Exactly a month after the Safe Harbor agreement was struck down by the EU Court of Justice, the EU has called for the US to make the next move in the creation of an alternative solution.

The Safe Harbor Agreement, which is now defunct, represented a legal framework within which US companies could extract data of EU citizens. It was ruled invalid for not providing sufficient legal safeguards.

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The Home Office has issued an Impact Assessment, looking into the price of the proposed Investigatory Powers law, which would allow government agencies to intercept digital communications.

Secretary of State Theresa May’s department estimates a price of some £247m over a 10-year-period to cover the costs of the spy law, but according to The Register, which calls upon industry sources, little to no consultation has taken place so far. The true price of the bill can be significantly larger and can go up to £2 billion, with the bulk of finances going to telecom firms to cover the costs of storage.

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Late last week, the UK government introduced a new Investigatory Powers bill, which requires Internet service providers to keep a record of the Internet activity of everyone in Britain, as well as cracking down on encryption and increasing government surveillance.

The initial reaction from industry professionals was mixed, but a new survey from Swiss data bank Artmotion has found that a massive 87 percent of IT leaders disagree with the government’s plan to reduce the strength of data encryption.

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Sixteen of the biggest tech companies out there, eight internet firms and eight telecoms, were analyzed in terms of how much they allow their users to express themselves, and how much they protect their users’ privacy.

None passed the analysis with flying colors.

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People feel more violated when someone hacks into their computer, than when someone breaks into their house, a new research has shown.

The research, done by American multinational software Citrix, polled 2,000 full-time workers in the UK about hacking and private files they keep on their computers. The poll shows that 48 percent of young people, aged 16 to 24 have more than one private file on their computers which they want to remain secret.

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Pebble, one of the first tech firms that jumped into the smartwatch foray via a Kickstarter campaign, has been unaffected by the competition brought by the Apple Watch, says the company CEO Eric Migicovsky.

Migicovsky revealed that the company’s sales has improved, which experienced a double year-over-year growth. Apple Watch had "no material impact" on the company, Migicovsky claimed, adding that this is due to the difference in the market the companies tap.

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Stat attack: Dropbox has more than 400 million users worldwide. Out of that number, some 8 million are business users.

From those 8 million, there are more than 150,000 paying ones. Those are the numbers given by the company’s chief executive officer Drew Houston, during the Dropbox Open conference, held in San Francisco yesterday.

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What’s the next step after an operating system upgrade on a Mac or PC? To see if you can work with your existing applications. When moving to OS X El Capitan and Windows 10 I got off to a rough start, which left me frustrated.

Let’s address the El Capitan problems first. Did the upgrade install? Yes! Was I able to work? Nope.

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Deciding whether to upgrade your operating system is always a big decision. It is one that should not be made lightly, especially when it is a major upgrade like Windows 10.

Over the years, there have been mixed reviews regarding Windows upgrades. I just need to mention the word 'Vista' and some IT folk breakout into a cold sweat!

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Kaspersky Lab has released a new report on the evolution of distributed denial of service (DDoS) and it shows some interesting figures, including the fact that a server was targeted for 320 hours straight.

The Kaspersky DDoS Intelligence Report Q3 2015 is based on the constant monitoring of botnets and observing new techniques utilized by cybercriminals. It shows that DDoS attacks remain highly localized, with 91.6 percent of the victims’ resources located in only ten countries around the world, although Kaspersky Lab has recorded DDoS attacks targeting servers in 79 countries total.

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There’s no avoiding it; ad-blocking is a direct result of consumer demand. Adland has had its own way for too long and now the traffic is two-way we should view this as an opportunity to hit the reset button.

Let’s get this in context however; announcements such as Apple’s recent iOS9 update may have raised the profile of ad-blocking, but uptake is far from exponential. We’re not facing the Adpocalypse here, what we’re looking at is the balance being redressed.

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People who are already awaiting the 2016 Apple iPhones may see a new all-metal, four-inch device, along with the iPhone 7, according to an analyst from KGI Securities.

Ming-Chi Kuo said he believes that the tech giant is currently working on a four-inch iPhone that "resembles an upgraded iPhone 5s" with an A9 processor.

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Security researchers from Trend Micro have discovered that a software development kit used by thousands of applications is leaving Android users at risk.

The Moplus SDK was created by Chinese firm Baidu and is susceptible to backdoor functionalities. It is believed that approximately 100 million Android devices users are affected.

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Banks are warning iPhone users that if they store more than one set fingerprints on the device, they will treat them as if they had failed to keep their personal data safe. They are equalizing multiple fingerprint storing to sharing a PIN code.

Apple’s iPhone device allows up to ten fingerprints to be stored. The company designed it so to make it easier for multiple family members to use the Apple Pay service for contactless payments.

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EE is planning to perform 1Gbps speed tests next year as the mobile network provider gets preparation underway for 5G connectivity.

Although the high speed network will initially only be available for certain business sectors, it will eventually be opened up to the public. The NHS, building sites and the police force are expected to be early beneficiaries of EE’s technical developments in 2016.

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