Computing » Tactile Gaming and Telepresence Androids

Highlights from the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. The SIGGRAPH conference, which takes place in Vancouver, Canada, this year, is a showcase for the latest research in computer graphics, interfaces, and design. These images were captured using a new kind of video camera developed by Contrast Optical and the University of New Mexico that is able to mimic the human eye’s ability to capture details from both bright and dark features simultaneously....

Tech News » Getting People with Disabilities Back to Work

 Companies and advocacy groups are stepping up efforts to provide jobs for the rising number of unemployed people with disabilities AT&T (T), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Microsoft (MSFT), and a host of other big U.S. companies will meet in November with 60 prospective employees at an event in Morristown, N.J. This is no ordinary networking schmoozefest. These would-be staffers are capable of handling a broad range of information technology jobs—from...

Tech News » Hiring Like It's 1999

 Cities with the Biggest Growth in Tech Jobs Michael De Frenza scans the crowd of 50 or so well-dressed professionals mingling near a bar at the W Hotel in San Francisco’s South of Market District. De Frenza, a recent transplant to the Bay Area, is here in search not of a date—but of a job. In the five weeks since De Frenza, 34, returned to the area after a two-year stint in Toronto, he has received five offers. “I’m taking my time trying to...

Tech News » HTML5 Seems To Be Gaining Momentum

With Google, Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Vudu, and even Microsoft embracing HTML5, these are exciting times for vendors, developers and consumers Sometimes I can’t help myself. After spending years in the trenches as a reporter, any time I see three or more information blurbs about a technology or a company, I immediately think of it as a trend. This time, I’m making a somewhat obvious observation—well, obvious for most of our readers, at...

Tech News » Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google Inc. is buying cell phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in cash. It's by far Google's biggest acquisition and a sign the online search leader is serious about expanding beyond its core Internet business and setting the agenda in the fast-growing mobile market. Google will pay $40.00 per share, a 63 percent premium to Motorola's closing price on Friday. Google's Android operating system...

Internet » Software: Goldman Chops Estimates On Macro Weakness

caution sign Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini On Friday reduced estimates and price targets for most of the companies she covers, citing signing of slowing in the broad economy. "As the market and our economists forecast a lower global growth trajectory and stock valuations are being similarly lowered, we look across our sector to evaluate exposure to a slowing economy," she writes in a research note. "We are lowering our estimates and...

Internet » The Future of Digital Journalism is Transactions

There is a framed movie poster sitting on a radiator in my office almost directly across from my desk. I can't help but see it every day, all the time. It's an original "one-sheet" (creases and all) that was used in theaters to promote All the President's Men, the tale of Watergate, Richard Nixon, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. I was a reporter for the University of Iowa student newspaper back then. It's why I got into the news business -- and...

Internet » Nokia jumps as Motorola Mobility bid rekindles M&A hopes

  General view of the Nokia flagship store in Helsinki July 18, 2011. REUTERS/Jussi Helttunen/Lehitikuva Nokia's shares have fallen around 45 percent since the start of the year, prompting some speculation the stock could be getting cheap enough to tempt a bidder. The company, once the leader in smartphones, has been losing market share in both high-end devices and cheaper phones. Google said it was paying around $12.5 billion in cash,...

Computing » Microsoft's 'Linux Threat Level': Down to Green or Redder Than Ever?

"Those tablets and smartphones and web-based apps and ChromeOS laptops with their Google DNA and Linux underpinnings are all direct threats to the Windows OS, so I wouldn't say this is a downgrading of Linux, but an acceptance that Google is going to be the primary way that most people will adopt Linux without realizing it," said Slashdot blogger Barbara Hudson. Now that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) wants to be Linux's new best friend, there's bound...

Computing » Is InfoSec Ready for Big Data?

"Big data" is the logical outgrowth of increased use of virtualization technology, cloud computing and data center consolidation. What organizations are finding as they centralize resources like storage is that they've produced quite a lot of data -- in some cases, even exabytes of data. We're seeing scenarios play out where traditional security tools no longer provide the kind of value they have historically. Over the past few decades, most...