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Wed, 28 Jul 10
Google Gears Up for Government Work
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70496.html
Google on Tuesday unveiled Google Apps for Government. It also announced that Google Apps has received federal information security certification. "With Google Apps for Government, we've gone beyond FISMA certification," Google spokesperson Andrew Kovacs told TechNewsWorld. Meanwhile, Google will next week face a review of a major government project -- moving the City of Los Angeles' employees over to Gmail from their current system. That effort has apparently run into trouble. Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Video are the apps Google currently offers for government use.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Mighty Macs Top List of New Apple Gear
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70493.html
Apple released a flood of new products on Tuesday. It refreshed the Mac Pro and iMac lines, added a multi-touch desktop touchpad, and unveiled a 27-inch Cinema Display with a whole new set of bells and whistles. The iMacs are available now, with the multi-touch touchpad as an option; the new Mac Pros will hit the streets in August; and the Cinema Display will be available in September, Apple said. The Mac Pros come with up to 12 processor cores, and may signal a shift in Apple's product line.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Redefining Endpoint Security
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70489.html
Most security professionals believe that endpoint security is a strategy in which security software is distributed to end-user devices but centrally managed. Endpoint security systems work on a client/server model. A client program is installed on or downloaded to every endpoint, which in this case, is every user device that connects to the corporate network. Endpoints can include PCs, laptops, handheld devices, servers, printers and even specialized equipment.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
GNOME Bands With LiMo to Build Mobile Linux Inroads
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70491.html
The LiMo Foundation and the GNOME Foundation on Monday announced that they have begun working together as partners to further open source innovation. Starting immediately, LiMo Foundation will become a member of the GNOME Foundation's advisory board and the GNOME Foundation will become an industry liaison partner for the LiMo Foundation. The partnership stems from the use of several components from the GNOME Mobile platform in releases 2 and 3 of the LiMo Platform, the groups said.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Who's the Big Winner in the Great iPhone Escape?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70490.html
In a move sure to please all super geeks in the United States, the Library of Congress' Copyright Office has made a key exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to let us legally jailbreak our iPhones. About freakin' time. Of course, the "anticircumvention" exemption isn't focused only on the iPhone, but in reality, what other smartphone has enough jailbreaking interest in the U.S. to catch much attention? Of course, none of this means you can break the law in other ways, nor does it mean that Apple must honor the warranty on jailbroken phones.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Wikileaks Plunges Political World Into Turmoil
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70484.html
In what's been called the "biggest leak in intelligence history," more than 90,000 classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan came to light on Sunday and are wreaking havoc in political circles around the globe. Covering the period from January 2004 to December 2009, the reports were published Sunday by whistle-blowing site Wikileaks. Analyses of the material appeared simultaneously in The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Speigel. The documents reportedly include compelling evidence of widespread yet unreported abuses during the war.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
FCC Raises the Broadband Bar
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70480.html
The Federal Communications Commission has redefined broadband speeds as 4 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads. Characterizing the move as "overdue," the FCC pointed out that the previous standard of 200 Kbps in both directions was set in 1999. The new speeds were included in the FCC's sixth broadband deployment report, released last week. These are the minimum speeds required to "stream a high-quality -- even if not high-definition -- video while leaving sufficient bandwidth for basic Web browsing and email," reads the FCC document.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Dell's 'Brilliant' Windows vs. Ubuntu Analysis
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70481.html
Here in the Linux community, we're already pretty accustomed to strange behavior from hardware vendors when it comes to our favorite operating system. Sometimes, though, you just have to sit back and scratch your head. The latest example? None other than Dell. After the curious case of its disappearing "love letter" to Linux a few weeks ago, the Texas titan's UK site recently posted something that may be even more mystifying: a guide to helping customers choose between Windows and Ubuntu.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
How the Reality Distortion Field Is Hurting Ballmer and Could Kill Us
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70472.html
As I'm writing this, Microsoft is reporting a solid quarter with sales (or use) exceeding expectations significantly on four keystone products. While Steve Ballmer is clearly not performing at Steve Jobs' incredible levels, Microsoft continues to generate cash at a rate that most companies, states and countries don't seem able to approach. Yet he is also the CEO who is highest on the "soon to be ex-CEO" list. Underlying this is a recent study that found we, as a species, will avoid the truth if it conflicts with our beliefs. This not only helps Steve Jobs and hurts Steve Ballmer, but it could kill us.

