It’s been just over two months since I first got my hands on the HTC One — first, a pre-production demo unit, then a final European retail model. For most of that time, HTC’s impressive 2013 flagship has been my daily driver — the phone I use every day, and take with me just about everywhere I go. In that time it’s seen [...]]]> By Alex Dobie  | May 12 2013 | 12:03 pm  |

How has HTCs latest flagship fared after two months in the hands of an AC editor?

It’s been just over two months since I first got my hands on the HTC One — first, a pre-production demo unit, then a final European retail model. For most of that time, HTC’s impressive 2013 flagship has been my daily driver — the phone I use every day, and take with me just about everywhere I go. In that time it’s seen plenty of normal use, and ten days or so of not-so-normal use in New York City for our Galaxy S4 and #TM13 coverage

But the HTC One was in in short supply when it first launched in Europe and it’s only recently hit the U.S. market, so

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Gregg Ambulos, Senior Vice President, Global Channel Sales, and Terry Breen, Senior Vice President, Strategic Sales, Alliances and Service Providers, EMC, used the EMC World conference to introduce the EMC Business Partner initiative, which is scheduled to replace the decade-old EMC [...]]]> EMC for now is quiet about the details of its planned restructuring of its channel program, but it is clear on one thing: It will be a comprehensive program that will bring partners together not only on its products but also on its core big data, cloud and trust.

Gregg Ambulos, Senior Vice President, Global Channel Sales, and Terry Breen, Senior Vice President, Strategic Sales, Alliances and Service Providers, EMC, used the EMC World conference to introduce the EMC Business Partner initiative, which is scheduled to replace the decade-old EMC Velocity channel program starting January 1, 2014.

Ambulos said that the EMC Business Partner program is still in an exploratory phase, and so the company is hesitant to release details at this point. Find more…

In a draft guide released in December, APRA noted that it had become easier for banks and insurers to move their data to outsourcers, whether in Australia or offshore.

Just two years ago, companies kept their cloud usage quiet, largely due to APRA’s November 2010 warning that cloud computing was a form of outsourcing that needed its tick of approval.

But recent deals inked by the Commonwealth Bank, [...]]]> The Office of the Information Commissioner has urged APRA to heed Australian privacy law as it develops its data protection guide for the finance sector.

In a draft guide released in December, APRA noted that it had become easier for banks and insurers to move their data to outsourcers, whether in Australia or offshore.

Just two years ago, companies kept their cloud usage quiet, largely due to APRA’s November 2010 warning that cloud computing was a form of outsourcing that needed its tick of approval.

But recent deals inked by the Commonwealth Bank, Bank of Queensland and CGU with Salesforce.com – a cloud-based CRM vendor with no Australian data centre – indicate that APRA’s data location requirements are not prohibitive.

The Office of the Information Commissioner referred APRA to Australia’s National Privacy Principle 9 and its upcoming replacement APP 8, which define when organisations may transfer Australians’ personal information to an offshore provider.

“NPP 9 generally prohibits an organisation from disclosing personal information to someone in a foreign country who is not subject to a comparable information privacy scheme,” the OAIC wrote in its submission to APRA.

“The scheme may be a law of that country regulating personal information-handling, a treaty or other instrument, or a contract.

“The OAIC recommends that the Draft Practice Guide expressly refer to the obligations regarding the handling of personal information set out in the Privacy Act.”

NPP 9 allows data to be offshored only with the individual’s consent, if the transfer is necessary for the organisation to provide a pre-contracted service provision, or if the transfer is “for the benefit of the individual” and likely to gain the consent of the individual.

APP8 , which comes into effect next March, is more prescriptive about how individuals’ consent is obtained, and makes organisations accountable for any data breaches their third party partners suffer.

Risk-based approach

To date, APRA has assessed financial institutions’ cloud computing plans on a case-by-case basis.

Its official position on cloud computing is outlined in its November 2010 letter and October 2006 prudential practice guide on outsourcing .

In the case of insurer CGU, only a subset of data is stored in the Salesforce.com cloud, including sales figures and account renewals.

That data is also replicated in CGU’s internal databases and displayed alongside locally hosted data via an integrated user interface.

Commonwealth Bank chief information officer Michael Harte said the regulator had been supportive of it moving applications – including its Commbank.com.au website – to Amazon Web Services.

“All they want is risk-weighted calculus on what you’re doing, [and] consultation on what you’re doing,” Harte told iTnews on the sidelines of an AIIA luncheon last week.

