Here are some brief notes
about various happenings in the technological world we live in:
DVDs
Blu-ray
discs have been around for about six years now, DVDs remain a pretty big
presence in the entertainment and storage markets. But that may be changing:
Microsoft recently announced that its newest operating system, Windows 8, will drop default DVD playback support.
Users who want DVD support must pay for Windows Media Center DVD software with
computers.
Best Buy
Are
brick-and-mortar retailers finally being beaten down by online merchants? It
looks that way. In March, big-box retailer Best Buy announced that it will close 50 of its retail stores in an attempt to "think
small." Best Buy plans to open 100 smaller mobile stores that will focus
on phones, tablets, and e-readers--further proof that the world is becoming
increasingly mobile (and that brick-and-mortar stores' days may face additional
hard times ahead).
Employers Request Facebook
Logins
If
you've been in the job market in the past few years, you probably know that
many employers check up on the social networking profiles of both potential hires and current
employees. But in March we learned that some employers weren't just looking at
employees' public profiles--they were actually asking for log-in information,
including passwords, so they could snoop
even deeper. This controversial policy piqued
the interest of lawmakers, and several states have since passed legislation forbidding
employers to make such requests.
SOPA
The controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill in the U.S. House of
Representatives that would have allowed courts to order ISPs to block access to
entire Internet domains accused of infringing on copyrighted content, was all the rage in January 2012. The bill rankled the tech community, in particular, and
even prompted such websites as Wikipedia and Reddit to black out their services for a day in protest. On January 20, the House
Judiciary Committee postponed
consideration of the bill--in
effect, tabling it Indefinitely.
Mac
users have finally been knocked off their malware-free pedestal, thanks to Flashback, a Trojan horse that has infected more than 600,000
Apple
computers.
The malware exploits a Java
vulnerability; and though Apple responded with Java updates and removal tools, the virus still plagues more than 140,000 Macs.
Google Privacy Policy Update
Privacy
is always a flop when the tech industry is involved. After all, we can't have an
open, sharey Internet without, well, we give up our privacy. The most notable
privacy flop so far has been Google's restructuring
of its privacy guidelines so that
it could unify its users' data
across all Google-related services. The company claimed that it was just making things simpler, but the revamp
was actually a way for Google to prepare the world for its cloud-based service, Google Drive
Facebook IPO
Facebook went public on May
18, 2012 , with the price of a share initially set at $38. The company
was valued at $104 billion--quite
a bit for a company whose 2011 revenue just topped $3.7 billion--so it might not be surprising that the Facebook IPO sort of...flopped.
At this writing, a little more than two weeks later, Facebook shares were trading at $26.90, down $11.10 from
the opening price.
Based on info from Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, PC World, June
05, 2012
