From The Editor
By Jeff Caruso, Site Editor
- Top IT turkeys
- It's time once again to think of stuffing the turkeys. In Network World's case, this means picking out a few people or companies from the past year and showing their turkeyness for all to...
- IETF struggles with what to do about Kaminsky bug
- A serious flaw in DNS was discovered over the summer, the so-called Kaminsky bug. But the question of what to do about it, for the IETF, isn't as simple as "fix it." Some members want to do that -...
- 10 security companies to watch
- Ellen Messmer has picked out 10 IT security-related start-ups doing some groundbreaking work. Check out her list.
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Most recycled cell phones; IETF tackles the Kaminsky bug Listen now!
- BlackBerry Storm: not just an iPhone wannabe
- Is Research In Motion Ltd.'s new BlackBerry Storm just an Apple iPhone wannabe or is it an innovative, highly usable smart phone in its own right? The answer: Yes, on both counts.
- Demand for Storm crashes ordering system
- While Verizon expected the BlackBerry Storm to be a hot-ticket item, it probably didn'd anticipate that demand for the device would crash its online ordering portal.
- Palm lays off workers
- Struggling smartphone maker Palm has laid off employees worldwide, but the company declined to say how many workers are affected.
- Internet's bandwidth health still in trouble, report says
- Nemertes Research continued to throw cold water on the future of the Internet this week, releasing a study projecting that demand for bandwidth on the Web will exceed its capacity by 2012.
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- Nokia opens new research center in Hollywood
- Nokia has opened a new research facility in Hollywood, where it plans to develop a range of entertainment-related applications and technologies.
- U.S. needs more broadband competition, expert says
- By some measures, the U.S. broadband market is healthy -- prices have fallen, speed has increased and millions of people have become customers in recent years. But customer choices are still limited, and prices could fall even more with more competition, one telecom expert said Friday.
- Risks, Rewards, Challenges of Financing IT Purchases
- If a car owner doesn't pay back his car loan, the repo man usually arrives in the dark of night to take back the automobile. If a homeowner defaults on his mortgage, the bank forecloses on and seizes the house. The car and the house serve as the collateral for the financing organization-they can be cleaned up or cleaned out, as it were, and resold. But what if a company defaults on a loan for a multimillion-dollar SAP ERP software purchase? Or can't repay IBM Global Financing for the hardware, software and services that it bought two quarters ago?
- Targus Chill Mat for Mac
- If you spend a lot of time Web surfing on the couch -- or on the patio, or in bed, or anywhere else where there's no tabletop in front of you -- you know that one of the biggest liabilities of laptop computing is a burned-out lap. In the past, I'll confess to making ample use of plump living room pillows to block the considerable heat generated by my laptop, but that's not the optimal methodology (especially since it actually made the laptop hotter -- just not on my legs).
- Concert Vault for iPhone
- Want to listen to Pink Floyd's May 9, 1977 performance from Oakland, Calif., while waiting for your flight at the airport? Or the Miles Davis Quintet from the Fillmore East on March 7, 1970 on the train during your morning commute? How about The Clash on February 13, 1979 in Cleveland on your next run? Anyone who enjoys live music from the past 40 years would like Wolfgang's Vault, a Web site whose Concert Vault section offers more than 1,900 free streaming versions of concerts (plus more than 100 interviews) from more than 1,100 artists.
- Sonos Multi-Room Music System 2.7
- Read enough reviews and you understand that part of a reviewer's job is to present an unemotional -- even detached -- evaluation of Product X, Y, or Z. For this reason, you almost never see reviews that begin:
- Contribute CS4
- Adobe Contribute CS4 allows Web site content contributors (writers, editors, artists, and other non-technical folk) to easily add to and edit Web sites, shielding them from the complexities of HTML and CSS. Users edit Web pages, usually but not necessarily based on templates prepared by a designer using Dreamweaver, in an environment reminiscent of a word processor. It facilitates the editing of text and images without the danger of accidentally breaking the design or organization of the site. The new CS4 version provides a sprinkling of useful new features, but overall, this is a mediocre revision.
- Check Point appliances fight spam, protect industrial networks
- Check Point Software is upgrading its multifunction security appliances with antispam capabilities, support for secure wireless connectivity and protection for devices that control industrial infrastructure.
- MySpace app for BlackBerry gets big downloads
- The MySpace application for the BlackBerry is being downloaded in record numbers, according to Research In Motion and MySpace.
- Six Apart updates TypePad blogging service
- Six Apart has enhanced its TypePad hosted blog publishing service with features that tap into the popularity of individual social profiles and online-activity notification feeds.
- Six Apart updates TypePad blogging service
- Six Apart has enhanced its TypePad hosted blog publishing service with features that tap into the popularity of individual social profiles and online-activity notification feeds.
- Japan's music downloads rise 30 percent in Q3
- Japan's Internet music market saw healthy growth in the third quarter of this year but a collapse in the once-mighty ringtone market led to mixed results for the cell phone sector of the country's digital music industry, according to figures released on Friday.
- Hands on with Optoma's pocket Pico projector
- This year's International Consumer Electronics Show saw the debut of some of the first prototype video projectors that are as small as cell phones. Now, just 10 months later, the first commercial products based on this cool technology are ready and so I settled down to watch a movie on one of them and came away impressed.
- Hands on with Optoma's pocket Pico projector
- This year's International Consumer Electronics Show saw the debut of some of the first prototype video projectors that are as small as cell phones. Now, just 10 months later, the first commercial products based on this cool technology are ready and so I settled down to watch a movie on one of them and came away impressed.
