Category Archives: Technology

IBM Smarter Cities Technology Helps NYC Envision Solar Energy Leadership through CUNY Ventures

By Guest PostJune 7, 2012Environment, Technologycraig hayman, cuny ventures, data system, department of energy, doe, global leader, ibm, intelligent operations center, ioc, ioc software, key indicators, matthew goldstein, new york city, nyc, nyc solar map, procemx, roadmapping, rooftop solar challenge, smart ny, smarter cities, solar, solar america, solar capacity, solar energy market, solar market analytics, solar panel installation, solar power potential, tracking ny, urban

Innovative Model Aims to Export Solar Market Analysis Tools to the World

New York – 07 Jun 2012: IBM is helping New York City (NYC) become a global leader in urban solar energy market analysis and sustainability through an innovative agreement with CUNY Ventures, a City University of New York (CUNY) Economic Development Corporation entity.

The goal of this effort is to nourish solar adoption by developing the capability to analyze and understand key solar market indicators that can make solar system development more cost competitive. Using IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities as the backbone, this analytics-based approach will help New York City monitor and analyze solar production and capacity through a virtual control room that will provide a dashboard view of key indicators.

The collaboration is part of ‘Solar Market Analytics, Roadmapping, and Tracking NY’ (SMART NY), a groundbreaking project supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ‘Rooftop Solar Challenge’, part of the DOE SunShot Initiative which is striving to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. (more…)

Yahoo! Launches Shine Latina for Today’s Bicultural, Bilingual Woman

By Guest PostJune 7, 2012Technologybicultural, bicultural hispanics, bilingual woman, comscore media metrix, emarketer hispanics, espanol, Facebook, hispanic women, hispanics, javier garcia, latinas, minorities online, shine latina, spanish language, Yahoo, yahoo shine

The Leading Website for Women’s Lifestyle Content Adds Latina Spice

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo! Inc., the premier digital media company, today unveiled Shine Latina – a home for bicultural Latina lifestyle content, within Yahoo! Shine, a top site for women’s lifestyle content in the U.S. with more than 34 million unique visitors a month*.

Shine Latina takes a unique look at women’s interests and approaches them with content in English, with nods to Hispanic cultural identity. The site – created by and for bicultural Latinas – brings Hispanic women together to share insights, spark conversations and build a community. From news, lifestyle, food and beauty topics to parenting, career, and relationship advice, Latinas of various ages will be able to find quality original content, videos and recommendations they can relate to at a personal level and truly relevant to their tastes, cultural background and heritage.

“Shine reaches 3.57M U.S. Hispanics every month, more than any other Hispanic site,” said Javier Garcia, general manager of Yahoo!’s U.S. Hispanic business. “By offering culturally-relevant original content in Shine produced by our bicultural editorial team we aim to form deep emotional connections with bicultural Latinas at an unprecedented scale.” (more…)

Pottermore, New Website Based on the Hugely Popular Harry Potter Books, Uses Windows Azure to Scale Up to 1 Billion Page Views in First Two Weeks

By Guest PostJune 6, 2012Technologyazure, brittany talbot, cloud environment, elastic solution, elasticity, Facebook, fran dougherty, harry potter, harry potter fan, j k rowling, julian thomas, Microsoft, paas, pottermore, pottermore website, priscilla, san francisco, Technology, website, windows azure

Windows Azure offered Pottermore the flexibility required to build a massively scalable website in just three months.

REDMOND, Wash. – June 6, 2012 – Eagerly awaiting the launch of Pottermore (www.pottermore.com), the website based on the popular Harry Potter stories, Brittany Talbot and her sister, Priscilla, raced to sign up when the site went live on April 14, 2012.

They weren’t alone. Within hours, thousands of Harry Potter fans were flooding the site and just two weeks after the Pottermore website went live, it received one billion page views, making it one of the most popular sites on the Web. To date, 10 million unique visitors have visited the site, with 25,000 new users signing up every day.

With Harry Potter one of the largest entertainment phenomena of all time, fans of all ages couldn’t wait to experience the world-famous stories, social, and interactive experiences the site offered. “I like being able to go up there and do potions and spells, and walk around where Harry was,” Brittany says. “I read the first book in the first week because I was so excited.” (more…)

New IBM Software Helps Strengthen Security of Mobile Devices in the Workplace

By Guest PostJune 5, 2012Technologyanalyzer, application lifecycle, appscan analysis, byod, cross site scripting, ibm, intellectual property, marc van zadelhoff, mobile applications, qradar, security appscan portfolio, software, software ip, sql injection, stuart dross, xss

Increases in mobile exploits and concerns from security executives around BYOD adoption leads to enhanced security intelligence capabilities

ORLANDO – 05 Jun 2012: IBM today announced new software to help organizations develop mobile applications that are more secure by design. Now, clients can build security into the initial design of their mobile applications so that vulnerabilities will be detected early in the development process. Today’s announcement further expands IBM’s strategy to provide clients with a mobile platform that spans application development, integration, security and management.

