We test the mbrace2 connected-car service on the 2014 Mercedes-Benz E550. Its yearly subscription almost seems like a small price to pay for the convenience of talking to a real, live person who will conduct Google searches for you and even make doctor appointments. But no homework help, kid. Sorry.
D-Link will address by the end of October a security issue in some of its routers that could allow attackers to change the device settings without requiring a username and password. The issue consists of a backdoor-type function built into the firmware of some D-Link routers that can be used to bypass the normal authentication procedure on their Web-based user interfaces. Craig Heffner, a vulnerability researcher with Tactical Network Solutions, . “If your browser’s user agent string is ‘xmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtide’ (no quotes), you can access the web interface without any authentication and view/change the device settings,” he wrote Saturday in a .
Canada will soon make cable and satellite companies offer channels a la carte. But at this point, will it really make a difference?
Google is terrible at keeping secrets.
is under emergency care, afflicted by ailments that have sickened many government IT health systems worldwide. Two weeks after it opened, users still struggle to gain access and sign up for insurance under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature legislation. on Sunday. The causes for the fiasco are varied and include unfeasible deadlines, scalability issues and bickering politicians.
Some Dutch telecommunications and Internet providers have exploited European Union laws mandating the retention of communications data to fight crime, using the retained data for unauthorized marketing purposes, according to a report by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Radiocommunications Agency. on Monday by Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom following a freedom of information request, was completed in April 2012, but carriers and ISPs were not prosecuted for the breaches reported. Bits of Freedom and other digital rights groups called on the European Commission to prevent further abuse of the European Data Retention Directive, which requires ISPs and telecommunications operators across the E.U. to retain connection data for a period between six months and two years, mainly for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism. The Netherlands introduced its data retention law in September 2009, requiring telecommunications operators to store data for one year and Internet providers to retain information for six months.
Ever since Linus Torvalds released the first Linux kernel more than two decades ago, advocates of the platform have said the Linux revolution was just around the corner. All it needed was that killer app/interface/feature! It’s an old refrain, but in recent months we’ve seen a fresh new angle to this old chestnut: gaming. that DICE “strongly” wants to get into Linux. > be to Linux, he argued. Gustavsson is a little late to the most recent iteration of the Linux revolution that’s just around the corner, however.
The Brazilian Federal Data Processing Service, known as Serpro, will build a secure email system for Brazil's federal government following media reports that foreign intelligence agencies intercepted electronic communications in the country. , Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff said that creating a secure email system for the federal government is the first step to increase the privacy and inviolability of official messages. Messages require increased security to prevent possible espionage, she said. Brazilian citizens and government officials, as well as Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, have been the targets of electronic spying by the NSA and other intelligence agencies, according to media reports based on documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Rousseff, whose communications have also reportedly been targeted, condemned NSA's spying as a breach of international law in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month. In protest, she also cancelled a planned visit to Washington.
Admitting what many of us already knew, a Microsoft manager has said the “Surface RT” product name confused people. . “We want to help make it easier for people, and these are two different products designed for two different people.” that runs Windows 8.1. similar at first glance.
Following Samsung's lead, LG is starting bend its phones now too.
Two top cable providers are reportedly in talks with Netflix to bring House of Cards—and much, much more—straight to your set-top cable box.
. Imagination’s graphics chips are already used in most of the top smartphones and tablets, including the iPhone and iPad, and last year it bought MIPS Technologies to try to build a CPU business as well. MIPS chips are widely used in network gear such as routers and gateways, and in home media products including TVs and set-top boxes. Imagination wants to bring them to low-power servers as well, and to a wider range of Android smartphones and tablets. The Warrior chips, also called MIPS Series 5, are part of its effort to do that.
I doubt that anyone knows all of the file extensions used since the pre-DOS days of CP/M. Some of them may not even describe a file type. Before Windows started using them to associate files with an application, people used extensions for all sorts of things. But that was a long time ago. Chances are that the extension on your mystery file does indeed identify a program. But how do you find what program?
