Tag: DEVELOPMENT

China and IBM are teaming up to build a massive cloud computing and office complex. How massive? According to Computer World, it's the size of an entire city. The new center will cover an estimated 6.2 million square feet, with 646,000 square feet devoted to the data center alone. In total, the complex will be about the size of the Pentagon, though it will be spread out over a comparatively ...

Just because your young daughter types "CU L8R" when she texts her friends doesn't mean she won't be able to spell real words when she grows up. In fact, one new study claims that, contrary to popular belief, texting will actually improve her spelling skills. The study, conducted by researchers at Coventry University, examined 114 9- and 10-year-old children who did not already use cell phones. ...

Update: Facebook has temporarily suspended contact information sharing with developers. Share On Friday, Facebook quietly announced that app developers will now be able to access users' home addresses and mobile numbers, in a move that has already raised concerns among privacy advocates and security experts alike. Developers who take advantage of this new feature will still have to request ...

Most of us rely on our cell phones to stay in touch with our friends, check our e-mail or play Angry Birds. But, in less economically developed parts of the world, mobile technology hasn't just created a new avenue for instant communication, but an entirely new banking sector, as well. Mobile banking first took off in 2001, when phone operators Globe and Smart both began offering mobile payment ...

In 1999, Professor Sugata Mitra was working for a software company in Delhi, at an office building surrounded by one of India's infamous slums. The children populating the slum, needless to say, were mired in poverty, and hardly spent any time in school, much less in front of a computer. That didn't stop Mitra, though, from embedding computers on the walls of his office building, and exposing ...

As the war in Afghanistan continues to lurch forward, U.S. and Western coalition forces are increasingly implementing initiatives to help impoverished Afghans pick themselves up and get on the road to economic recovery. Among these programs is "cash-for-work," a set of projects run by NATO and U.S. development organizations, whereby organizations give money to local communities for creating ...