2007 October:   Computing
Anchor:   Base Index
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Topics:    Companies  embedded  history  machinery  modelling  operating systems  projects  robots  security  simulation  skills  software  speech  systems  translation  video gaming
Companies(see also in Internet) last  down  top   back  on

Bloomberg, Reuters, and AP, IBM to recycle chips for solar panels, IHT, 2007 Oct. 30 (IBM said that recycling the three million silicon wafers - the thin disks used to build computer chips - discarded each year could power 6,000 homes and help generate 13.5 megawatts of power)
Philip Hopkins, Say you want a revolution? IT guys have their guns ready, The Age, 2007 Oct. 26 (when the three directors of Revolution IT set up their company four years ago, they started operating out of a spare bedroom)
Jack Schofield, How the world learned to love Apple and its Macs, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 25 (Apple produced a stunning set of financial results on Monday, with one big surprise ... the Macintosh computers were the stars of the show)
John Markoff, Record Mac sales help Apple earnings climb 67% in quarter, IHT, 2007 Oct. 23 (Apple reported earnings on Monday that leapt ahead of analysts' already optimistic expectations on record sales of its Macintosh computers)
John Markoff, As Apple gains PC market share, Jobs talks of a decade of upgrades, IHT, 2007 Oct. 22 (two research firms that track the computer market said last week that Apple would move into third place in the United States behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell on Monday, when it reports product shipments in the fiscal fourth quarter as part of its earnings announcement)
Computer software: Programmed for a fight, Economist, 2007 Oct. 20 (Oracle and SAP are battling to dominate the business-software market)
Andrew Clark, IBM and Intel report massive profit surges, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 17 (buoyant demand for software and microchips swells bottom lines of American technology companies)
Laptop demand lifts Intel profits, BBC, 2007 Oct. 16 (chipmaker Intel sees its latest profits surge 43%, lifted by strong demand for its laptop microprocessors)
Nick Miller, I am green and IT'll do fine, The Age, 2007 Oct. 16 (companies may want to "green" their IT but many CIOs just don't know where to start, says Melbourne IT consultant Alison O'Flynn)
New deals bolster Infosys profits, BBC, 2007 Oct. 11 (Indian outsourcing firm Infosys has seen a sharp rise in profits after winning a batch of new business and opening operations in lower-cost areas)
Google, IBM back 'cloud students', BBC, 2007 Oct. 9 (Google and IBM are partnering on an effort to help students get to grips with net-scale computing projects)
Kevin J O'Brien, SAP shares drop after software maker announces €4.8 billion acquisition, IHT, 2007 Oct. 8 (a €4.8 billion deal that would combine SAP, the world leader in business management software, with Business Objects, the leader in data mining software, got mixed reviews Monday from investors)
Health care: The vault is open, Economist, 2007 Oct. 6 (Microsoft makes its big move into health care)
Halo maker parts from Microsoft, BBC, 2007 Oct. 5 (Bungie, the developers of the popular Halo series, are to part company with owners Microsoft)
Victoria Shannon, Microsoft looks to become major player in ad world, IHT, 2007 Oct. 2 ("over time, all ad money will go through a digital ad platform," Steve Ballmer told a gathering of European ad agencies and clients; "all media goes digital, all advertising goes digital")
Sony in memory chip joint venture, BBC, 2007 Oct. 2 (Sony forms a joint venture with Germany's Qimonda to design memory chips for mobiles and digital cameras)
Embedded Computers and Robots up  down  top   back  on

Leon Gettler, The future is here right now, if you can read the signs, The Age, 2007 Oct. 22 (it's the year 2040 and Ray Hammond is getting advice from his software assistant Maria)
AP, Ageing Japanese turn to robots, The Age, 2007 Oct. 5 (greying Japanese are served food by a robot, ride voice-recognition wheelchairs and hire nurses in robotic suits)
History up  down  top   back  on

