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Auto Electronic Faults May Be Untraceable, Need More Oversight, Panel Says – Bloomberg (Angela Greiling Keane)

January 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

U.S. regulators were justified in closing a probe into unintended acceleration of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) vehicles without finding electronic causes, a National Academy of Sciences panel said while emphasizing it wasn’t ruling out such failures in the future.

Software and other electronic failures may not leave traces that investigators are equipped to find, so the Washington-based National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must “become more familiar with and engaged in” setting automotive- electronics standards, the panel said today in a report.

“It’s impossible to prove a complete negative, but all the data available to us indicated the conclusion that there was no electronic or software problem” that may have caused the Toyota unintended acceleration reports, Louis Lanzerotti, a New Jersey Institute of Technology physics professor and chairman of the panel, said today on a conference call with reporters.

Toyota recalled more than 8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles worldwide in 2009 and 2010, a record, after reports of unintended acceleration. NHTSA and Toyota investigated the electronic throttle controls, which send signals from the accelerator to the engine. They blamed the incidents on sticky gas pedals or floor mats that might jam them.

via Auto Electronic Faults May Be Untraceable, Need More Oversight, Panel Says – Bloomberg.

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Information Governance and Its Impact on Litigation | Corporate Counsel

December 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The amount of information generated by business today is continually increasing—some estimate 1.8 zettabyes of data will be created in 2011. While word processing, social media, and email have made it easier to create information, it remains important to effectively govern that information in order to minimize risk while maintaining the information’s value to the organization. Information governance is important because it allows business to share information more effectively across departments and geography, and prevent the mistakes and wasted energy so often caused by lack of communication and information silos.

While a company cannot typically control the increasing number of lawsuits, audits, and investigations it may face, it can establish parameters around its response to those obligations, minimize the company’s public scrutiny, remain compliant, and reduce business and legal risk, cost, and impact. To that end, it is important to establish guidelines and policies around information governance and leverage technology to help implement those protocols.

What is “information governance”?

Information governance is not a new term or concept, but it has become more important since the 2006 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which codified that Electronically Stored Information (ESI) is discoverable in litigation. In order for ESI to be properly preserved and retrieved in discovery, it must be properly managed at all times. Information governance is pivotal in this process, which technology research and advisory company Gartner Group defines as “the processes, roles, standards, and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.” Information governance supports business objectives while managing legal risk.

via From the Experts: Information Governance and Its Impact on Litigation.

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.xxx launches today | TG Daily

December 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Today is the beginning of a potentially new era for the Internet, an era that fully recognizes what is – like it or not – one of the most prolific facets of the information superhighway.

At 11 AM Eastern Time, the metaphorical switch will be turned on to more than 100,000 websites with the extension “.xxx” despite years of debate over whether or not this day would come.

The ICM Registry, which has the task of doling out and managing the new domain suffix, released a statement saying, “The Internet is home to a wealth of content, suitable for a wide range of ages and values. The adult entertainment industry has, and always will, account for a large amount of this content and while it is enjoyed by some, it is not suitable, or of interest, to all Internet users.”

Today is the culmination of years of struggle between ICM, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), and countless website owners both in and out of the adult entertainment industry.

via .xxx launches today | TG Daily.

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Team claims $50,000 for decoding shredded messages | msnbc

December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A team of San Francisco-based sleuths claimed a $50,000 prize from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency today for correctly reconstructing a series of five shredded documents.

The accomplishment comes just 33 days after the DARPA Shredder Challenge was announced in a bid to improve the ability of warfighters to glean information quickly from confiscated, shredded documents.

The challenge also provides insight to the potential vulnerabilities in the current practice of shredding sensitive national security documents, not to mention your own financial statements and personal notes.

The winning team, All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S., used custom-coded, computer vision algorithms to come up with suggested fragment pairings, which were then sent along to human assemblers for verification, the DARPA announcement explains.

They spent a total of 600 worker-hours developing algorithms and piecing together the documents, which were shredded into more than 10,000 pieces.

via Future of Technology – Team claims $50,000 for decoding shredded messages.

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Federal judge orders Google, Facebook to “de-index” 700 domain names

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In a move likely to send counterfeit product sites scrambling for new homes on the Internet, a federal judge has ordered in favor of a fashion company seeking to protect the brand.

Announced earlier today out of Nevada, Judge Kent Dawson ordered that luxury goods designer Chanel now has the legal right to seize domain names of over 700 sites that are attempting to sell counterfeit Chanel products. These domain names can be taken over by Chanel and transferred to domain registrar GoDaddy. All pages would then be redirected to an online notice of the seizure.  The federal judge also ordered that all search engines and social networks “de-index” the sites in question. Sites specifically named in the ruling include Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. None of the site owners have the right to contest the removal of the domain from search engines or contest the transfer of ownership until after the domains are seized.

via Federal judge orders Google, Facebook to “de-index” 700 domain names.

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Google vows to support Android vendors in lawsuits | The Digital Home – CNET News

November 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Android vendors have been hit hard by lawsuit after lawsuit from competitors. But in a show of strength, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said today in Taiwan that his company will stand by those firms in any lawsuit.