Wed, 28 Jul 10
Quickoffice Lets You Settle Into a Sweet Mobile Suite
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70475.html
Muscular desktop applications like office suites can't be run on downscale devices like the iPad, but that doesn't mean Apple's mighty tablet can't be a valuable partner with those programs. A case in point is Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad. Quickoffice is designed to work with files compatible with three mainstays of Microsoft's popular Office suite: Word, Excel and Powerpoint. With it, you can store Office documents with a "cloud" service provider like Google Docs, Dropbox, Mobileme or Box.net.

Sun, 25 Jul 10
The Social Network Half a Billion Love to Hate
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70477.html
"Incredibly dysfunctional" is not an option you can list as your relationship status on Facebook, but that seems to be the way to describe the site's relationship with its users. It's like an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend you hate so much but just keep going back to again and again and again, possibly because you can't find anyone better. Never has the site been more popular. It just reached half a billion users -- just six months after reaching the 400 million mark. Facebook was quick to trumpet those numbers.

Sat, 24 Jul 10
India Aims to Supply Students With $35 Tablet Computers
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70473.html
India's Ministry of Human Resource Development has unveiled a prototype of a touchscreen computer that will initially cost $35. Eventually, Minister Shri Kapil Sibal said, the price will drop to $20 and then $10. In photos, the device looks much like the sleek tablet-style PCs coming on the market and typified by the iPad. It will offer such standard functionality as word processing, Web browsing and video-conferencing. It is aimed at university students, with delivery planned for 2011. At $35, the computer is cheaper than most digital cameras.

Sat, 24 Jul 10
The Incredible, Invulnerable, Indispensable Social Network
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70469.html
And you thought Apple was the only Teflon technology company out there. Despite a brief six-year lifespan filled with privacy complaints and user gripes over neck-snapping design changes, Facebook just signed up User No. 500,000,000. Businesses continue to pile onboard the Mark Zuckerberg express, thanks to the powerful recommendation engine that is the "Like" button. Tech and mainstream journalists keep tripping over themselves to lock up interviews with the youthful CEO.

Sat, 24 Jul 10
Safari Autofill Full of Fail
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70476.html
Safari's Autofill feature, which can be set to automatically insert a user's data such as name and address into Web forms, could expose users to theft of their personal information, according to security expert Jeremiah Grossman. Grossman, the founder and CTO of security firm WhiteHat, wrote in his blog that the feature autofills HTML form text fields with specific attribute names such as "name," "company," "city," and "state." It works even though the victim has not entered this data on any website.

Sat, 24 Jul 10
Who You Gonna Call? Q&A With Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70470.html
The Software Freedom Law Center provides free legal representation and other law-related services to open source software developers. The organization began in 2005 under the direction of Eben Moglen, a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University Law School. His law center represents many of the most important and well-established free software and open source projects. The SFLC's goal is to help non-profit FLOSS projects succeed. The free legal assistance provides programmers and open source projects with sound legal and organizational structures.

Sat, 24 Jul 10
Flipboard Jumped the Gun
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70467.html
The idea of an online magazine with content that can be customized by its readers has been around for years. The execution of that idea, though, has produced less than stellar results. That may be about to change with a new free application released this week for the iPad called "Flipboard." Flipboard combines information from Facebook and Twitter to create a personalized magazine on the iPad -- a "social" magazine, as the service calls it. What really distinguishes Flipboard from other efforts in this vein is the stylish way it's able lay out that information.

Thu, 22 Jul 10
Droid X Screen Problems Nipped in Bud
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70459.html
Even as Apple suffers the continuing pains of its iPhone 4 "Antennagate" brouhaha, it appears at least one competing device is now facing problems of its own: Motorola and Verizon on Tuesday acknowledged faulty screens on some Droid X handsets and offered affected consumers a free replacement device. "We are aware of a very small number of Droid X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display," said Motorola spokesperson Juli Burda. "The exposure of devices is limited to less than one-tenth of a percent."

