News

Starting today you can register to compete in Microsoft's Imagine Cup. The only condition is that you are a student and over 16 years old. The competition brings together young tech enthusiasts to try their best at solving the toughest challenges in the fields of Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship. This year will mark the 11th running of the Imagine Cup and Microsoft has decided to give the prize pool a boost. It is now more than double what it used to be, $300,000. After the national events are finished, all national winners will compete in St. Petersburg, Russia, where worldwide finals will take place. The finals will be held from July 8 to 11 2013. Microsoft has reported that more than 1.65 million students have participated in all of the previous Imagine Cups, and with that bunch of young innovative people you can expect big competition and even bigger results.

Late last night there was an interesting tweet from the flamboyant owner of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom. The tweet announced in excited tones: “BREAKING NEWS: The High Court just ruled the release of restrained assets to cover our legal fees in New Zealand.” This is a major victor for the besieged Dotcom and Megaupload. It means that the High Courts in New Zealand are seeing the same thing that many legal experts are seeing; the US with the backing of Hollywood has been trying to prevent Dotcom and Megaupload from offering a proper defense.

2012 is most certainly the year of the hack. So far in 2012 we have heard of more large scale security breaches related to allegedly secure companies and banks than in just about any previous year. What make this year very interesting is that it is also the year that many companies are joining the push for the “cloud”. Now the term “cloud computing” has been around for a very long time and derives from the symbol for the internet (which is a cloud if you did not guess) although many view it as a new technology it is not.

It seems that Apple and Qualcomm wanted to try and lock out competition when it comes to the use of TSMC (The Taiwanese Semi-Conductor Manufacturing Corporation). The pair attempted to buy themselves a nice exclusive deal with TSMC with a large bundle of cash (over $1 billion). However, TSMC decided that there was more money to be had in keeping things open.  The original deal from Qualcomm and Apple was to make sure the pair had access to production facilities. TSMC replied by saying that they could always expand if there was a need, but that they would internally fund it.