News

Business applications

• March 22, 2011 22 Mar'11

  Play.com issues warning over personal data breach

  Online retailer Play.com has e-mailed customers warning of a security breach that could compromise personal details.

• March 21, 2011 21 Mar'11

  Lessons from the library: Behind the UK's web archive

  Anyone unfamiliar with the British Library might imagine it to be a stuffy old organisation that's full of dusty books and documents – the last vestige of a bygone age, writes Dale Vile, managing director of Freeform Dynamics.

• March 21, 2011 21 Mar'11

  Cisco defers IOS patch until September

  Cisco has deferred the release of its March 23 patch update to the Cisco IOS operating system, as used on its switches and routers, due to the earthquake in Japan. Users will have to wait six months for the update.

• March 21, 2011 21 Mar'11

  Facebook expands mobile user reach with Snaptu acquisition

  Facebook is to acquire Snaptu, a company which provides access to social networking sites for non-smartphone users.

• March 17, 2011 17 Mar'11

  Tests show Android is 50% faster than Apple iOS for web browsing

  The latest version of Google's Android operating system (OS) is 50% faster at loading web pages than Apple's iOS, according to research.

• March 17, 2011 17 Mar'11

  Twitter increases security with HTTPS encrypted tweets setting

  Twitter has added a new profile setting to increase the level of security when accessing the mobile blogging site over an unsecured Wi-Fi connections.

• March 16, 2011 16 Mar'11

  Olympic ticket sales website glitch affects Visa cardholders

  As applications for tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Games opened, some Visa card users were unable to register after a payment system glitch on the ticket website

• March 16, 2011 16 Mar'11

  Google Docs adds multi-user collaboration function

  Google is adding more collaborative functionality to Google Docs, allowing multiple users to share notes and edit shared documents simultaneously.

• March 16, 2011 16 Mar'11

  Big business plagued by missing encryption keys and digital certificates, survey reveals

  Businesses are deploying increasing numbers of digital certificates and encryption technologies, but these security assets are also becoming lost, stolen...

• March 16, 2011 16 Mar'11

  Deutsche Bank uses social CRM to fine-tune corporate banking

  Social media is driving product development at Deutsche Bank. The banking giant is using web 2.0 technologies to engage with 1,000 of its corporate customers, to find out how it can make corporate banking run more smoothly.

• March 15, 2011 15 Mar'11

  Software testing in banks puts customer data at risk, says research

  UK banks are failing to protect confidential customer data used for software development and testing purposes, according to research.

• March 15, 2011 15 Mar'11

  Highlands and Islands Enterprise moves to shared services

  The Scottish government's Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) economic and community development agency has signed a deal with Atos Origin to move to a shared services model.

• March 15, 2011 15 Mar'11

  IE9 will have low take-up in enterprises, says Ovum analyst

  Enterprises are unlikely to adopt Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9, analysts have said.

• March 15, 2011 15 Mar'11

  Adobe warns of zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash

  Adobe has published a security advisory for a critical vulnerability in Adobe Flash that can be used to take control of an attacked machine.

• March 14, 2011 14 Mar'11

  IE9 out today, but beta users want more

  Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 9 today in Austin, Texas, at 9pm Pacific Standard Time.

• March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

  SAP in-memory technology swallows 1.3TB database

  The SAP In-Memory Appliance (SAP HANA) running on IBM 3850 servers can perform 10,000 queries an hour against 1.3 terabytes of data, returning results within seconds, according to a benchmark from WinterCorp.

• March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

  Private cloud takes Harris schools higher

  Academy school body the Harris Federation has deployed cloud technology to link its member schools together and provide an IT platform that can scale up as membership grows.

• March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

  Scottish police seek national information system

  The Scottish Government has launched a national information management programme for its police service. The programme will develop a national model of common policing processes and provide a scalable solution for recording, management and analysis ...

• March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

  Apple iPhone 3G vulnerable to attacks after iOS 4.3 software update

  Apple's iPhone 3G is vulnerable to attacks after the latest software update, iOS 4.3, fails to defend the device, according to a security firm.