Stephen Fry, Weekend: Welcome to dork talk, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 27 (he owns the second ever Macintosh computer sold in Europe, and has never met a smartphone he hasn't bought; to introduce his new column, Fry explains why he's deeply dippy for all things digital)
Liz Todd, Meet the time lord of technology, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 11 (Sellam Ismail has been collecting rare computers since he was a child; how an expensive hobby transformed into a lucrative business opportunity)
Graeme Philipson, The Boston IT party, The Age, 2007 Oct. 2 (you've all heard of Silicon Valley; it's where it all began, right?; well, not quite)
Machinery up  down  top   back  on

Drew Robb, Are Mainframes Making a Comeback?, Datamation, 2007 Oct 30 (instead of giving way to client/server and Web applications, in many cases, mainframes are now driving the applications)
Uruguay buys first '$100 laptops', BBC, 2007 Oct. 29 (Uruguay becomes the first country to place an order for the low-cost children's laptops)
AFP and AP, 839 trillion calculations per second. Beat that IBM!, The Age, 2007 Oct. 27 (Japan's NEC Corp has announced the launch of what it called the world's most powerful supercomputer on the market, meant for advanced use in the sciences)
Tiny chips flash memory advance, BBC, 2007 Oct. 23 (electronics giant Samsung shows off what it claims is the world's most powerful flash memory chip)
Hand-held supercomputers 'on way', BBC, 2007 Oct. 21 (experts at a Scottish university say they have paved the way for the creation of tiny supercomputers which could fit in the palm of the hand)
Victoria Shannon, Hewlett-Packard shifts strategy on printers, IHT, 2007 Oct. 18 (Vyomesh Joshi wants to take Hewlett-Packard's Web-based printing company, Snapfish, and extend its model of online services to all of its other print markets, like businesses, signs and professional publications, as well as Internet community sites)
Jack Schofield, Is the £199 laptop a PC or an appliance?, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (the Asus laptop is more than just a computer: it's a return to the idea of the closed box and an attempt to get the next billion users)
Katie Cincotta, Fair trade, The Age, 2007 Oct. 18 (cast-off computers are finding a second life bringing Third World communities into the digital age)
Drive advance fuels terabyte era, BBC, 2007 Oct. 15 (a single hard drive with four terabytes of storage could be a reality by 2011, says Japanese firm Hitachi)
Conrad Walters, Electronic future for farms, The Age, 2007 Oct. 1 (a network of electronic sensors could one day allow farmers to monitor every animal and every hectare of pasture land, all through a laptop computer on the farmhouse veranda)
Operating Systems(see also Software) up  down  top   back  on

Reuters, Microsoft sees window of opportunity in low-cost laptop, The Age, 2007 Oct. 27 (Microsoft has made progress in getting its Windows software to work on a low-cost laptop computer for poor children)
David Gow, Microsoft gives up three-year battle to keep Windows closed to rivals, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 23 (huge price cuts accepted to end long-running case; open source groups will get interoperability info)
John Naughton, In millions of Windows, the perfect Storm is gathering, Observer, 2007 Oct. 21 (a spectre is haunting the net but, outside of techie circles, nobody seems to be talking about it)
Julia Finch and Graeme Wearden, DSG warns Microsoft flop has cost £20m in lost profits, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (PC World and Currys group says sales of Vista have disappointed)
Wendy M Grossman, Linux community faces new uncertainty, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (new patent claim heralds "the start of a new anti-Linux campaign")
Apple sets Leopard release date, BBC, 2007 Oct. 17 (the update to Apple's OS X operating system will be released on 26 October)
Larry Magid, The next leap for LINUX, IHT, 2007 Oct. 4 (Ubuntu, like some other Linux distributions, comes with a lot of free software, including OpenOffice, an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite with a full-featured word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation program)
Projects and Systems up  down  top   back  on

