The fake profiles are overwhelmingly women. About 97 percent of the fake profiles collected by Barracuda Networks turned out to be of women, Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda said in [...]]]> Cyber-crooks on Facebook are creating fake profiles on the social networking site to launch their scams, according to data released by Barracuda Networks.

The fake profiles are overwhelmingly women. About 97 percent of the fake profiles collected by Barracuda Networks turned out to be of women, Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda said in his “FakeBook” presentation at the Kaspesky Lab Security Analyst Summit Feb. 2. Female users account for about 40 percent of real people on Facebook, Judge said.

Many of the profiles are automatically generated, using similar photos, and randomly selecting metropolitan cities, a high school or college near the city, and random interests, Judge said. The profiles are aimed at spreading spam or tricking users into joining affiliate programs, all of which translate into real-world money for the scammers.

“Fake users can take over your account, spam your wall and feeds,” Judge said.

Image via CrunchBase

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In keeping with its rapid release cadence, Mozilla has released Firefox 10.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux. While the latest browser version features relatively few cosmetic changes, there are some under-the-hood additions that could prove vital for developers trying to create next-generation Web experiences.

In the desktop version of Firefox 10.0, [...]]]>

Image via CrunchBase

In keeping with its rapid release cadence, Mozilla has released Firefox 10.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux. While the latest browser version features relatively few cosmetic changes, there are some under-the-hood additions that could prove vital for developers trying to create next-generation Web experiences.

In the desktop version of Firefox 10.0, Mozilla has hidden the forward button until the user navigates back. It has fixed some bugs, including one that sometimes crashed the browser when the user attempted to move bookmarks. But the bigger story here is the new built-in developer tools.

“With Page Inspector, developers can peek into a page’s structure and layout without having to leave Firefox,” read a Jan. 31 posting on The Mozilla Blog. In addition, a new tool called Style Inspector lets developers more easily edit Websites, and Scratchpad “now uses the Eclipse Orion code editor to provide syntax highlighting and other features that make it easier and simpler to write JavaScript.”

A new Full-Screen API lets developers build Web games and other multimedia experiences that utilize the entire PC screen. Mozilla has also introduced support for Anti-Aliasing for WebGL, a Web standard for displaying hardware-accelerated 3D graphics without third-party software, and CSS 3D Transforms, which transforms two-dimensional elements into 3D via HTML5.

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At the company’s annual Financial Analyst Day Feb. 2 in Sunnyvale, Calif., CEO Rory Read [...]]]> Advanced Micro Devices executives are laying out a roadmap for future chips that they say will be fundamentally different from larger rival Intel and leverage the work they’ve done integrating the graphics and CPUs onto a single piece of silicon.

At the company’s annual Financial Analyst Day Feb. 2 in Sunnyvale, Calif., CEO Rory Read and CTO Mark Papermaster, among the new cadre of top-level executives at the chip maker, outlined a strategy they call Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), which will bring the graphics and compute capabilities on the chip even closer, and make it easier for workloads to take advantage of the two.

The executives also said they plan to open up their processors to third-party IP, a move designed to enable AMD to offer customers customized chips when needed. At the same time, the company also unveiled more of the chip roadmaps for the next couple of years, noting that the HSA initiative will begin showing up in chips in force starting in 2014.

The company also plans to roll out the first chip aimed at the booming tablet market later this year, and showed off what executives said was a reference design for “ultrathins,” very thin and light notebooks that AMD officials have said will be slightly larger than the Ultrabooks pushed by Intel but

Image via CrunchBase

that will come in at lower price points.

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Apple chief Tim Cook, making his first high-profile hire since taking the helm of the world’s largest technology company, lured the well-regarded industry executive to fill a critical post [...]]]> Apple Inc has hired Dixons Chief Executive John Browett, who revived the British electronics retailer by emphasizing customer service, to lead the iPadmaker’s global retail expansion.

Apple chief Tim Cook, making his first high-profile hire since taking the helm of the world’s largest technology company, lured the well-regarded industry executive to fill a critical post once held by Ron Johnson, another outsider who left Target Corp to join Apple in 2000.

Johnson resigned from Apple last November to join retailer J.C. Penney Co Inc as chief executive.

Browett, Dixons’ CEO since 2007, was previously chief executive of Tesco Plc‘s successful online shopping site. He will oversee Apple’s retail strategy and the expansion of its stores around the world, from the current total of around 300.

The executive, credited with freshening Dixons’ image with innovative marketing — including an advertising campaign featuring Darth Vader — joins Apple as the Silicon Valley giant eyes markets abroad to sustain its growth.

“An outsider with international experience will help guide Apple’s global expansion strategy,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky. “His experience includes localizing stores for multiple countries.”

