research

BRIC power-shift calls for 'New IT Story'

BOSTON--Emerging markets will be found in BRIC. That's Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

And unless companies start thinking and operating more collectively and less individualistically, they will not survive--let alone thrive on-- this change.

That was the message given on Tuesday to a group of CIOs, CEOs, and other executives at AMR Research's Executive Leadership Conference 2007.

Major challenges facing companies in the emerging BRIC-driven world economy will include how to manage data and how to mobilize a skilled workforce from one currently made up of aging skilled workers getting ready to retire and young unskilled workers.

AMR … Read more

Start-up wants starring role in camera mechanics

MONTEREY, Calif.--A start-up called Artificial Muscle hopes its actuator technology will provide a cheaper, quieter, and lower-power alternative to the host of motors and other devices that control mechanical movements inside cameras.

The company's technology employs a particular variety of resilient substances called elastomers. This variety changes properties when a voltage is applied across them, growing softer or firmer. Artificial Muscle mounts a ring of the material to a central disk that's pushed by a spring; when the material relaxes, the spring pushes the central disk outward.

The distance the disk travels, or "throw," is … Read more

Facebook made easy for BlackBerry

SAN FRANCISCO--BlackBerry's users, often referred to as "CrackBerry" addicts, will now have easy access to the popular social-networking site Facebook.

The two companies, which have been working in secret for the past six months, announced Wednesday that they have integrated the Facebook Web application with Research In Motion's Blackerry smartphones.

Mike Lazaridis, founder of RIM, joined Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, to formally unveil and demonstrate Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment show here.

T-Mobile USA will be the first mobile operator to provide the software application to subscribers, the companies … Read more

What kind of information technology user are you?

Do you cringe when your cell phone rings? Do you suffer from withdrawal when you can't check your Blackberry? Do you rush to post your vacation video to your Web site?

Answer a few questions to see where you fit in the typology of information and communication technology users developed by the Pew Internet Project.

Take the Test

Adobe shows off 3D camera tech

Today, if you want to trim all the distracting background out of a picture--say, the crowd behind your daughter playing soccer--you have to do a lot of artful selection with high-powered software such as Photoshop. But what if your computer understood the depth of the image, just as you did when you took the picture, and could be told to just erase everything that's a certain distance behind your kid?

That's one possible way to use technology that Adobe Systems has begun showing off--and that can be seen in video of a news conference posted by the Audioblog.fr site … Read more

Keyword research for everyday consumption

Keywords are a key element in every website and keyword research is at the foundation of SEO. Keywords don't just go into page titles, headings, and the copy of a page, but play a critical role in links, file names, and even the architecture of a site.

When we SEO practitioners think of keyword research, we often think of "full-blown" research projects, pulling and filtering through thousands of keyword phrases. This kind of research can't be understated, but sometimes it's more than we need. There are times when we just need to fine-tune a page, … Read more

Ig Nobel awards give peace (and animal dung) a chance

There's nothing like nerd humor to keep the world's problems in perspective.

Harvard University once again played host to the Ig Nobel awards given out by the "Annals of Improbable Research," a parody of the Nobel prizes awarding people for scientific inventions that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."

This year's Ig Nobel peace prize brought new meaning to the phrase "make love, not war."

It went to the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The group invented a chemical weapon, nicknamed the "gay bomb," … Read more

PET detects 'Mother of Satan'

"Mother of Satan"--that's what bomb makers call peroxide-based explosives like triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which are easy to make and hard to detect. But a new pen-shaped detector doodad offers hope for those doing time in airport security lines.

The Peroxide Explosives Tester, or PET, by Acro is supposed to help security personnel quickly and accurately identify peroxide-based explosives, from diacetone diperoxide and hexam-methalene-triperoxidediamine to the notorious TATP, a component allegedly used by Mr. Goofy in the shoe bomb he tried to detonate on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

Acro announced this month that it had licensed … Read more

Pink Shuffle for breast cancer research

A special pink edition has been added to the spectrum of Shuffles announced by Apple earlier this month, though this time it's not just for fashion and marketing. Target is packaging the pastel music players with an iTunes gif card for no additional charge as part of a campaign to combat breast cancer.

AppleInsider says the retail chain will donate up to $25,000 of the proceeds to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Photos of the special bundle, which is available only at Target's brick-and-mortar stores, can be seen here.

CMU develops scam-busting online game

There's no end to scams on the Internet, and it can be hard for anyone to tell the difference between a legitimate and fake Web address. (Can you pick the bogus URL between "www.express.ebay.com" and "www.ebaysale.nl"?)

That's why computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University developed a cutesy online game to teach people how to spot a so-called phishing scam before giving up personal information like bank account passwords to a rogue operator. The 15-minute game, called Anti-Phishing Phil, features a little fish named Phil that must discern between good … Read more