Category: What’s On

Big Blue has announced that it is now offering the Nvidia Tesla M60 GPU accelerator to enterprise clients in the cloud. IBM said it is the first company to do so, giving companies of all sizes easier and more affordable access to virtual desktop applications without having to skimp on performance. The Tesla M60 (pictured above) is the latest in a line of Nvidia GPUs available through IBM Cloud. The Tesla K80 and the Tesla K10 are also available to companies

At its WWDC developer conference in San Francisco next month, Apple is reportedly planning to unveil an OS X update that would let iPhone owners unlock their Macs using the Touch ID feature on their phones. While not identifying its sources, an article published yesterday by MacRumors said Apple engineers were working on a Bluetooth-enabled auto unlock feature that might be included in OS X 10.12, the next version of the operating system for Macs. That feature would allow individuals to

A new developer portal and Android SDK (software developer kit) for SoftBank’s robot platform are aimed at convincing developers to build apps for the Pepper humanoid robot. Although the platform was first announced two years ago, the decision to open it up to Android apps should help greatly expand the base of app developers working on Pepper programs. “By making Pepper compatible with Android, Android application developers will be able to utilize their existing knowledge and technologies to develop RoboApps for

To help Skype continue making inroads into the enterprise, Microsoft has launched Skype for Business SDK (software developer kit). The new product is a set of tools that lets iOS and Android developers integrate Skype’s messaging, audio and voice capabilities into their mobile applications. The goal of Microsoft's Skype for Business SDK is to allow Skype to power the communications experience inside applications, so developers can focus on building the unique features of their products. The initial focus of the SDK

In the latest update to its mobile mail app, Yahoo has introduced several new features aimed at making navigation and information-sharing easier on iOS and Android mobile devices. Unveiled Tuesday, the latest version of the Yahoo Mail app for iPhones and other Apple devices (shown above) includes a preview function for links, new support for stationery, and a quick-sharing button for content on mobile devices.For Android, the update brings a new directory that lets users view all people they've communicated with

At its I/O Developers Conference this week, Google announced a new product that had been an open secret for several months. The Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) is named after the TensorFlow software it uses for its machine learning programs. In announcing the chip, Google referred to the TPU as an accelerator chip, able to speed up a given task, like data analysis or voice translation. When he introduced the TPU at the I/O conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said it provides

Despite the plethora of graphic design tools available to organizations, creating good visual content is often a labor-intensive process requiring many hours of work by highly trained professionals. A new suite of software by Adobe, however, is hoping to change that. The platform, called Adobe Spark, is designed to help non-professional designers create their own visual content. Besides being a fun tool for students and individuals, the Spark platform could also prove to be a huge benefit for entrepreneurs and small

Researchers at IBM say they've achieved a "significant milestone" in an emerging type of memory technology called phase-change memory (PCM). Because it doesn't lose data when power is turned off and can endure millions of read-write cycles, PCM could eventually enable new levels of performance in a wide range of devices. During a demonstration today at the International Memory Workshop in Paris, IBM researchers showed how they can store three bits, rather than one, in every cell of a PCM array

The Firefox Web browser has overtaken both of Microsoft’s browsers put together when it comes to market share, according to a new report. That’s the good news for Mozilla, which develops Firefox. The bad news is that Google’s Chrome browser is leaving both Mozilla and Microsoft in the dust. According to the latest figures from Statcounter, 60.5 percent of worldwide users opted for Chrome as their browser of choice in April, compared with 15.6 percent who selected Firefox, 15.5 percent who

Since shortly after Twitter launched in 2006, users of the microblogging site have generally been limited to tweets of no more than 140 characters each. However, the company is reportedly considering a change to eliminate images and links from that limit. The length restriction on tweets made sense in the pre-smartphone era, when SMS text messages had to abide by similar limits. But today's much more powerful mobile devices, along with the explosion of information in a wide variety of formats,

Among the apps and other innovations Google expects to highlight during its I/O 2016 developer conference in Mountain View, Calif., this week is Project Tango, its technology for bringing "a new kind of spatial perception" to the Android device platform.Google is planning "a big expansion" of the project it first unveiled in 2014, according to a report by Bloomberg last week. Much like Google Maps enables users to visualize streets, buildings and cities around the world, Project Tango aims to

