Latest Technology News

Forget Hillary's email server, Republicans use phony 'I vote Trump!' Wi-Fi hotspots!

Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination at the RNC tonight, meaning he is now officially their candidate for president. Most likely, Hillary Clinton will secure the Democrat nomination, so we can expect to hear Trump's criticism of her private email server usage for the next several months leading up to the election.

While Hillary Clinton's private email server usage was against the rules and wrong, it seems she is not the only one in politics demonstrating poor judgement regarding technology and security. It turns out, many Republican delegates are also lax in this regard, by connecting to non-secure Wi-Fi hotspots.

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Google and Bing have no obligation to censor searches for torrents

The High Court of Paris has ruled that Google and Bing do not have to have automatic filters in place to scrub torrent-related results from searches. The battle against piracy is something that search engines have found themselves pulled into, but this latest ruling turns the debate on its head.

French music industry group SNEP went to court on behalf of a trio of artists, requesting that Microsoft and Google automatically filter out links to pirated material. The group had called for a complete block on searches that include the word 'torrent' as well as blocking sites whose name includes the word.

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Security pros lack the necessary tools to thwart cyber attacks

Attack button

A new study from the Ponemon Institute reveals that external cyber attacks cost enterprises $3.5 million a year and that the majority of security and IT professionals lack the necessary resources and infrastructure to deal with these attacks, despite the growing risks and costs associated with them.

A number of threats were examined in the report including executive impersonations, social engineering exploits and branded attacks that occurred outside of a company’s traditional security boundaries. To address these external threats, security professionals cited an ever-growing need for expertise, technology and external services.

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How to get your Twitter account blue tick verified

Perform a search for how you can get your Twitter account verified and get the much sought after blue tick, and you'll find all manner of nonsense. For a very long time Twitter users have not been able to request verification, but Twitter has reached out to those it deems worthy. Today that changes.

As of right now you can submit a request for verification. No need to sit back and wait for Twitter to contact you; you can now contact Twitter to plead your case. Of course, requests for verification are not guaranteed to result in a blue tick, but here's what you need to do.

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Everything you need to know about ransomware

ransomware cash

Ransomware is one of the most feared security threats today and it is fast becoming one of the most profitable areas of cybercrime for attackers. It allows criminals to monetize their cybercrime efforts quicker than previous tactics allowed. Historically, they would have to steal their target’s data, and then find an avenue to resell that data to make it profitable. With ransomware, criminals are simply stealing a person’s data and selling it back to them for a price.

The victim already owned the data so they will definitely want it back. This therefore means the cybercriminal does not have a hard sell ahead of him. In addition to this, with the rise of anonymous currency, such as Bitcoin, there is even less of a chance of cybercriminals getting caught. Attackers can make hundreds to thousands of dollars per infection and get paid immediately, instead of going through other risky steps to make a profit.

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Fedora-based Korora 24 'Sheldon' Linux distro now available -- 32-bit ISO dead

While there are many Linux-based operating systems to choose from nowadays, not all of them are great. Quite frankly, there are probably only a handful of distributions that I would truly recommend.

My absolute favorite Linux-based operating system is Fedora, but understandably, it is not ideal for all beginners. While I like the focus on free software only, some folks need some non-free stuff. Adding repos and setting up some of this software can be tricky for some. Luckily, Korora is a distro that takes the work out of setting up Fedora for beginners. Today, it achieves version 24, code-named 'Sheldon'.

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How to get the Prisma beta on your Android phone

Some apps become overnight sensations -- something ably demonstrated by the Pokémon Go phenomenon. But it's not just games that experience an explosion in popularity. You can't help but have seen stylized pictures posted to Facebook: photos that have been transformed into striking works of art.

This trickery is the handiwork of the Prisma app. The app has only been available for iOS users, but that's about to change. It would have been madness not to have released Prisma for Android, and the company behind the app -- Prisma labs inc -- knows this. A beta version of Prisma is about to launch, and you can be the first to learn of its release.

