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20,568 articles from Sci-Tech Today

eBay and NRF Team to Combat Online Retail Crime

What do you get when you team the world's largest online marketplace with the world's largest retail trade association to take on organized retail crime? The hope is sweeping reform. The National Retail Federation and eBay have formed a partnership against crime -- and they are getting support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, other retailers, and new technology that identifies and...

CTIA Show Will Focus on 4G and Mobile Applications

What happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas this week. CTIA -- The Wireless Association is kicking off its three-day International CTIA Wireless show where Sprint Nextel is slated to launch a new 4G phone and top brass from AT&T and Telefonica will deliver keynote addresses. Now in its 25th year, the show will kick off Tuesday at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where more than 1,000 wireless...

Google Tries a Web-Censorship Workaround

Google Inc. will shift its search engine for China off the mainland but won't shut it down altogether, and it will maintain other operations in the country. It's an attempt to balance its stance against censorship with its desire to profit from an explosively growing Internet market. On Monday afternoon, visitors to Google.cn were being redirected to Google's Chinese-language service based in...

Internet Explorer Loses Share in European Markets

Microsoft's delivery of a browser choice screen to European PC users this month is already beginning to have an effect on the software giant's market share within the European Union. For example, the latest statistics from StatCounter suggest that the new browser ballot is driving Internet Explorer share declines in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and elsewhere. Mozilla's Firefox browser...

Microsoft Pushes Benefits of Desktop Virtualization

Microsoft is stepping up its commitment to desktop virtualization. Late last week, the software giant announced new virtualization technologies, a simplified licensing structure, and an expanded alliance with Citrix Systems. Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Management and Services Division, said the company wants to provide a "balance" between IT departments looking to...

Cybercrime Risk Is Highest in Seattle, Study Finds

Cybercrime. It's a threat that impacts 20 percent of online shoppers. It's an issue that cost Americans $560 million in 2009 in online fraud. And it's a topic that may hit closer to home than we realize, according to Symantec. Symantec's Norton division partnered with independent research firm Sperling's BestPlaces to find and expose the cities most -- and least -- vulnerable to cybercrime. The...

New Sensor Could Upgrade Cameras in Mobile Phones

A startup has announced a new kind of high-performance image sensor, which it says will revolutionize "the way light is captured." InVisage Technologies said its new technology, called QuantumFilm, is the "world's first commercial quantum dot-based image sensor," and added that it will replace conventional silicon-based sensors. The Palm Desert, Calif.-based company said that QuantumFilm offers...

Obama Achieves Health Law Success that Eluded Past

Rarely does the government, that big, clumsy, poorly regarded oaf, pull off anything short of war that touches all lives with one act, one stroke of a president's pen. Such a moment has come. After a year of riotous argument, decades of failure and a century of spoiled hopes, the United States is reaching for a system of medical care that extends coverage nearly to all citizens. The change...

iPad Developers Sworn to Secrecy

Apple makes big demands of software developers who want an early crack at the iPad. Would-be testers of the tablet-style computer, due to be released Apr. 3, must promise to keep it isolated in a room with blacked-out windows, according to four people familiar with the more than 10-page pact that bars partners from disclosing information about the iPad. To ensure that it can't be removed, the...

Report: Google May End Chinese Operations in April

U.S. Internet giant Google Inc might close its operations in China next month after a row over a hacking attack that apparently originated in China, a state media report said Friday. The Shanghai-based China Business News quoted an executive with an unidentified advertising agency linked to Google as saying the U.S. firm had decided to "pull out" of China from April 10. The newspaper also...

Parents Oppose School Webcam Spying Lawsuit

Some suburban Philadelphia parents are seeking to halt a potential class-action lawsuit accusing their school district of using cameras in school-issued laptops to spy on students at home. Three sets of parents of students at Lower Merion and Harriton high schools filed documents in federal court Thursday asking for permission to intervene in the case. The family of 15-year-old Harriton High...

Large Hadron Collider Sets Record for Beam Energy

Operators of the world's largest atom smasher on Friday ramped up their massive machine to three times the energy ever previously achieved, in the run-up to experiments probing the secrets of the universe. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said beams of protons circulated at 3.5 trillion electron volts in both directions around the 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel housing...

Hubble 3D Launches Viewers on Grand Space Trek

Remember those jokes about the Hubble telescope needing a blind man's cane and dark glasses when it went into orbit 20 years ago and immediately proved nearsighted? After eye surgery by NASA astronauts to fix a warped mirror, the Hubble has become an instrument of penetrating vision that has allowed astronomers to peer into the farthest reaches of space and catch fantastic glimpses into the...

