Technology News - Page 41

An analyst with ties to the telecom industry called Google Inc. a bandwidth hog in a report released this week. Scott Cleland, president of Precursor LLC, a research firm bankrolled by telecom heavyweights like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., released a report on Thursday saying that Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for. The study estimates that Google accounted for 16.5% of all U.S. consumer Internet traffic this year; that number is predicted to jump to 25% in 2009 and 37% i...

Cisco Systems Inc. finds itself part of an antitrust lawsuit, although the case isn't directly trying to address the vendor's dominant position in the overall switch and router market. Instead, it has to do with Cisco allegedly making life tough for outside companies that want to provide service and maintenance to Cisco equipment and networks. The suit, filed yesterday on behalf of services company Multiven Inc. , contends that after the warranty expires, only subscribers to Cisco's Smartnet maintenan...

Cellular links offering download speeds of 42Mbits/sec, and 11Mbit/sec upload, could be available as soon as 2011, according to chipmaker Qualcomm. They will use HSPA+, the next-generation version of HSDPA and HSUPA, the download and upload varieties of 3G High Speed Packet Access links. Qualcomm showed a test HSPA link peaking at 21Mbits/sec download at a showcase event in London today. Enrico Salvatori, senior vice-president and general manager of Qualcomm Europe, said the timetable for a rollout...

Today Nokia announced its flagship smartphone for 2009, the N97. The N97 has a large 3.5-inch screen (640 x 360 pixels, 16:9 wide-screen) for touch-based input, as well as a full physical QWERTY keyboard for messaging. The N97 is the first Nseries device to have a QWERTY keyboard, which slides and tilts when open. The N97 offers an extensive set of features, including S60 5th Edition, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, dual LED flash, Carl Zeiss optics and video capture at 30fps in the 16:9 format. ...

Powerline networking is a technology that's capable of transforming an in-house mains power circuit into a home networking infrastructure. Neater than a wired network, faster than a wireless one, it's literally a 'plug-and-play' solution that's ideal for the average home. Most Powerline products are based on a HomePlug specification developed by the HomePlug Alliance and certified according to CE standards. Each device in a Powerline network requires its own plug adapter. Each plug adapter features a ...

The worm exploiting a critical Windows bug that Microsoft Corp. patched with an emergency fix in late October is being used to build a new botnet, a security researcher said today. Ivan Macalintal, a senior research engineer with Trend Micro Inc., said that the worm, which his company has dubbed "Downad.a" -- it's called "Conficker.a" by Microsoft and "Downadup" by Symantec Corp. -- is a key component in a new botnet that criminals are creating. "We think 500,000 is a ball park figure," said Macalinta...

Mozilla achieved an important milestone in November, sailing past 20% market share over an entire month for the first time since its release in November 2004. While Safari and Chrome were able to take over share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as well, Mozilla’s Firefox leaped by almost a full percentage point over October, according to data provided by Net Applications. Microsoft will need a compelling new browser rather sooner than later to slow this trend. The company’s Internet Explorer lost 1.5 poin...

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told Apple to pull a recent TV ad for its iPhone 3G after receiving complaints that it was exaggerating the speed of the device's data connection. The advert showed a close-up of the new iPhone being used to surf a news web page, view Google maps and download a file, while a voice over stated: "So what's so great about 3G? It's what helps you get the news, really fast. Find your way, really fast. And download pretty much anything, really fast. The new iPh...

Social networking company Facebook won an $873 million judgment in a case against a spammer in one of the largest awards yet for a suit filed under the CAN-SPAM Act. The suit charged Adam Guerbuez, Atlantis Blue Capital and 25 other unnamed people for falsely obtaining log-in information for Facebook users and then sending spam to those users' friends. Guerbuez and the others set up fake Facebook pages where users would enter their log-in details, which the spammers could then steal, Facebook charged...

Samsung is now mass producing 256GB solid-state drives, the manufacturer announced on Wednesday. The company first revealed the 256GB multi-level cell solid-state drives (SSDs) in May. Samsung now offers SSDs with 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities for low-density designs and 64GB, 128GB and 256GB alternatives for the higher densities, the company said in a statement. The 2.5-inch SSD is larger in capacity than any solid-state drive found in notebook computers until now. The largest equivalent hard-disk dr...

Verizon Wireless has suspended several employees who accessed account information for a flip phone formerly used by President-elect Barack Obama, the company said in a statement Thursday. The phone used by Obama was not designed for e-mail or data services and had been inactive for several months, Verizon Wireless said. Recently, Obama has frequently been seen using a BlackBerry. Verizon Wireless is investigating those workers who accessed the account with and without authorization, the company said. ...

Kingston Technology on Wednesday unveiled its DataTraveler 150 USB Flash drive with a new, higher 64GB capacity, or double that of the previous highest capacity of 32GB. The DataTraveler 150 is now the highest-capacity USB flash drive of its size in Kingston's range of offerings, enabling users to carry around more of their multimedia files and ...

It’s official: The Apple iPhone just passed the Motorola RAZR to become the top handset in the United States, according to NPD Group Inc. It takes only a few Google searches to discover what an extensive ecosystem is developing around this game-changing smartphone platform. Apple Inc.’s iPhone App Store, for instance, introduces new applications every week.

But what about the iPhone as an essential business...

Apple is facing yet another lawsuit over the performance of its iPhone 3G on US network AT&T, but with added allegations that the Cupertino-based company is ignoring the occurrence of hairline cracks in the handset’s casing. According to Apple Insider, the 23-page suit, filed in a New York district court by Nassau County resident Avi Koschitzki, joins a chorus of complaints filed earlier this year, each of which charge the iPhone maker and its exclusive US wireless carrier AT&T with misrepresenting the p...

Municipal WiFi died in mid-2007 due to overinflated expectations, impossible city requirements, and the sheer limits of WiFi's capabilities. Or did it? Meraki, a startup born out of a mesh-networking project at MIT, thinks that $10,000 and two months' trial may change some cities' minds as they grow a network organically in San Francisco. While it may seem that municipal networking was a flame-out if you read the coverage or lived in a city with service during the last round of muni WiFi hype, from the a...