Open saucers chase away the girls with DICSS gags

1024px-Musée_Picardie_Archéo_03Male open sourcers, with the sense of humour of 12 year olds, have managed to chase women from the work place by infecting software with jokes about their willies.

While it is mostly “brogrammers” threatening to rape women programmers which have been hitting he headlines apparently the medieval gags about a project called DICSS are getting out of hand.

For those who came in late there is a software hosting site GitHub called “DICSS”.
Github, if you remember, was under fire about a year over accusations of how a female employee was treated.

Offended people point out that this is exactly the sort of thing that makes tech unwelcoming to women, and not just because of the original project, but because of some of the comments that might take the joke too far.

Ironically the DICSS site was created by a bloke called Randy Hunt, who apparently managed to get around gags about his own name by running lots of “brohumour” projects.

Hunt said that the project started as a joke amongst coworkers, after a particularly impassioned argument between religious zealots for LESS, Sass, and Stylus, and why it’s suicide to pick an alternative when “my favourite” is clearly the best.

DICSS was “directly injected CSS” and it became an office joke around the office, that eventually manifested itself online and then in the comments of open sauce software.
It is the sort of thing that creates twitter wars and apparently there are a lot of DICSSHEADS out there.

Of course there is no such thing “directly injected CSS” Hunt was just playing around with the acronym.

As far as one liners go that sound have been the end of it but it seems Hunt could not resist Hunt thrusting his DICSS further.

He told Business Insider after he hacked off people with his Brototype project he thought he would do another wind up so he got his DICSS out publically.

Hunt claims that people want to be offended so when they see his DICSS they get out raged.
“It’s reverse privilege and that people should spend less time complaining about the community and more time encouraging people to push the boundaries of technology a bit and learn to see things in different ways.”

Apparently you can see things differently by looking at Randy’s DICSS.

“The point of all of my joke repo’s is that they’re actually useful code. They just happen to have funny names,” he said.

He denies he is a brogrammer and says he is just a fun guy – which his odd really because if you say that really fast it sounds like he is a fungi — get it?

Randy said that the only people that moaned were those who spend more time policing political correctness than they do making useful software.

True but really it cant be much fun to work with people who constantly make gags about their DICCS.

British firms have no cyber security insurance

insuranceIf a hacker takes out a large UK company, it appears that most of the time the company will have to pay out to fix it. Less than two percent of large British firms have separate insurance against cyber-attacks. Hardly any smaller firms have it..

The UK government has issued a report responding to concern that companies are not protected against the risks of cyber-attacks, which cost billions of pounds annually to the UK economy.

The report, published jointly with insurance broker Marsh, recommends that the government and the insurance industry pool data and information to encourage take-up of cyber insurance.

Half of the business leaders interviewed for the report did not even know cyber insurance existed, it said, even though many firms place cyber attacks among their leading risks.

“Cyber attacks against UK companies present a daily threat to normal UK business operations and are increasing in severity,” the report said.

Of course the government did not think that direct government financial support was needed in the cyber insurance market.

“While some market participants have suggested that a possible government backstop may be necessary, there is no conclusive evidence of the need for such a solution at present,” the report said.

The government supports terrorism insurance scheme Pool Re, through a commitment to make up the shortfall if the scheme runs out of money to pay a claim.

Disney hushed up Jobs’ illness

Three-Wise-MonkeyMickey Mouse outfit Disney hushed up Steve Jobs illness even though it was aware of it a month before it bought his Pixar studio.

Walt Disney Co CEO Bob Iger discovered that Jobs’ cancer had returned less than an hour before Disney announced it was buying Jobs’ Pixar studio in 2006.

However he kept the Apple co-founder’s condition a secret for three years.

Iger told the authors of yet another biography of Jobs, “Becoming Steve Jobs,” he thought about the implications of keeping such a secret at a time when regulators were calling for more disclosure and holding executives more accountable to their fiduciary duties.

The $7 billion deal to buy Pixar made Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder and put him on the entertainment company’s board. Iger decided that Disney was assessing the transaction on the value of Pixar, not Jobs, and his medical condition did not need to be disclosed, the biography said.

