Dice swallows Slashdot, SourceForge, Freecode in $20m deal
Dice Holdings, which runs a number of job-listing sites including Dice.com, has acquired open source code-hosting repository SourceForge, software-index site Freecode, and tech-news discussion site Slashdot from parent company Geeknet, in a deal valued at $20m.
"The acquisition of these premier technology sites fits squarely into our strategy of providing content and services that are important to tech professionals in their everyday work lives," Dice Holdings president and CEO Scot Melland said in a statement.
The deal caused some head-scratching from observers – why would a recruiting site want to acquire media and code-hosting businesses? – but according to Melland, adding the three Geeknet sites to Dice's portfolio will allow its employer-customers to reach more tech professionals on a regular basis. Read more...
Cisco acquires Virtuata to secure virtual machine data
Cisco has acquired Virtuata, a privately held developer of technology for securing virtual machine data in multi-tenant data centers, the company said Monday.
Virtuata helps to isolate each virtual machine from others in the same virtualized data center or cloud environment, Cisco said. It can help to address the security concerns of enterprises or service providers that want to host multiple customers, departments or applications in a single infrastructure. Cisco said the acquisition complements its mission to help customers create unified data centers. Read more...
Total bankers: Twitter and LinkedIn’s cynical API play
In tech today, it has become a truism that "if you're not paying for it, you're the product". Somehow we have applied this wisdom to consumers without recognising that the same principle applies to enterprises and their developers. Recently, however, Netflix and LinkedIn have reminded us just how precarious it is to build on someone else's platform - or API.
Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator, has described APIs as "self-serve [business development]". It's a great story: open and document your API and watch a thousand businesses bloom, bringing you cash and legitimacy. All of which may be true, if done correctly. Read more...
Microsoft’s new IE9 commercial is surprisingly compelling
Certain products are at their best when you notice them the least. Web browsers are a good example of this, as you want the Internet to flow well, and not to get tripped up on what tool you are using to access it. That in mind, it can be difficult to cast a utility tool in a pleasing or exciting light, given their inherent status as backbone technology.
Google had a series of innovative commercials for Chrome, showing off various tests of the browser against whimsical Rube Goldbergs. Chrome, as you can guess, won. Microsoft, looking to promote Internet Explorer 9 has just released a new commercial which is, I think, effective, and notable as it is focused and surprisingly un-silly. Read more...
Yahoo, Facebook in intellectual property dispute
Yahoo is threatening action unless Facebook licenses some of its technologies, as other web and technology companies are said to have done.
The move by Yahoo puts it in conflict with Facebook with which the company has a beneficial relationship, particularly in the area of integration of Yahoo News with Facebook.
Traffic to the mobile Yahoo News web app from Facebook Mobile has increased three-and-a-half times since Feb. 14 to 1.6 million visitors a day, according to a post last week on Facebook's developer blog.
In an e-mailed statement, Yahoo said, "Yahoo! has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property. We have invested substantial resources into these innovations. Recognizing that, other major web and technology companies have already licensed some of these technologies. We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights." Read more...
Computer forensics – Why you’re not so hard to track down
I've lost count of how many TV shows centre on the forensics of crime but there seems to be an awful lot. Even during my youth, movies and TV programmes would feature fingerprinting and other techniques. Today DNA, bio samples, hair and clothing fibres often figure in the path to the truth.
It seems that people like a detective story, especially if it entails clever scientists weeding out the dark facts of a case. But, dare I say it, this analogue world has become somewhat tedious because of the limited number of scenarios.
However, there is a parallel in the digital world that involves a much wider and faster growing choice.
Today most computer crime goes unchallenged, or even unnoticed, as the web continues to expand. But the forces of good are waking up, taking notice, and increasingly having to take action. As a result digital forensics is on the up and is every bit as challenging as its analogue forebear.
Consider for a moment all the variables that identify you and your machine should you decide to join the dark side. Sure, you can operate in some secret mode and disguise your machine, your identity, and your location, but there is still a lot of data that relates only to you. Read more...
Why some Ohio schools ban all tech in the classroom
In this day and age when kids use iPads and smartphones in school and parents have a hard time keeping up, it's difficult to imagine that there are institutions that completely eschew the use of technology in the classroom. But these types of schools really do exist, as evidenced by the Waldorf schools of Ohio. No computers, TVs, tablets, or any gadget reside within the schools' premises, and their use is discouraged even at home.
It's not because the people behind Waldorf are anti-technology — they just believe learning computers in the first 12 or 13 years of a child's life is "not what's best for them." They also believe that kids don't need to be taught how to use computers as they're intuitive machines anyway. By the time the students reach eighth grade (which is the last possible year in the Waldorf system), though, teachers begin allowing them to use computers for basic purposes like research. Read more...
Confusing, frustrating, user-unfriendly: Why the PC sowed the seeds of its own demise
If the PC is dying, as one of its inventors recently asserted, it really only has itself to blame.
The Little Britain catchphrase "Computer says no" resonated with a nation of frustrated computer owners for a reason - it was recognition that too often it is the PC that calls the shots, not its user.
Its demise has been a long time coming - and it's the result of the refusal of hardware and software designers to make a PC that caters to the needs of users. Read more...