Analysis: Most companies won't be early adopters of Windows 8 (Most of people/companies may not care at all)

10/22/2012 Analysis: Most companies won't be early adopters of Windows 8

SEATTLE (Reuters) - There was once a time when the launch of a new Windows operating system was a huge deal for the technology departments in many businesses. Not anymore. Microsoft Corp's release of Windows 8 on Friday is likely to be a non-event for most companies -- and some experts say many may never adopt it. The system may appear to offer something for everyone: touch-screen functionality for tablet enthusiasts, a slick new interface for the younger set, and multiple versions to make it compatible with traditional desktop PC software. ...

New Megaload from Kim Dotcom

Wellington, New Zealand: In a move bound to provoke US prosecutors and entertainment executives, indicted Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is planning to launch a replacement of his shuttered website and a new online music service by the end of the year. The file-sharing site that Dotcom started in 2005 was one of the most popular online sites before US prosecutors shut it down and filed racketeering charges against Dotcom and six other Megaupload principals in January. US authorities are now trying to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand, where he's a resident, claiming he facilitated massive copyright piracy through his site. Prosecutors say Dotcom pocketed tens of millions of dollars while movie makers and songwriters lost some $500 million in copyright revenue. Dotcom says he can't be held responsible for users who acted illegally and that Megaupload complied with copyrights by removing links to pirated material when asked. Some legal experts say proving Dotcom's conduct amounted to criminal conspiracy will be difficult, and he has gained some high-profile support, including from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The flamboyant Dotcom confirmed in a brief telephone interview this week that he's almost completed work on "new Mega" and "Megabox" but said he doesn't want to divulge details ahead of a major press launch. However, statements he's made on Twitter and a promotional video paint a picture of what he's planning. In recent tweets, Dotcom says his new version of Megaupload is nearly complete. "Quick update on the new Mega: Code 90% done. Servers on the way. Lawyers, Partners & Investors ready. Be patient. It's coming," he wrote. He said the new version will feature a one-click encryption option for data transfers and that the service would be hosted on servers outside the US.

Re

TCIO - London Silicon Valley

THE TECH CITY INVESTMENT ORGANISATION WAS ESTABLISHED BY UKTI TO SUPPORT THE GROWTH OF THE TECH CLUSTER IN EAST LONDON

Our aim is to help Tech City become Europe’s centre of innovation and the location of choice for tech and digital companies and investors. We bring new companies and investors to East London, and provide support to local companies seeking to expand internationally.

Joanna Shields,the vice president and managing director of Facebook’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, is leaving to become the chief executive of the Tech City Investment Organisation

Another post-IPO executive departure for Facebook, this time on the international front. Joanna Shields,the vice president and managing director of Facebook’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, is leaving to become the chief executive of the Tech City Investment Organisation. And in a (possibly temporary) step up for another exec, Facebook tells us that Shields’ reports will now report to Carolyn Everson, the global VP of marketing for Facebook.

Tech City is a David Cameron/Conservative government initiative to develop a technology hub in the East End of London to rival that of Silicon Valley and other major tech centers.

It looks like for now Carolyn Everson’s assumption of Shields’ reports may just be an interim measure, but it also could be a sign of her growing position at the company. Indeed, as Facebook continues to position itself for more revenue-generating activities, in some respects, the marketing relationships that fall under Everson’s (and formerly Shields’) remit are perhaps the ones that Facebook can least afford to let drop while it weathers churn at the management level.

The news of Shields’ new job was first reported by the Telegraph (a Tory-backing newspaper) earlier tonight.

Shields, an American ex-pat, is coming into a role that has been up for grabs since June, when chief executive Eric van der Kleij said he was stepping down to serve as an advisor to the Canary Wharf Group, a real estate development company that wants to bring more tech companies to the Docklands area of the city, which is currently very heavy on investment banks and other financial industry businesses.

Tech City has had its ups and downs since first being established in 2011. Started with some fanfare by Cameron as a route to revitalizing the East End of London by catalysing some of the tech startup activity that was already happening there, critics asked why the government chose to focus on one part of London when there are tech companies spread out to many other parts of England, such as Cambridge for hardware. Some have accused Tech City of being little more than a PR machine.

Whether Joanna Shields will be able to turn that image around will be the big question. The TCIO has already said that it plans to split the job into two, with the CEO having an external facing role and a deputy CEO acting as more of an event organizer.

