The internet giant seeks new ways to foster innovation
FEW companies are as creative as Google, which serves up innovations almost as fast as its popular search-engine serves up results. This week the firm unveiled a new version of its Chrome web browser and launched Fast Flip, which lets users scroll through the contents of an online newspaper in much the same way that they leaf through its pages in print. On September 30th the company will roll out another fledgling product, Google Wave, for a test involving some 100,000 people. …

ISLAMABAD: Despite the fact that dumping old computers in developing countries has been declared as violation of international law, Pakistan was being used as dumping ground for over 50,000 tons of e-waste that hurts local industry and also creates environmental and health hazards.
Despite being a signatory to the Basel Convention that restricted importing used/old computers, more than 500,000 used computers are finding ways into Pakistani computer market each year.
These concerns were voiced at a discussion ‘Cost effective or technology defective’ held here on Tuesday.
The speakers from both public and private …

Open-source software has won the argument. Now a new threat to openness looms
“FIRST they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi probably never said these words, despite claims to the contrary, but they perfectly describe the progress of open-source software over the past 15 years or so. Such software, the underlying recipe for which is created by volunteers and distributed free online, was initially dismissed as the plaything of nerdy hobbyists. Big software firms derided the idea that anyone would put …

The only way to stop fraudsters stealing information from old computer hard drives is by destroying them completely, a study has found.
Which? Computing magazine recovered 22,000 “deleted” files from eight computers purchased on eBay.
Freely available software can be used to recover files that users think they have permanently deleted.
While Which? recommends smashing hard drives with a hammer, experts say for most consumers that’s a step too far.
Criminals source old computers from internet auction sites or in rubbish tips, to find users’ valuable details, and a number of recent cases have …

A disc that can store 500 gigabytes (GB) of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs, has been unveiled by General Electric.
The micro-holographic disc, which is the same size as existing DVD discs, is aimed at the archive industry.
But the company believes it can eventually be used in the consumer market place and home players.
Blu-ray discs, which are used to store high definition movies and games, can currently hold between 25GB and 50GB.
Micro-holographic discs can store more data than DVDs or Blu-ray because they store information on the disc in three dimensions, …

Internet television moves from the computer to the living room
IN THE land of free enterprise and the home of discount shopping, there can sometimes be an appalling lack of competition. High-speed access to the internet is one. Cable television is another. The reason is that in America cable-television companies, which provide a lot of the high-speed access, do not want their customers to cancel their contracts and watch television over the internet instead. Yet a growing number of people are poised to do just that.
At your correspondent’s home-from-home in Japan, …

Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems is a surprise, but fits an industry trend
Illustration by David Simonds
“I AM very surprised. I have to think about it.” That was the initial reaction of Steve Ballmer, the boss of Microsoft, the world’s largest software firm. It was also the response of many in the computer industry to the news on April 20th that Oracle, another software giant, was paying $7.4 billion to buy Sun Microsystems, an embattled computer-maker and Oracle’s neighbour in Silicon Valley.
It was no secret that Sun, which never really recovered …

By Maggie Shiels
Technology Reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
A plan by IBM to launch an industry-wide ‘open’ cloud computing strategy has seemingly backfired amid accusations of closed deals.
Google pulled out after signing up and Amazon said it would not get involved.
Microsoft criticised the plan, saying it was given two days to sign up to a “secret” manifesto with no input.
“We had concerns about process and governance that led us to question IBM’s intentions,” Microsoft’s Steve Martin told BBC News.
Cloud computing is the term given to the shift of …

The real-world implications of the rise of internet computing
EVEN when the sky is blue over Quincy, clouds hang in the air. The small town in the centre of the state of Washington is home to half a dozen huge warehouses that power the global “computing clouds” run by internet companies such as Yahoo! and Microsoft. The size of several football pitches, these data centres are filled with thousands of powerful computers and storage devices and are hooked up to the internet via fast fibre-optic links.
Yet even more intriguing than the …

Electronic snooping by the state may safeguard liberty—and also threaten it
IF A Muslim chemistry graduate takes an ill-paid job at a farm-supplies store what does it signify? Is he just earning extra cash, or getting close to a supply of potassium nitrate (used in fertiliser, and explosives)? What if apparent strangers with Arabic names have wired him money? What if he has taken air flights with one of those men, with separate reservations and different seats, paid in cash? What if his credit-card records show purchases of gadgets such as …