Datamation Staff

PCMag: Following last week’s revelations that third-party apps could access photos on iOS and Android phones without users’ permission, Sen. Charles Shumer (D-NY) is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate. “While they are telling you what movies are playing nearby they are also going through your files and using it for other […]

AFP: On the CBS show “60 Minutes,” two former top U.S. security officials expressed both admiration and concern about the Stuxnet virus. Retired general Michael Hayden, who previously headed the CIA and the NSA, said, “This was a good idea, alright?” He continued, “But I also admit this was a big idea, too. The rest […]

Computerworld: According to new data from NetApplications, the browser battle for market share didn’t change a lot in February. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remained the top browser, losing just one tenth of a percentage point to capture 52.8 percent of the market. Number two Firefox remained flat with 20.9 percent market share. The research firm reworked […]

InfoWorld: According to Hortonworks, the next version of the Apache Foundation’s Hadoop big data processing tool will support even more data and offer faster performance. Version 0.23 of the open source tool, currently an alpha release, will eventually run across 6,000-machine clusters, each with 16 or more cores, and process 10,000 concurrent jobs. The next […]

The New York Times: AT&T has announced that it is changing the rules that govern when it begins throttling download speeds for customers with “unlimited” data plans. Previously, the carrier was limiting speeds for customers whose data usage put them in the top five percent of AT&T customers in their area. Customers complained that they […]

The Register: Canonical has announced the beta release of Ubuntu 12.04, codenamed Precise Pangolin. While previous releases of the popular Linux distribution have featured the new Unity interface, Precise Pangolin will be the first update for paid long-term support (LTS) customers that will offer Unity. 12.04 offers very few big changes from previous versions of […]

CIO: On Tuesday, some customers of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service experienced outages . Those in the south-central U.S. region fared the worst. According to a Microsoft blog, “Windows Azure operations became aware of an issue impacting the compute service in a number of regions. The issue was quickly triaged, and it was determined to […]

Computerworld: A report presented by Verizon at the RSA security conference paints an unflattering picture of enterprises’ ability to prevent and respond to cyberattacks. According to the company, 92 percent of all data breaches they investigate result from external attacks, and in most cases, (60 percent) it takes months or years before enterprises discover the […]

CNN: New research shows that it’s now normal for most Americans to use mobile devices to access media. According to new figures from comScore, 55 percent of Americans who own mobile phones consume at least some media on mobile devices. In addition, 14 percent of cell phone owners also have a tablet. “In less than […]

Cnet: Ten years after its release, Microsoft’s Windows XP is still the most popular operating system in the world. The latest report from NetApplications shows that XP’s market share slipped slightly in February, from 47 percent market share to 45 percent, but that wasn’t enough to remove it from first place. Microsoft’s Windows 7 picked […]

Economic Times: Web users aren’t willing to wait an extra second or two for Web pages to load anymore. In fact, Google researchers have found that a delay as short as 400 ms, literally the time it takes to blink an eye, can cause Internet users to change their habits. According to Microsoft’s Harry Shum, […]

Cnet: Facebook has begun allowing businesses and organizations to use the new “Timeline” format for their pages. First introduced for individuals last year, the Timeline features larger photographs, a brief introduction to the person or organization, and a two-column record of all interactions through the social network. For now, the Timeline is optional, but will […]