Serial space tourist Charles Simonyi is going back again — to his former employer, Microsoft. When Simonyi quit as Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect in 2002, it was to create a start-up devoted to making programming simpler. Now Microsoft has agreed to acquire that company, Intentional Software. During his absence from Microsoft, Simonyi also found time…
Cloud computing is all well and good for enterprises with big-data applications and consumers with virtual assistants, but it runs into some limits in an isolated cornfield. On farms and other places far from powerful computers and network connections, there’s a trend away from centralized computing even while most of the IT world is embracing…
Microsoft has crazy quantum computing plans. It is building hardware based on a particle that hasn’t been discovered, and the company now wants to make super-cool memory for quantum computers. The company is working with Rambus to develop and build prototype computers with memory subsystems that can be cooled at cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenic temperatures typically are below…
While Maps is far and away the most popular tool for traversing the globe, Google hasn’t forgotten about its other project, Earth. And just in time for Earth Day, Google is giving it a major upgrade. In an event at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City today, Google took the wraps off…
The U.S. government today said it received 199,000 H-1B visa petitions for the upcoming 2018 fiscal year — 37,000 less than in 2016. The government will issue 85,000 visas distributed via a computer-generated lottery. The winners will be able to use their visas at the start of the federal fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.…
Mozilla today announced it would drop one of Firefox’s preview tracks that have let customers test early versions of the browser before wider deployment. Companies running Firefox, and testing the browser using the “Aurora” track, will be automatically migrated to the “Beta” channel today. [ Further reading: See the latest tech reviews on Computerworld ]…
Have you ever had a friend or a family member go on an exotic vacation only to find yourself living vicariously through their social media posts? Well, now you can also live vicariously through a robot. Bay area start-up Let’s Robot allows users to control its robotic fleet through a chat room. Users type commands…
The biggest bummer at a festival like Coachella should be a spilled beer or a long bathroom line, not having your iPhone stolen by a highly ambitious but also bumbling criminal. Awful person Reinaldo De Jesus Henao found himself in handcuffs on Easter Sunday, arrested with more than 100 smartphones in his backpack, nabbed with…
While investments in renewable energy slumped last year, a big drop in unsubsidized costs for new wind and solar power installations indicated that they remain popular energy alternatives. Last year, the average “levelized cost” or total cost of generating power from solar worldwide dropped 17% percent, onshore wind costs dropped 18% and offshore wind turbine…
After 20 years, Intel is scrapping its marquee annual Intel Developer Forum event, where tech enthusiasts gathered to load up on the chipmaker’s news and technologies. IDF started off in 1997 as a small event in Palm Springs, California. The show was later moved to San Francisco and vastly expanded during a boom in the PC…