u.s

SGI uses big data to detect Twitter's 'heartbeat'

Needless to say, there's a lot of emotions and expressed on Twitter every day, but it feels virtually impossible to navigate through all of them to extract a general consensus on most topics.

However, computing giant SGI thinks it may have found a way to pinpoint just that.

SGI has teamed up with researchers from the University of Illinois to analyze the entire Twitter feed for sentiments and volume in real-time using SGI's UV 2000 Big Brain data-mining computer.

By combining geotagged tweets with a Twitter-focused sentiment engine, SGI said researchers have been able create a sophisticated streaming … Read more

Cyberattacks against Lockheed have 'increased dramatically'

Cyberattacks against Lockheed Martin -- one of the largest defense contractors for the U.S. government -- have stepped up significantly in both pace and savvy, according to Reuters.

"The number of campaigns has increased dramatically over the last several years," Lockheed vice president and chief information security officer Chandra McMahon said in a news conference today, according to Reuters. "The pace has picked up."

McMahon claims that roughly 20 percent of the attacks are being perpetuated by other countries or groups that aim to steal information or threaten the company's operations. She told reporters … Read more

Sprint inks $480 million deal for U.S. Cellular customers, spectrum

Sprint is starting to flex some muscle with regional carriers.

The company announced today that it has inked a deal with U.S. Cellular for $480 million. The deal: Sprint will acquire 20MHz of PCS spectrum in the 1900MHz band across Chicago, South Bend, Ind., and Champaign, Ill. Sprint will also get 10Mhz of spectrum in the St. Louis market, as well as 585,000 customers, or about 10 percent of U.S. Cellular's subscriber base.

"Acquiring this spectrum will significantly increase Sprint's network capacity and improve the customer experience in several important Midwest markets including Chicago … Read more

Two members of piracy group IMAGiNE get prison terms

Two members of a group that wanted to be known for being first to release the latest Hollywood films to the Web were sentenced to prison today, the U.S. government says.

Willie Lambert, 57, of Pittston, Pa., was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $449,514 in restitution, according to a press release from Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride is also the man who's pressing a separate criminal copyright case against MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom.

Sean Lovelady, a co-defendant from … Read more

Motorola Electrify M bring more LTE to U.S. Cellular

U.S. Cellular today announced its next 4G LTE smartphone, the Android-based Motorola Electrify M. It will join the lineup in the coming days.

Powered by 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the handset goes on sale on the carrier's Web site on November 8 and in retail stores the following day. It's the third handset in the carrier's Electrify line after the original Electrify and the Electrify 2.

Pricing will vary depend on whether the buyer is in a 4G LTE market. Live inside the 4G footprint and your cost is $99.99 after a $100 mail-in … Read more

Defense Department drops exclusive contract for BlackBerry

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has been dealt another blow by the U.S. government. The U.S. Defense Department recently announced that it is opening its exclusive contract with the company to other device makers, including Apple and Google.

According to Reuters, the Pentagon said it would still use "large numbers" of BlackBerry smartphones but that it was also asking other companies to apply for a government contract to provide software that is capable of monitoring, managing, and enforcing U.S. military security requirements.

A Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters that it was broadening its reach with device … Read more

U.S. Cellular expands LTE to more than 30 new markets

U.S. Cellular is expanding its 4G LTE coverage area to more than 30 new markets on Monday, extending the carrier's footprint for the high-speed network to more than half of its customers.

The rollout will bring LTE to select cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, and brings new LTE coverage to some of U.S. Cellular's markets in Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The next wave of market launches will follow shortly in Rockford, Ill., Medford, Ore., Yakima, Wash., and Knoxville, Tenn., the company said today.

By the end of … Read more

Feds uphold jailbreaking laws on DVDs, game consoles, tablets

The U.S. Copyright Office published its new set of rules on whether people can jailbreak smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles today; it also outlined the guidelines on DVD copying.

Overwhelmingly, its conclusions were that besides smartphones, all of the above remain illegal.

Every three years the Copyright Office takes requests from digital rights proponents and opponents to re-examine the laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that dictate whether people can unlock or jailbreak their varied devices. Today, in a lengthy document (PDF), the government listed all of the changes it made.

The key developments are that people cannot … Read more

Unlocked fin likely brought down X-51A in August crash

The U.S. Air Force said today that an experimental test in August of its hypersonic X-51A Waverider failed due to a fin inadvertently unlocking and sending the aircraft into a corkscrew that ended in a crash into the Pacific Ocean.

At the time, the Air Force said only that the August flight had ended with the crash, but didn't reveal what had been at fault. But in a conference call today, X-51A program manager Charlie Brink explained what he and his colleagues have learned over a couple of months of investigation.

The August flight was the third of … Read more

Low-price Huawei Ascend Y joins U.S. Cellular (hands-on)

Today, Huawei and U.S. Cellular announced the Huawei Ascend Y, a budget Android smartphone for first-timers. A few weeks ago, I got to briefly handle the Muve Music device.

With its Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, the Ascend Y certainly isn't angling for tech-savvy users, or those ready to invest in a higher-cost handset. Its 3.5-inch touch screen definitely felt small compared with today's larger-screen phones, but its HVGA (480x320-pixel) resolution is appropriate for the display and looked fine. The Swype virtual keyboard will help compose text in tight spaces.

I didn't get an opportunity … Read more