Is the bell tolling for Windows XP? 2 Aug 2011, 12:34 am

Microsoft's Windows XP has slipped under the 50 percent share mark for the first time since Web measurement company Net Applications began tracking operating system usage. The decade-old XP closed July with 49.8 percent, a 1.3-percentage point drop from June, Net Applications said today. Although XP still powers a majority of Windows machines, July's decline means it has lost its majority status among all operating systems.

Twitter snags 'significant' funding 2 Aug 2011, 12:14 am

Twitter confirmed today that it has raised a "significant round of funding" that executives hope to use to expand the site's reach.

Android Trojan records phone calls 2 Aug 2011, 12:00 am

A new Android Trojan is capable of recording phone conversations, according to a CA security researcher. While a previous Trojan found by CA logged the details of incoming and outgoing phone calls and the call duration, the malware identified this week records the actual phone conversations in AMR format and stores the recordings on the device's SD card.

LibreOffice releases enterprise-ready office suite 1 Aug 2011, 9:44 pm

Version 3.4.2 of the open-source LibreOffice suite is now available and "enterprise-ready," project backers The Document Foundation announced Monday. Some 300 people contributed more than 23,000 commits to the release, affecting some 5 million lines of code, according to the group, which formed LibreOffice as an offshoot of the OpenOffice.org codebase. The result is a wide range of improvements and tweaks.

Android captures nearly half of the worldwide market 1 Aug 2011, 8:57 pm

It's a new month, which means that another research firm has released data showing us that Android and the iPhone are pretty popular.

Microsoft MDOP now controls BitLocker 1 Aug 2011, 8:18 pm

Microsoft has expanded its MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) to include the ability to manage users' BitLocker encrypted folders. MDOP 2011 Release 2, posted Monday, also brings significant updates to two of its core components, the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) and the Microsoft Asset Inventory Service (AIS) 2.0.

Judge: Email in Oracle-Google case will remain public 1 Aug 2011, 6:58 pm

The judge overseeing the lawsuit Oracle filed over the Android mobile OS has denied Google's attempt to get a potentially damaging email redacted.

Amazon competition to highlight cloud usage among startups 1 Aug 2011, 5:05 pm

Amazon Web Services has opened the fifth annual AWS Start-Up Challenge, a contest that aims to recognize innovative uses of its cloud computing platform, the company said on Monday. Cloud services are a good fit for startups. They have leveled the playing field as smaller companies gain the resources to compete in ways that were very expensive and often cost-prohibitive in the past, according to Amazon.

Apple's Safari grows faster than Chrome in July 1 Aug 2011, 1:40 pm

Apple's Safari last month posted its biggest increase ever in usage share, beating perennial champion Chrome in the gain game, Web metrics vendor Net Applications said today. The browser bundled with Apple's revenue troika of Mac, iPhone and iPad boosted its share by six-tenths of a point, its largest one-month increase, enough to put it at 8.1 percent for July, a record.

How to survive Black Hat and Defcon without getting hacked -- maybe 1 Aug 2011, 1:35 pm

Among the thousands of security experts at the Black Hat, Defcon, and Security BSides conferences next week in Las Vegas, some will surely test whether they can break into nearby laptops, phones, networks -- even RFID-enabled room keys and credit cards.

Facebook moves 30-petabyte Hadoop cluster to new data center 1 Aug 2011, 1:25 pm

As the world's largest social network, Facebook accumulates more data in a single day than many good size companies generate in a year. Facebook stores much of the data on its massive Hadoop cluster, which has grown exponentially in recent years. [ Track the latest trends in open source with InfoWorld's Open Sources blog and Technology: Open Source newsletter. ]

Anonymous suspect 'Topiary' charged over DDOS attacks 1 Aug 2011, 1:12 pm

The 18-year-old teenager identified by police as the spokesman for the hacking groups Anonymous and Lulz Security was charged on Sunday with five offenses and expected to appear Monday in a London court. Jake Davis, 18, was arrested in the Shetland Islands on Wednesday. He is alleged by police to be "Topiary," a spokesman who did interviews with media and ran a prolific Twitter account documenting frequent denial-of-service attacks and data theft escapades of Anonymous and LulzSec.

Adobe launches HTML5 rich media editor 1 Aug 2011, 1:08 pm

Planting the seeds to potentially disrupt its own successful franchise in Flash-based animation, Adobe has released a preview version of a new application, called Adobe Edge, designed for assembling dynamic Web content using HTML5 and related open Web standards, the company announced Monday. "This is a motion and interactive tool for designers who want to build interactive Web content using Web standards," said Adobe Group Product Manager Devin Fernandez.