Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Google Honing Search Results to Users

Published by technicalguy on January 29th, 2012 - in Technology

Come March 1st you may see even more focused advertising in your Google searches.

Google announced a new privacy policy that takes effect March 1st that will start combining nearly all the information it has on its users.

This could mean, for instance, that when users search via Google, the company will use their activities on sister sites like Gmail and YouTube to influence those users’ search results.

Google hasn’t done that before.

Depending on how you feel about targeted advertising this could be a benefit, as you will see ads that closely reflect you and your activities on the Net. However it could also mean that your online privacy has taken another dip and you are yet again more easily trackable. You’ve probably already noticed that advertising seems to follow you from website to website and personally I feel this restricts your exposure to new products and things that may ordinarily be “outside your box”.

You may feel different, however after March 1st you may not have a choice.

Everything Everywhere & BT Wholesale extend 4G broadband

Published by technicalguy on January 28th, 2012 - in Technology

Extension has been granted by Ofcom

Communications companies Everything Everywhere and BT Wholesale annnounced an extension to the UK’s first live multi-operator customer trial of next generation 4G LTE broadband.

Under the 4G LTE trial, the two companies collaborated to provide wireless broadband to 180 customers living in and around St. Newlyn East in Cornwall since October 2011.

The extension has been granted by the regulator Ofcom to enable the companies to continue to investigate the application of 4G LTE in rural areas, which will be beneficial to the rollout of any potential subsequent commercial service.

The trial has proven that fixed and mobile technologies can work together to provide a broadband delivery option for remote rural areas and also demonstrated that the low frequency spectrum allocated to the trial is optimal for enabling broadband in remote rural communities.

Everything Everywhere CEO Olaf Swantee said the rollout of 4G will help drive economic growth and create jobs across the UK by making the economy more competitive, by enabling businesses to be more productive, and by allowing consumers to benefit from the latest mobile innovations.

“This trial has been key in investigating ways to rapidly bring 4G LTE to Britain, and Ofcom is helping us do the groundwork to accelerate the UK from laggard to leader,” said Swantee.

BT Wholesale CEO Nigel Stagg said the trial is enabling BT to see at first hand the real difference LTE is making in rural Cornwall and how it could provide an alternative mode of delivery in rural areas to complement fibre delivered broadband.

“There’s no doubt that fixed line solutions offer a faster and more reliable broadband service, but there isn’t a single silver bullet to meet the rural broadband challenge. We continue to also assess other potential solutions including other mobile and wireless technologies,” said Stagg.

Steam Mobile for iOS And Android

Published by technicalguy on January 27th, 2012 - in Android, Apple, SmartPhone, Technology

steam-mobile

Steam, the online games and gaming community, has released to Beta a Steam app for iOS and Android. The app is live in the Android and iOS app stores.

Steam Mobile sports a set of features that should be familiar to PC gamers, including gaming news feeds and the ability to browse the extensive catalog. It additionally provides up-to-date information about games on sale. It’s also very geared toward communication, as it allows you to keep in touch with your fellow Steam buddies by poking through their profiles or kicking off a mobile chat session.

US SOPA Internet Law Will Affect Canada Too

Published by technicalguy on January 19th, 2012 - in Technology

Do you or your company own a .com website? If so then according to a proposed US law it could be taken down for infringement of US copyright law.

You may have noticed that many webistes yesterday went dark; Google, Tucows, Wikipedia, for instance. This was a protest against this proposed legislation know as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), or House Bill 3261.

The concern for Canadians is that the SOPA bill is written so any website domain name registered in the United States is treated as if it were a U.S. page. That means if your website ends in .com, .net or .org you could be accused of breaching copyright and your website could be blocked by a U.S. court.

The Montreal Gazette has an interesting example:

In the U.S., copyright extends 70 years after the death of an author. However in Canada, that period is only 50 years. This means the works of Ernest Hemingway’s could legitimately appear on a Canadian website.

Under SOPA, if a Canadian website were to post the works of Hemingway now, that website could be found by a U.S. court to be breaching U.S. copyright and be shut down, even though it is entirely legal in Canada.