With more than five billion mobile devices in the world – and only 2 billion computers – the shift to mobile devices as the primary form of connecting to corporate networks is increasing rapidly. Securing those devices is becoming a top priority for security executives and CIOs. As companies embrace the growing “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) trend, the need to secure the applications that run on these devices is becoming more critical. According to the 2011 IBM X-Force Trend and Risk Report, mobile exploits increased by 19 percent in 2011. In addition, according to the recently released data from the IBM Center for Applied Insights study, 55 percent of respondents cited mobile security as a primary technology concern over the next two years. (more…)

Microsoft Marks E3 with “Halo 4,” New Entertainment Experiences

By Guest PostJune 4, 2012Technologye3, electronic entertainment expo, Entertainment, fable, forza, game of thrones, gears of war, halo, halo 4, los angeles, master chief, Microsoft, south park, splinter cell, windows 8 pc, xbox 360, xbox live, xbox music, xbox smartglass, yusuf mehdi

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced a robust lineup of new Xbox 360 games, including a new installment of the blockbuster Halo franchise. The company also unveiled new content and entertainment experiences for Xbox LIVE and smart devices.

LOS ANGELES – The Xbox 360 console charged into its seventh Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) today buoyed by a bundle of blockbuster game releases led by Halo 4 and a set of new entertainment experiences that will push Xbox farther into the living room, and onto PCs, tablets and phones.

Microsoft also revealed a set of new Xbox content, partners and apps – including bringing Internet Explorer to the console for the first time. The company also introduced a new music service and Xbox SmartGlass, a new app that brings an immersive entertainment experience to all devices. (more…)

IBM Boosts Smarter Computing Initiative to Help Customers Tackle Big Data

By Guest PostJune 4, 2012Technologybig data, cloud portfolio, dx360 m4, fourteen data rate, global cios, gpfs, gpus, high-performance computing, hpc, ibm, ibm cognos, ibm easy tier, ibm smarter storage, ibm system x idataplex, it leaders, ltfs, nvidia, parallel file system, platform computing, rick haverty, rod adkins, san volume controller, smarter computing, storwize v7000, svc, system storage ds3500, tivoli storage, tpc, tslm

• New IBM Smarter Storage approach provides for greater performance, efficiencies
• Real-time Compression, LTFS management, and Tivoli upgrades lift storage systems
• IBM makes technical computing more accessible to enterprise customers; IBM Platform Computing software enables technical computing systems to deliver faster results

Armonk, N.Y. – 04 Jun 2012: IBM today accelerated its Smarter Computing initiative by announcing a broad array of performance and efficiency enhancements to its storage and technical computing systems – the engines of Big Data. (more…)

New Bing, Available Today, Takes You from Searching to Doing

By Guest PostJune 1, 2012Technologyatlanta, bing, bing summer, Chicago, cody simpson, days of doing, doing, dosomething, exchange ideas, Facebook, heart, hola, impulse research, lafayette park, los angeles, Microsoft, msft, nasdaq, new york, pizza party, recreation center, searching, social network, the hunt, Twitter, web

In celebration of new search experience, Bing launches the Bing Summer of Doing with DoSomething.org.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 1, 2012 — Do you ever feel like you’re spending too much time searching and not enough time doing? If so, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey conducted by Bing and Impulse Research, nearly 75 percent of people spend more time than they would like searching for information online. Time wasted searching is a thing of the past with the new Bing design, which brings together information from the Web, experts and enthusiasts, and your friends to help you do more — available today at https://www.bing.com.

Only Bing brings together the best search with people from social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. In celebration of this new search experience, Bing is joining forces with DoSomething.org to launch the Bing Summer of Doing, designed to inspire people to do amazing things, including giving back to their communities. (more…)

EU5 Map Usage via Smartphone Growing 7x Faster Than Classic Web

By Guest PostMay 31, 2012Technologybenchmarks, Comscore, eu5, european markets, france, Germany, google android, google maps, hesham al jehani, italy, maps, Microsoft, mobile, mobile phone, mobilens data, smartphone users, spain, united kingdom, viamichelin

UK Has Highest Penetration of Smartphone Map Users in EU5

LONDON, UK, 31 May 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of mobile and computer usage of Maps across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) using the comScore MobiLens and comScore MMX services. The study showed that 35.0 percent of smartphone users in EU5 reported accessing maps via their device in March 2012, compared to 49.6 percent of the internet audience accessing Maps sites on their computers. Across EU5 markets, the smartphone Map audience increased 55 percent over the past year while map access via computer grew just 8 percent.

“Smartphones are quickly becoming the primary platform for on-the-go services such as maps and navigation. With apps such as Google Maps coming pre-installed on many phones it’s becoming second nature for many of us to rely on the smart device in our pocket to show us the way. The days of checking routes in advance and printing maps to take with us will soon be in our rear view mirror,” said Hesham Al-Jehani, European mobile product manager at comScore. (more…)