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From the New York Times: “You’re going to listen to me.” This was the taunting command of an AOL customer service representative who sounded like a jailer twirling his keychain. The customer on the phone wanted to complete his business, but the person on the other end of the phone did not share a sense …
From Reuters: Computers have become more reliable in recent years as manufacturers have improved designs, but one in every six new notebooks still needs to be repaired within a year after purchase, a survey found on Tuesday. Failure rates of both desktop and portable notebook computers have improved in the 2005-2006 period compared with 2003-2004, …
From the BBC: Consumers are willing to pay up to an extra £108 ($197) for a PC containing fewer chemicals, a survey has found. People also feel manufacturers should take responsibility for the disposal of old machines, the research shows. So-called e-waste is a growing global problem, with 30 million PCs being dumped each year …
From TechRepublic: A raised eyebrow, quizzical look or a nod of the head are just a few of the facial expressions computers could soon be using to read people’s minds. An “emotionally aware” computer being developed by British and American scientists will be able to read an individual’s thoughts by analyzing a combination of facial …
From TechWeb: An overwhelming majority of Microsoft employees use rival Google to search the Internet, bloggers and a Web metrics company claimed Tuesday. Andrew Hitchcock, a 20-year-old student at the University of Washington, got the ball rolling by posting Google Analytics statistics on visitors to his Web site. Of the users originating from Microsoft’s domain …
From Reuters: Internet retailer Amazon.com (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has started selling groceries on its Web site, a cautious step into a business that was one of the biggest casualties of the dot-com collapse. The service is limited to non-perishable goods such as cereal, pasta and canned soup, but Amazon can ship those items to …
From Vnunet: The majority of administrative passwords in some of the world’s largest corporations are stored in the heads of one or two IT staff or kept on paper, according to a survey by Cyber-Ark Software. Of the 200 IT security professionals questioned at the Infosecurity event in London, 28 per cent revealed that they …
From eWeek: The Chairman isn’t always right. While Microsoft’s outgoing Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has been ahead of the curve in predicting many technology trends, he also has backed some notorious flops. Now that Gates officially has announced plans to relinquish his day-to-day company responsibilities by July 2008, we thought it would be a …
From MacNewsWorld: It has come to define a generation. In just five years, Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple iPod has become one of the most popular and iconic gadgets around. More than two million people in Britain own one, and last year alone 22.5 million were bought worldwide: a phenomenal 61,644 a day. …
From TechWeb: Backdoor Trojans are a clear and present danger to Windows machines, Microsoft said Monday as it released the first-ever analysis of data collected by the 15-month run of its Malicious Software Removal Tool, a utility that seeks out and destroys over five-dozen malware families. According to Microsoft’s anti-malware engineering team, Trojans that, once …