Thu, 22 Jul 10
UltraViolet: Light at the End of the DRM Tunnel?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70455.html
DECE has announced more details about a concept that would ultimately give consumers the ability to legally access the digital content of a slew of providers for use on multiple devices -- from smartphones to personal computers to Web-enabled television sets. The crux of this concept, which DECE has dubbed "UltraViolet," is a cloud-based, account-system digital locker. Consumers would buy the content, register their various devices, and manage their accounts. The content would be protected through a proprietary digital rights management system.

Thu, 22 Jul 10
2 Photo Managers That Tie Features Into Neat Little Bundles
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70448.html
The more I delve into open source photo apps for Linux, the harder the choice becomes to use just one photo management solution. I keep finding photo managers that outdo my previous picks. Take, for example, digiKam and Shotwell. These two apps are much like some of the best-of-class photo apps I have reviewed as Linux Picks choices in recent months. These picks include: GIMP, Album Shaper and F-Spot. digiKam and Shotwell do many of the same organization and tweaking functions. But it is how their developers tie the features together that makes these two photo tools really good choices.

Tue, 20 Jul 10
Microsoft Lets Devs Take a Spin on WinPho7
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70440.html
Microsoft has put its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system out for technical preview. "Starting today, thousands of prototype phones from Asus, LG and Samsung are making their way into the hands of developers over the next few weeks," Terry Myerson, corporate vice president, Windows phone engineering, announced on the Windows Phone blog Sunday. There's still some way to go before the OS is ready for release, Myerson said. "The software is pretty zippy, and the way it lets you back into and out of an application is pretty cool," IDC's Will Stofega told TechNewsWorld.

Tue, 20 Jul 10
A Brief History of Encryption
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70437.html
Threats to computer and network security increase with each passing day and come from a growing number of sources. No computer or network is immune from attack. A recent concern is the susceptibility of the power grid and other national infrastructure to a systematic, organized attack on the United States from other nations or terrorist organizations. Encryption, or the ability to store and transmit information in a form that is unreadable to anyone other than intended persons, is a critical element of our defense to these attacks.

Tue, 20 Jul 10
Could a China/US Partnership Cure Oil Addiction?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70413.html
There is a growing consensus that China will replace the U.S. as the world's leading superpower in this century, just as the U.S. replaced Great Britain in last one. In the last century, it was the difference between world commerce and manufacturing capacity that mattered; now, the shift could actually be tied to technological advancement in areas like transportation and electrical power. If there is one thing that China and the U.S. have in common, it is the desperate need to get off fossil fuels.

Tue, 20 Jul 10
An Imperfect Tool for Putting Pen to iPad
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70432.html
What good is a pad if you can't write on it? Although the iPad has the word "pad" in it, it isn't the kind of pad that recognizes handwriting, at least not out of the box. That technology can be added to the tablet, however, with software like Phatware's WritePad. The handwriting recognition of WritePad isn't perfect. In fact, it's not even as good as Dragon's speech recognition for the tablet. Nevertheless, the app fills a need. You can't always talk to your iPad because of environmental conditions.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
Apple's Gratis Bumpers: Case Closed?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70433.html
At a hastily called press conference on Friday, Apple chairman and CEO Steve Jobs offered free cases to all iPhone 4 users to make amends for widespread complaints about the design of the smartphone's antenna, which causes it to lose signal strength when the phone is held a certain way without a case. Users who have already bought Apple's cases, called "Bumpers," will get the $30 price refunded. Jobs also said that iPhone 4 owners who are still unhappy with the device can exchange them for full refunds.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
The Sweet Smell of Social Media Success - and the Funk of Failure
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70426.html
How's this for tying together Old Spice's winning social media strategy and Apple's current iPhone problems: While the cologne and deodorant company is ending the week smelling like a rose, Steve Jobs' tech colossus is in danger of stinking up the joint. Follow along with me as I attempt to marry the two top tech stories of the past few days. Both involve the Internet, media relations/marketing strategies, and consumers drunk with the newfound power that social media/Web video imparts upon them.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
Apple Lets Firefox Ride Along on Safari
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70430.html
Apple has approved Firefox Home, a free app from the Mozilla Foundation for mobile devices running the iPhone operating system such as the iPhone and iPad. Firefox Home lets users sync and view bookmarks and open tabs and browser history between the iOS device and a desktop or notebook computer. It's not a Mozilla-made browser, but rather an add-on to Apple's own Safari browser. The Firefox Home app gives users access on their iPhones to their Firefox desktop histories, bookmarks and open tabs, the Mozilla Foundation said.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
iOS Updates Do Little to Calm iPhone Antenna Storm
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70429.html
Apple released operating system updates for both the iPhone and the iPad on Thursday, on the eve of its emergency press conference about the iPhone's antenna debacle. The iPad 3.2.1 update addresses, among other issues, a problem with WiFi connectivity that surfaced in May. The iPhone update -- to iOS 4.0.1 -- is targeted directly at the snarled reception problems and how signal strength is displayed. Apple likely will have specific comments to make on the hardware portion of that dilemma at its Friday press event.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
Android Army to Conquer Mobile Market by 2015
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70427.html
Linux will dominate the non-smartphone mobile device market by 2015, a study by ABI Research indicates, and Google will likely play a prominent role in this. "Linux-enabled mobile devices, led by the success of Google's Android and upcoming Chrome OSes, will comprise 62 percent of the operating systems shipping in all non-smartphone mobile devices by 2015," ABI Research said. Android will be the operating system of choice in Linux-based non-smartphone mobile devices, ABI Research senior analyst Victoria Fodale told LinuxInsider.