“Everytime we’ve taken something to them they’ve been very, very supportive and they’ve been helpful, telling us how we might even improve it. So yeah, we have a great relationship in that reg

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The flamboyant entrepreneur, who is facing extradition from New Zealand to the U.S. over copyright infringement allegations, plans to launch easy-to-use yet secure communications services.

Not content with sticking two fingers up at the authorities with his Mega secure cloud storage service, larger-than-life entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is planning to release further privacy-centric services. And interestingly, in a Q&A session with the New Zealand Herald late last night, Dotcom said he intended the secure email and instant messaging services to be both military-grade and so easy to use that [...]]]> Summary:

The flamboyant entrepreneur, who is facing extradition from New Zealand to the U.S. over copyright infringement allegations, plans to launch easy-to-use yet secure communications services.

Not content with sticking two fingers up at the authorities with his Mega secure cloud storage service, larger-than-life entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is planning to release further privacy-centric services. And interestingly, in a Q&A session with the New Zealand Herald late last night, Dotcom said he intended the secure email and instant messaging services to be both military-grade and so easy to use that the user wouldnt have to do anything to benefit from this security.

This is always the issue with security – if it requires much thought on the users part, it will generally fail. D

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In Win, Lian Li, and [...]]]> If you love building computers, you probably appreciate a good case or chassis. While there are plenty of excellent products available for a song, there’s also an upper echelon of models that cost quite a bit and offer all the premiere features you could hope for. While it seems as though there’s a lot of similarity between low-end and midrange cases, once you get to a certain price point, various companies take things in very different directions. The three premium chassis we’re looking at in this roundup certainly bear that out.

In Win, Lian Li, and SilverStone all make some beautiful cases. And when we asked them to send us one of their top of the line products, they all responded in kind: In Win with the unique H-Frame, Lian Li with the tall, all-black PC-X2000FN, and Silverstone with the Fortress FT02. (Regular readers w Find more…

The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community [...]]]> “We wanted to explore these perceptions of veteran programmers as being out of step with emerging technologies and see if we could determine whether older programmers are actually keeping up with changes in the field,” says Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. “And we found that, in some cases, veteran programmers even have a slight edge.”

The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community that allows users to ask and answer programming questions. The site also allows users to rate the usefulness of other users’ questions and answers.

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When the Nokia 808 [...]]]> We’re almost exactly a year on from our first hands-on with the Nokia 808 PureView, hailed by me, somewhat tongue in cheek, as Nokia’s custom design for me, from my own personal checklist. Insane camera, Xenon flash, replaceable battery, FM transmitter, large OLED screen, deafening speaker, and so on. All present and correct. One year on and, thanks to a brace of updates and third party additions, I find myself just as in love with the 808 now as when I first popped my microSIM card in… 

When the Nokia 808 PureView was first unleashed upon the world, it’s fair to say that some parts of its software loadout were missing in action.

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Zhendong Su, professor of computer science, said that his team has notified the app developers of the problems, although it has not yet had a response.

The security flaws were identified by graduate student Dennis (Liang) Xu, who collected about 120,000 free apps from the Android marketplace. The researchers focused initially on the Android platform, which has about a half-billion users worldwide. Android is quite different from Apple’s iOS platform, but there may well be similar problems with iPhone apps, Xu said.

The victim [...]]]>

Zhendong Su, professor of computer science, said that his team has notified the app developers of the problems, although it has not yet had a response.

The security flaws were identified by graduate student Dennis (Liang) Xu, who collected about 120,000 free apps from the Android marketplace. The researchers focused initially on the Android platform, which has about a half-billion users worldwide. Android is quite different from Apple’s iOS platform, but there may well be similar problems with iPhone apps, Xu said.

The victim would first have to download a piece of malicious code onto their phone.

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To date, the airline has partnered with the likes of American Express and sister brand Virgin Money to offer frequent flyer points as a reward for credit card spend.

Virgin Money was acquired by the Bank of Queensland last week.

The new, opt-in Global Wallet program will issue Velocity members with new loyalty cards that feature Visa’s smart chip and contactless payWave technology.

Global Wallet [...]]]> Virgin Australia will integrate its 3.5 million member Velocity frequent flyer program program with a new prepaid, contactless credit card scheme in coming months.

To date, the airline has partnered with the likes of American Express and sister brand Virgin Money to offer frequent flyer points as a reward for credit card spend.

Virgin Money was acquired by the Bank of Queensland last week.

The new, opt-in Global Wallet program will issue Velocity members with new loyalty cards that feature Visa’s smart chip and contactless payWave technology.

