Google's answer to internal security: Drop Windows, use Mac or Linux instead

To increase internal security, Google is reportedly in the midst of an effort that would make many IT professionals envious: It’s effectively banning Windows. Instead, the company is directing employees to use Macs or Linux PCs, according to the Financial Times.

Google employees tell the Times that the company started promoting the idea of moving away from the Microsoft operating system in January, following the recent attacks on its Chinese operations. Since then, many workers … Continue Reading

Intel debuts new Atom chips for razor-thin netbooks

Intel is debuting new members of its Atom family of microprocessors today that can be the brains of everything from low-power laptops to razor-thin netbooks.

To show off the new technology at the Computex 2010 trade show in Taiwan, Intel is demonstrating its Atom chips inside a razor-thin “Canoe Lake” platform, which can serve as the electronics for a dual-core netbook that is just 14-millimeters thick (half an inch). With that size, the prototype netbook … Continue Reading

Globalfoundries expands chip factories as worldwide demand recovers

Globalfoundries, a major contract chip manufacturer, said today it is increasing its chip factory capacity in Germany and New York as worldwide customer demand recovers. The new expansions could mean hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars more spending, depending on the scale of the investments.

The spending is a reflection of confidence in the overall tech economy, since chips are used in everything electronic and are a bellwether for technology spending. The chip … Continue Reading

Keeping up with Intel, Qualcomm ships its first dual-core Snapdragon chips

Intel is applying pressure to cellphone chip makers as it barges into the market with its Atom microprocessors. In response, Qualcomm is announcing today it has created its first dual-core Snapdragon chip set for smartphones.

Announced at the Computex 2010 trade show in Taiwan, the third generation Snapdragon chip sets have two application processor cores running at up to 1.2 gigahertz. The names for the new chip sets are the Mobile Station Modem MSM8260 and … Continue Reading

Synaptics sensors to prevent accidental touchpad swipes

Synaptics is announcing today that it has created new touchpad improvements that will make life easier for frustrated laptop users.

The company’s newest laptop touchpads include SmartSense chips, which are smart enough to reject accidental palm touches on the pad. The latter problem is a huge pain when you’re typing because, as I have experienced many times, it’s quite easy to accidentally touch the pad, highlight text, and delete it by accident. They new touchpads … Continue Reading

Quit Facebook Day flops as only 1 in 15,000 pledge to quit

An attempt to stage a mass defection from Facebook today has fizzled. For every Facebook user who pledged to delete their account as part of today’s Quit Facebook Day campaign, there are more than 15,000 other Facebook members who didn’t, using Facebook’s recent estimate of 500 million active accounts.

If Facebook signups were to run at their usual pace today — probably not, based on today’s slow holiday traffic on the Internet — for every … Continue Reading

Microsoft gets back into the store business to take on Apple

Microsoft is planning to open its own store in the Seattle area as it seeks to compete with Apple in the company-owned tech store business.

TechFlash reported that Microsoft plans to open a store at the Bellevue Square mall, according to building permits filed with the suburban city near Seattle. Apple’s own store at the Bellevue Square location will be moving to a larger venue.

Microsoft has four other locations in Mission Viejo, Calif., Scottsdale, … Continue Reading

U.S. private equity fund to invest $250M in Russian tech center

In a big vote of confidence for Russian technology, an American private equity fund plans to invest $250 million in a high-tech center near Moscow.

Siguler Guff & Co. is expressing a huge amount of confidence in Russia’s plan to modernize the economy. In February, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the government planned to build a tech center at Skolkovo, which hopes to be the Russian version of Silicon Valley. The hope is to reduce … Continue Reading

Intel shows off a 50-core chip for future servers and workstations

Intel showed off its plans today for a microprocessor with more than 50 cores, or computing brains, on a single chip.

Code-named Knights Corner, the chip will be made with Intel’s as-yet-unfinished 22-nanometer manufacturing process. With each step forward on the manufacturing process, Intel can cram more components onto a single chip. So it will be able to add many cores to a single chip with the 22-nanometer generation, which can build structures as small … Continue Reading

A Twitter hackfest reveals more possibilities for 'Annotations'

Would you keep a daily diary on Twitter? Or use it to decide what to wear? Or use it to bypass text-messages charges in international countries?