Shields is already looking to take the Tech City vision into something beyond just London. “The spotlight has been thrown on the east London cluster,” Shields told the Telegraph in an interview. “We have to give this Government credit for recognising the success of it and then reacting with policies that are absolutely spot on for incubating businesses, not just in the cluster, but all across the UK.”

To be fair, there have been some very notable advances in London-as-tech-hub: among them, Google establishing its multi-story Campus incubator and events space; Amazon and Facebook both building out their operations in the city; General Assembly arriving in town; hundreds of startups in between all of that; and even an exit (the first, apparently).

Some of that is also just a consequence of how the tech world has continued to grow and globalize. We’ve also seen huge developments in Dublin, Berlin, across Israel, in Russia and more. Is London extra-remarkable in that context?

Before coming to Facebook, Shields had already established her tech credentials at the executive level: she had previously been the CEO of social network Bebo and also worked as a senior executive for Google in Europe, among other roles. This is her first foray into public policy.

Shields’ departure from Facebook follows a string of other executives leaving after Facebook’s IPO. Among them have been CTO Bret Taylor, Platform head Carl Sjogreen,and Ari Steinberg (influential engineer who had most recently been leading FB’s Seattle office). Three other recent business exec departures include head of partnerships Ethan Beard, director of platform marketing Katie Mitic, and platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus.

We have reached out to Facebook to find out who will replace Shields and will update this post as we learn more.

Update: Facebook has sent us the following statement:

Joanna has been a tremendous contributor to our EMEA organization and her leadership and passion will be missed. Facebook supports the UK Government’s vision for building a stronger technology-based economy and start-up ecosystem, and we wish Joanna every success as she moves into her new role at the Tech City Investment Organisation and as the Business Ambassador for Digital Industries.

Cyperspace battlefield

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cyberspace is the battlefield of the future, with attackers already going after banks and other financial institutions and developing the ability to strike U.S. power grids and government systems, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday.

"We confront a whole new threat of warfare in (cyberspace). ... This is an area we've got to pay close attention to. This is the battlefront of the future," he told a business group in Norfolk, Virginia, a city at the center of one of the largest concentrations of military power in the United States.

Panetta's remarks came a week after he delivered a major policy speech on cyber security to a New York business group, saying the U.S. military could act pre-emptively if it detects an imminent threat of cyber attack.

U.S. banks and financial institutions have been under sustained attack in recent weeks by suspected Iranian hackers thought to be responding to economic sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to negotiate over its nuclear program.

A group calling itself the Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-din Al Qassam has claimed credit for the disruptions, calling them a protest against an anti-Islam video posted on YouTube that has provoked violent protests across the Muslim world.

"As I speak, there are attacks going on in this country, cyber attacks, on financial institutions, on banks," Panetta told the business group on Friday, adding that Washington faces hundreds of thousands of attacks per day. He did not specify the country from which the attacks were originating.

"Now they are developing the capability to be able to go after our grid, our power grid, our financial systems, our government systems, and virtually paralyze this country," he said.

William Robertson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University in Boston who testified on cyber security legislation in Congress earlier this year, said in an interview the government is "quite understandably worried" about the threat.

"I don't think it's hyperbole," he added. "These kinds of attacks that he's talking about have actually been going on for quite some time. And they've been increasing in intensity lately."

Panetta said last week the United States has made significant investments in cyber forensics to deal with the problem of identifying the source of a cyber attack. He warned potential attackers that the United States has "the capacity to locate them and hold them accountable."

Robertson said identifying the source of a cyber attack remains difficult.

"Identity and attribution on the Internet are not very robust. If you look at kind of the underlying protocols that kind of power the Internet ... there's no real strong mechanism for identifying where something is coming from," he said.

Panetta also said that more pressure on Congress is needed to push it to act to avoid a round of automatic budget cuts due to go into effect in January.

The cuts would take another $500 billion from defense spending over the next decade, following a $487 billion cut in projected defense spending approved last year.

Panetta called the automatic cuts a "goofy mechanism" put into place by Congress to force lawmakers "to do what they are supposed to do" and deal with the U.S. budget deficits.

