Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Barnes & Noble plans to release an e-reader application for Apple’s upcoming iPad tablet PC, suggesting that the bookseller has truly embraced a strategy of porting its e-reader brand onto as many screens as possible even as its own device, the Nook, prepares to compete directly against the iPad. Both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble stand to be substantially affected by the iPad’s presence in the market, as Apple has highlighted its device’s use as an e-reader and has reportedly been negotiating with publishers for content.

Barnes & Noble will release an e-reader application specifically for Apple’s upcoming iPad, said an executive posting on the bookseller’s official blog. Paul Hochman, manager of content and social media at BarnesandNoble.com, wrote March 11 on the company’s Unbound: Nook and BN eReader blog:

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Stanford University

Greener plastics? It could be coming, thanks to a breakthrough by IBM and Stanford University scientists that could lead to the development of new types of biodegradable, biocompatible plastics. The discovery could also lead to a new recycling process that has the potential to significantly increase the ability to reuse and recycle common PET and plant-based plastics. Disposable plastic bottles are among the most vexing environmental challenges. More than 13 billion plastic bottles are disposed of each year. While plastics are recyclable, the resulting materials are limited to “second generation reuse” only. This means the materials made from recycled plastic bottles are disposed in landfills. The IBM-Stanford breakthrough in green chemistry could lead to a new recycling process that reverses the polymerization process to regenerate monomers in their original state, reducing waste and pollution significantly.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Microsoft faces another request from seven browser companies to alter its “Web browser choice screen” for European users of Windows. Originally introduced on March 1 to sidestep concerns from the European Commission (EC), the EU’s antitrust regulatory body, about the bundling of Internet Explorer 8 with copies of Windows, the ballot screen allows those users to choose from a randomized list of browsers including Apple’s Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.

In addition to those more prominent browsers, the browser ballot screen allows users to select from offerings by small companies, including Maxthon, SlimBrowser?, Avant Force, Flock, Sleipnir, and GreenBrowser?. Representatives from those companies had registered a formal petition with the EC on March 3, protesting that the screen was structured unfairly, with smaller browsers viewable only if the user scrolls sideways; now, representatives from those smaller browsers apparently want Microsoft to introduce even more randomization into the ballot screen, so that their products appear as prominently as ones from larger companies.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

And you thought it was only your carrier that sucked. The Better Business Bureau reports that the cell phone industry was the one most complained about during 2009, with a total of 37,477 complaints, according to the Wall Street Journal–a repeat showing from 2008. On the bright side, BBB spokesperson Alison Southwick said in the report that cell phone companies have a high resolution rate with customers that file complaints. Bringing up the number two spot are cable and satellite TV companies, with banks landing in third. The report said that lately, companies offering free trials for credit scores, teeth whiteners, and weight-loss supplements are also perennial “high scorers.” I have a headache now just from thinking about some of these.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Google’s Gesture Search feature for Android smartphones reignited the complaint about fragmentation and inconsistency among Google’s mobile operating system platform because it only works on devices running Android 2.0 or greater, such as the Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One. Laptop Magazine’s Mark Spoonauer said this means Google is favoring newer versions of its OS, punishing owners of devices running older flavors of Android, as well as Google’s partners. Kevin Tofel tried to diffuse the situation by arguing that Google isn’t the only mobile platform maker that faces this quandary.

News Analysis: When Google released its Google Gesture Search feature for Android smartphones March 3, it fanned the flames of a long-standing complaint about fragmentation and inconsistency among Google’s mobile operating system platform.

Google Gesture Search, which lets users surface contacts and applications on their devices by tracing letters on the screen with their fingers, works on smartphones running versions Android 2.0 or higher.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Link: http://ecomtechnology.com

High Risk Credit Card Processing

eComTechnology is a eCommerce company with a diverse range of products and services, including a very secure and reliable multi-currency platform for credit card processing, market leading fraud minimization systems and premium support services for the sustainable future.
Herbal Supplements, Financial Consulting, Calling Cards, Phone Cards, VOIP, Telecommunications, High Volume, Telemarketing, Escort Merchants, Dating, eBook & Software, Event Tickets,Prepaid Debit Cards, Offshore.
Asia,United States, Canada or based in Europe inquire or apply onsite today at eComTechnology and in most cases you can be processing in less than 5 days through your own virtual terminal or gateway.

Merchant Accounts for Credit Card Processing 

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Continuing its aggressive push to build up its cloud computing capabilities through acquisitions with the announcement that it plans to buy Nimsoft for $350 million. Nimsoft joins other acquisitions, including Cassatt, NetQoS?, Oblicore and 3Tera, aimed at growing CA’s cloud comput-ing portfolio.

CA is continuing to buy companies to help build up its cloud computing capabilities, with the latest acquisition being Nimsoft.

CA officials announced the $350 million acquisition of Nimsoft March 10 in an all-cash deal, the fifth cloud-centric company the vendor has purchased in the past year. The company expects to close the deal by the end of March.