• March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

  Is Oracle ending the honeymoon for Sun users?

  The Service Industry Association has filed a complaint against Oracle in Europe and the US concerning the limitations Oracle puts on its hardware support. Cliff Saran investigates the changes to Oracle support.

• March 09, 2011 09 Mar'11

  CSA spends millions processing claims by hand

  The Child Support Agency is spending millions processing child maintenance claims by hand because of failures in its computer systems

• March 09, 2011 09 Mar'11

  DHL launches real-time information to improve supply chain

  DHL Supply Chain has launched a live order tracking system (Lots) to deliver real-time information to its customers.

• March 09, 2011 09 Mar'11

  Four risk areas CIOs must consider when contracting cloud services

  CIOs should be aware of four main risks when contracting for cloud services, says analyst firm Gartner.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Google buys price comparison website for £37.7m

  Google is to acquire UK price comparison website BeatThatQuote.com for £37.7m.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Exclusive: Free software guru Richard Stallman on government IT and why he hates the cloud

  The founding father of the free software movement tells Computer Weekly why government just doesn't "get it"

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Facebook enlists Samaritans to counsel suicidal users

  The Samaritans has teamed up with Facebook to enable users to report friends contemplating suicide.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Adobe extends Flash to Apple devices with free HTML5 conversion tool

  Adobe has released for free download an experimental Flash-to-HTML5 converter to the development community through beta technology site, Adobe Labs.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  EU cyber security agency gets tough on botnets

  The EU's cyber security agency, ENISA, has published a study on the botnet threat and how to address it.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Metro bank latest to get Trusteer security

  Metro Bank has become the latest bank to offer its customers security software from Trusteer which prevents hackers accessing online banking sessions via browsers.

• March 08, 2011 08 Mar'11

  Kroes seeks comms bosses' ideas for high-speed broadband funds

  Europe's Digital Agenda boss Nellie Kroes invited CEOs from communications equipment manufacturers, network operators and content providers to suggest new ways to finance her broadband goals.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  Lack of legal safeguards could lead to census data breaches, warns law professor

  Information from this month's UK census is at risk of confidentiality breaches from data being shared with policing or intelligence services, warns a law professor

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  BBC commits to the cloud

  The BBC is moving to the cloud as a key part of its new technology strategy.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  France's G20 files target of cyber attack

  France's files on the G20 meetings were the target of a cyber attack, the country's finance minister has confirmed.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  Light MS Patch Tuesday, but mobile security could pile on the pressure

  Microsoft is expected to release only three security bulletins in their monthly Patch Tuesday security update on 8 March, according to the latest advance notification.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  Dassault Systemes wins at McLaren, Jaguar

  Two of the world's leading car brands, McLaren and Jaguar Land Rover, have picked Dassault Systèmes (DS) computer aided design systems to take forward their next generation car design and manufacturing systems.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  Microsoft uses Twitter to encourage IE8 upgrade

  Microsoft has launched a social media campaign using Twitter to encourage web users to upgrade Internet Explorer 6.0 to the latest release.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  National Archive releases open source digital records tool

  The National Archive has released a file-profiling tool, originally developed to support its archiving effort.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  HSBC uses token to secure smartphone banking

  HSBC is sending four million online banking customers a security token which will enable them to log in to their online bank account wherever they are, without using a card reader.

• March 07, 2011 07 Mar'11

  Libya internet blackout continues

  Libya's internet service is still down following a weekend of blackouts, according to Google's Transparency Report.

• March 03, 2011 03 Mar'11

  Google rolls out new style profile pages

  Google has launched a new profile page for all account holders, which the company says highlights the most important information.

• March 02, 2011 02 Mar'11

  HTML 5-compatible H.264 video format challenges Flash

  The proportion of online videos compatible with HTML5 has increased from 10% to 63% in the past year, according to video-tracking site MeFeedia.

