John Ribeiro, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

John Ribeiro

Author Archives: John Ribeiro

RadioShack, US states reach agreement on sale of customer data

RadioShack has reached agreement with U.S. states over the sale of customer data, by consenting to limit the number of email addresses to be sold, and giving customers the opportunity to be removed from the list.A coalition of 38 U.S. states, led by Texas, objected to the sale of personally identifiable information by the bankrupt electronics retailer, citing its online and in-store privacy policies. The customer data, which was withdrawn from an earlier sale of assets that included RadioShack stores, was included in a second auction this month.The bulk of the consumer data will be destroyed, and no credit or debit card account numbers, social security numbers, dates of birth or phone numbers will be transferred to General Wireless Operations, the winner of both auctions, said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech companies ask Senate to pass NSA reform bill

Reform Government Surveillance, an organization that represents large technology companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft, on Tuesday pressed the U.S. Senate not to delay reform of National Security Agency surveillance by extending expiring provisions of the Patriot Act.The House of Representatives voted 338-88 last week to approve the USA Freedom Act that would, among other things, stop the controversial bulk collection of phone records of Americans by the NSA, including by placing restrictions on the search terms used to retrieve the records.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FTC recommends conditions for sale of RadioShack customer data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has weighed in on the contentious issue of the proposed sale of consumer data by bankrupt retailer RadioShack, recommending that a model be adopted based on a settlement the agency reached with a failed online toy retailer.The state of Texas, which is leading action by several U.S. states, has opposed the sale of personally identifiable information by RadioShack, citing the online and in-store privacy policies of the bankrupt consumer electronics retailer.Apple and some wireless carriers have opposed the sale of some of the customer data, which it said was collected from their respective customers and was governed by their privacy policies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FTC recommends conditions for sale of RadioShack customer data

Nintendo says its new smartphone games will drive console sales

Nintendo expects that its new games for smartphones, built in partnership with Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA, will help boost sales of its consoles, as users “become familiar with the charms of video games.”The Japanese gaming console maker expects smartphones users will want to explore more premium experiences on its dedicated game systems, President Satoru Iwata said in a presentation posted to the company website Friday.To aid that shift, the company is working on an integrated membership service that aims to provide a bridge between smart devices and consoles, including the upcoming game system code-named NX, by allowing a consumer to access multiple devices and services with a single ID, Iwata said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Uber said to bid for Nokia’s Here mapping business

Uber Technologies has bid for Nokia’s Here mapping business, in a bid to reduce its dependence on Google, according to a newspaper report.Nokia said last month it was considering a possible divestment from Here as it reviewed strategic options for the business. The Finnish company made the announcement on the same day it revealed plans to acquire rival Alcatel-Lucent, which led to speculation that the company would like to sell off Here to focus on its core business of equipment for telecommunications service providers.The ride-hailing company has bid as much as US$3 billion for the business, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the offer. The bid is in competition with one from a consortium of German automakers, including BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, which also could have the backing of China’s Baidu, according to the report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US reviews use of cellphone spying technology

Faced with criticism from lawmakers and civil rights groups, the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a review of the secretive use of cellphone surveillance technology that mimics cellphone towers, and will get more open on its use, according to a newspaper report.The cell-site simulators, also referred to by other names such as “IMSI catchers” or Stingrays, operate by fooling mobile phones into believing that they are communicating with a legitimate cellphone tower, while harvesting data from the phone including its identity, location, metadata and even content of phone transmissions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.One of the complaints of civil rights groups is that even when targeting a single phone, the technology can collect data on other phones in the area that connect to the simulator, raising privacy issues.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon buys ClusterK, a firm that helps users buy cloud capacity cheap

Amazon has acquired ClusterK, a developer of software that helps companies run mission-critical applications on spare cloud compute capacity sold by Amazon Web Services.A spokeswoman for AWS confirmed the acquisition, but did not provide further details.Spot instances are spare Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances for which users name their price. The price for the spot instances can vary in real-time depending on demand and supply. The instance will run until the spot price exceeds the bid or the user terminates it.This is in contrast with AWS On-Demand instances that let users pay for compute capacity by the hour without long-term commitments, or Reserved instances, which provide capacity reservation. AWS has positioned spot instances as the option to use when customers have flexibility in when their applications can run.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple says EC probe could lead to back tax payments

Apple has warned that an European probe into its tax payments in Ireland could lead to the company having to pay disputed past taxes covering up to 10 years.The company said the impact could be “material,” but did not provide an estimate.The European Commission began a probe last year into a tax deal between Ireland and Apple to ascertain whether the taxes the company paid complied with European Union rules on state aid.The investigation would address rulings by Irish tax authorities on the calculation of the taxable profit allocated to the Irish branches of Apple Sales International and of Apple Operations Europe, to find out if the rulings involved state aid that benefited the company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ham radio attempts to fill communication gaps in Nepal rescue effort