FDA Panel Backs Implant for Mild Heart Failure

Federal health advisers said Thursday an electronic heart implant should be approved for a large group of U.S. heart-disease patients who currently aren't eligible for the device. A Food and Drug Administration panel of cardiologists voted unanimously in favor of Boston Scientific's heart-regulating device to treat mild heart failure, so long as the company tracks the long-term safety of...


SATURDAY 20. MARCH 2010


MyScreen Cell-Phone Advertising Rewards Users

Mobile advertising comes in many flavors: text-message promotion alerts, banner ads on iPhone and Android applications, and sponsored links on mobile-friendly Web sites. But one company, headed by a former Nokia executive in Miami -- is betting it has found a way that will really get your attention -- by taking over the whole screen with an ad after every call. The service is called MyScreen,...


FRIDAY 19. MARCH 2010


Biden To Visit Light-Emitting Diode Manufacturer

Vice President Joe Biden plans to visit a North Carolina maker of light-producing semiconductor chips that the Obama administration is offering as an example of the potential for job growth in manufacturing energy-efficient products. Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu were scheduled to visit the headquarters and factory of Cree Inc. on Thursday. The Durham-based company has hired about 375...

Basketball, Facebook and Gossip Are Malware Targets

Cybercriminals have been busy this week running scams that target Facebook users, college basketball fans, and celebrity gossip watchers. Security experts are warning about recent attacks with nasty payloads. One widespread attack was a common ploy security researchers call the Facebook Password Reset Scam. The cybercriminals send an e-mail addressed to "user of Facebook" that reads, "Because...

Apple Files Patent for Mobile Social Networking

Apple is tapping into the social arena with plans to launch a social-networking application. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has filed a patent with the U.S. Patent & Trade Office describing a social-network application dubbed iGroups. The application for patent, made available on Thursday, reveals that Apple is working on an ad-hoc social network that would enable users to communicate...

Microsoft Eases Windows XP Mode Requirements

Microsoft released a software update Thursday that eliminates some of the hardware requirements for running Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 PCs. The goal is to make it far easier for small and midsize businesses to migrate to Windows 7 while retaining access to critical legacy applications that are unable to run on machines equipped with Microsoft's latest operating system. Windows 7 Professional...

Yahoo Buying Fantasy Sports Company Citizen Sports

Yahoo is buying a fantasy sports company co-founded by an MIT graduate whose card-counting skills helped him win millions of dollars in blackjack and spawned a film and a best-selling book. Citizen Sports offers fantasy leagues for sports such as football, soccer and basketball that fans can manage online at social-networking sites and through mobile applications for Apple's iPhone and smart...

Leftover Phones Show Palm's Market Share Is Falling

With more than half its latest devices left on store shelves at the end of the third quarter, things may be getting out of hand for Palm as the manufacturer struggles to hold market share in the rapidly evolving telecom market. The company's projected fourth-quarter earnings will be about half the $300 million projected by Wall Street analysts. After Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein and CFO Doug...

McLaren To Build High-Performing Sports Cars

Formula One car maker McLaren unveiled plans on Thursday to build a range of commercial sports cars in Britain, using race technology to take on other high-end European manufacturers such as Ferrari and Porsche on the highways. McLaren is banking on renewed spending after the global economic downturn to bolster demand for its first offering, the MP4-12C, which will go on sale in late 2011 with...

iPad Pre-Orders Reported in 'Hundreds of Thousands'

With Apple's iPad scheduled to go on sale on April 3, a new report indicates there may be strong pre-order demand. This could mean the iPad is on the verge of being a breakthrough product for tablet computers. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to unnamed sources, pre-orders have totaled "hundreds of thousands of units," which could also indicate that the iPad will...

Court Airs Dirty Laundry from Viacom-Google Battle

The Viacom-Google battle over YouTube's alleged copyright infringement has been going on mostly behind the scenes for years. But court documents made public this week shed some light on the unfolding drama. Viacom filed suit against Google in 2007 for allegedly allowing users to upload more than 100,000 videos clips containing copyrighted Viacom content, including parts of shows from MTV,...

Intel WiDi Beams Video from Laptops to TV

You wouldn't think twice about having friends over to watch a movie or TV show on the big-screen TV in your living room. You'd surely hesitate before having these folks huddle around a laptop screen to watch. Intel wants to make it easy to beam what you're watching on your computer to your HDTV without you having to string wires across the room. Along with several industry partners, Intel is...