Sat, 17 Jul 10
StoryPages Nails the Broad Strokes, but the Details Are Choppy
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70425.html
When working with projects that mix pictures and words, creative types typically resort to storyboarding. You may have seen the use of storyboards in films -- sometimes the special features on a DVD will include a gallery of storyboard art or an interview with one of the movie's principles will be shot with a wall of storyboards as a background -- but the method is also deployed for planning things like Web sites, presentations and slideshows. Traditionally, storyboards were drawn on "dead tree" technology.

Fri, 16 Jul 10
HP Spurns Android Tablet for webOS?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70420.html
HP has delayed the launch of its Android tablet device, All Things Digital reported on Thursday. The tablet had been scheduled for release at the end of the year. It's believed HP is pushing back work on the Android device in order to focus on a tablet running webOS, the operating system it acquired when it purchased Palm earlier this year. This could be the second tablet HP has backed away from this year. Back in January, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated the HP Slate, a tablet PC running Windows 7, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Fri, 16 Jul 10
5 Ways Disaster Recovery Can Calm Hurricane Jitters
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70418.html
The word "hurricane" means "evil wind spirit" -- and the 2010 hurricane season is predicted to be the most active of the past five years. In fact, in just the first two weeks of the season there were nine named storms in the Atlantic basin. So if the technical disaster recovery plan that you have in place involves holding your breath, crossing your fingers or some other interesting but ineffectual ritual to ward off the evil wind spirits, your business is at serious risk.

Fri, 16 Jul 10
'GunRange' Didn't Quite Blow Me Away
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70408.html
Almost every time Apple bolts a new gizmo to a new iPhone model, it backs it up with an application built into iOS. For example, when the 3GS came out last year, it came with a video camera and a magnetometer. So video editing software and a compass app came with it, rolled right into the OS. Other apps came along to use that hardware as well, and sometimes they made more extensive use out of it, but the built-in software at least made those new abilities relevant from the moment you started using the phone.

