Latest Technology News

Mobile payments are gaining momentum in the UK. Apply Pay has an initial monopoly, Google recently announced its UK launch and Samsung is planning to follow suit later this year. Countries across the globe are increasingly moving towards cashless societies thanks to advances in contactless payments. The UK is a leader in contactless payments and, thanks to technology such as Oyster cards, mobile payments are catching on quickly.

Instead of carrying a physical wallet with cash and bank cards, mobile wallets are becoming an increasingly popular method of payment.

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The Internet of Things, more commonly known as IoT and sometimes referred to as a Connected Home or as Home Automation, is one of the biggest trends in technology these days and 2016 doesn't seem to be slowing down as new products continue to pour onto the market while others get updates and increasingly become compatible across platforms.

Product lines abound, from door locks to shades and from lights to crock pots. Manufacturers like Samsung, Insteon, Cree, GE, Nest, Wink, Sensi, Ecobee and many more are out there waiting for your hard earned money.

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The PETYA ransomware is just one of the recent examples of malware that encrypts victims' hard drives until a fee is paid. The advice from the government is not to pay the ransom -- or at least not expect to get a decryption key if you do -- but a password generator has been created that means you can decrypt your hard drive for free.

While TeslaCrypt 4 boasts 'unbreakable encryption', the same cannot be said of PETYA, although the PETYA ransomware does have the irritating habit of overwriting MBRs. This does mean that there is no way to interact with the drive on the infected computer, but with access to a spare machine to read the drive and access to the online tool created by Leostone, you could have your data back in seconds. As the tool's website proudly proclaims, you can "Get your petya encrypted disk back, WITHOUT paying ransom!!!" -- here's what you need to do.

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The idea of an injunction to prevent newspapers from publishing certain stories are nothing new, far from it. But in recent years, a new breed of superinjunction has been born. These not only prevent the publishing of stories, but can also block the publishing of the names of those involved. Some superinjunctions are such that even reporting the existence of the superinjunction is prohibited.

In recent weeks, a celebrity couple took out a superinjunction to prevent the press from publishing details of an alleged affair (well, a threesome if we cut to the chase). The gagging order prevented news outlets in the UK referring to the couple as anything other than the initials PJS and YMA (not their actual initials, by the way) and the other participants in the alleged ménage à trois as AB and CD. But today a Scottish newspaper took the decision to reveal the names of the couple -- but it could only do so in its print edition, because of the way laws written for the printed press have been awkwardly applied to the web.

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The British government secretly rolled out powers that permitted the immigration officials to hack the mobile phones of asylum seekers and refugees, the Observer reveals. The Home Office has confirmed the hacking powers which have sparked outrage from privacy and human rights groups.

Since 2013, immigration officials have not only been permitted to hack into migrants' phones and computers, but also to install surveillance equipment in homes and detention centers. With concern about governmental plans for the snooper's charter and the privacy invasion this entails, claims that the powers are needed to "deal effectively with all immigration crime" are likely to fall on deaf ears.

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Corporate leaders, especially those considered thought leaders, have a firm right and assumed expectation to voice their opinion on public policy. As such, I've got no inherent issues with Facebook's founder and chief, Mark Zuckerberg, proclaiming his positions publicly -- even if I happen to blatantly disagree with them.

Mark and other leaders of their respective industries have something very intrinsically unique that most others do not. That comes in the form of the power of the pulpit. It places their opinion in a position which bring inherent weight and reach which many could only dream of. Yet, this advantage comes with a social responsibility so as to not abuse or otherwise misuse the privilege.

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Linux-based operating systems are rock solid -- reliable and secure -- but not infallible. The Mumblehard malware, for instance, targets servers running the open source kernel, installing a backdoor, and then turning them into part of a powerful spam-focused botnet. Surprisingly, Mumblehard was rather widespread, infecting 4,000 Linux-powered servers.

Of course, had administrators patched the systems appropriately, there is a good chance that some of them would have avoided infection. I say this, because ESET found that some machines were infected through known exploits, in things like WordPress. Thankfully, ESET successfully terminated the botnet on February 29th, 2016 by taking control of the home IP.