With Nimsoft, CA gets IT performance and availability monitoring solutions for highly virtualized data centers and cloud computing environments. It also gets greater traction in a number of key areas, including midmarket companies and what CA officials call emerging enterprises—those with revenues between $300 million and $2 billion—MSPs (managed service providers), and emerging global markets, according to CA CEO Bill McCracken.

During a conference with journalist and analysts, McCracken? said the deal is about both Nimsoft’s technology and its customers. Nimsoft has about 800 customers in more than 30 countries.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Hewlett-Packard has accused a Taiwanese maker of printer ink cartridges with using stolen HP parts to make knock-offs and sell them in the U.S. through outlets such as Amazon.com.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in a San Francisco federal court, HP charged MicroJet? Technology of Taiwan, as well as five other companies from China, Hong Kong and the U.S., with infringing six patents held by HP that relate to ink jet printing technologies.

HP alleged that MicroJet? used more than 300,000 genuine HP color and black-and-white ink printheads to manufacture copy-cat cartridges sold under the “Mipo” label. MicroJet? makes the ink cartridges, which it sells under its own name as well as to others to distribute, said HP.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Google March 9 launched the Google Apps Marketplace, an online store selling enterprises business applications that integrate with and extend Google Apps. This will provide third-party software developers, such as Appirio, Intuit, Atlassian and others, with a larger cloud computing channel into which to sell their applications. The Google Apps Marketplace will also challenge Salesforce.com, which has spent the last decade-plus fomenting its Force.com and AppExchange? platforms. Google Apps Marketplace Product Manager Chris Vander Mey told eWEEK that Google will take a 20 percent cut of application sales, recurring on subscriptions.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

At the RSA Conference held March 1 to 5 in San Francisco, Cisco Systems finally unveiled its own take on the secured borderless enterprise, which aims to provide mobile workers with seamless, always-on secured connections to protected enterprise data and applications—whether those applications are internally hosted or part of a cloud strategy. Even more specifically, Cisco wants to make clear that its technology is everything that Microsoft’s take on the borderless enterprise is not.

Based on my own experiences with Microsoft’s DirectAccess and its necessary extenders, I’ve found the technology to be interesting, innovative and pretty cool, but disappointingly limited—particularly in its native incarnation.

There’s a laundry list of problems with basic DirectAccess?: It only works with Windows 7 clients (Ultimate or Enterprise SKUs); it requires critical back-end network services and applications run atop Windows Server 2008 R2 or Service Pack 2 due to DirectAccess’ reliance on IPv6; it can’t scale across multiple access servers for either performance or management purposes; its clients utilize split tunneling, which protect transmissions to corporate resources but not cloud-based applications; and it doesn’t support down-level virtualized client instances used for application compatibility.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Microsoft issued a warning March 9 for Internet Explorer users as the company pushed out its monthly round of patches to cover security holes in Windows and Microsoft Office Excel.

In an advisory, the company warned that a new vulnerability was being targeted in attacks against Internet Explorer 6 and 7. IE 8 is not believed to be affected. According to Microsoft, the vulnerability is due to an invalid pointer reference being used within IE and can be exploited by tricking users into visiting a malicious or compromised Web page.

“At this time, we are aware of targeted attacks attempting to use this vulnerability … Based on our investigation, setting the Internet zone security setting to High will protect users from the issue described in this advisory,” the company stated.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Hewlett-Packard has filed a suit against four companies based in Hong Kong and Taiwan, accusing the defendants of patent infringement, according to various reports.

The suit, filed in a federal court in San Francisco, alleges the Asian companies also converted over 300,000 genuine HP printheads from its facilities in Asia and sold these components globally as products manufactured by Hong Kong-based Mipo, Bloomberg said on Monday.

Other than Mipo, the defendants are Taiwan printer cartridge maker MicroJet? Technology, Hong Kong-based PTC Holdings and SinoTime? Technologies, a U.S. affiliate of Mipo.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Security researchers are sounding the alarm for an unpatched, remote code execution flaw in the Opera Web browser.

The vulnerability, rated “highly critical” by Secunia, can be exploited by malicious people to take complete control a user’s system.

From Secunia’s advisory:

The vulnerability is caused due to an error when processing HTTP responses having a malformed “Content-Length” header. This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow via an overly large 64-bit “Content-Length” value, having the higher 32-bit part negative.

The vulnerability is confirmed in version 10.50 for Windows. Other versions may also be affected.

In the absence of a patch, Opera users are urged to avoid browsing to untrusted Web sites or switch to an alternative browser.

Link: http://evolution.ecomtechnology.com

Online technology retailer Newegg has terminated the contract of one its suppliers, IPEX, which Newegg officials said had shipped them bogus Intel processors.

The counterfeit processors, which reportedly numbered as much as 300, were first reported online March 5 by the Website HardOCP.

Initially sources told the Website that D&H Distributing was the supplier that sent Newegg the counterfeit Core i7-920 processors. However, in a statement late March 8, Newegg said the supplier was IPEX.