Tania Branigan and Patrick Wintour, Ministers ignored calls to improve migration figures, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 31 (government warned of glaring faults in system; tens of millions needed to improve accuracy)
Fiona Walsh, IBM snatches C-charge from Capita, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 25 (Capita shares tumble after it loses the London congestion charge contract)
Michael Cross, Computers must abolish bureaucracy, not duplicate it, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (the government will only start saving money with IT when computers enable it to abolish bureaucratic process, not duplicate them)
Security(see also in Internet and Technology) up  down  top   back  on

PC stripper helps spam to spread, BBC, 2007 Oct. 30 (spammers have turned to virtual strippers in a bid to defeat security measures on web-based e-mail accounts)
Quantum cryptography: Heisenberg's certainty principle, Economist, 2007 Oct. 20 (the Swiss are using quantum theory to make their election more secure)
Victor Keegan, What do criminals know about you?, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (banks don't take identity theft very seriously, while the criminals are getting more sophisticated)
Reuters, Adobe Acrobat Reader vulnerable to hacks, The Age, 2007 Oct. 12 (Adobe Systems, whose software is used by millions of people to read documents sent over the internet, said on Wednesday some of its programs contain yet-to-be-fixed flaws that make computers vulnerable to attack)
Paul Austin, Anger at new email blunder, The Age, 2007 Oct. 9 (sensitive emails to a senior state Liberal MP about Parliament's inquiry into the gaming industry have been wrongly sent to a Government departmental official, the latest breach of security in the parliamentary communications system)
James Reynolds, Viruses 'hit 1m China computers', BBC, 2007 Oct. 8 (three computer viruses crash almost one million machines in China, according to state media reports)
Battle to beat fake Ebay e-mails, BBC, 2007 Oct. 4 (fake eBay and Paypal e-mails which are used to con users out of money are being targeted by a secure mail system)
Claudia Dreifus, Digital forensics: Proving that seeing shouldn't always be believing, IHT, 2007 Oct. 2 (the purpose of digital forensics is to discover how computerized forgeries are made)
Clare Dyer, Europe's concern over UK data protection 'defects' revealed, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 1 (European Commission threatens legal action against the UK government for failing to properly safeguard personal data)
Simulation and Modelling up  down  top   back  on

Biology: All systems go, Economist, 2007 Oct. 27 (a complete understanding of biological processes means putting the bits back together again—and that is what systems biologists are trying to do, by using the results of a zillion analytical experiments to build software models that behave like parts of living organisms)
Eric Pfanner, Serious Games Institute shows applications for the real world, IHT, 2007 Oct. 21 (the Serious Games Institute says that it is one of the first places dedicated to helping businesses enhance their own operations by harnessing virtual worlds for things like training, communication and emergency planning)
Game software could boost airport security, New Scientist, 2007 Oct. 14 (computer games might provide patrol guards with more effective routes to patrol in the fight against crime and terrorism)
Alok Jha, Sabre-toothed cat a fearsome killer with the bite of a moggy, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 2 (by using a computer modelling technique scientists have compared Smilodon fossils with modern lion skulls)
Skills(see also Video gaming and in Education) up  down  top   back  on

Nick Miller, World IT workforce balloons but Australian growth slow, The Age, 2007 Oct. 19 (spending on IT will increase twice as fast as the world's economy in the next four years, and the IT workforce will increase more than three times faster than the global average, according to a report from market intelligence and advisory firm IDC)
Duncan Jefferies, Games which aren't fun but are useful, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 ('serious games' that use gaming technology and techniques have emerged as the useful training tool that virtual reality was hoped to be)
Bridie Smith, Would you like an online tutor with that?, The Age, 2007 Oct. 8 (students who work at McDonald's will be given free access to online maths tutoring, as the fast-food chain tries to stem the number of young people who take time off work to prepare for exams)
Justin Norrie, Digital beauty for Japan's new breed of gamer girls, The Age, 2007 Oct. 5 (Nintendo has discovered a profitable market in targeting women)
Software(see also Operating Systems) up  down  top   back  on