• March 01, 2011 01 Mar'11

  CeBIT 2011: G Data unveils Android security product

  Security firm G Data has unveiled MobileSecurity at CeBIT 2011 taking place in Hanover, Germany 1 to 5 March.

• March 01, 2011 01 Mar'11

  Intel finalises £5bn acquisition of McAfee

  Intel has confirmed the completion of its $7.7bn (£5bn) acquisition of security software giant McAfee.

• March 01, 2011 01 Mar'11

  Google blames software update for Gmail failure

  Google has blamed a bug in a storage software update for weekend interruptions to its Gmail service in which thousands of users lost e-mail contacts and folders.

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  Gartner's five tips to succeeding with social media

  Analyst Gartner has identified five key approaches to succeeding with social media

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  Centrica signs £247m deal with HP

  Centrica, owner of British Gas, has signed a seven-year $400m (£247) cloud outsourcing deal with HP.

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  Download the final Firefox 4 beta

  The final Firefox 4 beta is now ready to download and test.

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  London Stock Exchange tackles malware problem

  Some parts of the London Stock Exchange website have been exposed to a computer virus after an advert on its website hosted malware.

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  Gmail bug hits 150,000 users

  Around 150,000 Gmail account holders were hit by a system glitch at the weekend which reset their accounts, losing e-mails, attachments and Google Chat logs.

• February 28, 2011 28 Feb'11

  Planned JPMorgan investment will boost Twitter value to $4.5bn

  A JP Morgan fund is reportedly in talks to acquire a 10% stake in microblogging site Twitter for $450m (£278m).

• February 25, 2011 25 Feb'11

  Government crowdsources open standards review

  The government has launched a crowdsourcing review of elements of public sector IT with an online survey to determine which open standards should be supported in its IT systems.

• February 25, 2011 25 Feb'11

  Salesforce.com sales rise 29% as profit drops in fiscal Q4 2010

  Salesforce.com's subscription-based CRM has grown to over 92,000 users during 2010, an increase of over 27% compared to the previous year.

• February 25, 2011 25 Feb'11

  Alan Turing's papers stay in UK with £200,000 donation

  The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) has stepped in to provide last-minute funding of £213,437 to keep papers written by computer science pioneer Alan...

• February 25, 2011 25 Feb'11

  Can the government really move to open source IT?

  The government has started making serious noises about using open source products.

• February 25, 2011 25 Feb'11

  Government IT suppliers claim procurement system excludes open source

  Systems integrators took on a disapproving audience of open source advocates this week after the government told its biggest suppliers to explain why its open source policy has been thwarted for so long.

• February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11

  Free Azure...but just 750 hours

  Microsoft is offering developers a free trial of its Azure cloud computing platform until June 2011.

• February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11

  Companies analyse social network traffic to target key influencers

  Some companies are applying business analytics to social network traffic to identify the influencers and decision makers in complex organisations.

• February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11

  Juniper aims to wrap Cisco with QFabric datacentre management

  Datacentre operators and cloud computing suppliers could slash their power and space requirements while running up to 10 times faster

• February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11

  Transport for London to support contactless bank card payments in time for 2012 Olympics

  Transport for London (TfL) is upgrading its smartcard system and card readers to accept contactless debit and credit card payments in time for the 2012 Olympic games.

• February 24, 2011 24 Feb'11

  Microsoft fixes security flaw in malware protection engine

  Microsoft has patched a flaw in its malware protection engine that could be exploited to gain control of victim's computer.

• February 23, 2011 23 Feb'11

  Ofqual blames flawed software testing for 'A' level grading errors

  Examinations regulator Ofqual has highlighted three IT problems with the marking system that caused thousands of students to receive incorrect GCSE and A-level marks in 2010.

• February 23, 2011 23 Feb'11

  Prepare for SP1 even if you're not on Windows 7, say analysts

  Businesses should prepare to plan their Windows 7 SP1 deployments, even if they are not in a position to run Windows 7 yet.