Jobs told Iger that the cancer had returned while they were on a private walk at Pixar’s Emeryville, California, campus about 30 minutes before the deal was to be announced. “Frankly, they tell me I’ve got a 50-50 chance of living five years,” Iger quoted Jobs as saying.

According to the book, Iger said he told Jobs: “You’re our largest shareholder, but I don’t think that makes this matter. You’re not material to this deal. We’re buying Pixar, we’re not buying you.”

It would have been interesting if his shareholders agreed.  Most people at the time thought Jobs’ involvement was a divine blessing on a company and had news of his death leaked out, the value of Pixar might have fallen.

Jobs had a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2003 and underwent surgery the following year. The tumor returned and he had a liver transplant in 2009. Jobs died in October 2011.

Apparently the new book is supposed to be “more sympathetic” than the 2011 biography by Walter Isaacson, who dared to say that Jobs was not that nice at certain times and was a bit messy in his personal life.

Lenovo wants more from Smartwatch craze

fobwatchWhile most people think that the smartwatch thing is doomed in the long term, no one seems to have told the manufacturers.

Lenovo is the latest to leak the design of its  upcoming smartwatch indicating that if there is money to be made in the kit, it wants more than anyone else.

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing posted an image to Weibo, which shows a number of smartwatches in various states of assembly.

The image shows the new Moto 360 appears to adopt a traditional, exposed-lug design, which should make it easier for users to swap out the band that comes with the Moto 360 for a wider variety of third-party gear.

The current Moto 360 has a lug design which integrates into the bottom of the casing. Even though the Moto Maker gives customers a variety of bands to choose from, this seems to mean that Lenovo things that there is cash to be made by individualising the watches. Perhaps even starting a collection fad.

It also appears that the “flat tire” display found on the original Moto 360 will carry over to its successor. The Moto 360 currently houses its ambient light sensor and display driver in the crescent-shaped cutout at the bottom of the display, and it has been perhaps the most criticized design aspect of the smartwatch.

LG G Watch R, LG Watch Urbane, and Huawei Watch have ditched the ambient light sensor and adopting a slightly larger bezel to accommodate the display driver.

What was seen in the snaps are just prototypes and anything could change between now and an official unveil, but it’s at least good to see that Motorola pressing ahead as the best-selling Android Wear OEM on the market.

 

Google “fiddled its figures” – official

330ogleThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) considered taking Google to the cleaners in 2012 for abusing its monopoly position but in the end decided against the move.

That’s according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which said the five FTC commissioners decided not to pursue their findings.

FTC investigators discovered proof that Google abused its monopolistic position and used techniques that harmed competitors such as TripAdvisor.

The reason the FTC did not pursue the case was because it was going to be hard for the poor dears to prove its case. They also felt that Google was “popular”.

Google has a different angle on the findings claiming there was no need for the FTC to take action because it isn’t evil.

The European Commission (EC) doesn’t appear to be shying away from investigating Google, despite a series of high profile spinning events Google organised towards the end of last year.

The FTC discovered that Google interweaved its own products into search results, skewing objective results.

 

PCs face an uphill struggle

A not so mobile X86 PCThe consensus is that the PC might not be dead but it is certainly struggling.

And in the third report of its kind we’ve published today, IDC said that until 2010 PCs had the lion’s share of the total smart connected devices market, accounting for around 52.5 percent of shipments with 44.7 percent for smartphones and only 2.8 percent for tablets.

But, said IDC, in 2014 smartphones represented 73.4 percent of total shipments, PCs slipped to 16. percent and tablets 12.5 percent.

That trend is continuing – by 2019 PCs will only represent 11.6 percent of that market, while tablets will have 10.7 percent.

This must all be deeply troubling for chip giant Intel, with revenues still depending on the good old X86 chip and seemingly unable to make inroads into the tablet and smartphone markets.

Here’s an IDC chart demonstrating the trend between 2014 and 2019.

Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 15.02.21

 

Uni speeds up quantum silicon chip

Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 14.51.59A team of scientists at the University of Surrey claimed that they’d demonstrated the fastest ever quantum switch using a silicon chp.

