

1Mar/120

‘Gunna’ to ‘gunman’ auto-correct prompts school lockdown

Posted by vica

Nervous police and school officials locked down two adjacent Georgia schools for two hours Wednesday after hearing a report about a text message that seemed to warn of a gunman present on campus, reports the Gainesville Times.

What appeared to be a threat to West Hall middle and high schools in Gainesville, however, turned out to be an errant auto-corrected text sent to a wrong number, the police discovered. The text, which police traced to a student, read "gunman be at west hall today," instead of the intended "gunna be at west hall today." Further, the community member who reported what seemed to be a threatening text was not the intended recipient.

The lockdown comes three days after a school shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio, in which three students were killed. Authorities told the Gainesville newspaper that the person who reported it "did the right thing." Read more...

24Feb/120

Strategy Analytics: Nokia became the world’s biggest Windows Phone vendor in Q4

Posted by vica

A new report by research firm Strategy Analytics has revealed that Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia became the world’s biggest Windows Phone vendor in the fourth quarter, as global shipments grew 36% to top 2.7 million units.

Accounting for almost a third of all Windows Phone shipments (33.1%), Nokia captured the top position for the first time in its history — replacing Taiwanese vendor HTC — helped by sales of its Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 smartphones which both launched in November 2011.

Strategy Analytics puts Nokia’s global Windows Phone shipments at around 0.9 million units, although the company itself announced that it had sold over 1 million units in its fourth quarter financial report. Read more...

3Feb/120

Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 DNA splice is on – report

Posted by vica

Windows 8 and Microsoft's next major phone operating system will merge, if reports are correct.

Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo, will reuse code from Windows 8, due this year - specifically the kernel, network stacks, security and multi media. That means Windows Phone 8 will ditch the current Windows Phone 7.5 core that uses Windows Embedded Compact.

The report, here, is based on a supposed leaked Microsoft video featuring Windows Phone manager Joe Belifore. The presentation was intended for partners of Microsoft's phone BFF Nokia. The video was not posted. Read more...

12Jan/120

IDC: PC shipments slumped as 2011 ended

Posted by vica

microsft gives free xboxSales of personal computers slowed in the last three months of 2011, thanks to a sluggish economy, scarce hard drives, and the proliferation of other device types such as tablets, according to a report released today by IDC.

Overall, worldwide PC shipments totaled 92.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, down 0.1 percent compared with the same quarter in 2010, when 92.8 million computers were shipped. For all of 2011, about 352.4 million PCs were shipped, a 1.6 percent increase over 2010, when almost 346.8 million PCs were shipped. The U.S. was particularly hard hit: Sales dropped nearly 5 percent from 2010, from 75 million units to 71 million units. Sales in Europe and Japan also slowed, though sales improved in China. Read more...