• February 23, 2011 23 Feb'11

  Goldman Sachs invest $70m in AppSense server virtualisation

  AppSense, a provider of user virtualisation software, has received a $70million investment from Goldman Sachs.

• February 23, 2011 23 Feb'11

  Dell ramps up storage virtualisation with Compellent acquisition

  Dell has completed its acquisition of virtualised storage provider Compellent Technologies for $940m (£578m).

• February 23, 2011 23 Feb'11

  Samsung could drop Windows Phone 7, claims Gartner

  Samsung and other phone makers may drop Windows Phone 7 following Microsoft's update fiasco, which has affected all Samsung devices.

• February 22, 2011 22 Feb'11

  Legacy kit and lack of skills hold back digital video surveillance

  A huge legacy investment in analogue equipment and a lack of data integration skills are holding back more widespread adoption of fully digital video surveillance systems, according to research just published.

• February 22, 2011 22 Feb'11

  Analysis: Prepare for cyber war. But what does it mean?

  Governments in the UK, US and elsewhere are prioritising cyber security as it becomes apparent that the internet can be a dangerous place. There is plenty of talk of cyber war, but little consensus as to what the term actually means.

• February 22, 2011 22 Feb'11

  Microsoft investigates Windows Phone 7 update problems

  Microsoft is investigating user issues with the first update to its mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7.

• February 22, 2011 22 Feb'11

  Skype hits record with 29.5m users on 21 February

  Internet telephony service Skype has reached record levels with 29,527,474 people logged in at the same time on 21 February 2011.

• February 21, 2011 21 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: Cybersecurity is everyone's responsibilty, says US cyber co-ordinator

  The majority of cyber threats are from criminals out for financial gain, says White House cybersecurity co-ordinator Howard Schmidt.

• February 21, 2011 21 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: Top attacks business will face in 2011

  Social networking will be the attacker platform of choice in 2011, says Ed Skoudis, founder and senior security consultant with InGuardians.

• February 21, 2011 21 Feb'11

  Loomis switches to SugarCRM

  Loomis, the cash-handling business formerly known as Securitas has saved thousands of pounds by switching from Salesforce.com to the open source SugarCRM product.

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  Business intelligence market set to grow 10% in 2011

  IT managers are still investing in business intelligence (BI), with the worldwide market for BI software forecast to grow 9.7% to reach $10.8bn in 2011, according to analyst Gartner.

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  US regulators monitor Apple subscription service over anti-trust fears

  US anti-trust regulators are considering the terms of Apple's new digital subscription service, announced earlier this week.

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: Cyber defence must include civilian infrastructure, says US commander

  Extending the government and military cyber security programme to critical civilian infrastructure is one of the top challenges facing the US, says General Keith Alexander, commander of US Cyber Command.

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: Modern IT security often too difficult to deploy, says security technologist

  Businesses need to modernise their IT defences as attackers continue to up their game, says James Lyne, senior technologist at security...

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  Broadband tops list of UK's favourite innovations

  Home broadband is by far the best innovation of the past decade, while social networking and reality television are the two worst, according to a survey of more than 2,000 UK consumers.

• February 18, 2011 18 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: E-mail is still top cyber attack method

  E-mail is still the top attack method for targeted and espionage attacks, say security experts

• February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11

  Orange rolls out pre-paid contactless cash card with Mastercard

  Orange has introduced its Orange Cash pre-paid card, which uses Mastercard's PayPass contactless card technology for purchases under the value of £15.

• February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11

  London Stock Exchange works with partners to resolve technology migration problems

  The London Stock Exchange says some data providers have not been able to get their systems ready for the new core trading platform to which it migrated this week.

• February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11

  Businesses the main victim as cyber crime costs UK £27bn

  Businesses are the main targets of cyber crime, which is costing the economy around £27bn a year, according to a report from the Office of Cyber Security and consultancy Detica.

• February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11

  Coca-Cola delivers real-time tracking with BusinessObjects

  Coca-Cola North America has gone live with the SAP BusinessObjects supply chain performance management application.

