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- British read news on mobiles now
- Microsoft does not want to be a US stooge
- Feedly under DoS attack
- Taxi drivers revolt against Uber
- Synaptics wants Apple back
| British read news on mobiles now Posted: 12 Jun 2014 01:57 AM PDT Britons are abandoning computers as their main way to access digital news in favour of updates on smartphones and tablets. According to beancounters at Oxford University's Reuters Institute the proportion of consumers who mostly rely on a computer to get news online has fallen by 23 percentage points in the last year to 57 percent. Smartphones are now the main way to access digital news for 24 percent, up 11 percentage points in the same period, and tablets for 16 percent, also up 11 percentage points. The shift in hardware is part of a broader change with potentially profound effects for society according to the report's authors. The study said that there was an 'echo chamber' effect as mobile consumers rely on increasingly narrow sources to make sense of the explosion of choice online. Dr David Levy, director of the Reuters Institite, said: "In some countries such as the UK the established news brands have retained their loyalty in the more competitive online environment but the rapid growth of social media as a way of discovering and consuming news has a range of possible ramifications. "While choice proliferates, consumption may narrow; reliance on recommendations from like-minded friends could mean people are less exposed to a broad news agenda. "As the ways of reading change, some people may operate in a news echo chamber where they are less likely to be exposed to other content through chance." The report shows how some readers are increasingly committed to news providers amid the rapid change. Of those who pay for digital news, 63 percent do so via a recurring subscription, compared with 42 percent a year ago, with the reputations of individual reporters and commentators increasingly seen as a selling point. |
| Microsoft does not want to be a US stooge Posted: 12 Jun 2014 01:55 AM PDT Microsoft is challenging a data request from the US government which, if it loses, could effectively kill all chances of US companies running cloud businesses anywhere else in the world. In December 2013, the US government obtained a search warrant requesting information about an email user for an investigation apparently involving drugs and money laundering. Vole said that the data was stored in Ireland, and the company argues the US can't force it to hand over data stored outside American soil. The government wanted data associated with an Outlook.com email account, including the content of all emails and the identifying information of the account, according to the search warrant sent to Microsoft. Microsoft fears that if it hands over the information it means that the US government has a right to take any information which is stored in its cloud. Since the EU would never allow that, it would mean that Microsoft's cloud business in Europe would be threatened. Microsoft asked the judge to throw out the request, arguing that the US government doesn't have the authority to request data overseas with a search warrant. However another judge in New York ruled in April that Microsoft was compelled to turn over the data regardless of where it's stored. In a court filing made public on Monday, Microsoft argued that a search warrant doesn't apply overseas. Since it doesn't give authority to "break down the doors of Microsoft's Dublin facility," it shouldn't give the government authority to access data within that facility, Microsoft argued. Vole said that the warrant was broad and vague, as it requests all content in the user's account. Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said at a conference in New York it was the broadest possible warrant that one can imagine in the 21st century. Redmond wants the government to use another, legal way to access this kind of data: a so-called mutual legal assistance treaty, or MLAT. Under that agreement US authorities can access data in that country but, in turn, have to comply with local laws. The US government argues that companies can't refuse to comply legal requests "simply by storing the data abroad". Preet Bharara, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said criminals could skirt investigations by lying about their locations and thus forcing Microsoft to store data outside the US, and far from American law enforcement's reach. Vole has a lot of legal support for its view. Experts say the relevant law in the case, the oft-maligned 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), clearly requires warrants when accessing content information, and subpoenas have different requirements. Microsoft said that if the US government's position is upheld, will end up harming US citizens' privacy interests because it will invite prosecutors abroad to conduct themselves in the same way, ignore treaty obligations, and serve some form of unilateral process on Microsoft in their countries to obtain US citizens' data stored in the United States. |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2014 01:52 AM PDT Online reader site Feedly says it is under a denial of service attack, with the attacker demanding money to bring an end to service interruption. In a brief post on the company blog, the developers let all customers know of the problem, and promises to update users as the situation develops. "Criminals are attacking Feedly with a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS)," the company said on its blog. "The attacker is trying to extort us money to make it stop. We refused to give in and are working with our network providers to mitigate the attack as best as we can." It seems that the cyber criminals have struck before and Feedly is working with other victims and with law enforcement in a bid to track the crooks down. Feedly has updated its bog and said that normal service will be restored in a "few more hours". "We're making some changes to our infrastructure that will allow us to bring feedly back online. However, these things take some time to put into place and it may still be a few more hours before service is restored. Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with us. Remember, none of your data was compromised or lost in this attack," the site said. |
| Taxi drivers revolt against Uber Posted: 12 Jun 2014 01:51 AM PDT Taxi drivers sowed traffic chaos in Europe's top cities on Wednesday by mounting one of the biggest protests ever against a smartphone app. Uber summons rides at the touch of a button and it is apparently unpopular with licensed cabbies because it is a big company and competes against them. Although it is a high tech option, the cabbies feel that it breaks local taxi rules, violates licensing and safety regulations and its drivers fail to comply with local insurance rules. Uber claims that it is all because the taxi industry has not faced competition for decades and was seeing competition from companies such as Uber which was bringing choice to customers. Uber says its minicabs arrive in five minutes in central London and its fares are 30 to 50 percent cheaper than a black cab. Hundreds of licensed black taxis snarled traffic in the streets around Trafalgar Square in central London, hooting their horns as they passed Downing Street, home of Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Houses of Parliament. In Paris, taxis slowed traffic on major arteries into the city during the morning commute. Hundreds choked the main road to Berlin's historic centre while commuters packed buses and trains, or just walked, to get to work in Madrid and Barcelona. |
| Posted: 12 Jun 2014 01:50 AM PDT Touchscreen chipmaker Synaptics wants to win back Apple as a customer after agreeing to buy the sole supplier of display driver chips for the iPhone. Synaptics last supplied parts to Apple around eight years ago, and has announced that it is writing a cheque for $475 million for the remaining outstanding shares in Renesas Drivers, a unit of Japanese chipmaker Renesas . "If Apple is to become a customer of Synaptics again we're absolutely thrilled and happy and hope we can continue the strong relationship that it appears to have had with RSP," Chief Executive Rick Bergman told media at a news conference in Tokyo. Rick Bergman. That rings an AMD bell. Synaptics, which claims 70 percent of the touchpad market, wants to be back into the Apple supply chain after it was dropped as a supplier when the iPhone maker decided to move touch technology internally. "Our better opportunities are really complementary technologies to what they do internally. And at this junction I don't believe they do any driver chips internally so that would really be an opportunity for us," Bergman said. Apple demands its panel suppliers use display driver chips from the Renesas unit exclusively as using ones from several suppliers would lead to noticeable variations in the display. Renesas posted revenue of about $650 million and cash flow of about $100 million for the year ended March. With the acquisition, Synaptics is also aiming to integrate its touch technology with Renesas SP's display drivers, senior vice president Kevin Barber said, which would both improve performance and lower costs. Synaptics chips are used in the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphones and Galaxy Note 3 phablets. It is expecting growth from smartphone fingerprint sensors, in which it claims 90 percent of the market after acquiring a company specialising in the technology last year. Apple's iPhone 5S uses a rival technology developed in-house after Apple bought biometrics outfit Advantec two years ago. Apple had considered buying Renesas SP but did not go ahead with it. |
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