Researchers in America say they have created a wireless communication system that allows devices to communicate with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power and could play a vital role in the Internet of Things. The communication technique—dubbed "" by the University of Washington scientists—allows devices to communicate with each other by reflecting or absorbing preexisting radio signals from TV and mobile transmissions. The energy-saving breakthrough could be particularly well suited to a home-based where devices are usually within a few meters of each other. The team has built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect, harness, and reflect a TV signal, which is then picked up by other similar devices.
If you've ever felt isolated among your smartphone-obsessed friends and family, you're not alone. Do our mobile devices connect us or sentence us to solitary confinement?
In a study conducted by TNS Global for Halon, an email security service, 30 percent of those surveyed admitted they would open an email, even if they were aware that it contained a virus or was otherwise suspicious. The study included only 1000 adults within the U.S., so this isn't a national index by any means. But of those surveyed, one in 11 admitted to having infected their system after they opened a malicious email attachment. Given the fact that email is still an (phishing/spear phishing), the survey's results are somewhat alarming. The reasons given for (15.9 percent), social media sites like Facebook or Twitter (15.2 percent), and online payment services, like PayPal (12.8 percent). According to the stats form the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), in its 2013 First Quarter , there were more than 74,000 unique phishing campaigns discovered during the reporting period, leveraging over 110,000 hijacked domains and targeting more than 1100 brands.
Since its inception, the Apache Software Foundation has had a profound impact in shaping the open source movement and the tech industry at large. Founded by the developers of the Tomcat, newcomers Cassandra, Lucene, Hadoop—all have come of age under the aegis of the ASF and its core principles, informally known as "the Apache Way." But tensions within the ASF and grumbling throughout the open source community have called into question whether the Apache Way is well suited to sponsoring the development of open source projects in today's software world. Changing attitudes toward open source licensing, conflicts with the GPL, concerns about technical innovation under the Way, fallout from the foundation's handling of specific projects in recent years—the ASF may soon find itself passed over by the kinds of projects that have helped make it such a central fixture in open source, thanks in some measure to the way the new wave of bootstrapped, decentralized projects on GitHub don't require a foundationlike atmosphere to keep them vibrant or relevant. Ask most anyone involved with the ASF, "What sets the foundation apart?" and a common answer will likely dominate: "The Apache Way."
Just because Microsoft doesn't plan on to the public after April 8, 2014, doesn't mean it's going to stop making those patches. In fact, Microsoft will be creating security updates for Windows XP for months—years, even—after it to the general public. Those patches will come from a program called "Custom Support," an after-retirement contract designed for very large customers who have not, for whatever reason, moved on from an older OS. As part of Custom Support—which according to analysts, for the first year and more each succeeding year—participants receive patches for vulnerabilities rated "critical" by Microsoft. Bugs ranked as "important," the next step down in Microsoft's four-level threat scoring system, are not automatically patched. Instead, Custom Support contract holders must pay extra for those. Flaws pegged as "moderate" or "low" are not patched at all.
It happened early last week: Twitter started buzzing; one of the world's largest news portals was offline, and a hacking group was claiming responsibility. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-Assad hacking group known for their previous campaigns against media organizations, for the New York Times, Twitter, and the Huffington Post. The group also targeted ShareThis.com, a platform that enables readers to share links to content on a wide range of services, including social media, sites like Reddit, Slashdot, and more. Twitter had the most issues to deal with, as its domain shortening service (t.co) well as its primary domain and image hosting service (twimg.com) all had The attack was possible due to a social engineering campaign launched by the SEA that targeted MelbourneIT, the registrar responsible for hosting the targeted DNS servers. According to reports, including those from MelbourneIT themselves, the SEA spent some time on this campaign, and created a that eventually snared an unknown reseller's username and password, which granted them access to the domain controls needed to alter DNS settings. While this attack was bad, things as other large brands also use MelbourneIT for their DNS. Among the other customers are Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IKEA, and AOL. Fortunately, the account that the SEA compromised didn't share access to those domains.
The tech industry has been promising apps that interrupt us with important contextual information for two years. So where are they?
A team of scientists off the coast of Cape Cod has been catching and tagging great white sharks with wireless transmitters to learn more about their behavior.
Researcher IDC has slightly lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2013 and beyond, blaming competition from larger-sized smartphones and futuristic wearable computing devices.
