Articles by

Quantum Computers, Part 2: Zeros and Ones, Both and Neither At universities and companies around the globe, there are people plugging away trying to solve the myriad technological challenges of quantum computers. But that doesn't mean practical applications of quantum computing are some futuristic fantasy. Already, quantum technology is trickling i...

After weeks of widespread uncertainty and speculation, Groupon is expected late Thursday to set the price for its Friday initial public offering (IPO) Though the daily deals site has been expected to set a price within a planned range of $16 to $18, most reports now suggest that it will be a dollar or two above that level due to unexpectedly robust...

Research In Motion crossed a grim threshold on Wall Street recently The BlackBerry maker's shares closed at US$19.02 Thursday, less than a third of their $66.20 high for this year, attained in February, and lower than they've been since May of 2004, when they hit $19.99....

Criminals in countries all over the world, including allies of the United States, are committing cybertheft and industrial espionage against America, the National Counterintelligence Agency (NCA) has warned In a report submitted to Congress in October, the agency states that foreign collectors of sensitive economic information can operate in cybers...

Amazon.com launched a free e-book lending library for Kindle on Thursday. The library is open to Amazon Prime subscribers and includes over 5,000 books that users can borrow for free. The list includes hundreds of current and former New York Times bestsellers Books can only be borrowed and read on actual Kindle devices, rather than Kindle apps runn...

Net Applications' browser market report for October continues to track Internet Explorer's steady decline, from 60.99 percent in October 2010 to 53.39 percent in September 2011 to 52.63 percent in October 2011 Some caveats must be included in these numbers, though. For starters, these figures just refer to desktop use. Some 6 percent of the browser...

Any science fiction fan or Trekkie knows what tractor beams are -- those beams that pull objects toward the device that generates them, sort of like an invisible fishing line and reel. NASA believes enough in the possibility of creating real tractor beams that it's provided a US$100,000 grant to researchers at its Goddard Space Flight Center to lo...

AT&T is one of the most successful and best-known brand names in the wireless and telecom industry and, in fact, in the entire world. So why do customers dislike it so much? That's the question Esther Lee thinks about every day. Esther Lee is vice president of brand marketing and advertising for the company. Her job is to help customers love the A...

AT&T is one of the most successful and best-known brand names in the wireless and telecom industry and, in fact, in the entire world. So why do customers dislike it so much? That's the question Esther Lee thinks about every day. Esther Lee is vice president of brand marketing and advertising for the company. Her job is to help customers love the A...

I like the saying, "Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude toward us." It's a nice quote, although it was uttered by John N. Mitchell, a convicted prevaricator who participated in the Watergate conspiracy and ended up in an Alabama prison as a result. (Apparently, his attitude wasn't all that great.)

Quantum Computers, Part 1: A Simple Understanding Comparing an atom to a coin is like comparing a human heart to a repeatedly clinching fist. The analogy is woefully simplistic in relation to what is actually going on.

Research In Motion is launching a music app for BlackBerry users that it hopes will spread via its incentives for users to share songs by BlackBerry Messenger Called "BBM Music," the service is rolling out in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, with more countries expected to go online later....

Google will limit usage of its Maps API (application programming interface) starting early next year Starting early 2012, websites and apps using Google Maps APIs can generate up to 25,000 map loads per day for each API and up to 2,500 map loads per day for APIs that have been modified using the Styled Maps feature....

The Duqu malware that became widely known last month is exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows kernel to infect systems, according to the Hungarian group CrySyS An installer file for the Trojan was previously unknown, but now CrySyS and security firm Symantec are reporting that the main Duqu binaries are released onto a targeted system ...

While the image that the high-tech industry has adopted for the source of services delivered over a remote network -- the cloud -- conjures thoughts of airy skies where quasi-magical things happen, the actual cloud is firmly anchored to the ground in data centers bristling with computer servers. As the cloud continues to expand, so does the demand for servers -- servers that consume more and more resources like electricity, space and capital...

Google is rolling out a revamped Gmail, as it indicated it would earlier this year. Users can opt to use the new look immediately by clicking on the switch icon on the bottom-right corner of the Gmail page The core changes focus on better readability and as well as stepped -up search functionalities. Google has also tinkered with the interface so ...

Green IT is not one industry. Instead, it refers to a number of interrelated fields that focus on designing, manufacturing, installing, using and recycling computers, data centers, electronics and other parts and pieces of information systems. And because of its broad reach, it means the possibility of many different kinds of jobs ...

A couple of years ago I read The Black Swan and was so taken by the subject matter that I wrote a column about it. The book had to do with the kinds of unknown issues that can strike even well-understood processes. Now, Leo Sadovy, a vice president at SAS, has taken the concept further in a blog just posted Tuesday. Sadovy reminded me of the im...

...

Good luck finding a nice, clean entry point to discuss quantum computers It should come as no surprise, of course, that something called "quantum computers" would be tricky to talk about. The inner workings of computers are plenty complex to begin with. When melded with a dizzying branch of physics -- quantum mechanics, which dissects the world of ...