Latest from Infoworld

SAP betting big on its HANA in-memory database

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:12:56 +0000

SAP seems to be betting its future on its HANA in-memory database, spotlighting the technology once again at the Sapphire conference in Orlando Wednesday, announcing a slew of new applications, partnerships and functional enhancements for the system.

Senate bill calls for 55,000 tech green cards

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:07:52 +0000

There's a new push in the Senate to set aside as many as 55,000 green cards to science, technology, engineering and math graduates -- so-called STEM workers.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced a bill Tuesday to make green cards, or permanent residency, available to students who earn an advance degree, master's or Ph.D. from a research university, meaning a university that has received a federal funding for research.

Unified communications still fragmented

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:49:16 +0000

Unified communications (UC) technology has garnered a fair amount of attention, much of it due to vendors touting their UC offerings as the answer to problems workers have keeping in touch with colleagues, business partners and customers in a highly frenetic, increasingly mobile business world.

While the technology is delivering benefits to the relatively few organizations that have adopted it, experts say UC is still evolving and vendors need to do more to integrate their various products.

Google Chrome 19 adds tab sync and patches 20 bugs

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:25:57 +0000

Google on Tuesday released Chrome 19, patched 20 vulnerabilities in the browser, and doled out $16,500 in bug bounties and rewards to independent researchers.

Chrome 19's most obvious change is the new support for tab synchronization. Like the already available bookmark, password, app and extension sync, open tabs will now be kept in step on all copies of Chrome, on multiple platforms, including Android, that are linked to the same Google account.

Sencha Architect: Visual HTML5, sort of

Doug Dineley — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Sencha describes Sencha Architect 2, the latest incarnation of its visual Web development tool, as "a massive upgrade to Ext Designer," the previous version. The name change from Designer to Architect reflects the product's new focus. Instead of a tool for building Web UIs, Sencha says the new version is suitable for creating complete Web applications, both for UI designers and back-end developers. That's true up to a point.

Mozilla readies app marketplace for public beta

Paul Krill — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Mozilla Marketplace, which is Mozilla's entrant in the online application store arena, is set to move to a public beta stage in a few weeks, a company official said on Tuesday.

Android boosts open source development for mobile

InfoWorld Tech Watch — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

For the third year in a row, mobile open source software projects have more than doubled in number, with the current count at around 18,000, up from around 8,000 in 2010.

Why you should block Facebook access at the office

J. Peter Bruzzese — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

There's no doubt about it -- Facebook has people's attention this week. With an IPO going live and public stock trading due by Friday, it's no wonder everyone is getting ready for one of the most exciting public offerings to date. A hot IPO doesn't ultimately matter to IT, but the implications of Facebook's business model do.

How to drag your users out of the Stone Age

Bob Lewis — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

To run a 21st-century business, you need a 21st-century workforce. Unfortunately for many organizations, last-century techniques are holding employees back -- even in IT.

LightSquared's bankruptcy is a cautionary tale

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:11:58 +0000

After more than a year of active testing and debate over LightSquared's plan for a nationwide, wholesale 4G network, the now bankrupt company may end up as no more than a cautionary tale for mobile investors.

Industry observers say there are three things that might bring some value to LightSquared's main asset, a chunk of disputed radio spectrum: The company could swap the spectrum for another block, sell it to another carrier, or win a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. But all three are unlikely, they said.

iPad returns to tablet dominance, reports iSuppli

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:09:54 +0000

After a brief dip in late 2011, the Apple iPad has firmly reasserted its position as the dominant player in the tablet market.

According to the latest figures released today from market intelligence firm iSuppli, the iPad is projected to account for 61 percent of all tablets sold this year, up from 55.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Red Hat preps RHEL 7 for second half of 2013

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:42:18 +0000

The next major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), version 7, is targeted for release in the second half of 2013, Red Hat said on Tuesday, as it also celebrated the 10th anniversary of its enterprise OS.

Red Hat aims to release a major new version of its OS every three years and updates about every six months, according to Jim Totten, vice president and general manager at Red Hat's Platform business unit.

PC users admit to pirating software

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:40:24 +0000

More than half of global PC users admit that they pirate software at least occasionally, contributing to a black-market economy estimated at $63.4 billion in 2011, up from $58.8 billion the previous year, according to a new survey from the Business Software Alliance.

Wikipedia warns users about malware injecting ads into its pages

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:20:01 +0000

Visitors to Wikipedia who see advertisements on the site have most likely fallen victim to a browser-based malware infection, Wikimedia Foundation, the organization operating the website, said on Monday.

Nvidia unveils virtualized GPU with eye on graphics-intensive cloud

InfoWorld Tech Watch — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:13:17 +0000

With an eye on the evolving BYOD and

NetSuite rolls out commerce-as-a-service platform

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:56:18 +0000

NetSuite is going up against vendors such as Demandware in the market for cloud-based e-commerce platforms, announcing a new product, SuiteCommerce, during the SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

While NetSuite has offered e-commerce technologies for some time, this product aims to up the ante and replace first-generation e-commerce platforms, which largely revolve around purchases made through company websites.

Microsoft to charge $15 for Windows 8 upgrade deal

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:40:23 +0000

Microsoft will charge users who buy a new Windows 7 PC $14.99 for an upgrade to Windows 8, according to a report.

The cost of the upgrade was revealed yesterday by Paul Thurrott, a popular blogger who writes SuperSite for Windows.

Lenovo packs 'thinnest' ThinkPad Ultrabook with 4G LTE

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:36:41 +0000

Lenovo on Tuesday announced a range of new ThinkPads with Intel's latest third-generation Core processors, including a ThinkPad Ultrabook that the company claims is the "thinnest Ultrabook in the world."

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook has a 14-inch screen, weighs under 1.8 kilograms (4 pounds) and is 18.8mm (.74 inches) thick. It will have the latest Intel Ultrabook processors, code-named Ivy Bridge, which are expected to be officially announced next month.

AMD aims to undercut Intel's Ultrabooks on price with new Trinity chips

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:09:47 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices hopes to provide thin-and-light laptops that are less expensive but equally speedy to Intel's Ultrabooks with its new A-series chips, which the company officially announced on Tuesday.

The A-series chips, code-named Trinity, will enable laptops to be made that are comparable in size, weight and battery life to Intel's Ultrabooks, said John Taylor, director of global product marketing at AMD. Users won't have to pay "premium prices" for Trinity ultrathin laptops, which will be significantly cheaper than Intel's Ultrabooks.

SAP lays out cloud strategy post-SuccessFactors acquisition

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:58:32 +0000

SAP announced a broad set of plans to become a player in cloud computing, spanning from a "loosely coupled suite" of business applications to data integration and PaaS (platform as a service) Tuesday during the Sapphire conference in Orlando.

The conference comes several months after SAP's $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, a move that gave it a large set of cloud-based HCM (human capital management) software as well as what executives called "cloud DNA," or expertise running such businesses.