HTC's newest phone, the 5.9-inch HTC One Max, includes a fingerprint scanner -- although unlike the one in Apple's latest iPhone, it's located on the back of the device.
The Play:1 lets you get your Sonos on for less than $200.
Did Windows Phone just get Windows Pho-nomenal? The third update to Windows Phone 8 was announced Monday on , bringing with it a number of features that help put the OS more on a par with the competition. Although Windows Phone is often criticized for its lack of software and restrictions on hardware, the update opens the door for much better Windows Phone devices down the line. The biggest changes won't be immediately apparent to current Windows Phone owners, but they will help push the operating system's device ecosystem in the direction it needs to go. Update 3 adds support for larger and sharper displays, including "phablets" and tablets. The update also adds compatibility with quad-core processors, paving the way for Windows Phones with better battery life and better-looking games. Windows Phone, like the iPhone, has never really been about cutting-edge specs, but the bump in power and screen resolution could prove appealing to people on older Android phones looking to jump to a platform with slightly less lag. A new Driving Mode has been added that's less about helping you navigate and more about helping you drive safely. When enabled, Driving Mode silences your phone and auto-responds to messages to help eliminate distractions while driving. It's similar to the T-Mobile Drive Smart app that launched on Android phones two years ago. You can even automate the function so that it turns on when you connect the phone to a car via Bluetooth. Other improvements brought by the update include a screen orientation lock, custom ringtones, accessibility improvements, improved Internet sharing, and the ability to close apps in the multitasking view. There's still no notification center, but there's always the chance it'll appear in the .
I’ve had it with interminable game downloads—and you can keep your fancy new Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii consoles. The future of PC gaming is in the browser, and it’ll be here sooner than you expect. I’m not talking about silly Flash games or Facebook time-wasters. We’ll soon be playing AAA games that don’t require pricey investments in new hardware. Even better, most of them will be absolutely free to play. I recently sat down with CEO and cofounder Ankur Pansari and Starcraft II community superstar Sean “Day[9]” Plott, who recently joined the company as head of games. Pansari and his team are developing a real-time strategy game, code-named Project Atlas, that they promise will rival Starcraft in depth and quality. The game will run entirely in a modern browser using HTML5 and JavaScript, and it won’t require any plug-ins or downloads. The demo I played loaded fast on a freshly booted, uncached Macbook Pro, and all I had to do was provide a link. The Chrome browser fired up, and within 30 seconds I was matched with another player dialed in from the company’s headquarters.
When designing an all-in-one PC, many manufacturers focus more on aesthetics than performance. That’s certainly not the case with Dell’s 23-inch Inspiron 2350—at least not for the high-end configuration we tested, which racked up both impressive benchmark scores and high marks for style. , but certainly slender by Windows 8 standards. (Dell also sells a non-touchscreen model that’s a tad skinnier.) Moreover, its sturdy, articulated stand lets you adjust it pretty much any way imaginable, from nearly flat against the 10.5-by-9.5-inch base to upright and perpendicular. The wireless mouse and keyboard eliminate cable clutter, and because Dell has placed all the ports in the base (four USB 3.0, an 8-1 memory card reader, and headphone jack on the sides; plus two USB 2.0, gigabit ethernet, audio line-in, and HDMI-in and -out in the rear), no wires dangle from the display. The keyboard is definitely smaller than those provided with most desktops, but its slightly sculpted keys are still spaced sufficiently for comfortable touch typing. All told, the sleek, silvery-accented black chassis will make for an appealing home or office companion no matter which configuration you choose. Of the three available starting at $999, Dell sent us its high-end $1399 model, with an Intel Core i7-4700MQ CPU (one of its higher-end quad-core Haswell mobile processors), 12GB of DDR3/1600 memory, and a discrete AMD Radeon HD 8690A graphics card with 2GB of dedicated memory. A 1TB, 5400rpm hard drive with a 32GB solid-state cache makes for swift startup.
