Computing News & IT News

As mentioned on the official Google Chrome Blog this week, the Chrome team has pushed out a stable version of Chrome 17 to all users of the popular Web browser. Detailed extensively in a previous article, Chrome 17 brings pre-rendering to the browser and has the ability to start loading pages as the user is typing the search query or URL into the omnibox. The browser makes these judgments based of the Web history of the user, but only analyzes… Read More

Tucked behind a protected website that is closed to the general public, Access Optical Networks (AON) has developed an exciting new way to utilize holographic technology and store a terabyte of data in a one centimeter cube. Holographic storage systems aren’t exactly new. They have been around for years, but have been met by various roadblocks due to rising costs and an unconvincing advantage over more conventional means of data storage. While… Read More

Try to imagine you are Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer. You’re weary of Apple’s perennial coolness, and of the fact that Mac sales have been growing at a startling clip. Your company basically invented the tablet 10 years ago, but didn’t have the chutzpah to take it mainstream, and now Apple has built the most valuable company in the world on the popularity of mobile devices. You’re still essentially minting money, Windows 8 is just over the… Read More

Google will soon launch a fully-featured cloud storage service called Google Drive, reports Amir Efrati at the Wall Street Journal. Drive would compete directly with other consumer-friendly cloud services, like DropBox, Box, and SugarSync, among others, and will allegedly be priced below that of other similar services. Like DropBox and others, Drive will have its own dedicated apps for both PC and mobile devices, Efrati's sources say.… Read More

CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently described Facebook as embracing “the hacker way,” which is to say that the company has a sort of freedom and interest in constantly innovating, breaking, and creating without boundaries that limit other enterprise businesses. How much that applies to Facebook in practice has long been up for debate, but the company may be edging closer in that direction in the near future. Facebook research engineer Andrei… Read More

Want a $35 computer? Good news, your dreams are about to become reality! After a delayed release date, the low-cost USB computer units are finally leaving factories on February 20 and will be available on the market by the end of the month. The Raspberry Pi Foundation team announced yesterday that since production began last month, manufacturing teams faced a short setback when they ran into problems sourcing a specific model of quartz crystal… Read More

Database giant Oracle has rejected a court-ordered award of $272 million in damages from rival database vendor SAP, saying it would rather face another trial. The choice stretches out a dispute between the two companies that stretches all the way back to 2007—and could potentially be worth over a billion dollars to Oracle, if it's proven right. Back in 2010, a jury awarded Oracle a stunning $1.3 billion in damages in its suit against SAP.… Read More

Telecommunications giant Verizon has announced it is teaming up with Coinstar's Redbox DVD kiosk service to launch a new Internet-based streaming video service in the second half of the year. The move highlights the increasing importance of streaming video operations in the mainstream media marketplace, and at first glance a team-up between Verizon and Redbox would seem to have a lot going for it: both are widely recognized brands with… Read More

Responding to strong government pressure to remove content offensive to Indian politicians and religious groups, Google India has removed an unspecified number of sites and images from Google services in the country (reportedly including Blogger and YouTube) in response to an ongoing court case. The action follows weeks of pressure by the Indian government against nearly two dozen Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and… Read More

I spent a good chunk of last Thursday evening playing on a Microsoft Surface table at an AMD event for analysts.I had a ball, and AMD employees shared stories of hours spent gaming on the thing prior to shows and presentations. The system reminded me of how much fun the initial arcade machines were — the ones that predated Atari’s initial successful home gaming system run. To me, the Surface has the potential to be more than a modern… Read More

Steve Appleton, chairman and CEO of memory chip maker Micron Technology, died today after suffering fatal injuries in a plane crash at the Boise Airport in Idaho. He was 51. “We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Appleton, Micron Chairman and CEO, passed away this morning in a small plane accident in Boise,” the company said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to his wife, Dalynn, his children and his family during this… Read More

We've been speculating about the next versions of Windows Phone since 7.5 (Mango) came out in late 2011, and it looks like it might be worth the wait. PocketNow claims to have intercepted an official Microsoft video intended for Windows Phone partners like Nokia. In it, Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore goes over a lot of new features of the upcoming “Apollo” update, which appears to somewhat merge the Windows Phone OS with… Read More

Google has been ordered to pay a fine and damages to French mapping company Bottin Cartographes because it makes Google Maps available for free, undercutting companies that offer similar services for a fee. Bottin Cartographes had filed an unfair competition complaint against Google, claiming the search giant was abusing its dominant position in the Internet search market to achieve a leading position in the digital mapping market. The Paris… Read More