Amateur radio has stepped in to fill communication gaps in Nepal, which is struggling with power outages and a flaky Internet after a devastating earthquake on Saturday killed over 5,000 people.The hobbyist radio operators, also known as ham radio operators or hams, are working round-the-clock to help people get in touch with relatives, pass on information and alert about developing crises ever since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit about 80 kilometers from Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu.Ham radio sends voice or morse code messages across radio frequencies and has often helped in emergencies. It can work off solar power or low-voltage batteries, which means that the radios can continue to work even after smartphones and laptops are discharged, said Jayu Bhide, National Coordinator for Disaster Communication at the Amateur Radio Society of India, on Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung regains number one position in smartphone market

Samsung Electronics regained the number one position in the smartphone market in the first quarter, but its market share dropped to 24 percent from 31 percent a year earlier, according to a research firm.The South Korean company and its arch rival Apple were tied with shipments of 74.5 million smartphones each in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to Strategy Analytics.The researcher said Tuesday that Samsung had shipped 83.2 million smartphones in the first quarter in comparison to 61.2 million phones from Apple.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Buy to accept Apple Pay, wants to give customers options

Best Buy said its customers could start using Apple Pay from Monday to make purchases on its app through the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, thus appearing to break ranks with a group of leading U.S. merchants who are backing an alternative payment system.“The acceptance of Apple Pay in the Best Buy app is the latest enhancement for our mobile platform,” the giant retailer said in a statement on Monday. Best Buy stores in the U.S. will start accepting Apple Pay later this year, it added.Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced during an earnings conference call Monday that Apple Pay would be supported on the Best Buy app and in stores later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Buy to accept Apple Pay, wants to give customers options

Capgemini to expand in North America with $4B acquisition of iGate

French IT services company Capgemini is to acquire iGate in the U.S. for US$4.0 billion, in a bid to expand its presence in the North American market.The deal will boost Capgemini’s revenue from North America by 33 percent to $4 billion, making the region the first to account for 30 percent of its revenue.The iGate acquisition also brings to Capgemini additional expertise in application and infrastructure services, business process outsourcing and engineering services. Capgemini also gets iGate’s clients, including key customers such as General Electric and Royal Bank of Canada, to whom it can now cross-sell its own services.After the acquisition, the merged entity will have an estimated combined revenue of €12.5 billion ($13.6 billion) in 2015, an operating margin above 10 percent and around 190,000 employees. About 50,000 of these employees will be focused on North American clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nepal communications hit by power outage, last-mile issues

Phone and Internet communications have been hit in Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu after a devastating earthquake, forcing aid workers at times to ask people to go across with messages.The International Red Cross and tech companies like Facebook and Google introduced tools to help users check online on people affected, but their effectiveness could be impacted by large-scale power outages and last-mile Internet connectivity problems.MORE: Google exec dies on Mt. Everest as result of Nepal quakeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet steady in Nepal after earthquake but last-mile connectivity an issue

The Internet is playing an important role in communications in Nepal after a devastating earthquake, as phone links were choked by the large number of people trying to connect.Internet service was disrupted after the earthquake hit near the capital city of Kathmandu on Saturday and cloud services provider Akamai said its traffic to the country saw a steep decline just after 6:00 UTC.Nepal Telecom survived the earthquake while smaller Internet service providers experienced outages, Internet performance monitoring company Dyn said. It had earlier reported that the earthquake had rattled the Internet in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet steady in Nepal after earthquake but last-mile connectivity an issue

The Internet is playing an important role in communications in Nepal after a devastating earthquake, as phone links were choked by the large number of people trying to connect.Internet service was disrupted after the earthquake hit near the capital city of Kathmandu on Saturday and cloud services provider Akamai said its traffic to the country saw a steep decline just after 6:00 UTC.MORE: Google exec dies on Mt. Everest as result of Nepal quakeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Infosys invests in cloud, health monitoring market

Indian outsourcer Infosys has made an acquisition in the area of cloud computing and invested in a personal health monitoring company as it tries to move into high value products and services.The transition is, however, taking time and in the financial results the company reported Friday its revenue and profit grew only slightly. The company said it faced pricing pressure in its core outsourcing business, which still largely prices its services around the number of people deployed on a customer’s project.As it expands into other markets, Infosys has agreed to pay US$120 million to buy Kallidus, a cloud-hosted platform for retailers to provide apps and other mobile content. The company also invested $2 million from its Innovation Fund in Airviz, a spinout from Carnegie Mellon University that is focused on personal air quality monitoring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm hit by China fine, cut in Samsung business

Qualcomm’s second-quarter profit dropped 46 percent, mainly because of a large fine the company had to pay in China for settling antitrust issues.The chip company also cut its revenue outlook for 2015, citing loss of business for its Snapdragon processor from key customer Samsung Electronics and a concentration of the premium market around two players - Apple and Samsung, among other factors.Qualcomm lost business from Samsung as the South Korean vendor decided to use its in-house Exynos processor rather than the Snapdragon 810 chip in its flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones. The impact on Qualcomm has been large because makers like Samsung have decided to focus on newer products rather than legacy products. The chipmaker does not expect an immediate shift in its share of components in Samsung’s premium devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm hit by China fine, cut in Samsung business

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