They hog resources, take too long to load and are often embedded with malware. That's why Google is planning to phase out Adobe Flash videos in its Chrome Web browser by the end of this year. Google disclosed its plan to ditch the multimedia player in a proposal that was published on its Chromium-dev Google Groups page last week. Instead, Chrome will transition to HTML5 as its default media player. HTML5 is a markup language that supports multimedia content.The tech giant

Concerns about identity theft, financial fraud and business or government tracking are creating a "chilling effect" on online commerce and free expression, according to analysis of data from a 2015 survey of Internet use conducted for the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Of the 41,000 households asked about privacy and security in the July 2015 U.S. Census Bureau survey for the NTIA, 19 percent of those using the Internet said they had experienced a personal problem related

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have proved useful for things like tracking inventory, but they haven't worked in games and other applications that require fast information processing -- until now. A team of researchers from Disney and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a way to use RFID tags for near-real-time interactions with a wide variety of objects.The new system, called RapID, uses probabilistic models to enable computers to quickly read the movements of RFID-enabled objects to play games and identify other

In the latest salvo of the battle of the note-taking apps, Google and Evernote announced this week that Google Drive content will now be available in Evernote. In the world of mobile note-taking apps, Evernote is the primary competitor of Microsoft’s OneNote. Evernote had also been competing with Google’s own note-taking app, Google Keep, but Evernote said that integrating with Google Drive content is a natural next step for the company."We want anyone using Drive to have access to their content

A new study from Microsoft has found that organizations now rely more on digital infrastructures than they do on physical infrastructures. The findings indicate that cloud deployment models have now overtaken any other type of deployment in the technology sector, according to the company, which asked tech research firm 451 Research to conduct the study. “As organizations prepare for major business and technology changes, they will depend more on digital platforms to deliver products and services,” the company wrote in a

The latest developer version of Opera Software's browser features a power-saving mode the company said can extend a laptop's battery life by almost 50 percent, compared to previous versions of the browser as well as Google Chrome. Opera 39 includes a feature that activates when a laptop is unplugged from a power source. When that happens, a battery icon appears next to the browser's search and address field; clicking that icon turns on the power-saving mode.While in development, the browser was

German tech giant SAP said that it will be expanding the enterprise offerings available on its HANA Cloud Platform for Internet of Things (IoT). Making the announcement at the IoT World 2016 conference being held in Santa Clara, Calif., this week, SAP said the new offerings will be focused on helping enterprises provide new customer outcomes. “SAP is helping customers map their journeys through digital transformation, and the IoT has the potential to drive the largest segment of growth in new

A long-rumored app from Google aims to make browsing with a mobile device easier than ever. The company today launched Gboard, a new application for iOS that enables Google search directly from a mobile device’s keyboard. The app makes searches simpler and also offers swipe-based typing and access to GIFs and such commonly used keyboard functions as emojis and word predictions. And the keyboard integrates directly with Google’s services. Tapping a G-shaped icon instantly enables a user to search Google without

The latest update to SugarCRM's customer relationship management (CRM) platform adds several new capabilities aimed at providing sales and marketing professionals with "more timely and relevant" information about their customers. Sugar 7.7 adds new support for custom tags to help users better classify information about their customers in ways that work for them, the company said. The updated platform also improves search capabilities to deliver the most relevant results quickly, according to SugarCRM.The new version of Sugar also enhances the platform's

The workplace chat app Slack is making a move to leave a mark on enterprise apps of all kinds. Today, the company announced that it’s rolling out a new feature called Sign in with Slack. The feature lets Slack users sign into and use other apps with the same identities they use with Slack. Sign in with Slack is a way to keep teams connected across the many apps they use for work, the company said.The advantages of the new feature

Microsoft unveiled a new insider preview build for Windows 10 yesterday. The new version, titled Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14342, includes the much-anticipated updates for extensions support for the Edge browser, along with real-time Web notifications and the ability to navigate using swipe gestures. The new build also contains a slew of fixes for known issues such as problems with DRM-protected content, bugs causing audio content to crash and an issue causing the search box on the Language Settings page

Separate investigations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have been launched into how smartphone makers and wireless service providers handle device security updates for their customers. Following a resolution adopted by FTC commissioners Friday, the agency is ordering eight mobile device companies to submit information about how and when they decide to issue security patches for vulnerabilities. The companies that must submit responses to those orders within 45 days are Apple, BlackBerry, Google, HTC America,