Facebook has agreed to acquire mobile data compression startup Onavo and plans to use its technology in an effort to make Internet access more affordable, Facebook said on Monday. Onavo develops iOS and Android apps that compress data as it is downloaded, helping subscribers save money on their data plans. The technology gives mobile users the ability to do up to five times more with their data plan without any additional fees, according to Onavo. The Israeli company also offers an analytics tool that allows iOS and Android users to track how much data is consumed by each individual app installed on their phones, although this is something that the latest versions of the phones’ operating systems also do. “We expect Onavo’s data compression technology to play a central role in our mission to connect more people to the internet, and their analytic tools will help us provide better, more efficient mobile products,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. Facebook declined to discuss the terms of the deal.
The administrator for “.my” domain names in Malaysia plans to strengthen the security of partners that resell its services following an attack that affected Google on Friday. that a compromised reseller account resulted in “www.google.my” and “www.google.com.my” being redirected for a few hours to a page controlled by a group of hackers calling themselves Team Madleets. that are authorized to sell its services. Changes to DNS records managed by resellers are then distributed globally. MYNIC did not identify the affected reseller. The organization said it would undertake measures to improve reseller account security. No customer or password information was affected by the redirect.
None of us like to spend money (except on shiny new toys). But even we curmudgeons can understand that companies need to charge for things that cost them money; and profit-making is at the heart of our economy. Still, several much on the final bill? Why are they charging for it in the first place? Herewith, five fees that make no sense at all—and yet we still fork over money for them. Until a few decades ago, in the era when landline phones were the only phones, long-distance calls were expensive. expensive, like 25 cents a minute back in the 1960s. I remember my father shouting into the phone when he called a hotel in Maine, "I AM CALLING LONG DISTANCE FROM NEW YORK!" I suppose he thought it meant he’d get more attention, instead of being put on hold, except we didn’t have "on hold" back then. Nowadays, most cell phone plans make no distinction between local calls and long distance (with . It’s a lot easier to pick up your smartphone, start up Skype, or adopt one of the many VOIP options. So why do the phone companies continue to charge for long distance calls?
Microsoft will probably report better than expected Windows revenue when it issues its third-quarter earnings numbers on October 24, according to estimates of PC shipments last week by research firm IDC. By IDC's estimate, personal computer makers shipped about 81.6 million systems in the quarter that ended September 30, or about 7.6 percent fewer than in the same period the year before. That number was slightly less than an earlier forecast by the Framingham, Mass. research company, which had changed its projections several times but finally settled on a 9.5 percent contraction for the quarter. IDC credited some of the unanticipated uptick to increased purchases of new systems by businesses hustling to eradicate Windows XP before next April, with the remainder accounted for by OEMs filling their supply pipelines with machines for the holiday sales season. The "XP-Effect" was "nothing crazy, nothing great," acknowledged Rajani Singh, an IDC analyst, in an interview Thursday. But it helped. "XP is bringing some volume," she asserted. "It moved the numbers upward a little bit."
While threats to data security and privacy are often perceived to come from the outside, all signs point to internal threats being just as dangerous, intentional or not. Forrester recently released its Understand the State of Data Security and Privacy report, which offered insight on the reasons behind data breaches, with internal threats emerging as the leading cause. The survey—which featured respondents from Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. from companies with two or more employees—also covered other topics, including how security budgets are being allocated and the changing landscape of security teams' responsibilities. According to Forrester's research, insiders take the cake as the top source of breaches in the last 12 months, with 36 percent of breaches stemming from inadvertent misuse of data by employees. Obviously, the issue here is ignorance; the study's numbers indicate that only 42 percent of the North American and European small and midsize business workforce surveyed had received training on how to "People don't know what they don't know," said Heidi Shey, a Forrester analyst and the author of the report. "You've got to give them some kind of guidance and guard rails to work with."
Without exception, using a credit or debit card was deemed more secure than a mobile phone, whether the purchase was made in-store or online, according to a survey sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance and PayPal. In addition, the personal computer was seen as the safest option for accessing the Web by 62 percent of the respondents versus six percent who chose a smartphone.