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Apple's battle with the FBI has focused the attention of the technology community on encryption. But while just about all of the big players in the tech world backed Apple's refusal to create a backdoor for the FBI into iOS, Congress has a very different idea about how encryption and governmental access to data should be handled. This is perfectly demonstrated by a new bill.

The draft version of the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 -- penned by Senators Diane Feinstein and Richard Burr -- would essentially force all US companies to decrypt data they may have encrypted, or to provide backdoors when asked. It's a bill described variously as 'dangerous', 'encryption-weakening', and 'anti-security', and it starts off aggressivley in stating that "no person or entity is above the law". In effect, it renders the encryption put in place by the likes of WhatsApp completely pointless as, if the bill is passed, companies would have to decrypt data on demand.

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About a year ago, I declared Windows 10 was "the final nail in the coffin for the Linux desktop". What I meant by this was not that Linux on the desktop was really dead, but that the Linux community had failed to capitalize on the negative sentiment towards Windows 8x. What I didn't expect at the time, however, was Microsoft's privacy faux pas with Windows 10. While there are more than a quarter billion installs of the latest operating system, plenty of folks have serious concerns about spying.

Maybe Linux has a chance on the desktop after all. Ubuntu is being integrated into Windows 10, and Android seems to be headed towards the desktop. In other words, Linux is making significant moves. Heck, even Linus Torvalds is prepared to keep fighting the good fight, and he declares that he is still "working on it".

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Microsoft's Windows 10 Roadmap for business users reveals that the eagerly-anticipated Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is due to launch in July this year. At Build 2016 earlier in the month, Microsoft said that the big update was due to launch 'this summer', but did not get any more precise than this for the Redstone branch release.

But digging into roadmap documents, Microsoft makes it clear that it is aiming for a July release. The company has said that the update will bring "significant new features", including taskbar badge notifications and a revamped Start menu, but it is when talking about the new features that are coming to Cortana that the date is revealed.

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Illegal street racing is totally dangerous. Quite frankly, not only can you injure or kill yourself, but even worse, you can impact innocent pedestrians. Luckily, if you have the need for speed, video games can give you your racing fix in a safe environment.

Today, Thrustmaster announces the TMX Force Feedback racing wheel for Xbox One and Windows 10 (plus Vista, 7, and 8x). For under $200, you can take your games to the next level with a feedback-focused racing wheel.

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Let's not beat around the bush: we know that a lot of you use the likes of the Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents and the like to grab copies of movies and TV shows. You're probably aware of a number of release groups on the scene, but you might not know that there are fairly strict rules dictating capturing, formatting and naming releases.

This weekend a major change comes into force. Until now MP4 has been the video format of choice, but the change in standards means that this format is being ousted in favor of MKV. There are astoundingly lengthy standards documents covering standard and high definition releases of TV shows, and while the alterations are touted as bringing things up to date, not everyone is happy.

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At Build 2016 earlier this month, Microsoft talked about Project Centennial and the Desktop App Converter. Part of the company's app drive, the tool has been designed to make it easier for developers to convert legacy apps into Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps for Windows 10.

This is Microsoft's attempt to get more apps into the Store, making things as easy as possible for devs. Designed to run on the Enterprise and Pro versions of Windows 10 Anniversary Update build 14316 and newer (Redstone), Desktop App Converter is a free tool that can be used to quickly create apps that will run not only on Windows 10 desktops, laptops and tablet, but also phones, HoloLens and Xbox One, taking full advantage of features such as Live Tiles.

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Every once in a while you will have to migrate data from one system to another. This could be for reasons of upgrading your systems or for development of infrastructure. When you want to test your new apps during the development process, you will need to use the data that your business has generated. The test data is really hard to access simply because of the migration work. It is hard for the developers to migrate data from the full sandboxes to the developer sandboxes.

It is only left to the imagination how difficult migrating all of your business’ data can be. There are so many mistakes that you are most likely to make during the data migration process. You should beware of these pitfalls and learn how to avoid them. If you fall into them, you are going to spend a huge amount of money and time repairing the errors that they will cause. Here are some of those challenges.

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The EMC-Dell deal never stops to capture headlines, and today is no different. The media have reported that EMC is looking to sell Documentum, its enterprise content management platform.

Documentum was acquired by EMC in December 2003, when it cashed out $1.7 billion for it. The platform is a part of EMC’s Enterprise Content Division (ECD) business unit.

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