Fri, 16 Jul 10
Does Copying = Stealing?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70417.html
Here on the Linux blogs, it's a pretty safe bet that any discussion on the topic of copyright is going to be a heated one. Few, however, reach the heights of conflagration seen in the one that's currently creating billowing black clouds of smoke high above the blogosphere's main downtown. "Copying is stealing" was the title of an editor's note by Carla Schroder on Linux Today earlier this month, and it's sparked a firestorm of controversy the likes of which are not often seen.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
Ballmer: The Slates Are Coming
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70392.html
Microsoft will roll out multiple Windows 7 slate devices "over the course of the next several months," company CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed in a keynote speech on Monday. "This year one of the most important things that we will do in the smart device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates, and with Windows 7 phones," Ballmer said in his speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C. "This is a terribly important area for us," he added.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
Typhoid Adware: Coming From a Laptop Near You
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70389.html
A yet-unseen malware variant dubbed "Typhoid adware" could allow cyberattackers to prey on portable computer users tethered to unsecured WiFi connections at Internet cafes and other public places. This potential threat is lurking wherever consumers gather to use free Internet access points. The hidden new threat has none of the telltale symptoms of traditional infections, and it functions as a twist on the notorius "Man-in-the-middle" vulnerability, according to a team of computer science researchers at Canada's University of Calgary.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
Google Makes Everyone an Android Dev
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70393.html
Google on Monday threw open its App Inventor beta program to the public. The tools used in this program let the user create mobile apps for the Android operating system, even if the user has very little programming knowledge. The App Inventor program's tools use a visual programming approach and code blocks that developers put together to create a program. The blocks editor used in App Inventor leverages the Open Blocks Java library. Open Blocks is an extendable framework for graphical block programming systems put forth by MIT graduate student Ricarose Vallarta Roque.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
Do We Need a Cellphone Lemon Law?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70381.html
When Apple brings out a new phone, my advice typically is to wait a couple of months for the problems to surface, and then they will either be fixed or known and you can make a more educated decision. However we haven't seen the number of problems with the latest iPhone since, well, ever. To summarize, the antenna is badly designed, the signal strength software is inaccurate, the proximity sensor that's supposed to keep your face from dialing the phone is broken, battery life is in the toilet again, and the new OS is crashing.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
Extra Features Could Add More Snap and Crackle to Popplet
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70380.html
When traveling from one place to another, sometimes a map can be more useful than a set of directions. The same can be true for planning projects, such as essays, presentations, or for noodling with less structured activities, such as brainstorming. One popular way of visualizing projects is with "mind maps." The maps can be very simple. An organizational chart is a prosaic example of a mind map. So, too, are the bracket graphics accompanying sports tournaments like the World Cup or the NCAA's March Madness basketball tourney.

Tue, 13 Jul 10
The Things Microsoft Could Do to Make Up For It All
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70387.html
Baseball may be America's favorite pastime, but here in the Linux blogosphere, grumbling about Microsoft is surely the next best thing. "Microsoft is still paying for the bad old days of arrogance and dubious business practices," noted ZDNet UK's Mary Branscombe in a recent blog post provocatively entitled, "Why do we (love to) hate Microsoft?" After mulling over the current state of affairs in Redmond Branscombe concludes by asking the question, "What would Microsoft need to do and say to you for you to be happy to call yourself a fan?"

Fri, 9 Jul 10
Report: NSA Heads Up 'Perfect' Plan to Hunt Down Cyberthreats
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70374.html
The federal government is launching a program to detect cyberattacks on America's critical infrastructure installations, such as the nationwide electricity grid and nuclear power plants, according to The Wall Street Journal. The National Security Agency will allegedly run the program, dubbed "Perfect Citizen." The agency awarded defense contractor Raytheon a classified contract worth up to $100 million for the initial phase of the project, the Journal reported. Cybersecurity experts have been calling for efforts to protect the U.S.'s critical infrastructure.

Fri, 9 Jul 10
Google May Steer Devs Web-Ward With Mobile YouTube Refresh
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70372.html
YouTube's decision to make its mobile Web site compatible with HTML5 may one day be viewed as a turning point in what is shaping up as an epic battle for control of the mobile device landscape. In unveiling the new site on Wednesday, YouTube said its goal is to give mobile device users the same video viewing experience they get on desktop computers. Part of that experience is being able to access the site and play videos directly through a Web browser rather than relying on a dedicated application that must be loaded on the device.

Fri, 9 Jul 10
AT&T Lays Idle iPhone Uploads at Alcatel-Lucent's Feet
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70371.html
Another day, another iPhone 4 problem -- or so it seems. The latest snafu in the iPhone 4 saga involves slow uploads in a number of markets serviced by the mobile's U.S. carrier, AT&T. The carrier has traced the problem to a flaw in the software used by one of its hardware vendors, Alcatel-Lucent, although there's at least a coincidental relationship between the malfunctioning software and the introduction of the iPhone 4. A fix is forthcoming; meanwhile, AT&T has restored conventional upload speeds to the 3G markets affected by the bug.

Fri, 9 Jul 10
The Rocky Road to IPv6
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70370.html
The Internet as we know it is apparently running out of space. No, this does not mean that existing websites will not be able to add more content. But sometime in the next few years the space for new IP addresses -- the kind normally used up to this point, anyway -- will be nearly depleted, according to Ipv6.net. The ubiquitous growth of mobile devices and never-ending tide of malware and other browser exploits are hogging all the allocated space. So are the mega address blocks that large corporations swept up over the last decade, explained Zscaler's Michael Sutton.