"So they put a gun to their heads and said if we don't do what's right we'll blow our heads off," Panetta said. "And they didn't do what is right and now the damn gun is cocked to go off in January

Yahoo backs to technology instead of contents under new CEO

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Marissa Mayer, who earned a reputation for decisive action and intensity during her 13-year stint at Google Inc, has spent her first months as Yahoo Inc CEO quietly moving the Internet pioneer back to its roots in technology.

Long torn between whether it should focus on media content or on tools and technologies, Yahoo under Mayer is being positioned firmly in the latter camp, according to sources inside and outside the company.

Her hires, acquisition musings, and other early moves hint at an ambitious, technology-driven comeback plan designed to revitalize aging but well-trafficked properties such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports.

Yahoo has been criticized for allowing these sites to stagnate - they look very much like they did five years ago, and do not have many bells and whistles to encourage users to spend more time on them.

Mayer, 37, wants to make Yahoo's properties much more interactive, on PCs and on mobile devices, using social media tools to personalize the user experience and new technology to boost advertising sales. Her well-known focus on user design is expected to result in a simpler, less-cluttered email and home page, one source said.

Yahoo declined to comment for this article. Mayer, who gave birth to her first child weeks ago, will unveil details of her comeback plan when Yahoo reports quarterly results on Monday.

Mayer's focus on technology in many ways reverses a course set by her predecessors, who had concentrated on media content deals, such as those that gave prime billing to Walt Disney Co's ABC News or CNBC, or to bring an original program starring actor Tom Hanks to its website.

The new strategy is not without risks: it positions Yahoo squarely against Facebook Inc and Google. It also risks alienating a large, media-focused contingent that is already weakened by the departure of Ross Levinsohn, who had championed a media-centric approach when he was interim CEO before Mayer's arrival in July.

Mayer has been meeting with Internet gurus including AOL Inc CEO Tim Armstrong, another ex-Googler; Silicon Valley lawyer Larry Sonsini; and Wall Street investment bankers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bankers have pitched Mayer and her team on a slew of potential acquisitions, and they appeared to show interest in restaurant reservation site OpenTable Inc and advertising technology companies PubMatic, Turn and Millennial Media, one of the people said.

Caterva, a small start-up whose technology analyzes social media activity, has also been in low-level talks with Yahoo, said another source familiar with the situation.

OpenTable and PubMatic declined comment. Millennial Media and Caterva did not respond to requests for comment.

With more than $2 billion in cash and short-term securities, Yahoo has the money to acquire engineering talent or bolt-on services. Two types of deals are under consideration: companies that will increase user engagement, including on mobile, and those that will boost advertising returns, source said.

"What they've signaled so far is that the deals will be more niche in nature, smaller deals that maybe have a lot of promise," said Ken Allen, a director at Blackstone Advisory Partners.

TALENT HUNT

Many industry insiders believe Mayer is Yahoo's final hope for reversing a years-long decline from the pinnacle it once attained as the leading gateway to the Internet. Four of her predecessors have tried in vain to right the ship - Yahoo's market value of $19 billion, is less than half its $44 billion value in 2005.

Mayer, who earned a masters degree in computer science from Stanford University specializing in artificial intelligence, has moved quickly on the personnel front, shelling out rich pay packages to attract ex-colleagues from Google and elsewhere.

She brought in ad technology systems guru Henrique de Castro as chief operating officer; a new finance chief in Ken Goldman, who also has tech chops, to replace Tim Morse; and Jacqueline Reese to assume the dual role of hiring and acquisitions, suggesting the start of a train of "acqui-hires" or buying small companies for their engineering talent.

"She's spending almost all her time with the product folks. She's spending it on technology. She's talking about engineering hires," a person close to Yahoo said about Mayer's early days.

Yahoo's advertising technology products, headed for the auction block before Mayer's arrival, are back in favor. De Castro, her highest-profile hire, is known for a deep-understanding of the complex advertising landscape, where dozens of businesses and technology providers are interlinked.

Mayer has also shown an interest in the company's ad tech platform, including Right Media, an automated exchange that allows marketers to blast ads across a network of websites.

The group has been a long-standing source of division among Yahoo's management, including with Levinsohn, who was keen on divesting the unit, according to two sources close to the matter. But shortly after Mayer's arrival, Yahoo told AdAge that it had no intention of selling Right Media.

