Dec 13

Carrier IQ issues lengthy report on data collection practices, sticks to its guns

Posted in: carrier, mobilepostcross, network, politics, privacy, Software, Today's Chili, web
After having already tried to explain itself with metaphor, Carrier IQ is now taking its floundering PR campaign back to basics, with an ostensibly thorough primer on its practices and a slightly less convoluted defense of its privacy standards. This morning, the controversial analytics firm released a lengthy, 19-page document that attempts to explain “what Carrier IQ does and does not do.” In the report, titled “Understanding Carrier IQ Technology,” the company explains the benefit it offers to its clientele of network operators, many of whom rely upon Carrier IQ’s diagnostic data to make sure their infrastructure is up to snuff. It also provides a breakdown of how it collects data, as well as a defense against Trevor Eckhart’s findings, though, as you’ll see, these arguments likely won’t put this saga to bed anytime soon. Read more, after the break.

Continue reading Carrier IQ issues lengthy report on data collection practices, sticks to its guns

Carrier IQ issues lengthy report on data collection practices, sticks to its guns originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 12

Google disables child’s account without warning, all her data is locked

Posted in: Gmail, Today's Chili

Google makes its money from advertising, and promotes such advertising through the use of its many popular free services. These include a search engine, Gmail, Google Docs, Blogger, and the list goes on. The company wants everyone using its services so it can make money advertising to them. But by everyone, it means everyone who […]

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Oct 27

Multi-gigabit wireless broadband within our grasp, capped data plans laugh in our face

Posted in: mobilepostmini, samsung, Today's Chili

Bring it on, LTE-Advanced. In case you’ve been looking for ways to eat up your capped data plan any faster, a researcher from Samsung proclaims that speeds up to 5.5gbps (yes, with a g) might be reachable within the next five years — as long as all the stars align, that is. Jerry Pi demonstrated the idea, which involves the use of millimeter wave spectrum that lies between 3GHz and 300GHz. If — and that’s a big if — the spectrum can be secured, the next hurdle will be the engineering challenge of deploying a wireless broadband network at such high frequencies; even tiny oxygen molecules, let alone walls and trees, would easily break up a signal at that range. Pi mentions that he and his fellow researchers are working on a few ideas to get around these obstacles, and outlines everything in significant detail in his 100+ slide presentation, which can be accessed below. Don’t get us wrong: the idea of broadband data speeds hitting 5.5gbps makes us salivate, but it would definitely need to come with an unlimited plan. Just sayin’.

Multi-gigabit wireless broadband within our grasp, capped data plans laugh in our face originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 27

LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game

Posted in: business, deal, flash, green, minipost, money, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili

SandForce has been behind many an SSD in its day, but it looks like it’s finally about to settle down, and get hitched. Yesterday, LSI announced plans to acquire the flash storage company, as part of a $370 million agreement. The deal brings SandForce’s processors and energy efficient DuraClass technology under LSI’s roof, giving the semiconductor designer some new flash firepower and an extra boost into a burgeoning market. Tangible results, of course, remain to be seen, though it’s certainly not the first time these two have danced. SandForce, after all, provided the motor for LSI’s WarpDrive lineup, and will presumably do much more, once the deal goes through. Pending regulatory approval, the acquisition should be finalized by the first quarter of 2012. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game

LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 25

H2O Wireless brings no-contract wireless broadband with international roaming to Best Buy, prices it into oblivion

Posted in: BestBuy, mobile broadband, mobile internet, MobileBroadband, MobileInternet, Today's Chili, Wireless, wwan

And this, folks, is why Engadget will be first in line once the Occupy International Roaming convention gets underway. Truth is, it’s not H2O Wireless’ fault that its latest mobile broadband launch is priced in a way that would only appeal to those who spend their spare time printing money — it’s just the way the (crooked) industry works. Outside of picking up a rental MiFi or procuring a local SIM card from well-appointed international airports, your options for Facebooking, Google Mapping and VoIPing whilst abroad are limited. At any rate, the aforesaid company will be teaming up with Best Buy in order to deliver a no-contract mobile broadband plan that includes global roaming in 100 nations. The Worldwide Wireless Internet on-the-go package includes the USB device and H2O Broadband SIM card for $99.99, but you’ll need a $30 international roaming data card in order to get — wait for it — ten megabytes of international data. For the big spenders, a $50 card is also available to provide 1GB of domestic data. In case we didn’t make it crystal clear already, that’s entirely too much for too little; we’d still recommend a local SIM upon arrival, or an Xcom MiFi if you’ll be departing from the US of A. Full release is after the break, should you feel the need to explore further.

Continue reading H2O Wireless brings no-contract wireless broadband with international roaming to Best Buy, prices it into oblivion

H2O Wireless brings no-contract wireless broadband with international roaming to Best Buy, prices it into oblivion originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 24

Google launches Person Finder app following earthquake in Turkey

Posted in: app, Google, search, Today's Chili

In the wake of yesterday’s devastating earthquake in Turkey, Google has launched a specialized Person Finder to help victims find missing loved ones. First developed in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Google’s Person Finder has since been deployed to several other natural disaster zones, including post-tsunami Japan earlier this year. The idea behind the company’s Turkish initiative remains as straightforward as ever: users can enter information on the person they’re looking for, or add any details they may have on people who aren’t already accounted for. Of course, all submitted records remain available for public search and viewing. If you’ve been affected by the earthquake or have any information on someone who has, you can find Google’s Person Finder at the source link below.