Global Wallet users will be able to store money in multiple currencies on their accounts, to be used for purchases and to withdraw cash from compatible ATMs around the world.

Velocity data will continue to be held by Virgin, while transaction data will be held separately by partner Rev Worldwide.

Visa said the Global Wallet partnership was its first such airline partnership.

The airline has spent some $36 million on a major program of work that saw it flick the switch on a new Sabre ticketing and reservation system in January.

Global Wallet was announced this week, echoing the announcement of Qantas Cash by Qantas and MasterCard in February.

At the time, Qantas said it had no plans to move into personal banking and would remain “focused on running an airline and loyalty business”.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline held any data collected by its frequent flyer and Qantas Cash programs.

“Data collected is used to ensure the customer experience is enhanced and as relevant as possible for members,” she said.

Qantas Cash is expected to reach the market in the second half of 2013. Qanta

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Check out this amazing magician, Oliver B, who performed some seriously cool magic on me.

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If you’ve ever been frustrated by the fact that you struggle to get Wi-Fi in your bedroom – or your bathroom, for that matter – there is a solution.

The devolo dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ starter kit promises to combine all the features of a high-performance Powerline adapter in one housing.

It features integrated WiFi for an optimal connection to wireless terminal devices such as a smartphone or laptop, three LAN ports for connecting network-compatible devices and means that you’ll never be too far away from a connection to your broadband no [...]]]>

If you’ve ever been frustrated by the fact that you struggle to get Wi-Fi in your bedroom – or your bathroom, for that matter – there is a solution.

The devolo dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ starter kit promises to combine all the features of a high-performance Powerline adapter in one housing.

It features integrated WiFi for an optimal connection to wireless terminal devices such as a smartphone or laptop, three LAN ports for connecting network-compatible devices and means that you’ll never be too far away from a connection to your broadband no matter how big your house is.

How it works

You plug the delovo dLAN 500 AVplus adapter into a power socket near your router and then connect the two with the included network cable.

Elsewhere in your house you plug in the second devolo dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ adapter included in the Starter Kit box and either connect devices to it with a standard network cable, or wirelessly via your device’s standard Wi-Fi connection.

Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of the dLAN Powerline adapter for Internet is that whether you are connecting other devices to the system or not, all the devices in the room have an optimum connection rather than trying to cover the long distance back to the router.

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Over the next year, the council, consisting of 10-15 key Dell partners will provide feedback, share ideas and discuss strategies and programs to augment sales and address enterprise customer needs. The partners will be selected on the basis of their depth of understanding of customer needs.

Richard Lee, Global Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific, Global Commercial Channels, Dell, said, “We are very proud of the pace at with [...]]]> Dell has launched a Partner Advisory Council. The announcement was made at the ongoing Partner Summit in Bengaluru.

Over the next year, the council, consisting of 10-15 key Dell partners will provide feedback, share ideas and discuss strategies and programs to augment sales and address enterprise customer needs. The partners will be selected on the basis of their depth of understanding of customer needs.

Richard Lee, Global Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific, Global Commercial Channels, Dell, said, “We are very proud of the pace at with the GCC is growing in India. I Find more…

“These techniques are going to change how [...]]]> They used theorem-proving techniques to analyze a control algorithm for a research robot that would help a surgeon perform surgery at the base of the skull. Their method identified a safety flaw that could enable a scalpel or other surgical tool to go dangerously astray in this area, where the eye orbits, ear canals and major arteries and nerves are closely spaced and vulnerable to injury. It also guided development of a new algorithm and verified that the new controller was safe and reliable.

“These techniques are going to change how people build robotic surgery systems,” predicted APL’s Yanni Kouskoulas, who led the research study with André Platzer, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon.

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Ouya founder and CEO Julie Uhrman has sent out a message to the Kickstarter backers of the Ouya console that gives a peek at their projected shipping schedule. We see a sharp uptick today, and another near the end of the month when “larger-scale” weekly shipments are expected.

She also mentions that they have made a tweaks to [...]]]> By Jerry Hildenbrand  | Apr 12 2013 | 10:19 pm  |

All backers still on-track to receive their unit by May 25, one quarter of which will come before the end of April

Ouya founder and CEO Julie Uhrman has sent out a message to the Kickstarter backers of the Ouya console that gives a peek at their projected shipping schedule. We see a sharp uptick today, and another near the end of the month when “larger-scale” weekly shipments are expected.

She also mentions that they have made a tweaks to the process that could shave days off the shipping time. We imagine building, sorting, and shipping out consoles to all the backers is not an easy job. Th

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