Opinion

Startup Adallom takes on SaaS security challenges

New cloud-based offering detects anomalies in employee cloud use across the enterprise, raises alerts on risky behavior

SALESFORCE goes all API crazy — BITCOIN = Big Coin, breaks $600 — APPLE buys KINECT 3D tech — The Kids Aren’t Always All Right

‘Blurry fonts’ bug KB 2670838 persists with IE11 and Windows 7

Six-month-old 'fuzzy fonts' bug that hit Firefox and Chrome is still around — and may now ensnare Windows users upgrading to IE11

Salesforce.com launches Salesforce1 integration platform

New 'social, mobile, and cloud customer platform' is designed for building next-generation social and mobile apps

Can we talk? The sorry state of modern messaging

Despite iMessages, Google Talk, texts, Facebook, Viber, Skype, and even email, it's harder to communicate than ever

Why Amazon Web Services rules the cloud

The company that originated cloud computing continues to hold a staggering lead over the IaaS competition — and the consumerization of IT has played right into its hands

Kinesis: Amazon’s cloud opens to the Internet of things

Service for real-time data processing could be cloud giant's first steps toward Internet of things domination

Snapchat to Facebook: $3 billion isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?

Walking away from $3 billion — or maybe $4 billion, says the grapevine. Surely, the dot-com bubble must burst now. Right?

FCC chair: UNLOCK all phones! — GOOGLE Books upheld as fair use — COIN, the all-in-one credit card — SNAPCHAT rumored to snub Google’s $4 billion

Microsoft to fix Windows XP update SVCHOST redline issue ‘soon’

Microsoft has identified why using Windows Update to install patches on Windows XP may lock up users' machines for hours on end

PaaS isn’t what it used to be

Without infrastructure, you can't have a real platform service; with infrastructure, it can do much more than aid developers

TrueCrypt or false? Would-be open source project must clean up its act

Security isn't TrueCrypt's only controversial point — its claim to be open source doesn't hold water, either

Brendan Eich spills the beans on next two JavaScript upgrades

Work progresses in parallel on versions 6 and 7 of underlying ECMAScript specification, with version 6 due by end of 2014

An Apple television doesn’t make sense, but Apple TV does

Forget iTV — Apple has already deconstructed traditional media hardware/content flow and freed up content consumption

Watson as a service: IBM preps AI in the cloud

By offering Watson's machine-learning system in the cloud, IBM could expand AI's frontiers and monetize the work as it happens

Amazon, Microsoft, Pivotal, and Verizon bulk up in the cloud

Amazon WorkSpaces, Microsoft's Visual Studio Online, and two Cloud Foundry deals headline the week's cloud announcements

AT&T introduces mysterious update to thwart unlocked-iPhone resellers

AT&T has made it harder to unlock used iPhones in bulk, perhaps to crack down on once-thriving overseas markets

Review: Dropbox for Business improves, but still lags behind the competition

Dropbox's service upgrade for business users addresses major limitations with more detailed reporting and the ability to use both personal and business accounts on the same device

AMAZON wants to be your desktop — Secret US-led IP pact excludes China — IBM opens Watson to devs — China snubs CISCO over NSA

Amazon WorkSpaces delivers Windows desktops on demand

WorkSpaces provides cloud-hosted Windows 7 desktops in four virtual machine configurations, but current VDI solutions may still have an edge in terms of flexibility

Who’s who guide to Microsoft’s ‘Game of Thrones’

Official announcement of Steve Ballmer's replacement is imminent — keep track of key players with this quick scorecard

9 killer uses for WebSockets

WebSockets enables instant data exchange and is supported by all modern browsers. Put it to use immediately in your Web apps

Shocker: Women outnumber men in this year’s tech hires

Women's tech employment has hovered at around 30 percent, but that number jumped to 60 percent this year

XML co-inventor: Now’s the time for federated identity

Google's Tim Bray proposes an alternative to the clunky practice of choosing and maintaining multiple passwords

Microsoft reinvents Visual Studio as an Azure cloud service

Updated Microsoft IDE for .Net 4.5.1, Visual Studio Online, runs on Windows Azure, sports pre-release version of in-browser IDE

