Technology News: Technology

Sony Talks Up Plans for Digital Media Superstore
November 20, 2009

Many companies would give up their right to right-click to be able to duplicate Apple's success with iTunes. However, only one actually has the pieces already in place to do that, and its executives announced their intentions Thursday to take on Steve Jobs' company with its own online content service.

Google's Strange and Shiny New OS
November 20, 2009

Google just keeps invading new territories, and its latest target is your computer's operating system. It's officially released the open source code for its Chrome OS, an operating system that will turn up in third-party vendors' netbooks. Those devices should start selling next year. With Chrome, Google takes a very different approach than major OSes like Windows, Mac OS, or even most Linux distributions.

EU Gives Oracle Extension to Build Sun Deal Defense
November 20, 2009

European Union regulators said Friday that they have extended until Jan. 27 a deadline to wrap up their antitrust review of Oracle's planned US$7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems. The European Commission said Oracle had asked for more time "in order to have the opportunity to further develop its arguments in response to the Commission's concerns."

AA.com Sucks the Fun Out of Trip-Planning
November 20, 2009

It's fitting that the last stop on my tour of travel-planning Web sites for the E-Commerce Times was American Airlines. The site illustrates all of the problems that spurred this special look at travel sites in the first place. Travel sites have developed a reputation for being hard to navigate and poorly designed with cluttered user interfaces.

Open Source Science: A Revolution From Within
November 20, 2009

Ask anyone in the open source science movement what it's all about, and you're likely to come back to the word that's right there in its name: "open." Open source science is all about open access. To research methods. To data. To scholarly publications. And supporters feel that it's vital to the continued growth and evolution of science itself.

Google Spills Chrome OS' Guts
November 19, 2009

Google on Thursday opened the source code for its fledgling Chrome operating system to developers. This means "Google developers will be working on the same tree as external developers, and we're looking forward to working with the open source community," said Sunder Pichai, vice president of product management at Google.

Windows 7: Burning Simplicity to Save the OS
November 19, 2009

The reason Windows Vista seemed slow, and somehow, strangely seemed even slower over time, is now abundantly clear to Microsoft's architects: The evolution of computer hardware, particularly the CPU, exceeded anyone's expectations at the time of Vista's premiere in early 2007.

IBM Researchers Go Way Beyond AI With Cat-Like Cognitive Computing
November 19, 2009

IBM's revelation at SC09 created quite a stir and immediately brought forth visions of Cylons and Hal 9000. The cognitive computing team at IBM Research has moved significantly forward in creating a large-scale cortical simulation and a new algorithm that synthesizes neurological data -- two major milestones on the path to a cognitive computing chip.

New Calif. Standard Nixes Energy-Guzzling Flat-Screen TVs
November 19, 2009

California regulators have adopted the nation's first energy-efficiency standards for televisions, a move that will eventually ban power-hungry sets from the state's store shelves. Wednesday's action by the California Energy Commission could lead the way in a general reform of standards for an industry increasingly focused on wide-view, flat-screen, high-definition sets.

Familiar Desktop Features Make Up For Full Browser's Quirks
November 19, 2009

If you search for "browser" in the App Store, you'll get dozens of applications, each purporting to be an alternative to the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in Safari browser. In a sense, they are alternatives, since they look different and might have a few unique features. But they're really all Safari underneath.

Breaking Out of the Pink Ghetto
November 19, 2009

The Pink Ghetto is a largely invisible, often unmentioned and unacknowledged place littered with impediments to womens' upward mobility in the workplace. Women in the Pink Ghetto do not get equal pay for equal work, are not offered the same opportunities as their male coworkers, are not promoted as quickly as men -- or promoted at all.

Trashing IT Hardware the Responsible Way
November 19, 2009

Disposing of obsolete and broken electronic devices, or e-waste, is not as simple as taking out the trash. Heavy metals and other poisonous contaminants can leak into the environment if electronic equipment is not properly processed. Without foresight, discarded data is also at risk of unintended exposure.

FOSS and the Google Question
November 19, 2009

Devices based on Google's Linux-based Android operating system may be dominating headlines in the mobile world, but does the search giant *really* love FOSS? Google's introduction of the open Go programming language, for instance, has attracted considerable notice in the blogosphere, inviting widespread speculation as to how it will compare with competitors.

Maemo Edges Out Symbian in Nokia's N900 Smartphone
November 18, 2009

Three months after Nokia announced its N900 smartphone, the device has arrived in the United States. The N900 runs on the Linux-based Maemo platform, and Nokia's hype around it raises questions about whether the company plans to replace its older Symbian platform with Maemo. Meanwhile, rumors that Nokia might purchase device maker Palm have been swirling around in the market.

'Modern Warfare 2' Shocks and Awes With Explosive Sales
November 18, 2009

If Activision is to be believed, then its new "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" video game has blown away all competition with the lethality of a Javelin missile plowing through Russian terrorists. Included in the smoking wreckage: not just previous gaming bestsellers like "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Halo 3," but also the mangled corpses of Batman and Harry Potter.

Microsoft FOSSifies .Net Micro Framework
November 18, 2009

The latest version of Microsoft's .Net Micro framework is now in the hands of the FOSS community. Microsoft announced at its Professional Developer Conference on Tuesday the release of version 4.0 under the Apache 2.0 license. The license transfer makes good on a longstanding promise from Redmond that it would make the popular .Net code base available as open source.