• February 17, 2011 17 Feb'11

  Google rivals Apple with One Pass digital subscription service

  Google has introduced an online payment service for digital content called Google One Pass, rivalling Apple's digital subscription service announced this week.

• February 16, 2011 16 Feb'11

  J P Morgan trading platform consolidation threatens 3,000 jobs

  J P Morgan Chase has outlined plans to ditch several trading platforms worldwide in the next three years, threatening up to 3,000 jobs.

• February 16, 2011 16 Feb'11

  MoD lost 57 computers and 47 USB sticks in 2010

  And 85 other computers and laptops were stolen too...

• February 15, 2011 15 Feb'11

  TCS targets SME market with cloud computing

  Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has set its sites on the SME market, with the launch of a new product designed specifically for small businesses.

• February 15, 2011 15 Feb'11

  Citrix Online buys Netviewer for web conferencing

  Citrix has finalised its acquisition of German web conferencing specialist Netviewer, which numbers Bayer, BMW, SAP, Siemens, Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom and Swisscom among its 18,000 customers.

• February 15, 2011 15 Feb'11

  MWC 2011: Microsoft confirms Windows Phone 7 update in March

  Microsoft has confirmed an update to its Windows Phone 7 operating system will be available next month.

• February 15, 2011 15 Feb'11

  RSA 2011: EMC announces RSA Cloud Trust Authority for mission-critical applications

  RSA, the security division of EMC has announced the RSA Cloud Trust Authority (CTA), a set of cloud-based services for secure and compliant relationships with cloud service providers.

• February 15, 2011 15 Feb'11

  Stonesoft discovers 124 new advanced evasion techniques

  Security firm Stonesoft has announced the discovery of 124 new advanced evasion techniques (AETs) since they were first reported in October 2010.

• February 14, 2011 14 Feb'11

  Software industry drives revenues with licence audits

  Software companies use software asset management programmes to drive up revenue, according to a report from Ernst & Young.

• February 14, 2011 14 Feb'11

  London Stock Exchange migrates to MillenniumIT platform

  The London Stock Exchange is migrating trading to its MillenniumIT trading platform today in a move that will see its ailing .Net-based Tradelect system switched off.

• February 14, 2011 14 Feb'11

  Analysis: SAP targets dynamic retail market with investments and partnerships

  SAP is partnering Italian luxury goods firm Salvatore Ferragamo, French supermarket group Casino and other top retailers to fine-tune its retail software.

• February 11, 2011 11 Feb'11

  Case study: Salvatore Ferragamo steps into the future with SAP

  Italian shoe and other luxury goods maker Salvatore Ferragamo is standardising on SAP ...

• February 10, 2011 10 Feb'11

  IE9 could spark huge redevelopment costs for websites

  Thousands of businesses face potentially huge costs to rewrite their external and internal websites to take advantage of new standards-based browsers

• February 10, 2011 10 Feb'11

  Social media policy: Seven questions to ask

  Businesses must create a social media policy to guide employees using social networks and micro-blogging sites, according to Gartner.

• February 10, 2011 10 Feb'11

  Mobile workers practise lax security

  More than half of Europeans practise unsafe networking when they work away from the office, according to research by German remote access experts NCP Engineering.

• February 09, 2011 09 Feb'11

  Gartner: open source software gives businesses flexibility

  IT departments are increasingly deploying open source software as part of their IT strategy to improve flexibility and lower licensing costs, a report from analyst Gartner has found.

• February 09, 2011 09 Feb'11

  IT managers find Internet Explorer 9 fails to render websites and web applications

  With the development of Internet Explorer 9.0 near completion, ComputerWeekly.com has learned that thousands of sites and applications are incompatible with the new browser and its immediate predecessor.

• February 08, 2011 08 Feb'11

  Cloud market to reach $2.5bn by 2015

  The worldwide cloud systems management software market will reach $2.5bn (£1.55bn) by 2015, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).