Microsoft on Thursday reported the third-consecutive quarter of gross profit for its Surface tablet line, with revenue up 44% compared to the same period the year before. For the three months ending March 31, Microsoft recorded $713 million in revenue for the Surface line. That’s a significant increase over the …
After a long wait since its introduction last fall — including eight months and two events — the Apple Watch is finally reaching customers. Some who managed to order at midnight PT on April 10 are getting their watches now; others who ordered a few minutes later will have to …
Starbucks suffered what appears to be a major computer system failure late Friday. Stores in Boston, New York, San Diego and other cities appeared to be affected, judging from hundreds of customer and employee posts on Twitter. Some stores are giving away drinks, are only accepting cash, or have closed, …
When Facebook expanded into a new campus in late March, the company released a stunning aerial photo of the site captured from a drone. In taking the picture, Facebook almost certainly broke two federal regulations governing drone use. The social network isn’t alone in its carelessness. Drone use has taken …
Luxottica, the Italian eyewear maker that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley, is working with Google to design a new version of Glass, its CEO said Friday. The disclosure is a further indication that Google Glass, which is still being sold to business, will be revived at some point as a product …
When Facebook expanded into a new campus in late March, the company released a stunning aerial photo of the site captured from a drone. In taking the picture, Facebook almost certainly broke two FAA regulations governing drone use. The social network isn’t alone in its carelessness. Drone use has taken …
A request by 10 U.S. senators to investigate H-1B visa use at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other companies is meeting resistance at the U.S. Department of Labor. The DOL is telling lawmakers that it can’t initiate an investigation in the absence of a complaint by an employee. The department …
Luxottica, the Italian eyewear maker that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley, is working with Google to design a new version of Glass, its CEO said Friday. The disclosure is a further indication that Google Glass, which is still being sold to business, will be revived at some point as a product …
The U.S. will take another step towards regular commercial flight of drones on Friday when the Federal Aviation Administration closes a two-month public comment period on proposed rules. Over 3,600 comments have been submitted as part of the process, which seeks feedback on regulations that would allow companies to fly …
As Google dives into the Wi-Fi and cellular network services business, some are wondering just where the company is headed. Google, known for its dominant search engine and Android operating system, has been stretching boundaries with newer projects like autonomous cars and robotics. Now it’s competing with the likes of …
The largest smart city project in North America is moving closer to reality in Kansas City, Mo., mainly along a 2.2-mile streetcar line under construction through the downtown. The Kansas City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to direct its city manager to finalize a contract with Cisco and its partners …
We’ve been talking about deploying solid-state drives (SSDs) in the data center for years now, but it’s never been a more exciting time to talk data center storage. Modern enterprise tools, including cloud, big data, the Internet of Things, and software-defined infrastructures are opening up new opportunities and amazing new …
The U.S. military has successfully demonstrated what it says is the first ever in-flight refueling of an unmanned aircraft, and in doing so completed a flight test program that leads to a new generation of military drones due to take flight in the 2020s. The refueling was conducted on April …
A year ago, Acer was struggling and Jason Chen, its newly appointed CEO, thought the company could stay afloat by cutting its reliance on PCs and expanding in wearables and mobile devices. In view of the success of its Chromebooks and the pending release of Microsoft’s Windows 10, however, Chen …
The Apple Watch’s sensor may hold more health monitoring functions than Apple has revealed, including measuring blood oxygen levels, a feature that’s not enabled on the device and that Apple hasn’t talked about. That’s one of the findings from iFixIt, which disassembled an Apple Watch Sport Edition on the day …
The construction of the Apple Watch will make in-place upgrades extremely difficult if not impossible, an electronics repair firm said today. “Despite rumors (and hopes) of an upgradable product, the difficulty of removing the S1 alone casts serious doubt on the idea of simply swapping out the internals,” said iFixit, …
Just got your hands on an Apple Watch? Congratulations, you’re in the vanguard of digital transformation as computing becomes wearable and those apps define new space in the world. However, if you’ve hit a problem with your new wearable, here’s what to do…. Don’t panic There’s no need to panic. …
Ubuntu 15.04 reviews Ubuntu 15.04 was just released, and there are some early reviews of Canonical’s latest desktop distribution. So far the buzz seems somewhat mixed, and that’s not surprising since Ubuntu 15.04 is a relatively low-key release without lots of flashy, new features. Darien Graham-Smith at PC Pro wasn’t …
Those who hand out the Ig Nobel prizes, awarded for the most outlandish scientific research, would do well to check up on CHI. At the 2015 Computer-Human Interaction Conference (CHI) in Seoul this week, there was no shortage of bizarre projects and concepts, all undertaken to innovate the way we …
Consumer groups are cheering the news that Comcast abandoned its proposed US$45 billion acquisition of fellow cable and broadband provider Time Warner Cable, saying it’s good for customers and demonstrates the power of Internet activism. Comcast’s decision, announced Friday, would have taken away a major cable and broadband provider in …
Consumer groups are cheering the news that Comcast abandoned its proposed $45 billion acquisition of fellow cable and broadband provider Time Warner Cable, saying it’s good for customers and demonstrates the power of Internet activism. Comcast’s decision, first leaked on Thursday and then confirmed Friday, would have taken away a …
Dell this week extended its arsenal of data center Ethernet switches, highlighted by a 100G device with ports dividable into 25G and 50G channels. 25G and 50G Ethernet are becoming popular options for data centers looking to fill the bandwidth gap between 10G and 40G for server-to-top-of-rack switch connectivity. Products …
Some of the world’s leading cryptographers are concerned about the increasing number of malicious programs that hold computers and mobile phones to ransom, in many cases by abusing the encryption algorithms they designed. Despite law enforcement efforts to disrupt ransomware operations, the prevalence of such programs continued to grow last …
Even the cloud needs spring cleaning. And the cleanup isn’t the refactoring and data quality work that you already know about. Those “big animals” are hard to miss, and now we need to pay attention to the mites and dust-bunnies that we noticed only when they become overwhelming. To read …
Some enterprises that are happy to put their data in a public cloud prefer to keep the keys to that data under their own control. That’s the message some online file sync and sharing services are sending lately. On Wednesday, EMC’s Syncplicity division announced Customer Managed Keys, a feature that …
Comcast is officially walking away from plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, after regulators signaled their displeasure with the deal. “Today, we move on,” Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. “Of course, we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities, but we …