Geek

NEWS ANALYSIS: The Android Market was kind of like the Wild West until Google Bouncer showed up as the new sheriff in town. - As peculiar as the after-the-fact announcement of Google Bouncer may have been, it was still good news. Perhaps Google was ramping up, trying to make sure that its Bouncer would work as intended and be able to handle the flood of new apps submitted to the Android Market. Perhaps the company just...

The VeriSign breach is an example of how no one is too secure, or too big to be attacked. Security experts said targeted attacks on "high value" companies will continue - Companies get breached. That's the lesson of 2011. Large or small, no organization is immune to attacks. The VeriSign breach was just another day of business as usual for the bad guys. Campaigns such as Operation Shady Rat, disclosed by McAfee, and Nitro, disclosed by Symantec, showed how eve...

Adobe wants researchers to focus on mitigation technologies that make it expensive for attackers to launch attacks, not hunting bugs. - CANCUN, Mexico – Security researchers need to shift their attention away from hunting for vulnerabilities and start thinking about ways to make it difficult create exploits, according to a security expert from Adobe. There is too much focus on vulnerabilities and defects in software, Brad Arkin...

More performance-tuning for your home and office

Part 3 I'm pleased to say that what with the relatively warm 2011 and our conservation efforts we had the lowest consumption of electricity and gas at home of any year yet, a bit over 1,500kWh ('units') of electricity and under 4,000kWh of gas. (A typical UK household is nearer 3,300kWh 'leccy and 18,000kWh gas.) With our solar PV exports we were just carbon-negative for power by my calculations.…

Despite public concerns from members of Congress and European data-protection authorities, Google isn't going to slow or stop its march to whittle its product privacy policies down into one big umbrella policy. - Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) plans to move forward with its planned privacy policy changes despite resistance from a handful of U.S. congressmen and a European data-protection group. The search-engine provider, battling Facebook for supremacy of user engagement and advertising on the Web, said it pla...

Sharp shooters for parties and protests

Product round-up You know that really annoying person who is videoing the gig with their camera phone to stick on Facebook when they get home? That's me. These days my TV is HD and my games console is HD, so it only makes sense that my phone – the device I use the most, day in and day out – should be HD too. Luckily, HD on smartphones is becoming more commonplace and so rather than judge these handsets on their mobile merits, this round-up focuses on their HD video camera performance.…

Scammers are using automated techniques to generate tons of fake profiles to trick users into joining scams and clicking on malicious links, Barracuda Networks found. - CANCUN, MEXICO – Cyber-crooks on Facebook are creating fake profiles on the social networking site to launch their scams, according to data released by Barracuda Networks. The fake profiles are overwhelmingly women. About 97 percent of the fake profiles collected by Barracuda Networks turned out...

That's 'billion', with a 'b'

If all goes according to plan, Facebook founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's share of the profit in his company's upcoming initial public offering will result in him facing a tax bill of around $1.5bn for 2012.…

A "worrying number" of Facebook users are sharing a link to a malware-laden fake CNN news page reporting the U.S. has attacked Iran and Saudi Arabia, security firm Sophos said Friday.

The world of hypervisors is complicated by the fact that there are proprietary and open source tools, each with different strengths and weaknesses. One expert says the difference between the two is that innovation is coming out of the open source products at a quicker pace. But another expert doesn't quite believe that first to market is the key to success. He says this market is too important to be downloading open source bits frequently. With that dilemma, enterprises instead turn to commercially supported products.

US, UK research: Thick kids more likely to become bigots

British and American children who are less intelligent are more likely to grow up to be conservative and/or bigots, according to new research published in Physiological Science.…

Expert pilot, experimental aircraft

Steven Appleton, the long-time CEO at memory chip maker Micron Technology, died this morning in a crash of an experimental plane in the company's hometown of Boise, Idaho. He was 51 years-old and one of the youngest CEOs and chairman in the Fortune 500.…

Rival small-business boosters, Obama foes disagree

One advocacy group has published a survey it says proves that US small-business owners aren't unduly concerned with government regulations. Another group says that the first group's opinion poll is tainted by bogosity.…

Steve Appleton, chairman and CEO of memory and semiconductor maker Micron, was killed in a small plane accident in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. "Our hearts go out to his wife, Dalynn, his children and his family during this tragic time," the company said in a statement. [ Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]

Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.

Dam friction-less sharing and the company is toast

Open ... and Shut No sooner did Facebook file its S-1 in preparation for an IPO than speculation kicked into high gear on how Facebook could possibly sustain its $75bn to $100bn valuation. After all, despite its hugely impressive revenue and profit numbers, key components of its revenue model – like advertising revenue – are decelerating. So should we expect Facebook to impose a paywall on some or all of its users, as MyLife.com chief executive Jeff Tinsley suggests it could?…

Companies need to think about educating users about security, the threats and the risks alongside traditional data-leak protection. - CANCUN, MEXICO Companies invest in security to protect their networks and data. But sometimes, they are not thinking about the human side of the security equation, Kaspersky Lab researchers told attendees at the company's security conference. The “Humans are the weakest link” presentation on ...

Poles stall, Slovenian ambassador calls for protests

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty, signed by most European countries last week, may not be a done deal after all, as governments across the continent face a storm of protest.…

Lots of IT workers get pink slips

The US economy added 243,000 net new jobs in January and the unemployment rate has ticked down two-tenths of a point, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.…

Take 'em down, put 'em back – a busy morning for Apple IT

A German court has suspended the injunction that required Apple to remove its iPhone 4 and 3Gs, and iPad Wi-Fi + 3G from its online store in that country.…