Google Reader was doomed to fail from the very beginning: the company never really believed in it and it took big effort on part of a small team to make it work. Chris Wetherell, original creator & part of the Reader team reflects on past & the future. Meanwhile, InfoWorld reports that over 28,000 users of Google Reader have signed a new online petition imploring Google not to pull the plug on Google Reader.
China Mobile expects to boost its capital expenditure by half this year to Rmb190.2 billion ($30.6 billion) as the world’s largest telecom carrier by subscribers invests heavily to prepare for the launch of fourth-generation mobile services. China Mobile intends to expand its 4G trials from 15 cities last year to 100 cities this year to reach 500 million people. The government announced earlier this month that it expects to issue 4G licenses by the end of this year.
Applications for smartphones and tablets can pose “significant” privacy risks for consumers if they aren’t aware of how their personal data is used, European Union privacy regulators said.
“Although app developers want to provide new and innovative services, the apps may have significant risks to the private life and reputation of users of smart devices if they do not comply with EU data-protection law,” the EU’s 27 data- protection watchdogs said in a joint opinion, according to a statement on the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s website. The EU regulators said users “must be in control of their own personal data” and informed how it’s used when they download an app. Everyone involved in developing mobile software programs “has a set of important responsibilities to create a safe, secure and data-protection-compliant app environment,” said the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, the umbrella group for national privacy authorities in the EU.
Shares in Carlos Slim’s América Móvil fell sharply as investors saw tougher competition ahead in the home market of Latin America’s biggest telecoms operator.
The fall comes as Mexico’s new centrist administration announced a sweeping proposal to place strict limits on the country’s largest telecoms and broadcasting companies. The plan, which aims to introduce more competition, consists of creating a strong regulator with the power to classify as “dominant” any company in those sectors with more than 50 percent of the market. The regulator would then be able to impose an arsenal of measures on dominant companies from asymmetric regulations and pricing to favor smaller players to, in some cases, even forced asset sales. At the same time, the changes would make it much harder for companies to sidestep regulations or fines by using the courts – a common practice until now. América Móvil, the mobile operator that the 73-year-old Slim spun off from his Telmex fixed-line company in 2001, now controls about 70 percent of Mexico’s mobile telephone market. Telmex controls about 80 percent of all fixed-lines.
Vodafone and France Telecom have teamed up to build a €1 billion fiber network in Spain to challenge Telefónica in the high-speed broadband market.
The two companies want to build fiber to reach 6 million premises across 50 major cities by September 2017 under the deal, which will still need permission to use Telefónica’s network to reach individual homes. Vodafone and Orange will each deploy fiber in separate but complementary areas to share the network scale. The fiber lines will be owned independently but will work as a single network. The combined capital expenditure needed to reach 6m homes and workplaces is expected to reach €1 billion, according to the companies. The move will allow Vodafone and Orange to offer their own high speed broadband services to customers, in addition to bundled services with mobile, fixed line and TV that are becoming increasingly important in gaining and keeping customers.
Cyber security threats against the United States are growing, President Barack Obama said before meeting corporate leaders to discuss rising concerns about hacking attacks emanating from China.
"What is absolutely true is that we have seen a steady ramping up of cyber security threats," President Obama said in an interview with ABC, noting that some threats were "state sponsored." "We've made it very clear to China and some other state actors that, you know, we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules," the President said. President Obama took the unusual step of meeting with corporate chief executives in the White House Situation Room, the secure site in the West Wing basement where the president meets with national security advisers during crises. The meeting included Honeywell International's David Cote, AT&T's Randall Stephenson, and Northrop Grumman's Wes Bush.
Two representatives from the financial and energy sectors called on Congress to pass legislation that would increase the flow of data shared between the government and industry about cyber threats.
"At the end of the day, we need to know what's going on and what's affecting us," said Anish Bhimani, chief information risk officer of JPMorgan Chase, who testified on behalf of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center at a House hearing. Bhimani told members of the House Homeland Security Committee that companies need to receive data from the government about online threats in a timely manner so they can thwart cyberattacks in real time. "What we care most about is that we're able to receive actionable, timely information from whoever has it," he said. Gary Hayes, chief information officer of CenterPoint Energy, said cybersecurity legislation needs to be flexible enough so it can apply to both small and large businesses. "One size fits all is not appropriate," he said.
The White House welcomed China's willingness to hold talks with Washington about cyber security threats. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon called on China to acknowledge the scope of the problem and enter a dialogue on ways to establish acceptable behavior. China said it was willing "on the basis of the principles of mutual respect and mutual trust" to discuss the issue.
For a 25-year-old computer whiz enlisted in a People's Liberation Army hacking unit, life was all about low pay, drudgery and social isolation.
Nothing at all like the unkempt hackers of popular imagination, the young man wore a military uniform at work in Shanghai. He lived in a dorm where meals often consisted of instant ramen noodles. The workday ran from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., although hackers were often required to work late into the evening. With no money and little free time, he found solace on the Internet. He shopped, chatted with friends and courted a girlfriend. He watched movie and television shows. He drew particular inspiration from the Fox series "Prison Break," and borrowed its name for his blog. The blog provides a rare peek into the secretive hacking establishment of the Chinese military, which employs thousands of people in what is believed to be by far the world's largest institutionalized hacking operation.
Advocacy groups are urging Congress to narrow a computer hacking law to ensure that people don't face years in prison for violating a company's terms of service. But House Judiciary Committee lawmakers expressed little enthusiasm for relaxing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) at a hearing.
Instead, several lawmakers called for toughening the law to combat the growing threat of hackers. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) -- the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations, which was holding the hearing -- said that it may be time for Congress to "augment and improve" the CFAA to address international criminal groups. He said he would be concerned with any proposal that would decriminalize computer abuse that is currently illegal.
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