Fri, 9 Jul 10
On GoogleCL, a 'Virtual RMS' and Highly Unusual Linux Distros
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70369.html
Well, the Dog Days of summer seem to be upon us in earnest up here in the Northern Hemisphere, so it's no wonder things have been a little quieter than usual in the Linux blogosphere. Discussion of the Bilski affair, for one, seems to be winding down, and many bloggers -- perhaps in need of a little comic relief -- have begun turning their attention to lighter topics. Over on the Linux Blog, for instance, the topic du jour was "Things I Can Do Before Windows Boots." No. 8 on the substantial list: "Wrote this blog post."

Fri, 9 Jul 10
An App to Find Lost iPhones, Wipe Secret Data and Generally Save the Day
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70366.html
As part of Apple's MobileMe suite of everywhere email, calendar, contacts, photo and online storage space, Apple has tucked away a wicked cool feature: Find My iPhone. Apple has made the feature available via a browser for a while, but now Apple is offering Find My iPhone as a free app for iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. The app does what it says it does -- it finds your iPhone if you lose it -- with some caveats. First, if you install the app on your iPhone and then lose your iPhone, the app doesn't wake up and phone home.

Thu, 8 Jul 10
Solar-Powered Plane Takes Off for Day-and-Night Test Flight
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70365.html
A manned solar-powered airplane took off in the early hours of Wednesday morning for a 24-hour trip that will include its first nighttime flight. After being postponed last week, the flight began at 6:51 a.m. local time, when the Solar Impulse HB-SIA aircraft took off from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland with Andre Borscherg, CEO and cofounder of the Solar Impulse project, at the controls. "For seven years now, the whole team has been passionately working to achieve this first decisive step of the project," Borschberg said.

Thu, 8 Jul 10
Mozilla Looks to Reignite Firefox With Version 4 Beta
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70364.html
Mozilla announced Tuesday that the first beta version of Firefox 4, the latest iteration of its browser, is ready for downloading and testing. The beta has several new features, including privacy and speed enhancements. Mozilla plans to issue new beta versions every two to three weeks, modifying the browser in response to beta users' comments. Firefox 4 Beta 1 has a new add-on manager, supports Google's WebM format and fixes flaws in some Web standards that could expose users' browser history, Mozilla said.

Thu, 8 Jul 10
US Feds Give Mobile Apps a Go
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70360.html
As part of an overhaul of its public-facing front-door website, USA.gov, the U.S. federal government has released the first in a long list of planned mobile phone applications for citizens. Some have downloadable modules optimized for specific mobile phone platforms; others come in the form of websites optimized for access through Web browsers running on mobile devices. Less than a week after their release, though, the mobile apps already are receiving raised eyebrows due to a perceived leaning toward the iPhone platform.

Thu, 8 Jul 10
A Note-Slinging Dynamic Duo
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70355.html
The drawback with using most note-taking applications on any platform is that they are limited in the type of data you can put into them. For instance, simple text editors ignore Internet and content links. Plus, you cannot import graphics. Even word-processing programs, which overcome the links and graphics deficiencies, lack the tree structure that makes storing and viewing notes quick and useful. For typical daily office and personal note-taking tasks, using a database application is like using a fumigating spray to kill a fly.

Sun, 4 Jul 10
The Converged Media Road to Success
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70332.html
With the introduction of advanced smartphones, e-readers and tablets, it's hardly surprising that consumption of online content has grown exponentially. This has caused turmoil within the media industry. Traditional advertising revenues are declining as new marketing options are emerging. Print media and newspaper subscriber bases and readership are eroding, while the competition for online viewership is increasing. The need for adoption of social media and delivery to multiple mobile devices is increasingly becoming essential for retaining and attracting new customers.

Fri, 2 Jul 10
Microsoft Turns Its Back on Kin
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70338.html
Microsoft is killing off the line of Kin handsets it introduced about six weeks ago. The company has canceled plans to launch the Kin in Europe this fall and has rolled over its Kin development team into its Windows Phone 7 team. Microsoft said it will continue selling "current" Kin phones with Verizon Wireless in the United States, though with the Kin team now mixed into the Windows Phone group, it appears unlikely that any new Kin devices are planned for the future. Microsoft launched two models of the Kin -- the Kin One and Kin Two -- through Verizon around mid-April.