Yahoo's advertising salesforce, responsible for signing splashy home-page ad deals and premium marketing campaigns, has received scant attention from the new CEO, say people close to the company. Michael Barrett, Yahoo's chief revenue officer hired by Levinsohn shortly before Mayer's arrival, recently announced his resignation, according to a source familiar with t

Planet Hunter project: amaturers found planet with 4 suns

Planet With 4 Suns Discovered

Let’s hope those aliens have some strong SPF. Astronomers have discovered a planet that has four different suns, the first known example of such a phenomenon. The planet is named PH1 because it was discovered in part by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website. PH1 circles a pair of stars, but is remarkable for having another pair of stars revolving around it. “All four stars pulling on it creates a very complicated environment,” Dr. Chris Lintott of the University of Oxford says. “Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit.” But maybe it needs all those light sources—the planet is about six times the size of Earth.

Amateur astronomers have helped discover an alien planet with two suns and a twinkling twist: The entire twin-sun setup, a real-life version of Tatooine from "Star Wars," is orbited by two more stars —a solar system that is the first of its kind known.

The alien planet , called PH1, is a gas giant planet slightly bigger than Neptune. Its discovery in the midst of a strange, four-star planetary system is the first confirmed world discovered as part of the Yale University-led Planet Hunters project, in which armchair astronomers work with professional scientists to find evidence of new worlds in the bountiful data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope.

"Planet Hunters is a symbiotic project, pairing the discovery power of the people with follow-up by a team of astronomers," said Debra Fischer, a professor of astronomy at Yale and planet expert who helped launch Planet Hunters in 2010, in a statement. "This unique system might have been entirely missed if not for the sharp eyes of the public."

Since its March 2009 launch, Kepler has found evidence of more than 2,300 candidate alien worlds. [Gallery: More Alien Planets with Twin Suns ]

Finding a strange, new world

Since its initial discovery via Planet Hunters, the existence of PH1 has been confirmed by a team of professional astronomers, who will present their work today (Oct. 15) at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Reno, Nev.

With a radius about 6.2 times that of Earth's, PH1 is a smidge bigger

. The gassy planet spends 138 days completing a

than Neptune

single orbit around its two parent stars, which have masses about 1.5 and 0.41 times that of the sun. The stars circle each other once every 20 days.

The two other stars orbiting the PH1's twin suns are about 1,000 astronomical units (AU) from the parent stars. (One AU is about the distance between the Earth and sun, about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.)

If you're hoping to catch the quadruple sunset, this may not be your best bet. The researchers estimate PH1's temperature would range from a minimum of about 484 degrees Fahrenheit (524 Kelvin, or 251 degrees Celsius) and a maximum of 644 degrees F (613 Kelvin, or 340 degrees C), too hot to be in the habitable zone.

"Although PH1 is a gas giant planet, even if there is a possibility of rocky moons orbiting the body, their surfaces would be too hot for liquid water to exist," researcher Meg Schwamb of Yale University and colleagues write in a draft of their research article.

A planet with two suns

Until now, scientists had identified just six planets orbiting two parent stars, called circumbinary planets, and none of these have stellar companions orbiting them. Until their discovery, circumbinary planets were once the realm of science fiction with Tatooine, the fictional homeworld of Luke Skywalker in "Star Wars," among the most famous.

"Circumbinary planets are the extremes of planet formation," Schwamb said in a statement. "The discovery of these systems is forcing us to go back to the drawing board to understand how such planets can assemble and evolve in these dynamically challenging environments."

The Planet Hunter volunteers, Kian Jek of San Francisco, Calif., and Robert Gagliano of Cottonwood, Ariz., spotted PH1 using the transit method, noticing faint dips in light as the plant passed in front of, or transited, its parent stars.

Gagliano said he was "absolutely ecstatic" about the finding. "It's a great honor to be a Planet Hunter, citizen scientist, and work hand in hand with professional astronomers, making a real contribution to science," he said.

Jek, too, expressed his amazement.

"It still continues to astonish me how we can detect, let alone glean so much information, about another planet thousands of light-years away just by studying the light from its parent star," he said in a statement.

Schwamb led the team of professional astronomers who confirmed the discovery and characterized the planet, following observations from the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The research was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship.

For more information on the Planet Hunters project, visit: http://

.

www.planethunters.org

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