Latest Computer and IT Support Industry News

New medical device, powered wirelessly via electromagnetic radio waves, could be used as a diagnostic or surgical tool.

This morning, Google announced some added features to its Google Docs app for Android that will surely make frequent users of the online office suite happy: most notably, the updated version will now allow collaboration on documents from Android phones or tablets. Previously, Google Docs opened in the app were restricted to a single user, but mobile users can now see real-time updates to shared text.

Other features now available to owners of Android devices include rich text editing, so you can bold and italicize text, highlight sections of your document, or indent paragraphs. The UI in the app has changed a bit, and the rich-text editing icons at the top are simple and scroll in a single bar across the top of the document.

Google also now permits “pinch to zoom” across all types of items in its app (like presentations, PDFs, and spreadsheets, as well as documents) so you can control how much larger or smaller the text appears, unlike the previous Google Docs interface which basically gave you two options: a double tap to zoom in, and a double tap to zoom out.

Google's app still doesn't allow you to collaborate on spreadsheets in real-time (although multiple people can open the spreadsheet, you still have to click "refresh" to see any changes made by others). The new mobile collaboration tool follows an update about a month ago that permitted users to view, but not edit, Google docs offline on mobile devices.

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Intel is opening up its manufacturing facilities to third parties, as it takes the further tentative steps toward building a chip-to-order foundry business. The microprocessor giant announced last year that it would build FPGAs for Achronix Semiconductor, and on Tuesday a second FPGA designer, Tabula, said that it would have its chips built by Intel.

In its announcement, Tabula emphasized that it would be using Intel's cutting-edge 22nm process with 3D trigate transistors. Intel's manufacturing capabilities are world-leading, with none of the established microprocessor foundries—including TSMC, UMC, and AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries—able to match the company's process.

Compared to the 28 and 32nm processes offered by the competition, Intel's 22nm process should offer higher speeds with lower power usage, at lower cost. The company will start shipping its first 22nm x86 processors, codenamed Ivy Bridge, in the coming months.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy says that the company has had other foundry customers in addition to the two that have gone public.

The foundry business is a double-edge sword for Intel. On the one hand, having additional customers gives the chip-maker the ability to keep the factories churning out processors even if demand for new PC chips is low. This makes it easier to recoup its substantial manufacturing investments.

On the other hand, Intel's process advantage is a key part of its competitive advantage: it can build complex chips on a process that's more refined and more advanced than anyone else in the industry. With the company unlikely to want to squander that advantage, it may find its customer base limited.

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Over the past week, Google has been called out for bypassing default privacy settings in both Safari and Internet Explorer in order to serve up advertising cookies. The two cases were quite different. With Safari, Google acknowledged the problem and said it was an accident. With Internet Explorer, Google said it was using the best available workaround for an outdated browser privacy technology that limits the capabilities of modern websites—and noted that thousands of other websites do much the same thing to get past IE's privacy policy.

Despite the differences, each case demonstrates one thing that may be troubling to Web users: privacy settings in browsers can be easily circumvented. There are few technological barriers preventing companies like Google and Facebook from tracking users to serve up personalized ads, and there are few legal barriers as well.

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A few days after I received my PlayStation Vita review unit in the mail, I got a set of six plastic cards with boxy black and white patterns on them. The free "augmented reality" games that rely on those cards were made available for download on the PlayStation Network today, and while the games definitely take place on a backdrop of reality, I'm not really sure how much the real world is being "augmented" through the Vita.

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The makers of the most widely used mobile app stores have agreed to comply with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced the agreement today with Apple and Google, which run the two most popular mobile app stores, as well as Amazon, HP, Microsoft, and Research In Motion.

"These platforms have agreed to privacy principles designed to bring the industry in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy," Harris's office said in a press release. "The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy."

The agreement doesn't place restrictions on what types of data app makers may collect. But app makers must describe "how personal data is collected, used and shared," and make their privacy policies easily found by users. App store listings will contain either the text of the privacy policy or a link to the policy.

There have been several controversies over mobile app privacy, and one of the most recent centered on the social network Path accessing and uploading iPhone users' contact databases without permission. Harris noted that a Wall Street Journal report last year found "that 45 of the top 101 apps did not provide privacy policies either inside the application or on the application developer’s website," despite the fact that most of the mobile apps were transmitting a phone's unique device ID or location "to other companies without users' awareness or consent." Some apps were also transmitting the user's age, gender, and other personal details.

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A report says that drained batteries in five Tesla Roadsters required battery pack replacements. Tesla counters that it takes multiple measures to avoid the problem.

Apple has given developers yet another few months to implement application sandboxing for OS X apps, a security feature brought over from iOS: the deadline is now June 1, 2012. While the intent of sandboxing is to prevent hacked apps from taking over a user's system, however, the sandbox design inherently limits functionality that users and developers have come to expect on the desktop. Apple's changes and delays to sandboxing requirements have also created a situation where the sandboxing goalpost keeps moving while developers continue to push Apple to improve its design.