On Johnson’s watch, Apple opened its first retail outlet — in McLean, Virginia — in May 2001. It now has a chain of more than 300 stores, which generated an average of $34.1 million each in fiscal 2010 and accounted for 15 percent of the company’s net sales.

“(Browett)’s got big shoes to fill,” said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis. “Ron Johnson drove the Apple store as a customer experience with a positive halo effect for the business.”

Wall Street views Apple’s stores as an important advantage in competing with rivals Google Inc and Amazon.

Image via Wikipedia

com Inc as well as other traditional PC makers.

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A current illustration of this point is object-based storage provider Cleversafe, which launched a new multi-rack array system Jan. 30 that can hold [...]]]> We’re going to be hearing the preface “exa-” as it refers to the data storage industry a lot more as time goes on, so we might as well get used to it.

A current illustration of this point is object-based storage provider Cleversafe, which launched a new multi-rack array system Jan. 30 that can hold billions of objects inside up to 10 exabytes of capacity.

That’s a serious amount of space. While some people describe it as limitless, it isn’t—but it’s pretty close.

For those who would like to see the actual numbers that describe just 1 exabyte, here they are: 1 exabyte = 1,000 petabytes = 1,000,000 terabytes = 1,000,000,000 gigabytes = 1,000,000,000,000 megabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000 kilobytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Terabyte Loads Now Routine

Enterprises are now routinely storing workloads comprised of terabytes of data, which eventually add up to petabytes of storage. All those packs of petabytes also pile up as time goes on, so what’s the next level of storage needed? Right: exabytes.

Realistically, only the true high-end enterprise systems—such as those deployed by scientific researchers, online game providers, digital video studios, stock markets, government and military installations and high-end financial services companies—are using petabyte-type storage now and will be looking at exabyte-able storage in 2012 or 2013.

But Chicago-basedCleversafe is one storage provider that figures no time is better than the present for planning for the future.

Image via Wikipedia

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eComTechnology provides check and credit card processing services to ecommerce businesses.

We work with not only traditional businesses but high risk and high volume businesses as well.

Get your Virtual Terminal or Gateway at eComTechnology today.

Need an offshore account?

We deal with following business and [...]]]> Do you have a high risk business in the United States, Europe, Canada or Asia? We can help!

eComTechnology provides check and credit card processing services to ecommerce businesses.

We work with not only traditional businesses but high risk and high volume businesses as well.

Get your Virtual Terminal or Gateway at eComTechnology today.

Need an offshore account?

We deal with following business and others too.

ADULT, GAMING, PHARMACY, TRAVEL SERVICES, MULTI-CURRENCIES, HIGH AVERAGE TICKETS, CREDIT/DEBT COLLECTIONS, POOR CREDIT, ELECTRONICS, MAIL ORDER, TELEPHONE ORDER, HIGH RISK, HIGH VOLUME, TIMESHARES, REAL ESTATE, HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS, FINANCIAL CONSULTING, TELEMARKETING, DATING WEBSITES, EBOOK DOWNLOADS, SOFTWARE DOWNLOADS, SEO SERVICES, EVENT TICKETS, PREPAID DEBIT CARDS, CALLING CARDS, VOIP SERVICES, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MLM MARKETING, DIRECT SELLING, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, FFL DEALERS, ANNUAL CONTRACTS, MAGAZINE SALES, VACATION RENTALS, GENERIC DRUGS.

Whether in Asia, United States, Canada or based in Europe inquire or apply today and in most cases you can be processing in less than 10 days through your own virtual terminal or gateway.

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The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation, reported Jan. 27 that Facebook will file for its long-awaited initial public offering of stock on Wednesday, Feb. 1.

If this event, which had been projected by several financial analysts to happen later this spring, does indeed take [...]]]>

Image via Wikipedia

The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation, reported Jan. 27 that Facebook will file for its long-awaited initial public offering of stock on Wednesday, Feb. 1.

If this event, which had been projected by several financial analysts to happen later this spring, does indeed take place, it will easily be the largest IT IPO in history. The sale is expected to bank somewhere in the vicinity of $10 billion for the social network and value the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company at a whopping $100 billion.

In contrast, Google’s Aug. 19, 2004 IPO on the NASDAQ exchange garnered $1.7 billion at $85 per each of 19 million shares for the search engine and Web services company. Google now is valued at $140 billion. Google was trading at $576.38 on Jan. 27, up $8 on the day.

The largest tech IPO on record is that of Germany-based Infineon, which raised $5.9 billion in 2000.

Facebook recently was valuated at about $50 billion, following a $1.5 billion investment from Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies announced Jan. 22.

