computer

Salesforce.com is close to aquiring Buddy Media, a company that helps brands manage a presence on social media sites, for more than $800 million, All Things D reports.

Salesforce boasts more than 100,000 customers that utilize its cloud computing services. Adding a social media element, could help bolster its core business management services. Buddy Media is best known for helping big brands navigate Facebook. Recently, it has expanded to other social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

The two companies have agreed to terms, but the transaction hasn't closed yet, according to All Things D's … Read more

Google's Chrome OS just got vastly more useful, with two new Chrome OS devices announced today -- a Chromebook laptop and Chromebox desktop from Samsung that clear up performance problems that sullied last year's debut of the browser-based operating system.

I found the first-generation Chromebooks usable but painfully slow. Unshackled from slow hardware, though, Chrome OS now can stand on its own merits.

So how does it stand up? After a week of testing Samsung's new $329 Series 3 Chromebox and $449 Series 5 550 Chromebook, which go on sale today, I think the new Chrome OS … Read more

Although a flurry of Apple products hit store shelves each year, the company's enthusiast-focused Mac Pro has been looking awfully old as of late. A new petition on Facebook is asking Apple for some insight into its next move with the computer.

The petition, called "We Want A New Mac Pro," launched on Facebook on May 8. Since then, the movement has secured about 6,300 likes. Late Thursday, according to AppleInsider, which first to report on the petition, it had about 4,000 likes.

"Hello Apple. Remember me? I'm one of your loyal users,&… Read more

In the future panopticon society of all-seeing robots, don't count on expressing your loyalty to our metal masters with a halfhearted grin.

MIT boffins have already trained computers to recognize real smiles of delight from smiles borne out of frustration. And natch, they can already do it better than us lowly meatsacks. … Read more

Enthusiasts of embedded computing seem to be spoiled for choices nowadays.

A Chinese-made computer that's slightly larger than a typical thumbdrive can now be purchased online for just $74.

The MK802 is similar to the Cotton Candy computer-on-a-stick. Both are powered by ARM processors and support Android or other ARM-compatible Linux operating systems. It comes with a Mali 400 GPU that enables it to output 1080p video through HDMI.

Despite its small size (it weighs just about 7 ounces), the MK802 has a microSD card slot to add to its built-in 4GB flash storage, together with a full-size USB port and a micro-USB version. Wi-Fi is also supported. … Read more

One must wonder why Sony cannot get out of the habit of playing a fragmented and behind-the-curve Android release schedule for its devices.

Finally putting speculation to rest, a Sony representative confirmed with Crave today (and subsequently on Twitter) that Sony tablet owners in "all regions will have Android 4.0 by end of May." And on a related note, a Sony Japan statement announced a May 24 drop date for Android 4.0 landing on both Tablet S and Tablet P devices specifically in that country, perhaps a timeframe we should expect elsewhere.

To recap, see if you can keep up with this: … Read more

The FBI must prepare its agents for most things.

However, it might have been a first when special agent Jonathan MacDonald and colleagues forced their way into the Palm Coast, Fla., home of Kamil Mezalka, whom they suspected of being involved in child pornography.

For their report claims that Mezalka, standing in his underwear, began stabbing his computer with a samurai sword.

I am grateful to The Smoking Gun for making my Friday more complete by relating this detail.

MacDonald's affidavit presents a moving description of the proceedings.

He says the FBI executed a "mechanical breach of the … Read more

One could safely say Dutch computer modder Sander van der Velden adores the behemoth AT-AT vehicle from "The Empire Strikes Back." The self-confessed sci-fi addict recently stuffed a water-cooled computer inside a large Hasbro toy version of Star Wars' most infamous four-legged Rebel annihilator.

The AT-AT computer measures 2 feet tall (plus several more inches for the dock), and contains some spicy hardware, including a Zotac Z68-ITX (Mini-ITX) motherboard running an Intel Core i7 2600k processor, SSD, and built-in Wi-Fi. The water-cooling system (radiator and XSPC pump) uses water blocks to cool the CPU, GPU, and other components.

The designers at Hasbro probably didn't expect someone to take the largest action figure AT-AT ever made and fit a bunch of computer parts into it. … Read more

A group of researchers says shoes may be the next thing in the busy field of wearable computers and gesture interfaces.

Computer scientists from the Telekom Innovation Laboratories, the University of Munich, and the University of Toronto this week published a paper on ShoeSense, a wearable computing system for a smartphone.

It's one of many gesture interface-related papers being presented this week at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012) conference, which is sponsored by the research arms of Microsoft, Google, eBay, and other tech companies.

Wearable computing got a high-profile plug when Google introduced Project Glass, … Read more