Craigslist has made some strides over the years in protecting its users from Internet predators, but for some hackers those strides are just another challenge to be surmounted. That's the case with a Trojan aimed at the online classified advertising service and revealed last week by Solera, a Blue Coat company. The malware is ending up on the computers of unsuspecting users who click an infected link they encounter on the Internet, expecting to receive an update to a fictitious program called Adobe Photo Loader. (See also ) After infecting a machine, the malware transforms the computer into a zombie for a botnet making spam postings to Craigslist for a program called Stealth Nanny. The Android app is designed to be planted on a person's phone so all their activity on the handset can be monitored by a snooper.
Two developers have cracked Dropbox's security, even intercepting SSL data from its servers and bypassing the cloud storage provider's two-factor authentication, according to a they published at USENIX 2013. "These techniques are generic enough and we believe would aid in future software development, testing, and security research," the paper says in its abstract. which claims more than 100 million users upload more than a billion files daily, said the research didn't actually represent a vulnerability in its servers. "We appreciate the contributions of these researchers and everyone who helps keep Dropbox safe," a spokesperson said in an email reply to Computerworld. "In the case outlined here, the user's computer would first need to have been compromised in such a way that it would leave the entire computer, not just the user's Dropbox, open to attacks across the board."
In releasing its first report on government requests for user information, Facebook is reminding businesses and consumers that use of the Internet today requires self-censorship. The shows also that the U.S. government—which is the single biggest requester with between 11,000 and 12,000 requests—is only one of many seeking data from Facebook. Total non-U.S. requests numbered about 15,000 during the first half of this year. Facebook's . The number of users specified in the requests was from 20,000 to 21,000. The majority of the requests were related to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings.
Everyone loves a long weekend, and these apps can help you make the most of it by finding great activities, events, meals, and hotels in your city.
Facebook hopes a large wood working shop installed in one of its buildings on the Facebook campus will inspire some of its employees to apply some new thinking to the jobs they were hired to do.
A week after Steve Ballmer said he plans to step down as CEO of Microsoft, ValueAct Capital, one of its biggest investors, has secured the right to appoint its president to Microsoft’s board. Microsoft has signed a “cooperation agreement” with ValueAct that allows its president, Mason Morfit, to meet regularly with Microsoft board members to discuss “a range of significant business issues,” Microsoft said in a statement Friday. The agreement gives ValueAct the option of having Morfit join Microsoft’s board, beginning at the first quarterly board meeting after Microsoft’s next annual shareholder meeting. Those meetings usually take place in mid-November. ValueAct Capital, in San Francisco, holds about 0.8 percent of Microsoft’s outstanding stock and is one of its largest shareholders, Microsoft said. The firm manages about $12 billion in assets.
Microsoft revealed that it’s limited-time $100 discount on Surface Pro pricing isn’t so limited after all. The , and Microsoft cut the cost of the Touch keyboard cover as well. The reduced pricing makes the Surface Pro more attractive, but it’s still not enough to significantly sway sales. The Surface Pro is a solid, well-engineered device. On the surface (no pun intended) it’s a tablet, but inside it’s a full Windows 8 PC. It has an Intel Core i5 processor, and 4GB of RAM. Unlike many tablets—especially the very popular Apple iPad—the Surface Pro has a full-sized USB port, an SD memory card slot, and an HD AV port that can be used to connect via HDMI or DisplayPort to an external monitor with the right adapter. It has the size, weight, and portability to compete as a tablet, but it runs the full Windows 8 operating system—including all of your traditional Windows software. There are ways to do that in a limited way from an iPad or Android tablet using a remote streaming service like for the iPad, but those solutions are no match for just running your software directly on your tablet. As a PC, the Surface Pro is even more unique. It can be used at your desk, connected to a monitor, keyboard, mouse or touchpad, and other peripherals, but it can also be easily taken with you on the go, or used to watch a movie in the living room, or for reading a Kindle book while you’re riding on a bus or train. Try that with your desktop—or even your laptop to some extent.
Don't let your sensitive data fall into the wrong hands.
Software-defined networking (SDN) promises some real benefits for people who use networks, but to the engineers who manage them, it may represent the end of an era. Ever since Cisco made its first routers in the 1980s, most network engineers have relied on a CLI (command-line interface) to configure, manage and troubleshoot everything from small-office LANs to wide-area carrier networks. Cisco’s isn’t the only CLI, but on the strength of the company’s domination of networking, it has become a de facto standard in the industry, closely emulated by other vendors. As such, it’s been a ticket to career advancement for countless network experts, especially those certified as CCNAs (Cisco Certified Network Associates). Those network management experts, along with higher level CCIEs (Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts) and holders of other official Cisco credentials, make up a trained workforce of more than 2 million, according to the company. A CLI is simply a way to interact with software by typing in lines of commands, as PC users did in the days of DOS. With the Cisco CLI and those that followed in its footsteps, engineers typically set up and manage networks by issuing commands to individual pieces of gear, such as routers and switches.