xx, zz zz, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 25 (as bandwidth increases, a compelling SDK should emerge that will provide developers with a standard interface for online apps)
Computer software: Programmed for a fight, Economist, 2007 Oct. 20 (Oracle and SAP are battling to dominate the business-software market)
Matt Richtel, Apple loosens its grip on iPhone software, The Age, 2007 Oct. 19 (Apple has changed its policy and will encourage independent developers to create programs for use on the iPhone)
Jack Schofield, Real word processing on the web, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 8 (computer applications are moving online, but are they actually useful yet?)
Tim Anderson, WordPress makes a stand for open source morality, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 11 (WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg explains how the fledgling blogware success proves that resisting the advertisers can pay greater dividends)
Google, IBM back 'cloud students', BBC, 2007 Oct. 9 (Google and IBM are partnering on an effort to help students get to grips with net-scale computing projects)
Claudia Dreifus, Digital forensics: Proving that seeing shouldn't always be believing, IHT, 2007 Oct. 2 (the purpose of digital forensics is to discover how computerized forgeries are made)
Adobe challenges Word on the web, BBC, 2007 Oct. 1 (Adobe joins a growing list of firms offering free online alternatives to conventional office software)
Speech Processing and Translation(see also in Social) up  down  top   back  on

Anna Bawden, A voice for the speechless, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 9 (up to 100,000 children need electronic aids to communicate; there just aren't enough to go round)
Video Gaming(see also Skills and in Social) up   first    top   back  on

Virtual worlds threaten 'values', BBC, 2007 Oct. 28 (the growing number of toy-themed virtual worlds aimed at young people risks undermining the basic human values we wish to instil in children)
David Smith, Interview: 'Kids know more than we realise', Observer, 2007 Oct. 28 (in her first interview as head of a government review of video games' effect on children, TV psychologist Tanya Byron says that being a mother will help in her new role)
Laura Barton, The Game Boy racers taking over our roads, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 22 (a car journey can seem increasingly like partaking in a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto)
Darren Waters, EA wants 'open gaming platform', BBC, 2007 Oct. 19 (rival gaming systems should make way for a single open platform, a senior executive at Electronic Arts says)
AP, British spy agency to embed ads in video games in search for recruits, IHT, 2007 Oct. 18 (GCHQ, the surveillance arm of British intelligence, said Thursday it hopes to attract computer-savvy young recruits by embedding job ads within video games such as "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent.")
Keith Stuart, Advice on making in-game adverts work, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 18 (advertising in games is now big business, or so the analysts tell us)
Jason Hill, Cash for kills, The Age, 2007 Oct. 18 (a new Australian shooting game lets players earn cash for kills)
Reuters, 'Assassin's Creed' video game attracts buzz for holiday season, IHT, 2007 Oct. 11 ("Assassin's Creed," an adventure game in which a Crusades-era hit man stalks and kills targets, could be one of the biggest titles this holiday season)
John Sterlicchi, Nintendo's Wii console captures new game market, Guardian, 2007 Oct. 10 (alpha mothers, pre-teen girls, senior citizens ... these are just three groups the video games company is targeting this coming Christmas)
Industry reacts to games review, BBC, 2007 Oct. 9 (the government is launching a review into video games, violence and children, headed by psychologist Dr Tanya Byron; the review will also look at how to protect young people from net pornography)
Games violence study is launched, BBC, 2007 Oct. 9 (the government is asking for evidence for a new study of the effect of violent computer games on children)
Justin Norrie, Digital beauty for Japan's new breed of gamer girls, The Age, 2007 Oct. 5 (Nintendo has discovered a profitable market in targeting women)
Nick Miller, Telstra's $1m winner is a pile of poo, The Age, 2007 Oct. 3 (Telstra is about to invest $1 million in a crap idea for a video game)
Paul Rubens, In defence of computer games, BBC, 2007 Sep. 26 (Halo 3's launch marks a milestone on the journey of video games from niche hobby to cultural phenomenon; yet those who don't play can be dismissive; can the myths be laid to rest?)