Unified communications comes closer with Vo-Fi over 802.11n
The following commentary is by Jay Botelho, a product manager with network administration and tools provider WildPackets. This is not an advertisement; Betanews is merely presenting Mr. Botelho's point of view.
In case you missed it, seven long years of wrangling have come to an end: 802.11n has now been officially ratified by the IEEE.
Data encryption tool maker: Antivirus has become ineffective
The following commentary is by Mark Smail, the CTO of Onix International, which distributes a data encryption tool called EncryptStick, designed to work with USB thumb drives. This is not an advertisement; Betanews is merely presenting Mr. Smail's point of view.
Consumers are growing increasingly comfortable storing sensitive information on their computers, USB flash drives, and external hard drives, as well as using Web-based solutions to automate regular tasks such as shopping for holiday gifts, paying bills, and tracking financial portfolios. The push from vendors encouraging their customers to move toward e-billing has also played a major role in more personal information being stored locally on personal computers.
Towards a single, reliable system for identity management
In this age of phishing, hacking, identity fraud, and other forms of cybercrime, answering two simple questions -- "Who are you?" and "How can you prove it?" -- is fast becoming a critical requirement for all online business activities.
Moreover, solving this "identity management" challenge has become quite complex as the increasing need for cross-organization collaboration, concerns about security, and the problem of user password management suggest that the traditional company-issued username and password approach is no longer adequate. As a consequence, federated identity management, in which a third-party identity provider plays a key role, is rapidly emerging as a preferred approach.
A suggestion for the FCC: Less spectrum, not more
"Throw more money at it." That's an old suggestion for trying to solve problems big and small, but it's a solution that rarely works, because it doesn't address the root cause of the problem in question. Despite knowing that it's bad advice, the FCC has recently come up with a corollary to it: Throw more spectrum at it.
Recently, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a plan to promote growth in the mobile communications sector, including a proposal to give mobile operators more spectrum. That's bad.
The case for the government-based private cloud
[The author of this article is Bob Flores, the former Chief Technology Officer for the US Central Intelligence Agency. Currently he's a private government technology consultant with Applicology Inc., and a member of the board of directors of St. Louis-based cloud computing software maker Appistry.]
Hope was a slogan and a sentiment that played a major role in the US presidential election of 2008, and hope continues to be the mindset of technology advocates pushing for cloud computing in the public sector. As a former government employee with a long history in the intelligence field, I can easily see how cloud computing can contribute to the country's security and prosperity.
The mobile shopping Web isn't evolving in step with consumers' needs
The year 2009 is expected to be the first when mobile phones start gaining real traction in holiday shopping. Nearly one in five consumers will use a mobile device to assist in their holiday shopping this year, according to Deloitte's most recent Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends. Shoppers will use their mobile devices to find store locations, research prices, find product information, get coupons, read reviews and more. An estimated one in four consumers will even make a holiday purchase with their phone, representing a sizable chunk of potential sales.
It's little wonder then that retailers are showing more interest than ever before in the mobile Web. Recent Nielsen data shows that the mobile Web audience in the US grew a whopping 34 percent between July 2008 and July 2009, in spite of the economic climate and otherwise bleak consumer spending. Ironically, the down economy may be a key factor luring consumers to the mobile Web this holiday season, as they use their mobile phones to compare prices and find the best bargains, even in real-time as they peruse malls and stores.
Add-ons make Google Chrome for Linux beta competitive against Firefox
Download Google Chrome Dev version 245.1 for Linux from Fileforum now.
Google finally released a beta version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux on December 8, slightly more than one year after releasing its Chrome browser for Windows. The wait was worth it, especially given the more than 300 extensions already available to customize the new browser.
Consider this: Apple, the television network
The proposed USD$30 billion Comcast-NBC Universal deal has entered the labyrinthine process of winning Congressional approval from the antitrust gurus and the Federal Communications Commission. Small cable operators, which apparently still exist, fear that they will be driven out of business by the sprawling new company that would combine NBC's programming with Comcast's vast network of 24 million subscribers.
Those of us who remember the Frankenstein that was AOL Time Warner may shudder as we hear these words again: "It's great to own content and distribution!"
