BBC News has an interesting article today entitled “New boom-time for British tech?” The article’s author, Rory Cellan-Jones, raises the question whether Britain, despite its abundance of world-class scientists, is only “third-rate” when it comes to “giving them the money to turn their ideas into world-beating companies.”
The Seattle Times points out that “one of Microsoft’s most anticipated new products is a free, tiny download that will run on Windows, Mac and eventually Linux, and went from a roughed-out preview to a final product in less than a year. The company on Tuesday night announced the availability of Silverlight, its online player for videos and interactive Web applications that will compete with Adobe’s Flash, the dominant platform for Internet multimedia.”
According to the Guardian, “Facebook is opening up its website so that member profiles can be discovered through online search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, as the social networking site looks to boost user numbers. But the move will spark further concerns about privacy as users have to opt out of the service, rather than opt in, meaning that all 39 million profiles could be viewable when the service goes live.”
In a different article, the Guardian reports that “Chinese hackers, some believed to be from the People’s Liberation Army, have been attacking the computer networks of British government departments, the Guardian has learned. The attackers have hit the network at the Foreign Office as well as those in other key departments, according to Whitehall officials. The Ministry of Defence declined yesterday to say whether it had been hit. An incident last year that shut down part of the House of Commons computer system, initially believed to be by an individual, was discovered to be the work of an organised Chinese hacking group, officials said.”
According to the Financial Times, “Tokyo, alarmed by the global dominance of Google and other foreign internet services, is spearheading a project to try to seize the lead in new search technologies for electronic devices. The push has been sparked by concerns in Japan that the country’s pre-eminence in consumer electronics has faded and value in the technology industry is moving away from hardware. As South Korean and Taiwanese electronics companies churn out products nearly identical to those of the Japanese majors, there are fears in Tokyo that the country’s manufacturers are falling behind in innovation.”