Miscellaneous
02 June 2012
Apple's efforts fail to end gruelling conditions at Foxconn factories The Guardian
Gruelling workloads, humiliating punishments and battery-farm living conditions remain routine for workers assembling Apple's luxury electronics, according to one of the most detailed reports yet on life inside China's Foxconn factories.
26 May 2012
Telcos told to differentiate on service, not on speed Computerworld
In Singapore 83 percent of buildings have fibre to the home, but only eight percent of customers have adopted it - why?
23 May 2012
The great Google gathering, taking its quest for knowledge offline at a secluded British hotel The Independent
Secluded within the 300-acre grounds of a luxury Hertfordshire hotel, a select gathering of new media gurus, political pointy-heads, start-up whiz kids and pop stars awarded the post-chart career title "humanitarian" are meeting to carve up the digital future.
Half a billion people to use Windows 8 next year -- Ballmer CNET
Analysts expect Windows 8 to flop and PC sales to suffer, but Microsoft's chief executive thinks sales will reach at least 500 million by the end of 2013.
22 May 2012
Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers New York Times
When scientists publish their research, they also make the underlying data available so the results can be verified by other scientists.
20 May 2012
Building the Next Facebook a Tough Task in Europe New York Times
The coffee machine spits out doses of espresso. Young men in shorts and loafers line up on a leatherette sofa, balancing Macs or iPads on their knees, discussing bands or business plans. Some speak French, others English. The lighting is subtle, the ideas sound bright.
17 May 2012
Terahertz frequencies bring Japanese researchers 3Gbps in a WiFi prototype Ars Technica
A team of researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have transmitted data on the terahertz range of spectrum using a wireless radio no bigger than a 10-yen coin (roughly the size of a penny).
15 May 2012
Facebook's Prospects May Rest on Trove of Data New York Times
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief, has managed to amass more information about more people than anyone else in history.
09 May 2012
Microsoft to go carbon neutral The Guardian
Microsoft has committed to going carbon neutral, joining the growing list of tech companies trying to reduce their environmental footprint.
06 May 2012
Opinion: Is Google facing an existential threat? Al Jazeera
Is internet titan Google facing an existential threat? Is it in danger of fading from prominence and becoming, essentially, the "next Microsoft"? With government regulators nipping at its heels, Facebook leading in the race for attention and prestige, and "social" beginning to replace "search" as a focus of online activity, the company that revolutionised our means of finding information just a decade ago now finds itself under siege.
01 May 2012
Akamai Releases Fourth Quarter 2011 'State of the Internet' Report Akamai Technologies
Akamai Technologies released its Fourth Quarter, 2011 State of the Internet report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as Internet penetration, mobile traffic and data consumption, origins of attack traffic, IPv6 adoption and global and regional connection speeds.
30 April 2012
Nordic Countries Increasingly Attractive as Sites for Data Centers New York Times
... The growing appeal of the Nordic countries was highlighted in a study released Thursday by the consulting firms Cushman & Wakefield and Hurleypalmerflatt. While Britain and Germany were ranked as the top European locations for data centers, they were closely followed by Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Norway, based on an evaluation of risk factors including energy costs, connectivity and political and environmental stability.
29 April 2012
How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes New York Times
Apple, the world's most profitable technology company, doesn't design iPhones here. It doesn't run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn't manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby.
Australian parliament probes technology price gouge Sunday Age
Apple and Microsoft will be asked to defend their pricing policies at a federal parliamentary inquiry into why Australians pay far more for music and game downloads than overseas customers.
28 April 2012
Workers at Apple contractor threaten suicide in wage dispute The Guardian
Workers at a factory owned by Foxconn, Apple's main manufacturer, threatened to jump off the roof of a building in a protest about wages, a month after the two firms reached agreement on improving working conditions.
24 April 2012
Facebook buys AOL patents from Microsoft in $550m deal BBC News
Facebook is paying Microsoft $550m for some of the patents it recently bought from AOL.
22 April 2012
How Google Dominates Us by James Gleick New York Review of Books
... The business of finding facts has been an important gear in the workings of human knowledge, and the technology has just been upgraded from rubber band to nuclear reactor. No wonder there's some confusion about Google's exact role in that -- along with increasing fear about its power and its intentions.
16 April 2012
Iraq Emerges From Isolation as Telecommunications Hub New York Times
Iraq, cut off from decades of technological progress because of dictatorship, sanctions and wars, recently took a big step out of isolation and into the digital world when its telecommunications system was linked to a vast new undersea cable system serving the Gulf countries.
10 April 2012
For Google, All Eyes on 'Costs Per Click' Wall Street Journal
When Google Inc reports earnings on Thursday, many pundits might pick right up where they left off one quarter ago: With concerns about prices advertisers are paying to get attention in the Internet giant's dominant search engine.
AOL Strikes $1.1 Billion Patent Deal With Microsoft New York Times
AOL agreed on Monday to sell a portfolio of over 800 patents, and license about 300 more, to Microsoft for $1.056 billion, amid an arms race within the technology industry over intellectual property.
Facebook buys Instagram photo sharing network for $1bn BBC News
Facebook is paying $1bn in cash and stock for the takeover.
08 April 2012
Britain's economy will thrive if computing becomes child's play by Google's CEO Eric Schmidt The Observer
I read last week's Observer New Review ("We need to teach our kids to code") with interest and admiration. In Britain, the debate about the teaching of computer science in schools is moving fast and in the right direction.
02 April 2012
Apple's Chief Puts Stamp on Labor Issues New York Times
A day after Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, toured a Chinese factory where the company's products are made, an audit commissioned by Apple criticized the long hours and dangerous working conditions at plants run by Foxconn, the operator of the factory Mr. Cook visited last week.
How the Love Affair With Apple Might End New York Times
If you stopped people on the street and asked them to name a successful design brand, many of them would say Apple. And why not? Apple's products have won shoals of design prizes. Devotees camp outside its stores in the hope of snapping up its new products. Sales have soared, as has its share price, and whenever Apple executives discuss the reasons for the company's success, its commitment to design is invariably among them. Yay!
30 March 2012
Apple hit by China Foxconn factory report BBC News
An independent investigation has found "significant issues" among working practices at Chinese plants making Apple iPhones and iPads.