“We tell our partners, including the ones here in Taiwan, we will support them,” Schmidt told reporters today, according to Reuters. “For example, we have been supporting HTC in its dispute with Apple because we think that the Apple thing is not correct.”

HTC’s troubles with Apple started last year when the iPhone maker filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, arguing HTC’s device violates 20 of its patents.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in a statement at the time. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

In response, HTC fired back with several lawsuits of its own against Apple, arguing that the iPhone violated patents it held. In September, HTC upped the ante a bit by suing Apple using patents it received from Google.

Although Schmidt argues that his company has stood by Android vendors, HTC’s lawsuit using Google patents was arguably the first major step the search giant took to help its partners. Previously, Google had taken a backseat to the lawsuits, possibly for fear of getting embroiled in a head-to-head court battle with Apple. That fear was stripped away earlier this year, however, after Google announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The deal is designed to provide Google with the patent protection the compa

via Google vows to support Android vendors in lawsuits | The Digital Home – CNET News.

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SFL Data Named One of Bay Area’s Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies

October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SFL Data announced today that it has been selected as one of the “Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies” in the San Francisco Bay Area for 2011 by the San Francisco Business Times. The company was the first to provide a fixed-price electronic discovery managed service to Fortune 500 companies and AmLaw 250 firms. Based on the success of its proprietary e-discovery service model that provides defensible results, reduced costs and greater control, SFL Data demonstrated a 71.3% increase in revenue growth from 2008 to 2010, ranking it 61st out of 100 Bay Area companies.

“What a credit to these outstanding companies that they have shown such noteworthy growth in the years from 2008 to 2010 – years that many companies were thrilled to stay flat,” said SF Business Times Publisher Mary Huss.

Roughly half of the companies are new to this year’s Fast Private List, including SFL Data. The e-discovery managed service provider’s 71.3% growth increase was supported by a 60% increase in staff – from 58 to 93 employees over the three year period.

“The expertise of our technical staff, knowledge of legal industry and dedication to customer service has enabled us to capitalize on the need for more efficient e-discovery. We look forward to our continued growth as more corporations and law firms realize the benefits of having the best e-discovery team without building it themselves,” said SLF Data CEO Christian Lawrence.

via SFL Data Named One of Bay Area’s Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies.

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As fix begins, worldwide BlackBerry users still have problems – Computerworld

October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BlackBerry users Wednesday reported that problems are continuing into a third day in Europe and Asia, after Research in Motion reported on Tuesday that a fix was underway.

And for the first time, BlackBerry service slowed in North America today, according to a tweet from 680 News in Toronto shortly after 7 a.m. EDT. Others in North America tweeted BlackBerry Messenger service was down.

Elsewhere, Vodafone Qatar told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that every one of its wireless subscribers was affected to some degree by the service slowdown. Some, it added, had difficulty sending email or instant messages.

Computerworld UK reported on Wednesday mid-day (7 a.m. ET) that users in the UK and Europe saw service resumed briefly Wednesday morning after a 17-hour outage on Tuesday, only to crash again at 9:30 a.m.local time (4:30 a.m. ET).

Computerworld UK said Twitter users in the UK resorted to using PCs to tweet concerns, with several noting the public relations problem facing RIM.

via As fix begins, worldwide BlackBerry users still have problems – Computerworld.

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As fix begins, worldwide BlackBerry users still have problems – Computerworld

October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BlackBerry users Wednesday reported that problems are continuing into a third day in Europe and Asia, after Research in Motion reported on Tuesday that a fix was underway.

And for the first time, BlackBerry service slowed in North America today, according to a tweet from 680 News in Toronto shortly after 7 a.m. EDT. Others in North America tweeted BlackBerry Messenger service was down.

Elsewhere, Vodafone Qatar told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that every one of its wireless subscribers was affected to some degree by the service slowdown. Some, it added, had difficulty sending email or instant messages.

Computerworld UK reported on Wednesday mid-day (7 a.m. ET) that users in the UK and Europe saw service resumed briefly Wednesday morning after a 17-hour outage on Tuesday, only to crash again at 9:30 a.m.local time (4:30 a.m. ET).

Computerworld UK said Twitter users in the UK resorted to using PCs to tweet concerns, with several noting the public relations problem facing RIM.

via As fix begins, worldwide BlackBerry users still have problems – Computerworld.

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Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative | Deep Tech – CNET News

October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Google today launched an “early preview” of Dart, a programming language the company hopes will help Web application programmers overcome shortcomings of JavaScript that Google itself feels acutely.

Programmer and project leader Lars Bak detailed the project in a talk today at the Goto conference in Denmark and in a blog post. Dart is geared for everything from small, unstructured projects to large, complicated efforts–Gmail and Google Docs, for example.

“If we want to focus on making the Web better over time, we have to innovate,” including with new programming languages, Bak said in an interview today.

Google also unveiled a Dart language site that includes open-source tools for writing Dart programs, code samples, and tutorials; libraries of supporting software; the Dart language specification; and forums for discussion.

via Google debuts Dart, a JavaScript alternative | Deep Tech – CNET News.

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