Ian Barker

Migrating existing applications to the cloud can be a major headache for companies. Extensive testing is needed to ensure everything works as it should and without it the process becomes something of a leap in the dark. In a bid to help with this Boston based Cloud Technology Partners has produced its PaaSLane product, released today as a free public beta.

The idea behind PaaSLane is a simple one, automatically analyzing the code of an application before migration in order to cut down the amount of manual effort required. Out of the box the software is tuned generically to work with all cloud platforms, so it's compatible with Azure, Google and Amazon Web Services. However, users can define their own rule sets to take account of special requirements or non-public clouds.

Continue reading →

A new study by Juniper Research finds that a combination of increased use of analytics along with new advertising formats and buying mechanisms will push mobile ad spending close to $40 billion by 2018.

Targeted in-app advertising is seen as offering a major opportunity and the report notes the way Facebook has used ads in its native apps over the past year as an example of the technique's success. Mobile now makes up 41 percent of Facebook's overall advertising revenue and the company recently announced it's to start rolling out video ads in a bid to boost performance with more media-rich content.

Continue reading →

Combined shipments of devices -- PCs, tablets and mobile phones -- are set to reach 2.32 billion units in 2013 according to technology research specialists Gartner. This represents a 4.5 percent increase over last year, but much of the growth is driven by a shift to lower priced devices.

Traditional PCs are forecast to show an 11.2 percent decline, which drops to 8.4 percent when ultramobiles are included. Mobile phone shipments are forecast to grow 3.7 percent to around 1.8 billion units. It's tablets that are still the darling of the consumer though, shipments are expected to be up a whopping 42.7 percent this year reaching 184 million units.

Continue reading →

Smartphones have become such a big part of many people's lives in recent times, allowing us to stay in touch with the Internet wherever we go, that occasions when you can't get a data network or Wi-Fi signal become extremely frustrating, it's almost like losing a limb.

French developer Altheia has an answer in the form of a new app for Android phones called Be-Bound which it claims can keep you in touch with the Web even if there's no 3G, 4G, Edge or Wi-Fi signal available.

Continue reading →

Business automation specialist Automation Anywhere has launched a new application aimed at helping businesses identify tasks and prioritize them based on the crowd-sourced wisdom of their user community.

Called Cumulus (could this possibly be using the cloud?) the application is launching via the Yammer enterprise social network. It will be available as a featured application via Yammer's app directory. Using Cumulus, anyone in an organization will be able to suggest a task to be automated, vote on the tasks that seem most valuable, contribute suggestions to existing initiatives, and track any active automation projects.

Continue reading →

Independent testing organization AV-comparatives has released the results of its 2013 Business Software Review. This looks at security software for smaller and medium businesses, taking as its basis a single site network with a Windows Server 2012 domain controller and 25 client PCs running a mix of Windows XP, 7 and 8.

The key thing here is that this is the type of business which may not have its own IT manager so the report considers the management and monitoring of the software from the viewpoint of someone who isn't a specialist in IT and only looks after the system part time.

Continue reading →

We've looked at Huddle's drive to create a connected desktop environment allowing people to collaborate via the cloud before, but now the company is aiming to take things a step beyond. Announcing a collaboration with TIBCO Software's enterprise social network tibbr it aims to further streamline the sharing process.

This will allow users to socialize, share and manage content in the cloud in a seamless way. From within the tibbr environment, users will be able to quickly and easily attach Huddle files to their updates for information and feedback. The files remain stored within Huddle's secure cloud and retain all of their security, permissions, and versions. The end result is a unified work environment bringing together people and information in real time.

Continue reading →

Online application specialist DataStax has announced a new initiative to help startup businesses. DataStax software delivers a scalable big data platform and is used by large organizations including Adobe, eBay and Netflix, but the DataStax Startup Program allows eligible startups to deploy DataStax Enterprise applications for free.

The company has also launched a new DevCenter tool, which is free for its existing users, to allow the graphical creation of queries and database objects in Cassandra Query Language. This is along with free online training courses to teach users how to work with big data in the open-source Apache Cassandra database.

Continue reading →

Security specialist BullGuard has launched what it's calling its most advanced Internet Security suite yet. It's designed to offer industry leading protection regardless of the user's ability and to run quietly and efficiently in the background.

Aside from dropping the year from the product's name, highlights of the latest version include an enhanced behavioral detection engine to guard against zero day threats, a revised user interface offering easier one-click access to functions, free 24/7 support and free upgrades to newer versions.

Continue reading →

UK catalog store retailer Argos will start selling its own £99.99 Android tablet on Wednesday. The Argos MyTablet undercuts Tesco's £119 Hudl, but the saving is at the cost of a lower spec. MyTablet has only 8GB of storage to the Hudl's 16GB, shorter battery life and a lower resolution screen. It also comes only in silver or pink rather than the Hudl's choice of four colors.

Argos says its tablet is targeted at the teenage and pre-teen market and it ships with parental controls pre-enabled. The device runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and comes with 19 pre-installed apps including BBC iPlayer, Angry Birds and social networking tools.

Continue reading →

We all realize, or should do, that whatever we do online leaves a trail. Usually this is in the form of cookies or other information over which we have some control and which is subject to a degree of legal regulation, but what about other, more insidious, forms of tracking?

New research carried out by Netherlands-based university KU Leven reveals that a small number of sites are secretly tracking their users. The study by KU Leuven-iMinds researchers has uncovered evidence that 145 of the Internet's 10,000 top websites carry out tracking without the knowledge or consent of their users. The sites do this by using hidden scripts to extract a device fingerprint from users' browsers. This technique avoids the legal restrictions imposed on the use of cookies as well as ignoring the Do Not Track HTTP header. The study's findings suggest that secret fingerprinting is being used to get around legitimate barriers to tracking.

Continue reading →

Many of us are so attached to our mobile devices that we take them to bed with us, but we're failing to take basic security precautions. This is among the findings of the 2013 Norton Report.

The report shows that whilst the number of online adults who have experienced cybercrime has fallen, the average cost per victim is up by 50 percent. In the UK, however, the cost per victim has fallen, down from £144 in 2012, to £101 in 2013.

Continue reading →

The emergence of a generation of smart machines taking over middle-class jobs within 15-years is a "futurist fantasy" according to 60 percent of respondents to Gartner's 2013 CEO survey. However, the analysts predict the rise of smart machines will have widespread business impact within only seven years.

"Most business and thought leaders underestimate the potential of smart machines to take over millions of middle-class jobs in the coming decades," says Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner. "Job destruction will happen at a faster pace, with machine-driven job elimination overwhelming the market's ability to create valuable new ones".

Continue reading →

Reports from leading analysts for the third quarter of 2013 suggest that the PC market is still in decline. However, sales haven't declined as quickly as predicted.

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker PC shipments totalled 81.6 million units in the third quarter. This represents a 7.6 percent decline over the same period last year, better than the 9.5 percent that was being predicted. IDC says the market was buoyed by business purchases plus the channel intake of Windows 8.1 systems in September.

Continue reading →

Cloud vendors must establish one definition for cloud to protect buyers falling foul of multiple interpretations of the technology, so says a panel of technology experts brought together by hosting company UK Fast.

With more and more providers joining the cloud market and confusion still reigning over what the term actually means, baffled buyers are at risk of paying over the odds for technology that isn't technically cloud, or worse entrusting their business data to unsuitable cloud solutions.

Continue reading →