This bill is scheduled for a vote on January 24th.

More information

Zappos Shoes Hacked

Published by technicalguy on January 18th, 2012 - in Security, Technology

Online shoe seller Zappos.com says a hacker may have accessed the personal information of up to 24 million customers.

Zappos is an Amazon company and the hack does not include credit card and payment information. However names, phone numbers, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, the last four digits from credit cards and more may have been accessed in the attack.

Zappos Chief Executive Tony Hsieh alerted employees and customers of the cyber-attack in an email on Sunday that is posted on the company’s website.

Zappos is contacting customers by email and urging them to change their passwords.

Zappos said the hacker gained access to its internal network and systems through one of the company’s servers in Kentucky. Zappos is based in Las Vegas.

iPhone coming soon to Canada’s new wireless entrants?

Published by technicalguy on January 17th, 2012 - in Apple, SmartPhone, Technology

Apple Computer Hacked

Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and customers of other new Canadian wireless carriers may soon be able to get an iPhone from them.

The reason the iPhone is not available to all carriers right now is becasue it only works with certain parts of the wireless spectrum. However, the next version of the iPhone, due to launch some point this year, could change that.

(more…)

New Asus / NVIDIA Tablet

Published by technicalguy on January 11th, 2012 - in Tablet, Technology

IMG_5546

At NVIDIA’s press conference today, NVIDIA had a couple little surprises. Little being the word, there — they announced a diminutive 7″ tablet to compete with the likes of the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire. The price, $249, is certainly competitive. But the tablet itself, the hardware anyway, blows them out of the water.

(more…)

Best Buy Providing IT Services to Small Business

Published by technicalguy on January 8th, 2012 - in Technology, Vancouver

Best Buy may now be our competitor as it buys Mindshift Technologies Inc.

[SBbest]Getty Images

Mindshift, of Waltham, Mass., was founded in 1999, and provides IT services to more than 5,400 small and medium-sized businesses throughout the U.S.

Best Buy has more than 1,100 big-box stores. But the retailer and other traditional chains face the prospect of becoming showrooms for online-only competitors. Some shoppers visit a mall or big-box location to check out merchandise and then find lower prices on the Web, sometimes while using smartphones right in the store’s aisles.

Demand for outsourced IT services among small businesses has been growing, with the IT outsourcing market in the U.S. expected to grow 1.9% to $40.6 billion in 2012, up from $39.8 billion in 2011, according to research firm IDC.

Small businesses in many cases can’t afford to employ large numbers of full-time IT professionals. At the same time, office technology has become more complex and diverse, and the threat of viruses and worms has increased. [Shameless plug: This is the type of IT Services we offer]

Best Buy’s acquisition of Mindshift builds on its 2002 purchase of Geek Squad, a provider of consumer-based IT support services. Small business are going into Best Buy’s stores already, looking for electronics and other products.

The Windows Phone

Published by technicalguy on January 7th, 2012 - in Technology

Apple and Android are the top two players in the Smartphone market right now, but have you given thought to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7?

windows phone 7

It certainly hasn’t caught on like others but it has a unique interface that will likely appeal to some of you out there. If you’ve never seen the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 interface then try this web-based Virtual Hands On and see what you think.

TechCrunch says “As most who’ve experienced the Windows Phone 7 platform will attest, Microsoft offers something truly unique in terms of OS design and on-screen interaction. Windows Phone 7 offers a superb user experience, indeed far superior to most if not all the Android smartphones.“

(more…)

Canada Smartphones – A Look Back At 2011

Published by technicalguy on January 6th, 2012 - in SmartPhone, Technology

2011 was the year that smartphones became faster, thinner, lighter, and graced our hands with large displays. The average wireless customer was looking for the latest device, unfortunately it wasn’t a BlackBerry, but the newest “Android”. It was the first year that more people were asking about Android that any other, even Apple’s iPhone. Android made an astounding leap in 2011 – two years after Rogers declared the “Android Revolution” started. September 2011 comScore data revealed that 25% of all smartphones in Canada are powered by Android, up from 12.2% in March.

(more…)

© FCI Technology Blog
CyberChimps WordPress Themes