Dropbox lowers the wall between personal and business accounts

New version of file-sharing software makes play for enterprise by offering greater IT control, more end-user flexibility

Microsoft pulls rank — and makes its smartest move in years

Microsoft ditches stack ranking in employee reviews, but Machiavellian system reigns at Yahoo, Google, and Facebook

Cyanogen makes it easier to install alternate Android OS

Available on Google Play, CyanogenMod Installer app simplifies removal of your phone's version of Android, but still far from one-click process

Xamarin teams with Microsoft on cross-platform mobile development

Better integration between Xamarin tools, Visual Studio allows Windows developers to more easily build apps for iOS, Android

MICROSOFT kills employee-ranking system — GOOGLE bigger than newspaper and mag industries — NY TIMES brain drain: Bai, Stelter follow Pogue — MACRUMORS hacked

Windows XP update locks machines with SVCHOST redlined at 100%: Fix it with KB 2879017

Bug returns with recent patches in Windows XP's Windows Update processing, as SVCHOST pegs 100% CPU utilization

Does Samsung want to be Google or Apple? Maybe both

Hints have emerged around Samsung's prospective plan to move beyond Android and create a new Tizen mobile ecosystem

It’s on — cool heads meet fiery tempers in an IT turf war

A bank's new IT team keeps calm and carries on against in-house challenges by more than one enraged party

A road map to software-defined infrastructure

You can't shift to a software-defined data center overnight, but you can't stick to old, labor-intensive ways, either. IBM's Jamie Thomas tells you how to get there

Solving the mystery of Windows 8.1’s missing features

Microsoft has killed some capabilities outright and hidden others — our blogger shows you what happened to your faves

Chrome 31 pushes Web apps a step closer to desktop apps

Google's Portable Native Client lets developers deploy C/C++ inside desktop Chrome. Will other browser makers join in?

Intel plays catch-up to ARM with renewed Android push

A new compiler promises to deliver high-performance apps on devices where Intel has taken a backseat so far

VMware spinoff PIVOTAL gets real — iPad Mini RETINA sees light of day — GOOGLE patents lie-detecting throat tattoo — VC’s torch $100M on KNO

VMware spinoff Pivotal launches next-gen cloud dev platform

Pivotal rolls Cloud Foundry and Hadoop into PaaS for deployment on-premise or in the cloud, with easy-to-implement frameworks, messaging, and analytics

The secret to troubleshooting performance problems

Performance problems are among the most difficult to solve, requiring much preparation and well-honed soft skills to undo

Smartphone-only systems can be really dumb

iSmartAlarm, Viper, and Doorbot have strong appeal, until you realize their mobile focus is also why they can't work in the real world

Amazon Web Services has no reason to worry about IBM

On paper, IBM seems like a shoe-in to be the top enterprise cloud provider, but in the real world it's not so simple

It’s spooks vs. geeks in LinkedIn, Slashdot hacks

Alongside world leaders, diplomats, and investigative journalists, everyday engineers join list of targets for cyber spies

C pulls away from Java among top programming languages

Microsoft-centric languages C#, Transact-SQL, and Visual Basic.Net see a boost, but last month's surge for Groovy now cited as a glitch

CSC expands cloud management capabilities with ServiceMesh acquisition

Purchase of startup gives CSC customers ability to orchestrate applications across private, public, hybrid cloud environments

UK spy agency uses NSA attack to hack Slashdot, LinkedIn users

GCHQ created fake LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to spy on European network engineers, using technique exploited by NSA

Surprise! Java is fastest for server-side Web apps

In benchmarks, Java-based frameworks enjoy big performance lead over rivals, but other factors entice developers as well

Big, CURVEY Apples in store — Brits SPOOF, nobody laughs — Political campaigns may accept BITCOIN — SAMSUNG poaches Apple IoT exec — PITTMAN rolling up the Dudedom

Does Stephen Elop really want to kill Bing and Xbox?

Sources say CEO candidate would consider selling or shutting down major businesses at Microsoft, but report misses important points

Hot or not? Know your data center’s environment

Monitoring environmental conditions in the data center is absolutely critical to avoiding disasters, or surviving them