Sean Clarke's Page

Should we let wunderkinds drop out of high school?

NEW YORK (AP) — Thomas Sohmers, 17, of Hudson, Mass., has been working at a research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since he was 13, developing projects ranging from augmented reality eyewear to laser communications systems. This spring, his mom, Penny Mills, let him drop out of 11th grade. She says she "could see how much of the work he was doing at school wasn't relevant to what he wanted to learn."

Vodafone posts biggest fall in service revenue

LONDON (Reuters) - Vodafone posted its largest ever quarterly fall in key organic service revenue on Tuesday, prompting it to keep hold of a 2.1 billion pound dividend from its U.S. arm rather than return it to shareholders. The world's second largest mobile operator, at the center of intense speculation as to whether it will sell its U.S. arm in one of the world's largest deals, posted a 4.2 percent fall in organic service revenue, broadly in line with forecasts. It is the largest quarterly drop since the company started using the measurement in 2003. ...

Sprint receives SoftBank waiver to consider Dish offer

By Mari Saito TOKYO (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp said its Japanese suitor SoftBank Corp granted it a waiver allowing it to consider a $25.5 billion rival bid by Dish Network Corp, as pressure mounts on SoftBank to sweeten its offer for the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier. Sprint said its recommendation in favor of the SoftBank agreement had not changed, although some major Sprint shareholders including Paulson & Co and Omega Advisors have publicly said the Dish offer looks better than SoftBank's deal. SoftBank, which agreed last October to pay $20. ...

Amazon wins key cloud security clearance from government

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has been given a security clearance by the U.S. government that will make it easier for federal agencies to use its cloud computing services. Amazon Web Services, known as AWS, was certified to operate as a cloud service provider for three years under the government's new FedRAMP program. The accreditation covers all AWS data centers in the United States, the company said on Tuesday. "This will cut the cost and time for agencies to deploy our systems," said Teresa Carlson, vice president of Worldwide Public Sector at AWS. ...

American ISPs are now hated even more than airlines

Major Internet service providers in the United States have long taken a beating in customer satisfaction surveys, but the latest survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index has the grimmest news yet for American ISPs: They now have the lowest customer satisfaction ranking of any industry in America, worse than even airlines, health insurance companies and gas stations. The survey shows that American consumers are particularly unhappy with ISPs’ call center service, with the variety of Internet plans they offer and with their quality of online video streaming. Comcast lay at the very bottom of the American ISP customer satisfaction heap, with an overall score of just 62 out of 100. It was followed closely by Time Warner Cable, which

IT firm iGate sacks CEO after sexual harassment probe

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Outsourcing company iGate Corp said it had sacked its Chief Executive Phaneesh Murthy for not disclosing a relationship with a subordinate after investigating one of India's best-known IT executives for sexual harassment. Murthy was replaced with immediate effect by interim CEO Gerhard Watzinger, iGate said. Murthy was forced to quit India's second biggest software exporter Infosys Ltd in 2002 following a sexual harassment lawsuit, which was settled out of court. Murthy did not respond to repeated telephone calls by Reuters seeking comment. ...

Apple's Massive Tax Avoidance Scheme Was Probably Legal

Apple used an impressively complex network of subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes in a scheme that will pit the company against congressional investigators on Tuesday. But guess what? Lawmakers haven't found anything actually illegal in Apple's activities. 

Google may be working on a revamped Nexus Q

Google appears to be working on a sequel to its ill-fated Nexus Q streaming device. The Nexus Q debuted at last year’s I/O Developers Conference with limited capabilities and a premium price tag that eventually led to Google postponing the project. But a recent filing with the Federal Communications Commission has revealed a mysterious Google-built device that “functions as a media player” and could be a revamped Q. Little is known about the device, although it is equipped with support for 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and was connected to a Dell 24-inch monitor for testing, giving further evidence that it is a potential Nexus Q sucessor. The device is known as the “H840 device” and features the model number H2G2-42, a reference

Dish's Ergen eyes LightSquared spectrum

(Reuters) - Charlie Ergen, the chairman of U.S. satellite company Dish Network Corp , has offered to buy bankrupt broadband company LightSquared Inc's wireless airwaves, a source close to Ergen told Reuters. Ergen's offer for LightSquared spectrum is valued at $2 billion, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the bid. LightSquared, which declared bankruptcy in May 2012, was bankrolled by one of the hedge fund industry's most powerful figures, Philip Falcone. Falcone's plans to introduce a new wireless network in the United States fell apart when the U.S. ...

Google vows to integrate Google Voice into Hangouts

When Google unveiled its new Hangouts service last week, keen observers noted that there was a glaring omission in the company’s effort to cobble together all its messaging services onto one platform: Google Voice. But a new Google+ post from Google director of real-time communications Nikhyl Singhal suggests that Hangouts users won’t have to wait for Voice much longer. Specifically, Singhal says that while “today’s version of Hangouts doesn’t yet support outbound calls on the web and in the Chrome extension,” it will “support inbound calls to your Google Voice number.” He then adds that the company is “working hard on supporting both, and outbound/inbound calls will soon be available.” Singhal also says that Hangouts are “the future of Google Voice,” so it’s