Autor: HCFG

It looks as though another Dragon Quest related game could be coming to the US, if a trademark found by Siliconera is correct. The publication has noticed that Square Enix has registered Luminaries Of The Legendary in the US. Speculation is rife regarding which Dragon Quest game it could be. Let’s hope it’s for the Nintendo 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII, rather than a smartphone title.

As Hadoop moves from the early-adopter phase into the mainstream, IT organizations across all industries are asking how to make the business case for Hadoop at their company. For all of its benefits, namely it is a radically cheaper alternative for storing and processing large amounts of structured and unstructured data, and it can be an uncomfortable fit in a traditional IT environment. With that in mind, it’s important to put Hadoop to work on the tasks it was designed for, to ensure its success in your organization.

In this webinar, our panel will discuss these topics:

• What evidence is there that Hadoop is now mainstream?
• What use cases is Hadoop most suited to?
• What are the challenges and best practices for implementing Hadoop in an ETL offload environment?
• What are some methodologies and tools for success?

Speakers include:

• Richard Winter, president, WinterCorp

• David Loshin, principal consultant, corporate analyst and…

Open Road Integrated Media, the digital publisher cofounded by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman in 2009, has acquired E-Reads, the ebook publisher founded by literary agent Richard Curtis in 1999. E-Reads has published over 1,200 titles, most of which are science fiction and fantasy.

“As I recently surveyed the state of the industry, it became apparent that it was time to seek an alliance with a company with greater resources, particularly in the all-important area of marketing,” Curtis said in a statement. Open Road, which has published over 4,000 titles, centers its business around digital marketing and has published books by authors like William Styron, Michael Chabon, Sherman Alexie and Alice Walker as ebooks for the first time.

E-Reads authors include Harlan Ellison, sci-fi author Greg Bear and mystery author Barbara Parker. Open Road has partnered with other publishers to market their ebooks, but this is its first straight acquisition…

HTC’s fourth quarter earning results are in, and things still aren’t looking very good. Quarterly revenue was NT$42.9 billion ($1.42 billion US), down from NT$60 billion a year ago. And as revenue continues to fall, HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang believes the company must place a renewed focus on the mid-range market, according to Reuters.

“The problem with us last year was we only concentrated on our flagship,” Wang told Reuters last week. “We missed a huge chunk of the mid-tier market.”

It is true that HTC didn’t release many mid-range phones last year. After the high-profile launch of the HTC One, the company later introduced One Mini and One Max variants, all of which hover around the higher-end of things. There were still some low-cost Desire handsets kicking around out there, but compared to competitor Samsung, HTC didn’t have nearly as many devices on the market.

But…

Announced at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, the Asus VivoTab Note 8 tablet is now available for sale. The original price was slated to be $299, but the Windows 8.1 tablet launched on Microsoft’s online store for $329 on Monday, notes Engadget. Just hours after its initial availability, the VivoTab Note 8 shows as “out of stock” in the Microsoft(s msft) Store.

I’m not reading the lack of stock as a successful launch, mainly because we have no idea how much inventory Microsoft actually started with. The VivoTab Note 8 is also slightly more expensive than its peers in the store: Similar tablets from Toshiba, Dell and Lenovo are currently priced at $299 and recently were on sale for as low as $229.

One key difference the VivoTab Note 8 has is a Wacom digital stylus that can register more than 1,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. Unlike Microsoft’s own Surface…

Splice Machine, a startup promising a SQL-on-Hadoop database that can handle both transactional and analytic workloads, has closed a $15 million series B round of venture capital from InterWest Partners, along with Mohr Davidow Ventures. Supporting transactional workloads would put Splice Machine in a good position among the glut of companies and projects letting users perform SQL operations on Hadoop, because most are strictly for analytics. The big question for Splice Machine, though, might be whether companies actually want to run transactions on that data or whether they’re willing to stick to a tried-and-true database for that.

James Dean crashed his Porsche and died nearly 60 years ago, but the “Rebel Without a Cause” star is still causing trouble today — this time over social media. A recent lawsuit in Indiana pits the licensing company CMG against Twitter and an unknown rebel who runs the @JamesDean account.

The @JamesDean account, which began in 2009 and now has over 8,000 followers, is a fan tribute that offers facts, quotes and pictures. Here’s a sample screenshot from a year ago:

The licensing company now wants to put a stop to all this. In its complaint, via the Hollywood Reporter, CMG demands that Twitter identify whoever is behind @JamesDean. The company also makes a laundry list of civil and criminal complaints, including trademark infringement and conversion.

So far, Twitter is refusing to play ball. In response to an email complaint from CMG last year, Twitter wrote: “We’ve researched the reported…

VoIP migration is being recognized for its cost advantage and flexibility. It allows increased efficiency as it manages a single data network instead of separate voice and data networks. Moreover, VoIP has given rise to new technologies and options including –  instant messaging/chat, PC to PC, presence/availability indicators, PC to phone, find me/follow me calling, phone to phone calling, click to dial, web conferencing, collaboration etc. Unified Communications have given companies the freedom to collaborate and communicate with more convenience.

Although VoIP has several advantages, you need to take the right steps in order to set up a VoIP network from an existing telephone or data network. It has to be executed correctly so that it works flawlessly. Care must be taken to avoid any degradation of service that could impact call quality. Compare Telecom has listed eight key steps to ensure successful migration from legacy voice technology to VoIP…