WASHINGTON — U.S. officials Friday announced plans to spend $325 million on two new supercomputers, one of which may eventually be built to support speeds of up to 300 petaflops, faster than any supercomputer running today. The U.S. Department of Energy, the major funder of supercomputers used for scientific research, …
The traffic inside Facebook’s data centers is growing so fast that the company is changing the basic architecture of its networks in order to keep up. The new design, which Facebook calls a data center fabric, doesn’t use a new link speed to make the network run faster. Instead, it …
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the owner of a Maryland-based real estate company with conducting an offering fraud and spending investor money on such personal expenses as his mortgage, country club dues, and season tickets to the Baltimore Ravens. The agency also charged a former stockbroker for participating …
Some of the most powerful companies in video networks and delivery plan to define an open architecture for streaming video as part of a new alliance that includes Cisco Systems, Comcast, Ustream and Yahoo, but not Netflix or YouTube. The Streaming Video Alliance, announced Friday, says it wants to help …
Samsung Electronics’ deal with BlackBerry and Apple’s efforts to make it easier to configure and deploy massive numbers of iPhones highlight how the smartphone makers are battling for supremacy among enterprise users. As the smartphone market becomes saturated in the U.S. and Europe, enterprise users will be big winners. To …
Microsoft announced today that it’s launching a beta of Skype for the Web, allowing browser-based video chats that don’t require a separate app. “We’ve made Skype available on computers, mobile phones, TVs and even games consoles,” wrote Jonathan Watson, Skype product marketing manager for Microsoft, in a blog post. “Expanding …
Popcorn Time movie and TV torrent streaming app updated to Beta 0.3.5 In today’s open source roundup: The Popcorn Time torrent streaming application has been updated to Beta 0.3.5. Plus: Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition now available for Linux, and Canonical wants to phase out 32-bit ISOs Popcorn Time movie and …
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has stepped forward as the telecommunication industry’s front man in opposition to President Obama’s proposed net neutrality rules. In an appearance today on Fox Business Network, Stephenson implied it could be two or three years before AT&T starts investing again in fiber optic network rollouts to …
In the latest in a series of Apple security warnings, the US government warned iOS users not to install apps from anywhere but the App Store, unless they can vouch for the source. Choose your masques Strangely many reports into the so-called “Masque Attack” (as spotted by FireEye) seem to …
Many people should be wary of Internet ads, especially for large ticket items, but apparently enough folks aren’t. The Internet Crime Complaint Center today said over $20 million has been scammed and more than 6,800 complaints have been logged between June 2009 and June 2014 over rip-off ads. + More …
A malware program distributed recently through a rogue server on the Tor anonymity network was also used in targeted attacks against European government agencies. The malware has been dubbed OnionDuke by security researchers from antivirus firm F-Secure, who believe it is connected to MiniDuke, a cyberespionage threat of Russian origin …
After appearing in Outlook.com in 2013, Skype is getting the full HTML treatment with the new Skype for Web beta. That’s right: Skype is becoming a standalone web app! But don’t throw out your Windows desktop just yet, Chromebook fans. Before we get too excited, Skype says the new beta …
AV vendors, in fierce competition for users, should remember that cooperation is key in fighting malware, a top Microsoft security official said Friday. Data sharing between vendors has resulted in a drop in the overall number of malware families affecting computers, said Dennis Batchelder, director of the Microsoft Malware Protection …
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the agenda and panelists for next week’s Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. The November 20 event will begin at 9 a.m. and include two morning panel discussions. The first panel will focus on secondary market liquidity for securities of small businesses. …
SAP and Oracle have settled a long-standing copyright-infringement lawsuit, with the German company agreeing to pay about US$359 million in damages and interest to Oracle instead of the $1.3 billion awarded in 2010. Oracle sued SAP in 2007 on allegations that its now-defunct subsidiary, TomorrowNow, had illegally downloaded Oracle’s software …
The search for game-changing technology capable of fueling growth in an uncertain economy is driving global tech mergers and acquisitions to a level not seen since the dotcom era. What’s more, tech M&A is likely to increase, according to data from EY, the global professional services company formerly known as …
A malware program distributed recently through a rogue server on the Tor anonymity network was also used in targeted attacks against European government agencies. The malware has been dubbed OnionDuke by security researchers from antivirus firm F-Secure, who believe it is connected to MiniDuke, a cyberespionage threat of Russian origin …
Beijing police have arrested three people suspected of developing the “WireLurker” malware that may have infected as many as hundreds of thousands of Apple mobile devices. Local authorities arrested the three suspects on a tip from Chinese security company Qihoo 360 Technology, the Beijing police’s Internet security team said Friday. …
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, today announced they will jointly host an event on November 19, a day prior to this year’s Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation, to inform small business owners and entrepreneurs about new options that are and …
A funny thing is happening in the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA revelations, the infamous iCloud hack of celebrity nude photos, and the hit parade of customer data breaches at Target, Home Depot and the U.S. Postal Service. If it’s not the government looking at your data, it’s bored, …
Continuing to roll out new compute services at an impressive clip, Amazon Web Services has introduced a way for programmers to trigger operations in their AWS deployments without running a full virtual machine, potentially reducing maintenance work and cost. The service, called AWS Lambda, will provide a virtual space for …
The U.S. Department of Justice is putting devices that emulate cellphone towers in Cessna aircraft and flying them around the country to track the locations of cellphones, a practice that targets criminal suspects but may also affect thousands of U.S. citizens, according to a news report Thursday. The program is …
On the coffee table was a message etched in powder, presumably cocaine: “I really miss you.” The photo was on a social networking profile of a man in Ukraine that analysts with a Danish computer security company believe designed and rents an advanced malicious software program targeting the financial industry, …
The Docker container virtualization technology has proved to be such a hit with its users that Amazon Web Services has created a new management tool for handling large scale Docker deployments, though observers worry it could lock customers more tightly into the Amazon ecosystem. On Thursday, Amazon Web Services debuted …
Google has helped launch an ambitious project combining cloud computing, big data and satellite networks to monitor global fishing activity with an eye to curb overfishing. Global Fishing Watch, formed with environmental groups Skytruth and Oceana, is described as the first global view of commercial fishing based on satellite data …
Its name may be filled with child-like whimsy, but don’t be fooled: Google’s Android 5.0 Lollipop release is all about the platform’s move into maturity. Android launched in 2008 as a plain but powerful operating system with plenty of promise. Numerous releases since then have built upon that foundation and …