One of the creators of the artificial intelligence (AI) behind Siri, the digital assistant acquired by Apple in 2010, today demonstrated a next-generation AI called Viv that he said could eventually let people "converse" with any smart device in the Internet of things. Siri creator Dag Kittlaus currently runs a San Jose startup called Viv Labs, founded with fellow Siri creator Adam Cheyer. (Another Siri creator, Tom Gruber, now works for Apple.) At the Disrupt NY 2016 tech conference in New

Live streaming video app Periscope is making a couple of changes to its video broadcast app. Periscope announced today that beginning in a few weeks all videos will be saved by default, rather than expire after 24 hours. The new functionality could have significant ramifications for companies that have struggled to find ways to use the app for promotional purposes. In addition to saving videos by default, the Twitter-owned platform also announced two other major feature changes: the ability to search

With at least four months to go before the much-anticipated iPhone 7 is released, Apple fan sites are buzzing with the latest rumor that the new device might lack the innovative Smart Connector feature. Introduced last fall with the new iPad Pro, the Smart Connector enables the transfer of both power and data between two Apple devices without the need for cords or Bluetooth pairing. For example, a Smart Keyboard connected to the iPad Pro (shown here) doesn't require any internal

A wearable technology developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University may one day make touchscreens for smart watches unnecessary as users could issue commands to their devices simply by touching their own arms. The new technology would essentially transform a user’s entire lower arm into a touchpad, capable of receiving commands traced on the skin. The system, called SkinTrack, was developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute’s Future Interfaces Group (HCII). The interface supports continuous touch tracking on both the hands

We use them every day, and they’re crucially important -- yet, far too often we’re lazy and careless about them. Passwords, and the importance of keeping them secure, are once again in the news after word emerged Wednesday of a data breach that put more than 272 million passwords and account credentials at risk. Milwaukee-based cybersecurity firm Hold Security reported that a Russian hacker had offered a tranche of 1.17 billion credentials for about $1, because the cybercriminal was more interested

In its ongoing effort to pursue enterprise markets, Apple announced yesterday that it is teaming up with SAP to develop iPhone and iPad apps for business users. As part of that partnership, the companies also plan to release a new software development kit (SDK) and launch a training academy to promote the building of native iOS apps for enterprises. Apple launched a similar partnership with IBM in 2014 to develop apps designed specifically for use in key business sectors. Under that

Almost a year after federal concerns about a cable/broadband monopoly derailed a proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC), officials yesterday gave a conditional thumbs-up to a three-way marriage of TWC, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks. Under the terms hammered out between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the newly merged company will be prohibited for seven years from charging premium interconnection fees to other broadcasters or online streaming services using its network.

Technology stocks are cooling, and that could be bad news for the world’s most valuable company. Apple Inc. warned investors this week that its quarterly earnings report will contain bad news about iPhone sales. How bad? That remains to be seen. According to its January forecast, Apple's revenue is set to drop for the first time in more than a decade as iPhone sales slow.Even though iPhone sales haven’t been great, investors hope the company’s profits, which were to be released

Judging by the responses from users on Twitter, Dropbox' new technology for accessing cloud-based files from the desktop will be a welcome and much-needed improvement. Unveiled today, the "Project Infinite" preview will let Dropbox users view all their cloud-stored files and folders from their devices without having to first launch a browser. "Dropbox Infinite is exactly what I've been looking for for several years now," Web developer Nils Riedemann wrote today in a tweet. Tech news publisher Owen Williams added, "Whoa,

Verizon Deploys OpenStack NFV in 5 U.S. Data CentersWorking with Big Switch Networks, Dell and Red Hat, Verizon said it has just wrapped up "the industry's largest-known" network functions virtualization (NFV) OpenStack cloud deployment across five of its data centers in the U.S. NFV enables network services typically provided by separate devices like routers, firewalls and load balancers to be delivered through a virtual machine environment. It's a strategy designed to lower costs and speed up deployment of services. Verizon, which announced

U.S. Health & Human Services Goes Salesforce for $100M CRM UpgradeThe Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) recently announced an agency-wide $100 million Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Salesforce subscriptions. The agreement will allow HHS operating staff and personnel in other divisions to purchase Salesforce products and services through a central purchasing vehicle. The agency said the agreement will help streamline CRM (customer relationship management) software purchasing decisions throughout the department. “Driven by the use of mobile, social and cloud technologies