Software Blog » Drivers

Security Gurus Scream for Microsoft Shell Patch

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:49:43 +0000

A Windows Shell flaw for which Microsoft released a security advisory Friday could lead to widespread attacks, security experts fear. The vulnerability attacks through Windows shortcuts, icons for which are displayed on users’ computer screens. It can be exploited through removable drives or over computer networks. Microsoft has suggested some workarounds, but security exports point out that these have problems of their own. In Windows 95 and later, the Windows Shell is explorer.exe, which resides in the Windows folder or in one of its subfolders, such as System32.

US Feds Give Mobile Apps a Go

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Flipping the Email Encryption Switch

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0000

In today’s world of cloud-based services and legislative forces that are upping noncompliance penalties with each passing day, the application of email encryption as a strategic tool is back on the front burner. Email encryption is nothing new, of course. Yet outside of the usual circles — finance, healthcare, government — widespread adoption of the practice hasn’t occurred. “Email encryption hasn’t taken off the way we expected,” said Bill Mann, SVP of business unit strategy for CA Technologies. “The business drivers … weren’t sufficiently painful.”

The Second Coming of Bluetooth

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:00:00 +0000

For the uninitiated, “Bluetooth” is a funny word for an awkward device you stick in your ear. The moniker has thus become a non-assuming general descriptor for hands-free calling. That’s about to change. Bluetooth has grown into a disruptive wave that’s beginning to crest over the top of more than one industry. “It’s the perfect storm: The technology has matured, the prices have plummeted, and the battery life is long enough to make many products disposable commodities,” said Jack Corrao, managing director of Corrao Group.

Beating Apple: A Primer

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:00:00 +0000

One of the interesting things about watching Apple’s rollout of the iPad and anticipating the rollout of its stunning generation 4 iPhone is that competitors don’t seem to get what makes Apple successful. As a result, they have generally failed miserably to bring forward offerings that have done as well. I spent a lot of my life as a competitive analyst and still do some work along those lines today, so this week I’ll offer some suggestions about how a firm might beat Apple.

Where Are the Robots Taking Us? Part 2

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Is it abnormal to love robots? Do people who love robots, adopt them as friends or members of the family, give then names and bring them along on family vacations have an unnatural fixation on robots? What about soldiers who are prepared to give their lives for their units’ bomb detector robots? Is that a symptom of battle fatigue? Of loneliness? Of traumatic stress disorder? Or are all these people just being human? If babies can anthropomorphize stuffed toys, why can’t adults anthropomorphize robots, especially those that seem intelligent or resemble us physically?

2013: The Year Tech as We Know It Changes

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:00:00 +0000

The market is in a planning cycle, and analysts are being asked to take a look in their crystal balls and describe what 2013 will look like. Clearly, we will have more bandwidth, 3-D TV will be ramping, and most of us will either be using tablet devices for something or moving to the next big thing. I’m going to look out to 2013 and make some assumptions and then paint a picture of what the world will look like through the eyes of someone who is on the cutting edge of technology. I’m picking cutting edge because that is where the most change is likely to be.

Where Are the Robots Taking Us? Part 1

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Robots haunt our art and our dreams. Science-fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a whole series of novels around the idea of robotics — the “Robot” series, one of which was made into the movie “I, Robot.” The “Terminator” movies were all big hits, and science-fiction series such as Britain’s “Dr. Who” and America’s own “Caprica” and “Battlestar Galactica” all have robots, more or less humanoid, in their casts. On television, the Japanese cartoon characters “Astro Boy,” as well as “Transformers” and “Gundam” have been hits.

Google Dreams Up Cloud Printing Service

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:56:33 +0000

Google on Friday announced that it’s working on Google Cloud Print, a service that will let any application on any device print to any printer over the Internet. Instead of relying on the device’s local operating system and drivers to print a job, applications will use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then send the print jobs to the appropriate printer and provide information on the job status to the application.

Next-Gen Linux File Systems: Change Is the New Constant

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Changes impacting storage are taking place at every layer of the network architecture: Disk drives are continuing on a Moore’s law-like cost/capacity curve, yet concurrently we are also seeing the growth of solid-state technology to overcome the inherent performance limitations of mechanical disk; virtualization is changing how architects think about storage, as we now have operating systems running entirely in user space within a virtual machine; and applications are choosing HTTP over FC as the preferred storage protocol.

Would Linux Be Better Off Without the FSF?

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Linux fans may be united in their love for FOSS, but when it comes to the Free Software Foundation, opinions tend to diverge dramatically. There’s no doubt the advocacy group has done a commendable job of promoting and defending the use of free software licenses; what’s less clear, however, is whether its hard stance has helped encourage wider Linux adoption. Luckily, help was on hand last week to assist in deciding that very question. Sure enough, the good folks over at TuxRadar put together an open ballot last Tuesday.