The possibilities for Twitter are about to get a lot richer with the ability to add annotations to any tweet. A handful of developers got the opportunity to play with the new application programming interface over the weekend at a company hackfest in San Francisco.

Annotations, which launched in … Continue Reading

Twitter glitch makes Gaza flotilla hashtag disappear

It’s easy to make fun of Twitter, but the microblogging service’s users take it pretty seriously. Earlier today, TechCrunch Europe blogger Mike Butcher reported the disappearance of #flotilla hashtags attached to tweets about the fatal fight between Israeli naval commandos and members of a six-ship flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade. (You can watch handheld video from the flotilla, and the Israel Defense Forces video from a helicopter.)

Many … Continue Reading

Skype now uses 3G connections on iPhone, but Skype plans to charge for it

“You can now make and receive calls with Skype for iPhone using your 3G connection,” trumpets a blog post at Skype, the Internet phone service. But there’s a catch: The company plans to charge for the higher-speed connections next year.

“Skype-to-Skype calls on 3G will be free until the end of 2010,” writes Skype blogger-in-chief Peter Parkes. ”Over the coming months we’ll be working out what pricing options might be.”

In theory, using AT&T’s 3G … Continue Reading

Why US and Europe are behind on mobile TV

Americans and Europeans are several years behind China, India, Brazil, and many African and Latin American countries at mobile TV, according to a New York Times report.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t Internet streaming video. It’s mobile phones with tiny TV receivers built into them to pluck broadcast television from the air. Much mobile TV around the world is free, some is pay per view.

But in America, wireless carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint … Continue Reading

Fine wine seller Vinfolio gets unspecified funding from Case's Revolution

Vinfolio, a site that merges a wine store with a wine collector community site, recently announced an unspecified amount of funding from Revolution, the VC firm founded by former AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case. The announcement, made last week, received little attention outside of a short post on TechCrunch.

The San Francisco company, founded in 2003, was restructured in January after a slow market for luxury goods undermined the business. Prior to the restructuring, … Continue Reading

Asus, MSI take on the iPad with Eee Pad and WindPad tablets

Computer makers Asus and MSI, who’ve seen great success lately in the netbook market, unveiled their long awaited tablet devices at Computex in Taiwan this week. But it doesn’t look like they’re ready to compete with the iPad just yet.

We reported in late March that Asus was readying two tablets — one running Windows, and the other running Google’s Android OS or Chrome OS. At Computex, Asus showed off the first entries in its … Continue Reading

Apple iPad sales remain strong, hit 2 million units sold

Less than a month after Apple’s iPad hit the 1 million units sold milestone, the company is now reporting that it has crossed the 2 million mark in less than 60 days since its April 3 launch.

The sales numbers aren’t exactly surprising. Just a few weeks ago, we reported that the iPad was still tough to find in certain Apple and Best Buy stores, and an analyst report showed that the device was outselling … Continue Reading

Bangladesh blocks Facebook over Islamic image controversy

Bangladesh has become the latest country to block social networking site Facebook because of a page that asks people to draw their own images of the prophet Muhammad.

Clearly, this isn’t going to kill Facebook, which has nearly 500 million users. But it shows that what might have been considered a small protest is gathering steam in the Muslim world. Facebook is already facing a lot of opposition over its privacy rule changes, so the … Continue Reading

Nvidia makes its case for 3D glasses for the PC

The latest 3D TVs haven’t impressed me yet. But looking at images with 3D glasses on specially equipped computers isn’t nearly so bad. Nvidia is making a big bet on 3D viewing as an extension of 3D graphics on two-dimensional screens.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company believes that 3D on the PC has gained momentum since the company began selling 3D glasses and other technology a year and a half ago, said Rob Csongor, vice … Continue Reading

Week in review: Tesla CEO out of cash, Facebook changes privacy settings

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news. First, the most popular stories we published in the last seven days.

Tesla’s Elon Musk: “I ran out of cash” — Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk seems to have it all. The one thing he doesn’t have, by his own admission, is money.

The rise and fall of Microsoft’s Xbox champions, Robbie Bach and J Allard — Microsoft has initiated one of its biggest management shakeups … Continue Reading