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Taiwanese University Sues Apple... Again May 07, 2013 
National Cheng Kung University may not have a fight song -- but it is definitely willing to fight. For the second time in a year, the Taiwanese university has sued Apple. The most recent suit is for alleged infringement of the university's patents relating to video compression technology in Apple software such as FaceTime and QuickTime.
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Tap CRM to Give Your Customers a Pleasant Surprise May 07, 2013 
So you have your CRM application in place and humming, collecting information about customers and potential customers and organizing it -- but how are you using it? Most companies pour it back into sales, marketing and support to keep feeding those machines, which is good. It's the way you realize the value from your CRM investment.
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Hacking Software Guru Faces the Music in US Court May 06, 2013 
Hamza Bendelladj, an Algerian national known by his alias "Bx1," appeared in an Atlanta court last week, where he faced a 23-count indictment stemming from his alleged participation in the cybercrime consortium responsible for hacking software known as "SpyEye." Bendelladj, 24, was the target of a three-year manhunt that ended in a Bangkok airport in January.
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How HP Could Become the Next Apple May 06, 2013 
I was given a task the other day, and this happens every once in a while, to imagine a sequence of events that would turn HP from an industry problem to an industry leader in Apple's class. Apple went from being in far worse shape than HP's in now to become more valuable at its peak than even oil companies, so this isn't an impossible goal.
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The Bank, the Budget and the OS Shocker May 06, 2013 
Well the FUD continues to flow fast and furious here in the Linux blogosphere, where local pharmacists have recently noticed a sudden surge in demand for blood pressure medications. No sooner did Linux fans begin to calm down after the recent attack on open source in general, in fact, than a fresh report arrived from down under that caused tempers to flare up all over again.
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A Drooling Attack Over the BeagleBone Black May 02, 2013 
There's been no shortage of gloom and doom here in the Linux blogosphere lately, what with Fuduntu's demise, a fresh round of anti-FOSS FUD, and even criticisms of Linux distros' girth. So it was with particular joy that Linux bloggers received the news about the all-new BeagleBone Black.
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Sky HDTV Could Make Your Cord-Cutting Decision Easy April 30, 2013 
It's hardly a surprise that cable and satellite television service providers are in trouble. Take decades of complacency, add in mostly awful customer service, mix liberally with resistance to change, and you have an industry heading toward self-inflicted extinction.
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Social Savvy Beats Cold Read for Warming Up to Customers April 30, 2013 
If you're a dedicated skeptic like I am, you probably know the way a psychic's cold read works. Start by asking a broad question that fits almost anyone -- like, "Have you lost someone you love?" Allow the mark to fill in the blanks, and then ask further leading questions based on information fed to you until the mark thinks you're actually communicating with a dead relative.
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What Happens When Android Fails? April 29, 2013 
I've just finished doing yet another news program on the increasing risks of using an Android phone, and the discussions have started to drift to the potential for class-action lawsuits, commercial plane crashes, and cyberdisasters that would make 9/11 seem trivial -- all connected to this platform.
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FOSS Fact or Fiction? A Tale of Two Surveys April 29, 2013 
It's a well-known fact that statistics can be manipulated to suit virtually every occasion and purpose, but every once in a while an example comes along that illustrates that rule with breathtaking clarity. Case in point? Two recent surveys on the topic of FOSS that came out in the very same week.
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India to Get a Smartphone for the Blind April 25, 2013 
A company in India has developed a smartphone for the blind. The device will be equipped to read text messages and emails, and it will then convert the text to Braille. It will utilize shape memory alloy technology, which exploits a metal's ability to "remember" its original shape. The phone's screen is not a screen so much as a grid of pins that move up and down to form Braille characters.
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Have Linux Distros Gotten Too Tubby? April 25, 2013 
The size of Linux's waistline has long been the focus of recurring attention here in the Linux blogosphere, even drawing occasional criticism from Linus Torvalds himself.
Recently, however, a fresh weight-related complaint was made -- not about the kernel itself, but about today's Linux distros.
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Aussie Police Nab Possible Lulzsec Ringleader April 24, 2013 
Police in Australia have arrested a 24-year-old who claims to be a high-level member of the international hacking collective Lulzsec. The IT worker was charged with two counts of unauthorized modification of data and one count of unauthorized access to/modification of restricted data. In other words, he attacked and defaced a government website.
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Germany Levies Max Fine Against Google; Max Fine Is Piddly April 23, 2013 
Dramatic rhetoric, tiny fine. German data regulators fined Google less than $190,000 for collecting information from unsecured WiFi networks while it compiled data for Google Street View. The data scoop was, according to Germany's data chief, "one of the biggest known data protection violations in history." The fine? Hardly the biggest in history.
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Android: A Second Career in Security? April 23, 2013 
Many of us have a wealth of decommissioned corporate-provisioned mobile devices: We've bought them, handed them out, and seen them used successfully for years. Now they're on their way to the great docking station in the sky. However, because these devices are already off the books adapting them for specific security functions can mean achieving certain goals practically for free.
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Schmidt on Google's UK Taxes: This Is How It's Done April 22, 2013 
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defended the company's tax practices in the United Kingdom, where Google and a handful of other U.S. tech companies have been chastised for not paying enough taxes. Google paid just over $9 million in UK taxes in 2011, despite hundreds of millions in turnover. The company was able to pull this off by operating out of Ireland, which has a much lower tax rate.
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Magellan SmartGPS Does the Cloud Right April 22, 2013 
With smartphones and an increasing number of tablets becoming GPS-capable, it is easy to write off dedicated GPS players. So many seem stuck in the past -- days when devices needed a wired connection for updates and didn't seem to be aware of Web services they might be ideal for, like Yelp. I think it is time to revisit the dedicated GPS player, and I'll use the Magellan SmartGPS as an example of the current best of class.
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Farewell, Fuduntu: The Untimely Demise of a Winning Linux Distro April 22, 2013 
Last Monday delivered both death and taxes. April 15 was not only the day U.S. taxes were due, but also the day two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. The magnitude of that tragedy is far beyond the scope of this column, of course, but Monday also brought a casualty -- albeit on a much smaller scale -- to those of us here in the Linux world. It wasn't a human death, fortunately.
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Icelandic App Aims to Prevent Accidental Incest April 18, 2013 
Before knocking boots, knock phones. Three software engineers at the University of Iceland have designed an app to alert people if a casual encounter might in fact be casual incest.
By bumping their mobile devices together, the app lets users -- and potential partners -- instantly compare their lineage, showing the nearest common ancestors. If a close relative is detected, users are alerted via an alarm and text warning.
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Is 'Linux' a Word Better Left Unspoken? April 18, 2013 
It's no secret that brand image is a crucial consideration in most any consumer product's success, and Linux is surely no exception. That's been a hot topic of conversation before, but recently it's popped up again with a fresh new twist. "The Linux Inside Stigma" was the title of the post that started the ball rolling this time, and rolled it has.
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