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Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the EU Energy Efficiency Directive includes a commitment to [...]]]> The European Union may pass a triple whammy environment policy in the first half of this year that would bring a rapid jobs boost, cut energy bills and improve the environment by one simple measure: keeping Europe’s buildings in good repair.

Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the EU Energy Efficiency Directive includes a commitment to retrofit a certain number of public buildings each year, improving insulation and stopping leaks.

“We have proposed a percentage of 3 percent a year, and that’s out of an employment perspective as well,” she told Reuters at the World Economic Forum at Davos.

“One of the few things that can create jobs very, very fast in Europe is if you actually doing something with retrofitting pipes, retrofitting energy systems, retrofitting houses – that creates jobs very, very quickly after you have adopted these kind of policies. There are not so many other issues that can do that.”

With Europe’s economy in the doldrums because of the euro zone debt crisis and unemployment at 9.8 percent in November, politicians are desperate for ways of providing growth but unwilling or unable to pay for a stimulus package.

Better insulation for Europe’s buildings would help a construction sector that “needs it very badly,” Hedegaard said.

“It’s estimated that that energy efficiency alone could generate 500,000 jobs in the years up to 2020. But we also have other initiatives in the climate field where all in all there is the potential of creating 2 million new jobs up to 2020, if we get it right.

“It’s a sector where they could actually have the labor in there very fast.”

Image via Wikipedia

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Symantec Corp took the rare step of advising customers to stop using one of its products, saying its pcAnywhere software for accessing remote PCs is at increased risk of getting hacked after blueprints of that software were stolen.

The announcement is the company’s most direct acknowledgement to date that a 2006 [...]]]>

Image via CrunchBase

Symantec Corp took the rare step of advising customers to stop using one of its products, saying its pcAnywhere software for accessing remote PCs is at increased risk of getting hacked after blueprints of that software were stolen.

The announcement is the company’s most direct acknowledgement to date that a 2006 theft of its source code put customers at risk of attack.

Symantec said it was only asking customers to temporarily stop using the product, until it releases an update to the software that will mitigate the risk of an attack.

It acknowledged that some customers would need to continue using the software for “business critical purposes,” saying they should make sure they were using the most recent version of the product and “understand the current risks,” which include the possibility that hackers could steal data or credentials.

Still, it is highly unusual for a software maker to advise customers to disable a product completely while engineers develop an update to fix bugs. Companies typically recommend mitigating factors that will reduce the risk of an attack.

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Apple has nearly $100 billion in cash. $97.6 billion to be precise. That is a lot of iDough. Even for Warren Buffett. Perhaps it’s time for Apple to, I don’t know, use some of it?

Unless Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is planning to build an army of Siri-voiced iBots, it’s hard [...]]]>

Image via CrunchBase

Apple has nearly $100 billion in cash. $97.6 billion to be precise. That is a lot of iDough. Even for Warren Buffett. Perhaps it’s time for Apple to, I don’t know, use some of it?

Unless Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is planning to build an army of Siri-voiced iBots, it’s hard to defend why the company needs that much cash. Even company executives admit that it may soon have to deploy some of it.

During the company’s celebratory earnings conference call Tuesday, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the company “was not letting [the cash] burn a hole in our pockets.”

Really? Apple’s iMountain of money has nearly doubled since the end of fiscal 2010. But Apple doesn’t pay a dividend. It doesn’t make splashy acquisitions or buy back stock.

If Apple’s cash keeps piling up, at this rate it won’t just burn a hole in the company’s pockets. It would be big enough to swallow up the entire universe.

Now one reason Apple is still hanging onto cash is because it doesn’t want to pay a sizeable chunk of taxes to Uncle Sam if it used that money on something productive or shareholder friendly. Oppenheimer said Tuesday that $64 billion of its cash was offshore. It is “trapped” if you will.

Apple is a multinational company. So there is nothing legally wrong with keeping cash abroad. But it is apparently doing so to avoid having to pay the 35% tax rate on it if it were repatriated or brought back to the U.S.

Many companies are in the same boat. And that’s why Apple, Cisco Systems (CSCO, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and other cash-rich techs are urging Congress to enact a so-called tax holiday.

This group wants the tax rate on profits and cash held overseas to be temporarily lowered. They argue that doing so would help stimulate the economy. Lawmakers have yet to bite.

Apple passes Exxon in market cap again

But even if Apple wants to keep fighting the tax holiday fight, you can’t ignore the fact that it has $33.6 billion in cash in the United States.

That still is a lot of money that Apple could use for a regular, steady dividend, a big one-time cash payout or stock buybacks. Heck, it could do all three. That would all be good for shareholders.

And Apple would still have plenty left over to keep investing in research and development. Keep in mind that Apple generated $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations in its last quarter alone!

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