Daily Cuppa: Foxconn riots, IBM boosts cloud, IE safe again
The weekend: so close, yet so far away. But don't despair, because we have a nice cup of tech news to cheer you up.
The Foxconn riots in Taiyuan earlier this week appear to have been more severe than first thought, with workers reportedly clashing with police. The riot involved 2,000 factory workers, and a handful of them were taken to hospital for medical treatment.
The violence was spurred by rumours that Foxconn security forces beat up a worker from the Shandong and Henan provinces.
US CEOs and CFOs are cutting their expectations about the economy in 2012, which may have implications on IT spending. There are a number of factors affecting their views, according to the Business Roundtable's third-quarter survey and the CFO Outlook Fall Update. As a result, tech executives may be facing more questions related to their projects and spending.
Cisco has acquired location data-analysis firm ThinkSmart Technologies. ThinkSmart develops products that can gather information on movement within a venue via Wi-Fi, giving businesses insight into the needs of their customers.
According to Cisco, the acquisition will improve "customer experience in public venues, such as retail locations, hotels, and airports."
IBM has launched a set of new cloud services to cater for managed service providers and outsourced IT departments. A legion of IBM experts will be at the disposal of service providers worldwide for advanced information and education for both technical and marketing skills. The vendor is also providing financial options to facilitate the purchase of new technologies by the managed service providers.
IBM also seems determined to go up against cloud juggernaut Amazon, but will this strategy work?
Germany has deemed Internet Explorer safe to use again, after a patch was released by Microsoft. The country's Federal Office for Information Security told computer users last week to use other browsers, after researchers found a zero-day vulnerability.
Research In Motion (RIM) has kicked off its BlackBerry Jam conference to woo developers back to their flagging platform. So what do developers think of this? You can read the thoughts of one developer here.