If issues persist, early adopters may have to live with faulty hardware.
Negotiations have broken down between two Internet giants and U.S. government representatives over the companies’ requests to publish information on the surveillance requests they receive, a Microsoft executive said Friday. . ”We hoped that these discussions would lead to an agreement acceptable to all,” Smith wrote. “While we appreciate the good faith and earnest efforts by the capable Government lawyers with whom we negotiated, we are disappointed that these negotiations ended in failure.” The two companies requested that they be allowed to publish data about the number of surveillance requests they receive after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked information about the agency’s widespread surveillance activities.
The Fetch will help you find a phone you left behind; the Mini+ will let you talk with your phone without holding it to your ear. But the gadgets don't work with all HTC phones.
Nothing better to do during the long holiday weekend? Try binge-watching some great streaming TV.
When it comes to tapping into U.S. telecommunications networks for surreptitious surveillance, the National Security Agency can’t be accused of not paying its way. The government agency pays “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” to U.S. telecommunications companies for the equipment and service required to intercept telephone calls, emails and instant messages of potential interest, . For the current fiscal year, the NSA will pay $278 million for such access, and had paid $394 million in fiscal 2011, according to the . Although previous news reports of NSA surveillance noted that the agency paid the costs for tapping into communications networks, the exact amount the agency has paid has not been cited before, according to the .
Salesforce.com’s second-quarter earnings conference call featured the usual dose of chest-thumping by CEO Marc Benioff as the company posted $957 million in revenue and raised its full fiscal year forecast to at least $4 billion. But the call also revealed some telling details about the company’s strategic direction and growth. Here’s a look at the highlights. after instant messages in which he was critical of Oracle co-president Mark Hurd surfaced as part of a lawsuit with Hewlett-Packard. While Block’s departure was inevitable, he was considered a key to Oracle’s growth and success. And he’s currently filling an important hole in Salesforce.com’s strategy, Benioff said on Thursday’s call.
The subsidiary was designed to directly compete with T-Mobile's Simple Choice plans with competitive rates.
Not that Microsoft was fooling anyone before, but the Surface tablet discounts that the company previously advertised as “limited time” are now permanent. will remain priced at $349 for 32 GB, and $449 for 64 GB, a discount of $150 in both cases. Microsoft is also offering a black Touch Cover bundle with both Surface RT models for an additional $50. retains its $100 discount on all models, bringing the price to $799 for 64 GB and $899 for 128 GB. No Touch Cover or Type Cover bundles are available with the Surface Pro. Microsoft has also slashed the price of its standalone Touch Cover accessories by $40. Regular covers now cost $80, and Limited Edition covers are $90. Pricing for the Type Cover, which has actual mechanical keys compared to the Touch Cover's pressure-sensitive sensors, remains at $130.
The Australian Sex Party, a political organization, has a hard time getting some love from Google. The search engine has rejected several AdWords advertisements related to the party’s position on marijuana legalization and voluntary euthanasia. AdWords is Google’s pay-per-click product that shows advertisements related to keyword searches and content. The Australian Sex Party, founded in 2009, is fielding 54 candidates in Australia’s upcoming federal election, which will take place on Sept. 7. The party also supports same sex marriage, the decriminalization of personal drug use and better public transport. The Sex Party has requested a manual review of its AdWords advertisements, which were placed through Google’s automated systems, said Fiona Patten, the group’s president.
You don't have to be a hard-core audiophile to appreciate Helium Music Manager, but music fans with will get the most out of this application. This music organizer and player that helps you stay on top of extensive collections of files. It features an attractive design, but sometimes it's just a bit harder to use than it should be. I like how easy Helium Music Manager makes getting started: Launch the application, and it displays a wizard that lets you select which files you'd like to add to its music library. The process is quick, though adding thousands of files obviously takes a bit of time. Once your files are available through Helium, you can see its organizational features at work. Chief among them is Helium's tag editor, which lets you work with individual files or batches, to speed things along. Casual users may be overwhelmed with how many options there are for tagging audio files, but music aficionados will appreciate the choices. Unfortunately, many of Helium's other management features are not available in the free version. You have to upgrade to either the $29 Premium or $49 Network (up to 5 users) versions to take advantage of the features that allow you to analyze and repair MP3 and FLAC files, and locate and manage duplicate files. Rival MediaMonkey offers this kind of de-duping feature in its free version.