- Virgin's in-flight Wi-Fi coming Monday
- Virgin America's in-flight Wi-Fi service will launch on Monday for a beta test that is intended to last just one week before a planned commercial launch Dec. 1.
- Aruba reports record revenue, but non-GAAP net income drops
- On the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its fall, by another 455 points, WLAN vendor Aruba Networks reported record first quarter revenue, but also a much higher net loss compared to a year ago.
- Quick Wins: CIOs show how to keep costs in check
- You know how ugly it is out there. The cost of products we buy every day is jumping. It's only been a few weeks since the Consumer Price Index made the news for days on end as TV channels and newspapers tracked its steady climb. Globally, banks are being bailed out and markets forecast doom as consumers snapped their wallets shut.
- Against the Grain: Bucking the outsourcing trend
- The painting says it all. Dominating Vazir Sultan Tobacco's boardroom is an original print of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad inaugurating the company's formation in 1930. Even today, the company exudes an old-world charm that its name conjures up. It's stone walls are a throwback from another time. It's a company where tradition is respected.
- Wall Street Beat: Tech shares sink to 6-year lows
- Upbeat earnings news from Hewlett-Packard and Salesforce.com and better-than-expected October PC sales in the U.S. could not boost confidence in the technology sector as IT investors continue to dump shares, bringing the Nasdaq composite index, weighted heavily with tech companies, to lows not seen since the depths of 2002 in the wake of the dot-com bust.
- Downing Tomorrow's Data Devils
- They say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
- Foreclosures, consumer cutbacks freeze carrier spending on VoIP
- Home foreclosures and a generally bad economy are driving down demand for wired phone lines, which will freeze much carrier spending on VoIP infrastructure until 2011, according to a new Infonetics report.
- Oracle subpoenas firm that hired ex-TomorrowNow workers
- Oracle has subpoenaed a Colorado IT services firm that hired former employees of TomorrowNow, the now-defunct SAP subsidiary that provided third-party support services for Oracle's Siebel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards product lines.
- IT slowdown hits Dell's revenue, net profit
- Dell's revenue and net income dropped in its third quarter as the company tries to cope with a global IT spending slowdown and less demand for its products.
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- VMware security chief leaves to run OpenDNS
- The head of VMware's security group has left to join San Francisco's OpenDNS, a startup that provides Internet infrastructure services.
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- Samsung starts mass production of 256GB SSDs
- Samsung Electronics has started mass production of 256G-byte solid-state drives, which could make their way into laptops in a few months, the company announced Thursday.
- Nokia 6010 tops list of 'most recycled cell phones'
- According to ReCellular, a self-described "electronics-sustainability firm" based in Dexter, Mich., all of this year's ten most recycled handset models were released originally in 2004 or later.
- Survey: US IT spending forecast worst since 2001
- Forty-five percent of respondents to a new survey from ChangeWave Research said their companies will spend less or no money on IT during the first quarter of 2009, the highest percentage found by ChangeWave since 2001.
- How to Recession-Proof Yourself
- Layoff fears are sending a shiver through the workforce as the U.S. economy lurches toward a full-blown recession. And no one is safe as corporate cost-cutters sharpen their axes. Though senior executives are less vulnerable to losing their jobs than the employees below them, they, too, can be casualties of restructurings.
- 10 great Bluetooth gadgets
- Does this sound familiar? Your mobile phone, your smart phone and your notebook all come equipped with Bluetooth, but you hardly use it because other than a clunky headset, there's not much to connect to. That may have been true in the past, but while you weren't looking, an array of cool and useful Bluetooth devices has appeared on the scene.
- Scosche Passport
- Although all recent iPods, and both iPhone models, require a USB connection to sync with your computer, until this year's models you could still charge Apple's media players via a FireWire connection. But beginning with the iPhone 3G, and continuing with the second-generation iPod touch, the fourth-generation iPod nano, and presumably all future models, USB is now required for both syncing and charging.
- Classics for iPhone
- Look, there is simply no way e-books will ever replace traditional books, printed on paper and bound in cloth. There is something more durable about a real book. Sure, you can burn them, pulp them, and rip them to little pieces. Time and nature yellow and molder pages. Ink fades. But print is substantial in a way that pixels are not.
- MTN looks to cheaper handsets
- Gearing up for competition in the supply of cheap, customized mobile phones, MTN has sent a team of engineers to China to assess handsets that the operator will sell on the African market for as low as US$10.
- Google, others call for new broadband, energy policies
- The U.S. government may be poised to reverse course on its market-only approach to rolling out broadband and a smart electricity grid to all corners of the country, advocates said Thursday.
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- 12 myths about how the Internet works
- Thirty years have passed since the Internet Protocol was first described in a series of technical documents written by early experimenters. Since then, countless engineers have created systems and applications that rely on IP as the communications link between people and their computers.
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- Pentax Optio A40
- Pentax's Optio A40 is a 12-megapixel compact point and shoot digital camera. It offers digital and optical shake reduction, as well as high ISO settings and a 3x optical zoom. It's also capable of recording videos at 640-by-480 resolution at 30 frames per second in DivX-based MPEG-4 format, which requires the installation on your Mac of a free software plug-in.
- Growth in US online advertising slows down further in Q3
- The growth slowdown affecting U.S. online ad spending this year continued in the third quarter, bad news for the many Internet companies in this market, like Google, Yahoo, MySpace and Facebook.
