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Next week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is, as the name implies, targeted at consumers, yet there are plenty of products that will end up in enterprises as well. This enterprise-focused preview of CES includes everything from new HP laptops and touchscreen technology to Android tablet PCs from Cisco and Technicolor to iPont 3D TV technology.
A super-sophisticated piece of Android malware that has botnet-like capabilities was discovered attached to a number of Android games. The Geinimi Trojan appears to be limited to third-party Chinese app markets — for now.
Fourteen tech firms, including Apple, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, and Samsung, have made good on a promise to collaborate on a universal phone charger, now headed to Europe in early 2011. The universal chargers are touted as reducing environmental waste, shipping weight, and price while making the “lost charger” nightmare a distant memory.
Motorola's first Android tablet will be called the Droid Xoom, and will ship in February with an external 4G LTE modem, say industry reports. Meanwhile, photos have leaked of a purported HTC Thunderbolt 4G phone due to be announced by Verizon next week at CES, and more evidence piles up for Honeycomb being Android 2.4 instead of 3.0.
Applicants looking for IT jobs should have better luck in 2011 than they did this year, says CareerBuilder, yet small business hiring is likely to lag, according to a Discover Small Business Watch survey. Meanwhile, tech companies lead the way in asking job applicants tricky, sometimes bizarre, questions, says Glassdoor.com, with query topics ranging from basketballs to elephants.
MSI has unveiled a netbook using AMD's 1.6GHz E-350 (“Zacate”) processor. The MSI U270 features a 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, up to 4GB of RAM and 500GB of hard disk storage, plus both VGA and HDMI video outputs, according to NetbookNews.com.
Intel Corp. announced a solid state drive (SSD) in 40GB or 80GB capacities, claimed to be an eighth the size of the company's 2.5-inch X25 SSDs. Measuring only 2.0 x 1.18 x 0.2 inches (51 x 30 x 5mm) and weighing less than 10 grams, the Intel SSD 310 Series is Intel's first mSATA form factor SSD.
IBM has delivered a series of predictions for technological innovations it says will have broad impact and change lives by 2015. They range from 3-D and holographic technology in cameras and cell phones, to batteries that will power devices by “breathing” air, to recycling the energy produced by the world's data centers.
Cowon announced an Android 2.1 portable media player (PMP) with 1080p HD video playback. The D3 Plenue ships with up to 64GB of flash memory, and provides a 3.7-inch, 800 x 480 AMOLED display, plus Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g, T-DMB, and FM radio, says the company.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an order yesterday calling for the federal government to switch to Linux from proprietary operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, starting in 2Q 2012. The move to Linux is the most significant change in an edict encouraging a transition from proprietary software to free alternatives throughout the Russian government through 2015.
A test build has been posted of a new music player that may appear in Android 3.0 (“Honeycomb”). In other year-end Android developments, Honeycomb is said to be coming in March, the open source VLC media player is heading for Android in early 2011, and a hacker has published a technique for forcing Android system updates.
Axiomtek announced a fanless embedded computer intended for automation, digital signage, and kiosk use. The eBox630-850-FL supports Intel Core 2 Duo processors up to 2.66GHz, accepts up to 4GB of RAM, and includes both CompactFlash and 2.5-inch hard disk storage, the company says.
Intrinsyc Software International announced a software reference design platform designed for tablets and other consumer devices based on Freescale Semiconductor's ARM Cortex-A8-based i.MX53 system-on-chip (SoC). The product will support capabilities found on the 1.2GHz i.MX53, including 1080p video decode and 720p video encode, via Intrinsyc's RapidRIL telephony stack and other software components, says the company.
Onkyo announced an Android 2.2-based tablet that comes with a 1GHz Tegra 250 processor. The TA117 offers 512MB or 1GB of RAM, 8GB or 16GB of flash storage, a 10.1-inch screen with 1024 x 600 resolution, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel camera.
We take a look at seven of the biggest stories to impact or raise the interest of the Java community in 2010. The drama started last January with Oracle's acquisition of Sun, continued with Java creator James Gosling leaving Google, and, among other things, concluded this month with Apache quitting the JCP (Java Community Process).