The case in favor of the open source enterprise database
Linux and open source middleware JBoss has made its mark in the enterprise, and it is just a matter of time before open source becomes mainstream in other functional parts of the IT infrastructure as well. Where exactly that will happen, however, is the interesting question.
With most companies spending 10 to 20 percent of their revenue on enterprise software, many IT managers would love to see more enterprise-class open source options. However, IT architects and project managers of IT tend to be cautious -- the back office has a low tolerance for risk, which makes it difficult for projects to gain entry into that exclusive back office.
Four obstacles to IT's embrace of the cloud
For years, IT departments have had full control over their own infrastructure -- for better and worse -- and are naturally uncomfortable with anything that prevents them from being the sole resource for their own infrastructure. They have been trained to maintain tight control because of the complexity of their own environment -- a positive trait that has helped to assure timely and accurate delivery, but limits their ability to accept change.
It should come as no surprise, then, that IT often views data leaving its network as a negative rather than a positive. However, Software as a Service cost-savings and the ability to help companies foster innovation within their own infrastructure is too strong a value proposition for most enterprises to ignore. Although management may be pushing cloud initiatives on reticent IT staff, many chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief technology officers (CTOs) are wary of the hype and have nagging fears about the loss of infrastructure control, loss of ownership of data, vendor lock-in and data security.
First impressions of Droid: Easy, breezy, friendly, if a little fat
Up to now, if you wanted a smartphone with power and without complexity, the only orchard you could go to was Apple's. With the arrival of the Motorola Droid, though, that's changed.
The Droid uses Google's Android operating system. It's not as slick as the OS in Apple's iPhone, but it's still a breeze to use, and it has some tricks of its own, like voice search. Yes, you can talk to this phone, and it will fill in your search terms. It's accurate, too. As a goof, I asked it to find "chronosynclastic infundibulum," and performed the search without a sneeze.
Clever iPhone game returns after being bumped over a name dispute
The story of "Edgy" sounds like an iPhone developer's worst nightmare. You create a game that includes a lot of intricate puzzles and levels. Lots of time goes into it, so you think it's appropriate to charge a moderate amount, as iPhone games go. There seems to be no reason for the App Store to reject it -- no shaken babies, no naked ladies, no Internet tethering, just clean old puzzle-solving fun. Approval is granted, public reaction is generally positive, and it seems you've caught your little piece of the iPhone dream.
Then it all starts to unravel over a single word: the name of the app.
Survey reveals there are more women than men, including on social networks
This just in: Females outnumber males on social networking sites. The site Pingdom did a survey, and concluded that 16 out of 19 (84%) of the most popular social sites have more women populating them than men. The super geek sites Digg, Reddit, and Slashdot have more men on them, but the more popular sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, all have more women visiting them.
The average ratio of all sites surveyed, according to Pingdom, was 47% male, 53% female.
Online advertising evolves away from display, toward interactive software
Digital advertising is evolving beyond the desktop computer, leaving companies relying solely on Web sites and display advertising woefully behind the eight ball. More and more, brands are relying on software development to create engaging consumer experiences that span multiple open platforms. Branded mobile applications are fast becoming an important element of this new digital ecosystem, as evidenced by Apple's announcement that its App Store had surpassed 100,000 apps in early November.
This shift away from more familiar mediums for brand communication has important implications for the composition of, and interaction between, established groups within agencies. The pervasive dynamic between technology and creative groups is not always conducive to more technically demanding campaigns because of a fundamental disconnect between these two groups' proficiencies.
Without its own 'iTablet' yet, is Apple missing the boat?
E-readers seem to be smoking hot this year. The Amazon Kindle, of course, has been leading the pack, but Sony seems to have sold more than a handful as well, and its new Sony Daily Edition e-reader may be in short supply. Meanwhile, newcomer Barnes & Noble already sold out of its new Nook e-reader, which the company just announced a month ago -- and that's only pre-orders that aren't shipping until the end of this month. Order a new Nook now, and you'll have to wait until January to get it.
Sounds a bit like Amazon's first sold-out holiday sales effort with the Kindle.
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