Google launches Person Finder app following earthquake in Turkey originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Next Web  |  sourceGoogle.org Blog, Turkey 2011 Person Finder  | Email this | Comments

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Oct 17

Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video)

Posted in: cloud, enterprise, Microsoft, research, Today's Chili, video, Windows

Redmond houses quite a few little teams beavering away on quirky projects and one of those has just gone public with its latest creation. It’s codenamed “Data Explorer”, which perhaps isn’t an ideal codename since it describes exactly what the enterprise-focused service does. Instead of manually searching and copying data into a report, Data Explorer pulls information from SQL databases, spreadsheets and other “random sources” that could be relevant, and then attempts to “clean it up, transform it, merge it together and then publish it out” as a coherent report. You can learn more and sign up for the beta at the source link, or click past the break to watch a Microsoft exec demo the tool using a real-world case study — we found it a bit dense, but you’ll be fine as long as you remember that kids love frozen yogurt.

Continue reading Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video)

Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 17

IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold

Posted in: business, HP, industry, lenovo, market share, marketshare, PC, research, sales, statistics, tablet, Today's Chili
IDC and Gartner have come out with their latest Q3 rankings of the world’s PC manufacturers, which means it’s time for us to do some dissecting. Not much changed at the top of the heap, where, according to IDC, HP still rules the roost with about 18 percent market share (despite that whole PC biz spinoff thing). But the most dramatic shift came from Lenovo, which scurried past Dell for second place, with 13.7 percent market share (13.5, according to Gartner) — a 36.1 percent jump from the third quarter of 2010 (25.2 percent, says Gartner). Dell’s pie slice, on the other hand, shrunk slightly to 12 percent this quarter, down from 12.6 percent last year. On the global scale, meanwhile, PC sales increased by about 3.6 percent compared to Q3 2010 (3.2 percent, in Gartner’s books), though both research firms acknowledged that this figure was well below their respective projections. Why? IDC points to several economic factors, including the threat of a double-dip recession, while Gartner blames the rise of “non-PC devices,” including tablets. Surprise!

Continue reading IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold

IDC and Gartner: Lenovo leaps past Dell for second place, still trails HP for the gold originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 07:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 12

Mobile devices may outnumber humans in the US, but they can’t take our soul

Posted in: business, ctia, household, industry, mobilepostcross, statistics, Today's Chili, us, usa
We’re not really sure what to make of this, but it looks like Americans may be under siege… from their own cellphones. No, seriously — according to the latest survey from CTIA, there are now more mobile devices in the US than there are human beings. The trade association’s semi-annual statistics show that during the first six months of 2011, the number of wireless subscriptions rose by nine percent over the previous year, to a total of 327.6 million. The combined population of the US, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, by comparison, is around 315 million. That translates to a nationwide wireless penetration rate of 103.9 percent, and, not surprisingly, a 111 percent surge in data usage. CTIA says these results highlight “the industry’s need to purchase more spectrum from the federal government,” as well as our collective need to get a life. You can find more crunch-able numbers in the full PR, after the break.
[Image courtesy of Wrong Side of the Art]

Continue reading Mobile devices may outnumber humans in the US, but they can’t take our soul

Mobile devices may outnumber humans in the US, but they can’t take our soul originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Washington Post  |  sourceCTIA(1)  | Email this | Comments

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Oct 07

NC State researchers team with IBM to keep cloud-stored data away from prying eyes

Posted in: cloud, minipost, network, processor, research, security, Software, Today's Chili

The man on your left is Dr. Peng Ning — a computer science professor at NC State whose team, along with researchers from IBM, has developed an experimental new method for safely securing cloud-stored data. Their approach, known as a “Strongly Isolated Computing Environment” (SICE), would essentially allow engineers to isolate, store and process sensitive information away from a computing system’s hypervisors — programs that allow networked operating systems to operate independently of one another, but are also vulnerable to hackers. With the Trusted Computing Base (TCB) as its software foundation, Ping’s technique also allows programmers to devote specific CPU cores to handling sensitive data, thereby freeing up the other cores to execute normal functions. And, because TCB consists of just 300 lines of code, it leaves a smaller “surface” for cybercriminals to attack. When put to the test, the SICE architecture used only three percent of overhead performance for workloads that didn’t require direct network access — an amount that Ping describes as a “fairly modest price to pay for the enhanced security.” He acknowledges, however, that he and his team still need to find a way to speed up processes for workloads that do depend on network access, and it remains to be seen whether or not their technique will make it to the mainstream anytime soon. For now, though, you can float past the break for more details in the full PR.

Continue reading NC State researchers team with IBM to keep cloud-stored data away from prying eyes

NC State researchers team with IBM to keep cloud-stored data away from prying eyes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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