The researchers said they demonstrated a quantum on/off switching time of about a millionth of a millionth of a second.

Dr Ellis Bowyer, a Surrey University scientists, said: “Quantum computing exploits the fact that according to quantum mechanics, atoms can exist in two states at once, being both excited and unexcited at the same time. This… is most famously illustrated by Schrodinger’s quantum cat which is simultaneously dead and alive.”

He said that silicon ofer a very clean environment for phosphorous atoms which are trapped inside where our quantum information is being stored. He said that the research put the atoms into a superposition state with a few trillionths of a second laser pulse and then created a new superposition which depends on the exact time at which a second laser pulse arrives.

He said that the team at the university has had extra funding from the YK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to see if it’s possible to connect these quantum objects to each other, to make bigger building blocks for quantum computers.

The next stage in research is to create fast quantum silicon chips.

Bowyer said: “The time is drawing nearer when we’ll be able to make a computer that does a tremendous number of calculations simultaneously, and that provides unprecedently secure computing, impenetrable to hackers.”

IBM sounds alarm over mobile app security

Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 14.39.31The Ponemon Institute and IBM have jointly released a report which they said displays “the alarming state” of mobile insecurity.

According to the research, 40 percent of large companies – including many in the Fortune 500 – aren’t protecting the mobile apps they build.

And they’re not good against protecting their BYOD (bring your own device) gizmos against cyber attack. That leaves the gates to their corporate treasure chest effectively open.

The survey looked at security practices in over 400 large enterprises and claims that the average company doesn’t test half of the mobile apps they build. And what’s even worse is that 50 percent of these enterprises don’t devote any budget whatever towards mobile security.

IBM and the Ponemon Institute estimate that malicious code infests and infects over 11.6 million mobile devices.

The organisations surveyed spend an average of $34 million a year on mobile app development, with only 5.5 percent spending part of the budget on security.

“End user convenience is trumping end user security and privacy,” IBM said.

 

Wang takes over HTC hot seat

htc-isntCher Wang, the chairwoman of troubled mobile phone manufacturer HTC and a co-founder of the business has displaced Peter Chou to become the new CEO, right away.

Chou won’t leave the company – he is to work on developing new products.

HTC has suffered in the last three years because although it’s had some good products, it lacks the financial muscle of an Apple or a Samsung to perform marketing miracles and so sell more phones.

Chou had already ceded some of his CEO role to Wang, while the company has seen some restructuring.

According to Cnet, Chou admitted that he took on too much during his reign as CEO and told the wire he wanted to concentrate on new things and the company’s product portfolio.

Wang said Chou will become head of the HTC Future Development Lab, and tasked with finding new growth opportunities.

Wang co-founded HTC in 1997 and the company was an early adopter of the Android operating system. It was also early to market with a Windows phone and at one time was ahead of Samsung and Apple in market share.

Chinese government downs Reuters

android-china-communistThe Chinese government seems to believe that if its citizens read Reuters websites their minds will be totally corrupted.

Reuters said both its English and Chinese websites were inaccessible in China today, and it appears to be the government that’s made them unavailable.

Communist China blocks a large number of foreign websites – the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Bloomberg are all banned.

Reuters asked the government internet watchdog what was going on but the watchdog doesn’t appear to be listening, yet.

The news service said in a statement that it is committed to fair and accurate journalism across world. “We recognise the great importance of news about China to all our customers, and we hope that our sites will be restored in China too,” Reuters said in a statement.

The company’s financial and data services to Chinese clients haven’t been tampered with.

 

Solar panels go through the roof

solarsA report said that total global solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity will be 498 gigawatts in 2019, a 177 percent increase over capacity in 2014.

IHS said that last year the market became supply driven. That trend will continue until 2019 when the use rate of module projection will exceed the peak usage rate in 2010. That is when the global market really started to soar.

As this chart from IHS shows, China leads the pack in using solar panels, followed by Japan, the USA, the UK, Germany and India.

Screen Shot 2015-03-20 at 11.03.43

And there’s good news if you’re in the mood to buy, because the average selling prices of standard modules will fall by 27 percent between 2015 and 2019.

