Tag: portfolio-cond

Why Apple added debt to its $145 billion cash hoard

Anton TwAng Apple is making headlines with rumors of a record-sized bond sale. According to reports, Cupertino is likely taking advantage of historically dirt-cheap interest rates on corporate debt by raising about $17 billion from a series of six types of bond papers. It’s not the largest non-bank bond sale in history, but it does rank near the top. Automaker General Motors raised $17.5 billion in bond financing a decade ago, for example. Then again, GM’s financing arm, then known as GMAC, sort of made a bank out of the car builder. Pharma giants Abbott Laboratories and Roche Holdings also issued $14.7 billion and $16 billion in bond debt fairly recently. Record-level or not, Apple’s sale certainly ranks right up there with the big boys. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read this article:
Why Apple added debt to its $145 billion cash hoard

OS X 10.9 said to focus on the “power user”

OS X 10.9 will reportedly focus on the “power user,” according to sources speaking to 9to5Mac . The release, code-named “Cabernet,” isn’t expected to significantly overhaul how the operating system functions, but will reportedly bring over more iOS features that could benefit OS X. What might those features be? According to 9to5Mac’s sources, Apple has been “testing a new multi-tasking system” that’s similar to the app-switcher within iOS. “The multitasking feature will be functional for applications in the background, according to this person. Additionally, Apple could use app-pausing technologies from iOS to pause background application processes in OS X,” the site wrote, though apparently it’s unclear whether this feature will make the official 10.9 release. The other “power user” features reportedly include modifications to the Finder that would bring a tabbed browsing mode, an updated version of Safari with “a redesigned backend for improved page loading, speed, and efficiency,” and the ability to keep different Spaces open on separate monitors. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Continue Reading:
OS X 10.9 said to focus on the “power user”

Opera claims former employee gave stolen trade secrets to Mozilla

Opera has been busy repositioning itself as a middleware player for the mobile Web recently, but that isn’t stopping the company from defending its investment in browser technology. The company has filed a 20 million Kronor ($3.4 million) lawsuit against a former employee and consultant, claiming that he stole company secrets and incorporated them into a mobile browser for Mozilla. According to a report by Norwegian IT site Digi.no , Opera has filed suit against Trond Werner Hansen, a Norwegian musician and designer who worked for Opera from 1999 to 2006 as a user interface designer and developer before  leaving to pursue his music career . Hansen also worked for Opera as an outside consultant from 2009 to 2010. Last year, Hansen was involved with the development of the Mozilla prototype “Junior” browser for Apple iOS . Hansen and Alex Limi —former Firefox UI head and now manager of Mozilla’s product design strategy—demonstrated the browser prototype in a video on Air Mozilla last June. Hansen said in the video, “I spent almost seven years trying to simplify Opera and didn’t really succeed. Simplification of something that already exists is really hard. That’s way beyond product design issues—it’s company issues. I feel like we failed in making something really easy.” Limi credited Hansen with the invention of a number of Mozilla UI features, including the browser search—”the source of all our revenue,” Limi said—and the “speed dial” feature that allows users to pick frequently visited pages from a new browser tab. “Pretty much everything he’s invented, they’re now in all browsers,” Limi continued. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
Opera claims former employee gave stolen trade secrets to Mozilla

Man accused of placing GPS device on victim’s car before burglarizing her home

A burglary suspect currently on trial in Johnson County, Kansas allegedly put a GPS tracking device on a victim’s car to determine whether anyone was home. The victim, an unnamed Overland Park woman, told her story to the  Kansas City Star on Friday. Overland Park police, Leawood police, and Johnson County prosecutors declined to comment on the GPS allegation to the newspaper. According to the Star , the suspect, Steven Alva Glaze, allegedly burglarized the woman’s home on March 25. The victim owns a jewelry business in the Kansas City suburb. Glaze is now on trial for 14 counts of criminal damage to property, theft, attempted burglary, and burglary for the alleged crimes. The use of GPS tracking devices surreptitiously installed on cars recalls the famous Jones v. United States case, in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2012 that law enforcement does not have the authority to warrantlessly place a device on a criminal suspect’s vehicle. However, the use of GPS by criminal suspects to track victims still seems to be quite rare. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View post:
Man accused of placing GPS device on victim’s car before burglarizing her home