The Critically Complex World of Cars’ Sparky Bits

admin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Your most expensive piece of electronics probably is not your flat panel TV or your computer. More likely, it’s your car, which can pack 50 microprocessors to control everything from the fuel mix to the rearview mirrors. The recalls and other technical problems besetting Toyota in the last few weeks highlight the risks of relying on electronics instead of the mechanical rods and cables that controlled vehicles for most of the 20th century. Such advancements bring many benefits, but the worry is that the car is a computer on wheels that could freeze up and potentially crash.

Life After Microsoft: IT Utopia or ‘Apocalyptic Tailspin’?

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Well, the snow continues to fall here in the Linux blogosphere, and Linux Girl is beginning to wonder if it will ever end. Bread and milk are still in short supply at the local FOSS-y-Mart; children are getting cabin fever; and the snow drifts are getting taller than many netizens. Down at the Broken Windows Lounge, in fact, the snow now blocks out most of the light that would be shining through, making it seem as if there are no windows there at all. Such, perhaps, was the inspiration behind a recent conversation that’s come close to fisticuffs.

The iPad Has Landed

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:57:37 +0000

Apple finally let the iPad out of the iBag Wednesday, with all the style and hyperbole the technology industry has come to periodically expect from Steve Jobs’ company. Jobs and several other Apple executives demonstrated the company’s idea of what a tablet computer should do before an invitation-only crowd of nearly 500 influential tech journalists, bloggers and analysts at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. What the audience saw: a 9.7-inch color multi-touch screen surrounded by a sleek black frame that’s half an inch thick and weighs 1.5 pounds.

DoT Adds Another Law to Anti-Texting Crazy Quilt

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:49:14 +0000

It could be the next service announced by your car’s GPS feature when you drive from state to state: letting you know what highway exit to take — and warning you about whether texting/phoning while driving in that state is legal. Tuesday’s move by the Department of Transportation to outlaw texting while driving for interstate commercial traffic makes it clear that the federal government is making distracted driving a priority in 2010. However, it also adds to the tangle of separate state and, in some cases, civic regulations.

Open-PC: A Piece of Junk, or Got It Where It Counts?

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:00:00 +0000

It’s a rare day indeed that doesn’t see some new computer technology or other roll out of the starting gates, but when that technology is called the “Open-PC,” Linux Girl can’t help but sit up and pay attention. Sure enough, the Open-PC is billed as the first PC for everyday use “built by the Linux community for the Linux community,” and it uses only free software. The energy-efficient machine uses “100 percent free drivers,” and phone and email support are included in its 359 euros price, as is a donation to the KDE project.

The Bane of Technology Analysts Is … Technology?

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:00:00 +0000

In 13 years of covering technology, I’ve evolved into the journalistic equivalent of Blanche DuBois; I’ve always depended on the kindness of analysts. Whether they were securities analysts working for the big Wall Street firms or technology analysts toiling for the major research companies targeting CIOs and IT-types, I’ve benefited from their tireless hours of research, their trendcasting, their ability to synthesize their analyses in a pithy quote or a 20-second soundbite.

The Web’s Next Layer of Innovation: Q&A With Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Web surfers, whether hardcore business professionals or amateur Web site creators, frequently find images online either through search engines or Web page browsing. However, in most cases, these images are not free to use. Maybe the photographer who created the image would be open to selling rights for a small fee; perhaps he or she only wants attribution but no pay. In any case, the Internet lacks a standardized method to ensure that intellectual property owners get the recognition and/or payment they are due.

Tiny Electric Cars Get a Jumbo Jolt of Hype at Detroit Auto Show

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:13:08 +0000

Rock down to “Electric Avenue” at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, and you might think that sales of battery-powered cars were going to take the industry higher sooner rather than later. Twenty models from automakers large and small get their own 37,000 square-foot section at the annual show, and a few of the featured cars, like the Chevy Volt and the BMW B-Class F-Cell, actually hit dealer showrooms this year.

Roxxxy Sexbot: It’s Not Her Looks, It’s Her Personalities

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:14:28 +0000

The real world has finally caught up with the concept of a sex robot, something that’s been immortalized in films ranging from “Westworld” to “A.I.” and the fembots of “Austin Powers.” And where else but the 2010 Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas would that vision be realized in the five-foot-seven, 120-pound, lingerie-clad form of Roxxxy? True Companion, a New Jersey-based company, took the wraps off of Roxxxy in Vegas over the weekend, touting her as “the world’s first sex robot.”

Software Blog » Drivers

Security Gurus Scream for Microsoft Shell Patch

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