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The nation's fourth-largest cellular firm has asked the Federal Communications Commission to block a spectrum acquisition by its largest competitor. T-Mobile argues that allowing Verizon to purchase more spectrum would make it too difficult for smaller wireless firms to build next-generation networks of their own.

The spectrum under dispute was acquired in an auction by a coalition of cable companies led by Comcast and Time Warner in 2006. But the cable firms have apparently decided they don't want to be in the wireless business after all. In December, Verizon Wireless announced plans to buy the spectrum, which is in the AWS band, for $3.6 billion.

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Since September, scientists have been scratching their head over results that appear to show neutrinos traveling between Switzerland and Italy faster than light would. As far as anyone could tell, the team behind the results had done everything they could to eliminate errors, and had even released some preliminary data that had strengthened their results. But the results remained difficult to square with everything else we know about how the Universe operates.

But now, ScienceInsider is reporting that there was a good reason the measurements and reality weren't lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos' flight to produce spurious results. If the report is confirmed (right now, there's only one source), then it provides a simple explanation for the fascinating-yet-difficult-to-accept results. According to the new report, researchers are preparing to gather new data with the clocks properly hooked into computers, which should definitively indicate whether the loose connection was at fault.

It's somewhat ironic that ScienceInsider, which is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, broke the news now. Over the weekend, the AAAS held its annual meeting, which included a discussion of the biggest news in physics, where the neutrino results were highlighted. The session indicated that five different neutrino experiments were upgrading their hardware in order to check timing, and some would have data before the year is out. So even if this report doesn't pan out, we should know more soon.

At the AAAS meeting's discussion, CERN's director of research, Sergio Bertolucci, placed his bet on what the results would be: "I have difficulty to believe it, because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time."

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The draft of the federal budget for 2013 takes an ax to the rival Global Hawk program. An Air Force general says the U-2, a design that dates to the 1950s, is "the stronger system."

The Pentagon, smitten with the Global Hawk drone, had been ready to ground the U-2 fleet for good. But the latest Air Force budget proposal tells a different tale.

Here's a prickly subject if ever there was one: while with keyboards you could reasonably argue for the superiority of using mechanical switches over traditional rubber-dome membrane keys, mice are much, much more a matter of preference. A mouse could have all the features you're looking for, but if the grip isn't right or the texture makes you hand clammy the whole enterprise can be a bust. Understanding how delicate the balancing act of a good mouse can be, Corsair has come up with matching mice for their new gaming keyboards.

The new Vengeance M60 is geared for FPS players with an innovative "Sniper" button while the M90 targets MMO players who'll use as many configurable buttons as they can find. Do they work out in practice, though? Read on for our thoughts on these two new mice.

SmartPlanet's Sumi Das looks at new shoes from Aetrex that could help caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease or dementia find them if they wander off.

The prospects for quick European approval of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement dimmed Wednesday as the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, announced plans to seek an opinion from the European Court of Justice about ACTA's constitutionality.

In a statement, Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship, reiterated her commitment to "a freely accessible Internet" and "freedom of expression and freedom of information via the Internet." She said the EC has decided to ask the ECJ for an opinion to "clarify that the ACTA agreement and its implementation must be fully compatible with freedom of expression and freedom of the Internet."

"I believe that putting ACTA before the European Court of Justice is a needed step," Commissioner Karel De Gucht wrote in a Wednesday press release explaining the move. "This debate must be based upon facts and not upon the misinformation or rumor that has dominated social media sites and blogs in recent weeks."

"Intellectual property is Europe's main raw material, but the problem is that we currently struggle to protect it outside the European Union," De Gucht wrote. "This hurts our companies, destroys jobs and harms our economies. This is where ACTA will change something for all of us—as it will help protect jobs that are currently lost because counterfeited and pirated goods worth 200 billion Euros are floating around on the world markets."

The European Commission has traditionally been a strong supporter of the ACTA agreement. The executive body adopted the treaty in December, and it is due to be considered by the European Parliament later this year. Presumably, the commission hopes that a favorable ruling from the high court will ease the agreement's passage by rebutting critics' charges that ACTA threatens Internet freedom.

But the decision to seek a judicial opinion could also further delay consideration of the treaty, giving opponents more time to organize against it.

ACTA opponents have been particularly effective in Poland, where the government suspended ratification of the treaty earlier this month. As our sister site Wired has reported, online activists persuaded Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to participate in a 7-hour online conversation about ACTA on Twitter, Facebook, and even IRC. Last week, Tusk repudiated his earlier support for ACTA and called on other European nations to reject the treaty as well.

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Nokia is gearing up for some big smartphone announcements at Mobile World Congress next week, and not all are related to Windows Phone. In addition to a few Windows Phone handsets, the company is also teasing a camera-centric Symbian phone with one of the largest camera sensors on a mobile phone yet.