Tesla CEO says he’ll pay more to speed up LA freeway widening: “I’ve super had it”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that he would be willing to donate even more money as a way to accelerate the widening of a major north-south highway in Los Angeles, known as the 405 Freeway. So far, he’s already donated $50,000 out of a total cost that has now ballooned to $1.1 billion, but he said he’d gladly pay more to add more workers. “[I’d pay more] as a contribution to the city and my own happiness,” Musk told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday . “If it can actually make a difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I’ve super had it.” On Wednesday, the city received the dubious honor of having the worst traffic in the country , according to data company Inrix. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit site:
Tesla CEO says he’ll pay more to speed up LA freeway widening: “I’ve super had it”

Ubuntu 13.04 boosts graphics performance to prepare for phones, tablets

Ubuntu 13.04. The stable release of Ubuntu 13.04 became available for download today, with Canonical promising performance and graphical improvements to help prepare the operating system for convergence across PCs, phones, and tablets. “Performance on lightweight systems was a core focus for this cycle, as a prelude to Ubuntu’s release on a range of mobile form factors,” Canonical said in an announcement today. “As a result 13.04 delivers significantly faster response times in casual use, and a reduced memory footprint that benefits all users.” Named “Raring Ringtail,”—the prelude to Saucy Salamander —Ubuntu 13.04 is the midway point in the OS’ two-year development cycle. Ubuntu 12.04, the more stable, Long Term Support edition that is supported for five years, was released one year ago. Security updates are only promised for 9 months for interim releases like 13.04. Support windows for interim releases were recently cut from 18 months to 9 months to reduce the number of versions Ubuntu developers must support and let them focus on bigger and better things. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Ubuntu 13.04 boosts graphics performance to prepare for phones, tablets

FBI denied permission to spy on hacker through his webcam

Sorry FBI, you can’t randomly hijack someone’s webcam. Stefano Maffei A federal magistrate judge has denied (PDF) a request from the FBI to install sophisticated surveillance software to track someone suspected of attempting to conduct a “sizeable wire transfer from [John Doe’s] local bank [in Texas] to a foreign bank account.” Back in March 2013, the FBI asked the judge to grant a month-long “ Rule 41 search and seizure warrant ” of a suspect’s computer “at premises unknown” as a way to find out more about this possible violations of “federal bank fraud, identity theft and computer security laws.” In an unusually-public order published this week , Judge Stephen Smith slapped down the FBI on the grounds that the warrant request was overbroad and too invasive. In it, he gives a unique insight as to the government’s capabilities for sophisticated digital surveillance on potential targets. According to the judge’s description of the spyware, it sounds very similar to the RAT software that many miscreants use to spy on other Internet users without their knowledge. (Ars editor Nate Anderson detailed the practice last month.) Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View article:
FBI denied permission to spy on hacker through his webcam

Former Hostgator employee arrested, charged with rooting 2,700 servers

Aurich Lawson A former employee of Hostgator has been arrested and charged with installing a backdoor that gave him almost unfettered control over more than 2,700 servers belonging to the widely used Web hosting provider. Eric Gunnar Gisse, 29, of San Antonio, Texas, was charged with felony breach of computer security by the district attorney’s office of Harris County in Texas, according to court documents. He worked as a medium-level administrator from September 2011 until he was terminated on February 15, 2012, according to prosecutors and a company executive. A day after his dismissal, Hostgator officials discovered a backdoor application that allowed Gisse to log in to servers from remote locations, including a computer located at the Hetzner Data Center in Nuremberg, Germany. He took pains to disguise his malware as a widely used Unix administration tool to prevent his superiors from discovering the backdoor process, prosecutors said. “The process was named ‘pcre’, a common system file, in order to disguise the true purpose of the process which would grant an attacker unauthorized access into Hostgator’s computer network,” a Houston Police Department investigator and the document’s “affiant,” Gordon M. Garrett, wrote in an affidavit. “Complainant told affiant he searched Hostgator’s computer network and found the unauthorized ‘pcre’ process installed on 2723 different Hostgator servers within the computer network.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Link:
Former Hostgator employee arrested, charged with rooting 2,700 servers

Bitfloor, number four Bitcoin-based exchange, shuts down for good

On Wednesday evening, Bitfloor , the number four Bitcoin-based exchange (behind Mt. Gox, BTC-E, and Bitstamp) announced that it is closing its doors “indefinitely.” “Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of [US dollar] deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past,” wrote Roman Shtylman , the exchange’s founder. “As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds. Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request.” Ars reached out to Shtylman to find out more details, but he did not immediately respond. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See the article here:
Bitfloor, number four Bitcoin-based exchange, shuts down for good