Thin film modules aren’t experiencing stellar growth patterns, but IHS believes that this year market share for those will be around seven percent.

That market share is likely to remain at around seven percent between now and 2019.

 

Chromebooks upset the PC apple cart

chromebookThere’s more bad news for the PC market as it appears that Google Chromebooks are taking market share in the low end and the education markets.

ABI Research said Chromebooks, which rely heavily on the cloud, start up much faster than Windows PCsand are pretty affordable too, have “gained traction” in the North American market.

And it’s not just home users who are buying them – organisations are buying them too, with shipments close to five million last year.

Analyst Stephanie Van Vactor said that cloud services and the collapse of economies worldwide were the impetus for designers and developers to create cheap and cheerful devices, like the Chromebook.

“Chromebooks were the result, and the ‘anytime anywhere” access to content is a mobile-centric game changer,” she said.

The education market in particular has a yen for Chromebooks, mostly because of Google Apps for Education, she said. The business and the education sector together accounted for 62 percent of Chromebook shipments.

Another factor is the price. The average selling price for a Chromebook is $226 in the States, while it’s $420 for a tablet – presumably an Apple iPad.

“Google has taken to heart the popularity of mobile devices and developed a personal computing device that is a functional solution,” said Van Vactor. She said: “This style of computing works for the on the go lifestyle people are becoming accustomed to and will continue to impact the future of computing as the market shifts and changes.”

Devices fail in 2015

A not so mobile X86 PCThe outlook for PCs looks pretty grim in 2015, according to data released by Gartner.

The market research outfit said that PCs and ultra mobiles will deliver revenues of $226 billion this year, but that will be a 7.2 percent decline.

You have to take the current strength of the US dollar into account, Gartner warned, but even after that, the global market will show a 3.1 percent drop during the year.

Gartner forecasts that so called traditional PCs – that includes desktops and notebooks – will fall from 252,881,000 units this year, to 236,341,000 units in 2017.

The firm said that PC vendors are raising their prices to stay profitable but this is having a Catch 22 effect because it’s forcing customers to keep their purses tightly closed. Home users are also not expected to lash out on new devices.

Mobile phones will grow by 3.5 percent during this year and Gartner believes that rather than buy PCs, people will buy smartphones instead. Tablet sales will suffer because of that.

Roberta Cozza, a research director at Gartner, said: “Following rapid growth, the current mature consumer installed base for tablets is comparable to that of notebooks. Not only is the tablet segment nearing saturation in mature markets, but the influx of hybrids and fabulist will compete directly with tablets in emerging markets.”

She seems to think that despite Apple’s high prices, many users of high end Android devices will move to iOS.

Back up kit worth over a billion

emcboxThe market for customised backup appliances reached $1 billion worldwide in the fourth quarter of last year.

This market represents standalone disk products that use software, disk arrays, server engines, and more specifically data coming from backup software.

IDC said that the market for this kind of kit rose by four percent in 2014 and generated revenues of $3.26 billion.

Annual capacity in 2014 rose by 42.8 percent compared to 2013 to a staggering 2.68 exabytes.

Liz Conner, a research manager at IDC, said reasons for the rise in revenues included better software, data tiering, file sharing, data analytics and more investment in integrated systems.

In the fourth quarter, top of the storage pile was EMC with 63.8 percent market share, dwarfing the other players Symantec (11.5%), IBM (6.7%), HP (4%) and Quantum (2.3%).

 

ICO demands transparency for government outsourcing

parliamentThe Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today that when the government outsources technology it’s often very opaque.

Head of Policy at the ICO Steve Wood said freedom of information laws haven’t always been able to follow the public pound.

“We’re calling on public authorities and contractors to consider transparency from an early stage, before a contract is even signed. And we’re asking whether the government might need to step in to make sure the public can access the information they should be entitled to from big government funded contractors,” he said.

Expenditure on outsourced public services represents half of the £187 billion the government spends on goods and services. Sometimes, the ICO said, it is hard for people to negotiate their way through outsourcing contractors’ deals.

The ICO conducted a survey and 75 percent of people said that private companies acting on behalf of public authorities should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.