Like microscopic zoos, to make holding cells for communities of bacteria to see how they interact to spread disease. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin used a digital light processing (DLP) projection system as the to create gelatin holding cells, which are only about 30 micrometers (or microns) square or about three-quarters the diameter of a human hair. The 3D printer was created by adapting a commercial computer projector and using the micro mirror chip inside to perform direct laser patterning of the gelatin and bacteria "ink." "The bacteria were not made by this method; rather, they were suspended in the gelatin ink in a way somewhat similar to how fruit is sometimes suspended in JELLO," Jason Shear, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an email reply to Computerworld. "The gelatin walls were then made by linking gelatin molecules together in a process controlled by laser exposure."
Worldwide IT spending will peak at $3.8 trillion in 2014, marking the beginning of the Digital Industrial Economy era , according to analyst firm, . Addressing 8000 CIOs and IT leaders at Gartner Symposium, Senior Vice President Peter Sondergaard said the 3.6 percent increase from 2013 indicates that every budget is becoming an IT budget, every company a technology company, every business a digital leader, and every person a technology company. Earlier, the industry would hit those figures in 2013. "The Digital Industrial Economy will be built on the foundations of the 'Nexus of Forces' (which includes a confluence and integration of Cloud, social collaboration, mobile, and information) and the 'Internet of Everything' by combining the physical world and the virtual," Sondergaard said. "Digitalization exposes every part of your business and its operations to these forces. It is how you reach customers and constituents, how you run your physical plant, and how you generate revenue or deliver services."
I'm a digital nomad. You're a digital nomad. According to , anyone who is able to work in various environments because of digital and mobile technology (home, office, Starbucks, plastic lounge chair by the pool while on vacation) is a digital nomad. However, for the last year and a half I have lived truly nomadically. My wife and I put all our possessions into storage (except for two backpacks and two large dufflebags) and now live internationally, choosing countries to stay based on, well, whim more than anything else, and working from wherever we go. During that time I've lived in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. I've been robbed, stranded, and, worst of all, disconnected from Internet connectivity and reliable electricity. While living this lifestyle, I've learned a lot about being a digital nomad—mostly the hard way—and gained insights useful for anyone who can work with mobile technology abroad for any length of time.
Open source is a development model and not a support one that does bug fixing, according to global CEO and president, Jim Whitehurst. "On a conceptional level, open source is a development model to come up with great software," he said. One of the problems Whitehurst highlights with is that the things that make it an attractive development model, such as breaking problems down into small pieces and rapid fixing, also make it challenging. "It's very modular, and the saying in the open source community is that we don't do bug fixes, we fix it in the next release, but you release early release often," he said.
The Scottish Government plans to roll out Windows 8 tablet PCs to key civil servants in a bid to boost efficiency and improve public services. Staff will be offered the all running Microsoft's latest operating system. It made the decision to go ahead with the deployment following a successful proof of concept with Trustmarque, which developed a fully-customized Windows 8 solution. Some 20 key government executives and 20 technicians took part in the pilot. The proof of concept also included Microsoft User Experience Virtualization, which provides roaming profiles for staff to log on to any computer on the same network and access their documents.
Silicon Motion Technology last week announced it has begun shipping USB drive manufacturers samples of a new USB 3.0 controller chip for flash drives that could boost their performance by up to 50 percent. The company said the new SM3267 integrated controller is expected to deliver up to 160 megabyte-per-second read times and 60 megabyte-per-second write speeds through a single channel; that would be a 30 percent to 50 percent performance improvement over today's USB 3.0 flash drive technology. Even though support about 100MB/s read speeds. "We are pleased to announce that SM3267 has received design-ins from most of our current USB controller customers, including many top-tier OEMs, and we expect SM3267-based USB 3.0 flash drives will be commercially available starting in the fourth quarter of 2013," Wallace Kou, CEO of Silicon Motion, said in a statement.