First, the Symbian outlier: the Nokia 803 will have a large imaging sensor that will be Nokia's big step up to 1080p video, according to PocketNow. With a 4-inch AMOLED screen, the phone will be an all-touchscreen successor to the Nokia N8, a phone revered for its photo prowess. Nokia's teaser commercial offers little information, but has some 1080p shots of winter scenes.

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This summer, the Gates Foundation will present hygienic innovations developed through its Reinventing the Toilet Challenge.

After months of controversy over Facebook's removal of certain pictures, the guidelines describing which ones should be taken down have been 'leaked'.

Trying to pass unconstitutional restrictions on a burgeoning artistic medium is not cheap. Just ask the state of California, which will end up paying $1.8 million in attorney's fees in its failed effort to restrict violent game sales to children with a law that was overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

It was widely reported last month that the state would be paying $950,000 to cover legal costs for the Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association, which argued against the law. But that number didn't take into account nearly $300,000 the state had paid to industry defenders during earlier court battles, and $500,000 it spent on its own side of the legal battle, as The Sacramento Bee recently reported.

But there are no regrets from the sponsor of the bill. "When you fight the good fight for a cause you know is right and just, and it's about protecting kids, you don't ever regret that," bill sponsor Leland Yee told The Bee. "I think we felt the issue was so important that it warranted the costs associated with it," former California deputy attorney general Jim Humes added.

And while the legal costs are a drop in the bucket compared to the state's massive annual budget of over $92 billion, some say legislators should have known that the law would end up being a waste of time and money. "I think it's fair to say the industry warned the state that they were just getting themselves into a big legal mess and they would end up having to pay attorney fees—and that's exactly what happened," game industry attorney Paul M. Smith told The Bee.

The good news is that states seem unlikely to waste taxpayer money on this specific issue in the future. The 7-2 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the California law was very clear in granting games full First Amendment protections, setting a precedent that other states seem unlikely to challenge directly. But that doesn't mean they won't try to find other ways to limit the impact of games they deem objectionable, as proven by an Oklahoma representative's recent efforts to add a surtax on games rated T and up.

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Intel 313 Series SSDs (also known as "Hawley Creek") were originally scheduled for Q4'11 release but obviously they were delayed. VR-Zone is now claiming that the release will take place alongside the Ivy Bridge processors and the 7-series chipsets. That could mean an April release, though there are also rumors of a delayed IVB launch. Either way, here's a quick rundown of the upcoming 313 SSDs.

The 313 Series is the successor of the 311 Series (or Larson Creek if you prefer codenames), which is a 20GB SLC NAND SSD meant for caching with Intel's Z68 chipset with Smart Response Technology (SRT). SRT will be even more useful with the Ivy Bridge platform because there will be widespread support among the 7-series chipsets: two of the three consumer desktop chipsets (Z77 and H77) will feature SRT, along with one of the business chipsets (Q77). We will also finally see mobile chipsets with support for SRT.

The major change with the 313 Series is that it will switch to 25nm SLC NAND and offer a 24GB model, but otherwise we are looking at a product very similar to 311 Series. The controller is Intel's own, but that's all we know for certain. Most likely the controller is the same as in 310, 311, and 320 Series, i.e. Intel PC29AS21BA0, because Intel's roadmap shows no plans for any other SATA 3Gb/s SSDs. It wouldn't make much sense to make a new SATA 3Gb/s controller just for one product, or to create a new SATA 3Gb/s controller in general at this point. Unfortunately we don't have any performance figures but given that the controller should be the same, the performance should be on par with 311 Series—the 24GB model should have slightly higher write speeds as it uses six NAND channels while the 20GB model uses only five.

Comparison of Intel 311 Series and 313 Series NAND Intel 25nm SLC Intel 34nm SLC Capacities 20GB, 24GB 20GB Interface SATA 3Gb/s SATA 3Gb/s Controller Intel PC29AS21BA0 (?) Intel PC29AS21BA0 Form Factors 2.5", mSATA 2.5", mSATA Sequential Read N/A 200MB/s Sequential Write N/A 105MB/s Random Read N/A 37K IOPS Random Write N/A 3.3K IOPS

As for pricing, VR-Zone is claiming a suggested retail price of $99 (20GB) and $119 (24GB). For comparison 20GB 311 Series had an MRSP of $110 and retails for ~$120 now, so a ~$10 price drop sounds plausible. A few German retailers have already listed the 24GB model and it's selling for around €104 without tax, which translates to ~$138, but Euro prices tend to run higher than USD. Moreover, one of the sellers is listing availability as 2-3 weeks so 313 Series may hit the retail channel sooner than April. However, some of the retailers are listing the SSDs as OEM models, which explains the early availability and possibly high pricing as well.