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Internet of Things and virtual reality will become essential to office life

If your office technologies are not up to today’s standards, millennials are going to dump you. Seriously, almost half (42 percent) of people in that age group are willing to quit their job for this reason. The revelation is made in the Future Workforce Study, released by Dell and Intel.

In it, it says that employees don’t really consider today’s workplaces "smart", even though they believe offices should definitely move in that direction.

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Google is receiving more government requests for access to user data than ever before

Transparency reports from the big tech companies always make for interesting reading, and the latest update from Google is no different. Its most recent transparency report covers the period July-August 2015, and shows that the company received a record number of government data requests.

The report shows the number of times governments around the world contacted Google with requests for access to user data. For anyone with an interest in either privacy or security, the marked increase in the number of requests is interesting.

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Euclid Connect delivers personalized in-store experiences via Wi-Fi

digital shopping

Part of the reason for the success of online retailers is the ability to gather information on customers so that they can be targeted with appropriate offers.

Retail analytics and engagement specialist Euclid Analytics is launching a new platform that aims to give brick and mortar retailers some of the same advantages.

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Seagate unveils massive 10TB hard drives for desktop, NAS and surveillance applications

Seagate today announces a new range of high-end hard drives designed for PC, NAS and surveillance applications. Called Guardian Series, it targets consumers and small businesses alike, with each of the three tailored options boasting a massive 10TB capacity.

BarraCuda Pro, IronWolf and SkyHawk, as they are called, may have the large size as a common selling point, but, according to Seagate, they come with different feature sets depending on the type of device they are optimized for.

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New platform offers enterprises complete endpoint security

endpoint protection

Endpoint security company Carbon Black already offers application control, incident response, and threat-hunting products. Today it's announced the acquisition of next generation antivirus supplier Confer allowing it to offer a complete endpoint protection platform.

The new platform, called Cb Endpoint Security, provides organizations with the flexibility they need to cope with growing and evolving security needs. Confer's cloud-based analytics engine will become part of a 'Cb Collective Defense Cloud,' adding depth to the platform.

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BBC+ is a new iOS and Android app that delivers personalized BBC content

Over the years, the BBC has created a huge number of apps and websites to showcase the various services it offers. If you're interested in a range of BBC content, you've probably found that you have to jump from app to app and website to website. BBC+ aims to change all that.

BBC+ is a new app from the corporation that’s available for iOS and Android. This is one of the first apps built using the newly-developed Mobile Application Framework (MAF) and it gives BBC fans the opportunity to create a personalized collection of the content most relevant and interesting to them -- news, weather, TV and more.

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Why SoftBank is paying $32 billion for ARM Holdings

SoftBank is buying ARM Holdings for $32 billion. Why would a company not presently in the semiconductor business spend 32 times sales to enter a new industry? By traditional measures it makes little sense. But for SoftBank it makes perfect sense, because here’s a company that has spent more than 30 years making high-risk bets on entering new businesses by apparently over-paying for assets. It’s the way they’ve always done it and it has nearly always worked. In this case SoftBank is paying a 43 percent premium over the recent ARM share price because that’s how much money it took to overcome the resistance of ARM management. And it’s just a guess on my part, but I’d say those very ARM managers are, for the most part, doomed. SoftBank isn’t buying ARM because Masayoshi Son is so impressed with ARM’s success: SoftBank is buying ARM because of what it can become.

The only way SoftBank can justify paying such a high price for ARM is if Mr. Son is about to change ARM’s business model.

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Transform pictures into mosaics or abstract art with Pattaizer

Many graphics tools offer some sort of mosaic effect, but it’s often very basic, "let’s pixelate the image a bit and hope for the best". Pattaizer is more imaginative, and can transform your pictures using a host of mosaic-related and more abstract effects.

Some of these appear to be based on fairly standard mosaic effects, for example replacing blocks of pixels with hexagons or lego bricks. But a "Deform control" adds a random variation to every individual component of the image, ensuring you get far more interesting results.

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