The following are links to stories written by IDG publications and the IDG News Service about the FBI's attempt to force Apple to help it to hack into the iPhone 5c that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the people said to have been involved in an attack in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2.
Why the FBI's request to Apple will affect civil rights for a generation
Apple's fight with the FBI could go all the way to the US Supreme Court
Tim Cook says Apple will oppose court order rather than hack customersTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has already started its own car companyTurns out that even while Google has been sweet-talking automakers to get its software platform into their cars, it had set up a subsidiary to compete with them, the Guardian reports. Google Auto LLC is registered as a passenger vehicle manufacturer, and was licensed last year as a carmaker in California. It’s run by Chris Urmson, project lead for Google’s self-driving cars. Google wouldn’t talk to the Guardian, which uncovered the company registration via documents it requested under the public records act.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Attacked then abandoned in Philadelphia, Hitchbot’s attempt to thumb a lift across the U.S. ends in disasterA robot that counted on the kindness of strangers to help it travel around the world has met a cruel fate in Philadelphia, barely three weeks into an attempt to hitch-hike across the U.S. Hitchbot, developed by robotics researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, had already hitch-hiked successfully across Canada and Germany, but U.S. residents turned out to be less welcoming, AP reports.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Attacked then abandoned in Philadelphia, Hitchbot’s attempt to thumb a lift across the U.S. ends in disasterA robot that counted on the kindness of strangers to help it travel around the world has met a cruel fate in Philadelphia, barely three weeks into an attempt to hitch-hike across the U.S. Hitchbot, developed by robotics researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, had already hitch-hiked successfully across Canada and Germany, but U.S. residents turned out to be less welcoming, AP reports.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook’s new Internet-access drone set to fly by year endAn unmanned aircraft called Aquila was the star of the show as Facebook on Thursday showed how it plans to provide Internet access to hundreds of millions of people in remote parts of the world. The plane should get a test flight later this year; its entire surface is covered with solar panels to enable it to stay up in the air for three months at a time, at an altitude between 60,000 and 90,000 feet. From there, it will use laser-based technology to receive an Internet connection and share it with users in a 50-kilometer radius.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Obama wants to boost U.S. supercomputing powerWith China currently sitting at the top of the supercomputing heap—its Tianhe-2 computer has been considered the world’s most powerful for the last two years—U.S. President Barack Obama is looking to step up American efforts via the new National Strategic Computing Initiative. Set up by an executive order signed Wednesday, NSCI will coordinate government agencies, academia and the private sector with the objective of delivering a system with about 100 times the performance of current 10 petaflop systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel and Micron unveil a new class of memory with 3D XPointIntel and Micron say they’ve developed the first new kind of memory since NAND flash was introduced in 1989. The new technology, 3D XPoint, is a form of non-volatile memory that’s as much as 1,000 times faster than NAND flash, the companies say. 3D XPoint should arrive in products next year, and it could change computing as much as SSDs have by powering better speech recognition, biometrics, and gesture-based interfaces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung tipped to upstage Apple with August phone launchSamsung has sent out invitations to an event in New York next month that looks like it’s planned to be the coming out party for a new, larger version of its flagship Galaxy S6 edge smartphone. The S6 line has been a hot item but the company hasn’t been able to keep up with demand, and shortages of the smartphone may be a factor holding down Samsung’s quarterly earnings, to be reported on Thursday.Most Android phones can be hacked just by sending them a multimedia messageTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook prevails in shareholder lawsuit over IPOYou have to own stock to participate in a shareholder class action lawsuit, an appeals court has ruled, confirming an earlier Manhattan district court ruling. The case brought by Facebook shareholders accused the company of withholding key financial information from the public until after its IPO. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs said that because the shareholders weren’t owners of Facebook stock at the time the sales information wasn’t disclosed, they had no legal standing to sue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook prevails in shareholder lawsuit over IPOYou have to own stock to participate in a shareholder class action lawsuit, an appeals court has ruled, confirming an earlier Manhattan district court ruling. The case brought by Facebook shareholders accused the company of withholding key financial information from the public until after its IPO. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs said that because the shareholders weren’t owners of Facebook stock at the time the sales information wasn’t disclosed, they had no legal standing to sue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm plans cuts, may spin off assetsQualcomm will lay off about 15 percent of its workforce and may separate its chip and patent businesses in a major realignment of the company that is designed to cut annual costs by about $1.4 billion. The company, a major player in technology that’s used in mobile phones, will cut back the range of its investments in new product areas to focus those efforts on data centers, small cells and the Internet of Things.If Apple Music isn’t already under federal scrutiny, pressure demanding a probe growsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Carmakers emerge winners in the bidding for Nokia HereNokia’s much-sought-after mapping assets, called Here, have apparently been won by a coalition of carmakers. Audi, BMW and Daimler will jointly purchase Nokia’s Here digital mapping service for roughly $2.7 billion, and they plan to invite other auto makers to take a stake in the company as well, multiple reports said on Tuesday. Uber reportedly dropped out of the bidding several weeks ago.Senators propose bill to establish cyber security standard for carsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New mainframe slows sales decline at IBMSales fell 13 percent in the second quarter at IBM, and profit dropped 16 percent—but things could have been worse if it weren’t for sales of the recently launched Z13 mainframe. IBM blamed much of the decline on a strong dollar and the sale to Lenovo of its low-end server business.Tech companies go on a spending spree in WashingtonIBM could have boosted its results by $1.8 million in the second quarter by eliminating its spending on lobbyists. Instead, it increased its spend by 7 percent. Other companies spent more, however: Amazon doubled its lobbying budget to $2.15 billion, while Facebook’s expenditure on lobbying rose by a quarter to $2.7 billion in the quarter. Apple and Intel each spent about $1.25 million, both up from the year-earlier quarter. Alone among the big tech companies, Google cut spending to $4.62 million—but at that level, it’s hard to tell whether peer pressure or thrifty new CFO Ruth Porat were behind the reduction.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New mainframe slows sales decline at IBMSales fell 13 percent in the second quarter at IBM, and profit dropped 16 percent—but things could have been worse if it weren’t for sales of the recently launched Z13 mainframe. IBM blamed much of the decline on a strong dollar and the sale to Lenovo of its low-end server business.Tech companies go on a spending spree in WashingtonIBM could have boosted its results by $1.8 million in the second quarter by eliminating its spending on lobbyists. Instead, it increased its spend by 7 percent. Other companies spent more, however: Amazon doubled its lobbying budget to $2.15 billion, while Facebook’s expenditure on lobbying rose by a quarter to $2.7 billion in the quarter. Apple and Intel each spent about $1.25 million, both up from the year-earlier quarter. Alone among the big tech companies, Google cut spending to $4.62 million—but at that level, it’s hard to tell whether peer pressure or thrifty new CFO Ruth Porat were behind the reduction.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2 is thinnest and lightest yetSamsung said Monday that its new Android tablets go on sale next month and the lighter, trimmed down products will offer consumers an alternative to Apple’s iPad Air 2. There are 9.7-inch and 8-inch models with a 2048 by 1536 pixel Super AMOLED screen; both come with a fingerprint scanner, along with Samsung’s eight-core chip, which has two quad-core processors, one running at 1.9GHz, the other at 1.3 GHz.Some drones deliver medicine, others interfere with firefightersTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google reports strong earnings, but slowing growthGoogle’s second quarter income of $3.93 billion reported Thursday was up 17 percent year-on-year, but its sales of $17.73 billion represented an 11 percent growth rate, the smallest revenue increase reported by the company since 2012. Google is struggling to grow its ad revenue on mobile devices: ads in mobile search results are smaller, and can yield fewer interactions from users, driving down their price.Apple, Samsung may join in launch of embedded SIM cardsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google reports strong earnings, but slowing growthGoogle’s second quarter income of $3.93 billion reported Thursday was up 17 percent year-on-year, but its sales of $17.73 billion represented an 11 percent growth rate, the smallest revenue increase reported by the company since 2012. Google is struggling to grow its ad revenue on mobile devices: ads in mobile search results are smaller, and can yield fewer interactions from users, driving down their price.Apple, Samsung may join in launch of embedded SIM cardsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm hit with antitrust probe in EuropeQualcomm is under investigation by the European Union’s antitrust authority, which suspects the company of abusing its dominant position in the market for 3G and 4G chipsets used in smartphones and tablets. The company settled similar charges in China earlier this year. In this case, the European Commission is looking into whether the company broke antitrust rules by offering financial incentives to phone manufacturers if they made it their primary chipset supplier, and whether it sold below cost to force competitors out of the market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm hit with antitrust probe in EuropeQualcomm is under investigation by the European Union’s antitrust authority, which suspects the company of abusing its dominant position in the market for 3G and 4G chipsets used in smartphones and tablets. The company settled similar charges in China earlier this year. In this case, the European Commission is looking into whether the company broke antitrust rules by offering financial incentives to phone manufacturers if they made it their primary chipset supplier, and whether it sold below cost to force competitors out of the market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel’s second quarter numbers likely shadowed by falling PC salesIntel reports earnings Wednesday and it’s expected to be a lackluster quarter for the chip giant as PC sales continue to slow. Analysts expect revenue to be down 6 percent from last year, and profit is forecast to fall as well. PC shipments declined 10 percent last quarter, according to Gartner, and Intel’s results are likely to reflect that.Hacking Team CEO insists customers’ spy tools aren’t compromisedThe founder of the Italian surveillance software company that suffered a disastrous data breach last week sought to reassure clients on Tuesday, insisting that Hacking Team’s anti-terrorism tools have not been jeopardized. “If the client has followed our instructions there are no problems for security. Only a part of the source code has been stolen,” Hacking Team CEO David Vincenzetti said, adding that the hack, which resulted in the theft of 400GB of data and the publication of around 1 million company emails on the WikiLeaks website, had not compromised its most innovative products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IDG News Service staff