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Samsung plans to give ARM’s big.Little architecture a big push as it announced plans to launch heterogeneous multi-processing tools for its Exynos 5 Octa chip. Read this Inside ARM: The British success story taking the chip world by storm Read more ARM’s big.Little architecture combines eight cores—a combination of “little” […]
Archive for the ‘IT News’ Category
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Paydiant raises $15 million for mobile wallet tech
September 10th, 2013 
Peter Nolan Paydiant, the Boston-based startup that makes “mobile wallet” technology for retailers, banks and payment processors, announced this morning that it raised $15 million from investors. The Series C round included North Bridge Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners, Stage 1 Ventures and two of its customers, whose names were not disclosed. It’s […]
Orange 4G to cover 40 percent of France with by year’s end
September 10th, 2013 Peter Nolan Just a few weeks after SFR announced the launch of its 4G services in Paris, Orange said on Monday it has finished building out its own LTE network in the French capital. Read this France’s 4G rollouts to speed up after SFR, Bouygues start network-sharing talks Read more While SFR […]
Cisco buys Whiptail for $415 million amid solid-state storage run
September 10th, 2013 Peter Nolan Cisco on Tuesday said it will acquire Whiptail, a solid state memory system company, for $415 million. Cisco plans to integrate Whiptail’s solid state memory technology into its unified computing system (UCS) products. Under the terms of the deal, Cisco pays $415 million in cash and retention-based incentives for Whiptail. […]
HP to be dropped from Dow: report
September 10th, 2013 Peter Nolan HP’s stock has underperformed the broader Dow Jones Industrial Average in recent years, putting it at risk. (Chart courtesy Google) Aluminum producer Alcoa, tech stalwart Hewlett Packard and Bank of America will be dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, according to an Associated Press news alert published this morning. […]
Seagate launches 500GB hard drive for tablets, blurs PC lines
September 9th, 2013 Peter Nolan Seagate on Monday took the wraps off a hard drive designed for tablets that brings 7x the storage capacity of a 64GB device with the same performance as a Flash drive. The drive, the Seagate Ultra Mobile HDD, uses software to boost performance. The idea is that Android tablet manufacturers […]
PostgresSQL: The Other big open-source database has a new release
September 9th, 2013 Peter Nolan When you think about open-source database management systems (DBMS), you probably think about Oracle’s MySQL and its great rival/fork MariaDB. That’s thinking too small. There’s another great, enterprise capable DBMS, PostgreSQL, and its latest, greatest release PostgreSQL 9.3, has just arrived. While it’s not as well known as MySQL and […]
Nonsensical net neutrality trial to begin
September 9th, 2013 Peter Nolan This morning in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit the case of Verizon, et al v. FCC, et al will begin. Verizon and other ISPs are appealing “Open Internet” rules issued by the FCC in 2010. To pursue an ideological solution in search of […]
Microsoft rolls out Xbox Music for iOS and Android devices
September 9th, 2013 Peter Nolan (Image: Microsoft) Last October I wrote how Xbox Music would be the one music subscription service to rule them all and that seems to be even more true today as we see the launch of Xbox Music for iOS and Android. Microsoft also now provides free streaming online, with ads, […]
EE hits one million 4G subscribers as rivals make early LTE efforts
September 9th, 2013 Peter Nolan Featured Review Verizon Motorola Droid Maxx Review: Battery life to please the road warrior Read more EE has signed up one million customers to its 4G network, four months ahead of its own self-imposed target. Because it could reuse a chunk of mobile spectrum it already owned, EE was able […]
Large organizations are buying into PaaS cloud services
September 7th, 2013 Peter Nolan Cloud is often seen as the way to go for small companies with few IT resources. However, the middleware and development layer of cloud — Platform as a Service — is becoming a hot commodity for large organizations as well. Photo credit: Joe McKendrick That’s the word from Sacha Labourey, […]
Microsoft looks to roll out a Surface Pro docking station
September 7th, 2013 Peter Nolan Last year, when asked on Reddit whether Microsoft would make its own dock for the Surface, Microsoft execs said that was not in the plans. But it looks as if they’ve had a change of heart, given the latest leaks from anonymous sources. Microsoft is readying a docking station that […]
Microsoft ‘untethers’ OneNote updates for iOS from Windows PCs
September 7th, 2013 Peter Nolan Microsoft made available on September 6 an update (version 2.1) to its OneNote app for iPhone and iPad. The biggest new feature of the update is that now OneNote on the iPad is “untethered” from Windows PCs. That means users can create notebooks directly on the iPad and create, delete […]
Yahoo publishes first transparency report; U.S. made most requests
September 7th, 2013 Peter Nolan Following a pattern set by Facebook a few weeks ago, Yahoo has published its very first transparency report, outlining the number of government data requests received during the previous six months. The timing is interesting — for both Yahoo and Facebook — given that these reports are coming out in […]
eBay acquiring consumer advice provider Decide.com
September 7th, 2013 Peter Nolan Online retail giant eBay is in the process of acquiring Decide.com, an independent company that provides advice to consumers intended to prevent “buyer’s remorse.” Read this Google I/O 2013: Building better e-commerce experiences on Android Read more Decide.com CEO and president Mike Fridgen confirmed the merger in a blog post on […]
A new dawn for wi-fi: Why using a public network in Italy no longer means showing your passport
September 6th, 2013 Peter Nolan Image: Shutterstock If it was their first time in town, they probably didn’t notice. But if they were paying a return visit to Bologna, foreign tourists will have had a pleasant surprise this summer: for the first time, they could get onto the city’s local government-operated wi-fi network simply by […]
In light of the NSA, how to think about encryption
September 6th, 2013 Peter Nolan Encryption is an arms race. It is, perhaps, one of the true fundamental arms races in the history of warfare. In World War II, for example, the Allies’ ability to decrypt the Axis communications (without their knowing about it) was a factor leading to ultimate victory. Encryption has always been […]
A new, secure and free Internet… Dream on
September 6th, 2013 Peter Nolan Almost everyone’s outraged to one degree or another by the latest Edward Snowden revelations. I have my problems with some of the claims, but others are clearly disturbing. What are we to do about it? Bruce Schneier is a famous and respected cryptographer and analyst of security more generally. He […]
Cloud Sherpas takes Google practice global with UK acquisition
September 6th, 2013 Peter Nolan Apparently, cloud integrators are really developing a thing for Europe. Appirio has been visibly building its presence there for the past two years, and local player Tquila has been growing its business at a fast clip. Now, Cloud Sherpas is expanding its footprint in the United Kingdom, with the acquisition of Stoneburn […]
Microsoft raises SharePoint Online upload limits to 2GB files, allows .exe uploads
September 6th, 2013 Peter Nolan After tripling SkyDrive Pro cloud storage to 25GB for SharePoint Online users, Microsoft is easing file upload constraints in its collaboration and content management platform for Office 365 business customers. Read this SharePoint 2013 gets a ‘consumer’ makeover Read more Microsoft has raised the the upper limit for uploading files […]
