Datamation Staff

SFGate: The hacktivist group Anonymous has breached a website belonging to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and has published data for more than 2,000 customers, including usernames, passwords, and many addresses and phone numbers. The attack came in retaliation to BART’s decisions to shut down cell phone service in order to help prevent a planned […]

Bloomberg: Google has announced that it will purchase smartphone manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion or $40 per share. That’s a 63 percent premium over Motorola Mobility’s closing stock price last Friday. If the deal goes through, it would be the biggest wireless hardware deal in a decade. With the purchase, Google will expand its […]

eWeek: A new report from researchers at Foote Partners finds that the average pay for both non-certified and certified IT skills tracked by the company dropped between April and June. The 265 non-certified skills examined dropped an average of just 0.2 percent. However, certified skills dropped 2 percent, the 18th time in the last 19 […]

Pew Internet & American Life Project: The latest report out from the Pew Internet & American Life Project confirms that Americans are more addicted than ever to their cell phones. In fact, 83 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone and 35 percent own a smartphone. A majority (51 percent) said they had used […]

Mashable: In compliance with an order from the local government, 22 stores in Kunming, China, have stopped using Apple’s trademarks. The stores had been masquerading as Apple Stores, complete with characteristic white walls, Apple signage, light wood and blue T-shirted employees. Kunming officials say they are setting up a hotline to deal with any future […]

DigiTimes: In yet another sign of the growing importance of smartphones and tablets, researchers at IHS iSuppli predict that manufacturers will spend more on chips for wireless devices this year than they will on chips for PCs. Specifically, they say OEMs will spend $55.4 billion on semiconductors for wireless devices but just $53.1 billion for […]

InformationWeek: Experian Hitwise has published the results of a new study which says that the success rate for U.S. searches on Microsoft Bing was 80.04 percent, compared to 67.56 percent for Google. Interestingly, the success rate for Yahoo searches, which are powered by Bing, was higher than both at 81.36 percent. The study defined “success” […]

TechWorld: For the past two days, the Hong Kong stock exchange (HKEx) news website has been the target of sustained denial of service (DDoS) attacks that have made it difficult for investors to access the site. In order to comply with international requirements for transparency, the exchange has been forced to take out newspaper ads […]

Cnet: Two different sites — Android Police and RootzWiki — have published alleged screenshots of the next version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. The biggest changes in the interface suggested by the shots are that the primary theme color seems to have changed from green to blue and the notification […]

Wall Street Journal: When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handed Google subpoenas six weeks ago, it wasn’t immediately clear which aspects of the company they were concerned about. Now, unnamed sources say the agency is focusing on three key areas: Whether Google prevents manufacturers who make Android smartphones from using other OSes. Whether it gives […]

Cnet: The day before the 30th anniversary of the invention of the PC, one of the men responsible for the PC’s creation says its heyday is over. Mark Dean, currently the chief technology officer for IBM Middle East and Africa, wrote in a blog post, “I, personally, have moved beyond the PC…My primary computer now […]

TMCnet: Intel has announced that it will invest up to $300 million in the development of a new device it calls an “ultrabook.” It will give the money to companies developing technology that could be used to create a tablet/laptop hybrid–technologies like sensors, touch displays, gesture software, improved storage capacity and longer battery life. The […]