Fri, 2 Jul 10
YouTube Says HTML5 Not Ready for Prime Time
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70333.html
Despite predictions to the contrary, Adobe Flash won't be supplanted any time soon as a major video distribution vehicle on the World Wide Web, according to a software engineer at the Net's largest video sharing site, YouTube. "[W]hile the <video> tag is a big step forward for open standards, the Adobe Flash Platform will continue to play a critical role in video distribution," John Harding wrote in the YouTube API Blog this week. He was referring to prognostications that a new version of the language to create pages on the Web, HTML5, will "kill" Flash.

Fri, 2 Jul 10
Who Should - or Shouldn't - Use Linux?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70329.html
Independence Day may come only once a year here in the land of stars and stripes, but the topic of independence is one that's never far from Linux bloggers' minds. Freedom, in other words, and all the myriad benefits that go along with it. It's an oft-cited reason for using our favorite operating system, and it's also a topic that got examined up close recently by the inquiring minds over at TuxRadar. "We want to know whether the primary reason you use open source software is for its freedom or for its function," the inquiring minds wrote.

Fri, 2 Jul 10
App Development: New Rules for a New Game, Part 3
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70331.html
Application development in the cloud requires special data models such as schema-less and sometimes typeless databases, and that could lead to a new battleground in which the major players such as Microsoft, IBM and HP will come out with their own data models and back-end platforms. "All the cloud infrastructure players have various data engines behind the scenes," Al Hilwa, program director of applications development software at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. "Some are SQL and some are not, and these are not all compatible."

Fri, 2 Jul 10
iPhone 4 First Impressions: The One to Get, If You Can Find It
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70325.html
I tried to preorder an iPhone 4 online, but of course, I was one of the hundreds of thousands of potential buyers who could not get through the clogged Apple and AT&T servers on June 15, the first day the companies began accepting early orders. By the time the servers and system recovered enough to let me in, I was facing a "Ships by July 2" notice. Ouch. My buddy has it worse. His won't ship until July 14. However, AT&T did get their shipments in on June 28, and they opened their doors to iPhone 4 sales the next day at 7 in the morning.

Thu, 1 Jul 10
Sony Recalls Half a Million Too-Hot-to-Handle Notebooks
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70326.html
Sony has issued a voluntary global recall of 535,000 Vaio notebook computers after reports of a defect in the devices' temperature control software was brought to its attention. The flaw can cause the notebook to overheat, sometimes to an extreme degree. The recalled products are from the VPCF11 Series and VPCCW2 Series notebook computers, slightly less than half of which are in the U.S. Sony has also offered a firmware patch for the defect, Stacey Palosky, spokesperson for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, told TechNewsWorld.

Thu, 1 Jul 10
Users Fume as Software Update Bricks Sprint EVO Phones
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70320.html
Less than a month after the release of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G, many of the smartphone's users recently found their devices rendered completely inoperable. That's because a firmware update released by Sprint this week seems to have gone badly awry for an unknown number of the customers who installed it. For those customers, the firmware update has "bricked" their phones -- a term not so affectionately used for phones that behave more like doorstops than multifunction communications devices. The screen is blank, the signal is gone, the phone is dead.

Thu, 1 Jul 10
Calibre Is an Elegant E-Book Librarian
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70312.html
Regardless of your take on the iPad as a do-everything replacement device for laptops and netbooks, other e-book readers are gaining a substantial foothold. Devices such as the Kindle and the Nook provide access to volumes of literature and documents without having to lug a fully-functional computer around. However, EBRs do not completely replace the need for notebooks and netbooks. Depending on your specific needs, both laptop/netbook-based EBR software and a stand-alone e-book device can be indispensable for portable access to work-related and recreational reading.

Thu, 1 Jul 10
The New Hacker Hobby That Will Change the World
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/70314.html
Personal computing altered the world forever, and now the digitization of biology is poised to bring about sweeping change. Craig Venter's recent announcement of the first synthetic genome was a huge milestone, but many outside of Silicon Valley remain unaware of the "do-it-yourself biology" movement. This movement consists of smart engineers who like to tinker in garages, basements and living rooms, hacking the genetic codes of various organisms.