Datamation Staff

Reuters: Among the thousands of attendees at this week’s Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas will be representatives from a variety of federal agencies, including DOD, DHS, NASA and NSA, who are looking to recruit new “cyberwarriors.” “Today it’s cyber warriors that we’re looking for, not rocket scientists,” said the NSA’s Richard “Dickie” George. His […]

USAToday: AT&T has announced that it will begin limiting speeds for the top five percent of its “unlimited” plan customers who use the most bandwidth. Customers will receive a warning before the throttling begins, and the speed limits will remain in place until the next billing cycle. AT&T says the policy will go into effect […]

PCWorld: Adobe has launched a new application called Adobe Edge which allows Web designers to create dynamic Web content based on HTML5 standards. The tool is being seen as an alternative to Adobe Flash, which has been heavily criticized by Apple. “More workloads that were previously reserved for Flash are now being done with Web […]

Computerworld: Police in the U.K. have arrested 18-year-old Jake Davis and charged him with five counts related to computer hacking. They believe Davis to be “Topiary,” a spokesman for the LulzSec and Anonymous hacktivist groups. UK police have also recently arrested two other teenagers believed to be associated with the groups.   SEE ALL ARTICLES […]

NY Times: According to a new report by Stanford professor Jonathan G. Koomey, electricity consumption by data centers in the U.S. grew about 56 percent between 2005 and 2010. That may seem like a lot, but it’s significantly less than the growth predicted by an influential 2007 EPA report. That study suggested that data center […]

Wired: UC Berkeley researchers have published a new report which exposes KISSmetrics, a service that tracks Web users even if they have taken the usual steps to protect their privacy. “The stuff works even if you have all cookies blocked and private-browsing mode enabled,” said report author Ashkan Soltani. “The code itself is pretty damning.” […]

Wall Street Journal: Google is confirming that in mid-July it purchased more than 1,000 patents from IBM and registered the acquisition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “Like many tech companies, at times we’ll acquire patents that are relevant to our business,” a spokesperson said. The patents cover multiple kinds of technology, including “fabrication […]

Computerworld: In a recent survey of 160 large enterprises, more than half of the companies that needed to analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data were using Hadoop. However, Hadoop isn’t replacing traditional RDBMSes. In most cases, it’s being used alongside these older tools in order to add new capabilities. “In two-thirds of the […]

InformationWeek: Although the U.S. unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent, Microsoft says it had 4,551 job openings as of May and that it was taking an average of 65 days to find qualified workers. Microsoft’s Brad Smith told the Senate that the IT unemployment rate is only 4 percent, which is below the government’s definition […]

TechWorld: According to Mercury Research, AMD’s share of the x86 microprocessor market grew to 19.4 percent during the second quarter of 2011, up from 17.8 percent the previous year. During the same time, Intel’s share declined from 81.3 percent to 79.9 percent. The researchers attributed AMD’s success to strong demand for its Fusion line of […]

Financial Post: Apple now has more cash on hand than the U.S. government. As of Thursday, the U.S. Treasury reported an operating balance of $73.768 billion. At the end of June, Apple reported cash reserves of $75.876 billion. Apple’s market cap is currently around $363.25 billion, making it the second biggest corporation in the world. […]

SlashGear: According to the latest figures from Nielsen, Android remains the most popular mobile OS in the U.S., with 39 percent of the market. However, because so many different companies make Android devices, Apple is in first place among smartphone manufacturers, with 28 percent of the market. RIM sits in second place among manufacturers and […]