Stories by Keir Thomas

Will a new Motorola OS rival Android and iOS?

Motorola Mobility is buying up experienced cell phone engineers, says a report from InformationWeek, and there are strong rumors the company is working on an entirely new mobile operating system. Last year Motorola was rumored to have purchased Linux...

Twitter scam betrays users' lack of savvy

Security firm Sophos is warning that a new scam is spreading virally on Twitter, and that a significant number of people have already fallen for it.

HP joins the Cloud, but others are ahead

One of the world's most venerable IT manufacturers is flying into the cloud. The new boss of Hewlett-Packard, Leo Apotheker, has announced that HP intends to compete with Google and Amazon, both of which dominate the nascent cloud services field. Acc...

Google Docs gets Wave-like chat features

Remember Google Wave, the innovative although sadly unloved e-mail and chat hybrid that was retired last year? Well, it sounds like Google couldn't stand to turn it out into the cold, and several of its features have made their way into Google Docs.

ARM Servers Are Coming, But Won't Be Cheap

Although the x86 architecture is as dominant as ever in the server and desktop space, there's a small number of people rooting for ARM chips to move in on the territory.

Chrome 10 v. Firefox 4: Open source browser battle

It's been a busy week for Web browsers. Chrome 10 was released a few days ago, and today sees the release candidate of Firefox 4.

IPv6 anytime soon? Don't bet on it

There's maybe never been a better time to be a network engineer--that is, provided you have IPv6 experience. Businesses are crying out for individuals to help create next-generation networking circuits, and the heat has been turned up as World IPv6 D...

Is GPS about to be broken?

Could you live without your satellite navigation system?

Eight security tips from the HBGary Hack

Thanks to Ars Technica and H-online.com, we now have intimate details of the Anonymous attack against security research company HBGary. There are no surprises in how the attacks where carried out, but we can draw many morals from the story, even if w...

How to browse privately on public Wi-Fi for free

If you're a mobile worker and like to go online using public Wi-Fi services, like those in coffee shops, you probably don't realize how insanely reckless you're being.

Apple should be the savior of Cloud computing

Courtesy of a software developer friend, I had a chance over the weekend to play with the Mac OS X 10.7 preview release. As with previous versions, I felt that Apple is spending a lot of time solving problems people don't have. You can now quickly re...

Chrome browser acts more like an OS, but security is unclear

Google has announced that forthcoming releases of its Chrome browser will be able to run apps in the background. Essentially, the feature moves Chrome one step closer to becoming a true application platform -- and with continuing efforts to develop H...

10 cool things virtualization lets you do

Virtualization isn't just for geeks or those who run enormously powerful servers. It offers something for everybody, and if you haven't yet dipped your toe into the virtualization ocean, then you're at serious risk of being left behind.

Did Acer accidentally invent the Cloud workstation?

An intriguing report on German news site Heise.de on Monday unveiled a cheap monitor that includes built-in PC functionality. The Acer DX241H is an otherwise standard 1920x1080 pixel HDMI monitor, but it also features an operating system running on t...

Amazon S3 offers complete website hosting

Ever since Amazon launched its Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud storage service in 2006, people have been using it to prop up Websites hosted with other service providers.