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The cryptocurrency market is going through a tough period right now. The cap is down significantly from the record high reached in January, Google is following Facebook in banning crypto ads and regulators are investigating ICOs, just to name a few of the problems that it's facing. However, there is some good news to report as well.

Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, today announces that it's received an e-money license in the UK, which allows it to provide payment services to its local users and, by extension, other EU customers as well.

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If you want a convenient solution for playing media, Kodi should be at the top of your list. The free and open source media center is cross-platform, meaning it can run on most operating systems.

The best way to experience Kodi, however, is when it is the focus of a Linux-based operating system. For example, LibreELEC exists solely to run Kodi. Its lightweight nature allows it to run on fairly meager hardware, including Raspberry Pi. Today, a new version of LibreELEC is released. The main reason for this update is to add support for the newly released Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

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I only met Stephen Hawking twice, both times in the same day. Hawking, who died a few hours ago, was one of the great physicists of any era. He wrote books, was the subject of a major movie about his early life, and of course survived longer than any other amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) sufferer, passing away at 76 while Lou Gehrig didn't even make it to 40. We’re about to be awash in Hawking tributes, so I want to share with you my short experience of the man and maybe give more depth to his character than we might take away from the evening news.

Several years ago I was booked to speak at a (pre-Intel) Window River Systems event at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland. The Claremont, like the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, is a huge old hotel built entirely of wood. Creaky old elevators and creaky old staircases connect all the floors but stairs are faster and I was in a hurry to give my speech because Jerry Fiddler was waiting. So I took the stairs two at a time then burst through a set of double doors and straight into…

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Researchers at cyber security platform ERPScan have disclosed details of two vulnerabilities that allow compromise of the widely used SAP CRM system.

CRM is considered as a most critical asset by businesses. A data breach into CRM can be disastrous as it can destroy trust in the business and severely tarnish the brand as well as raising compliance issues.

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For Linux desktop users -- you know, people that just use a Linux-based operating system as a tool -- the desktop environment largely is the operating system. In other words, what's under the hood is sort of inconsequential. Hell, the distro might not even matter to the user as long as it is running their favorite DE. This is totally fine, as not everyone is a developer that is passionate about Linux or open source ideology.

For me -- and many others -- GNOME is the preferred desktop environment for Linux or BSD. It has an excellent support community, the most productive user interface, and comes with many useful native apps. Today, GNOME 3.28 becomes available, and it is full of improvements to make it the best version yet. It has the code-name 'Chongqing' because the 2017 Gnome.Asia conference was held in that Chinese city.

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In the latest part of its clean-up exercise, Facebook has removed pages of the far-right, anti-Islamic group Britain First. The social network has also closed down the pages of the leaders of the group -- well-known in the UK, and also brought to US attention after Donald Trump shared its tweets.

The ban is such that Britain First will not be able to create any pages in the future. Facebook says that the group has repeatedly violated rules against hate speech, and denies that the bans are an infringement of free speech.

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DDoS attacks using domain name server (DNS) amplification increased more than 357 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to the previous year.

A new report by protection specialist Nexusguard attributes the rise to the use of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), a technology that's intended to add integrity and security to the DNS protocol.

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Unless you're a fan of using a computer that looks and feels the same as everyone else, you probably want to spend some time tweaking Windows so it works the way you want it to. Broadly speaking, tweaks fall into three categories -- those that change appearance, those that boost performance, and those that change the way things work.

Windows 10 does -- through Settings and the Control Panel -- afford you a decent degree of control over how the operating system looks and works, but if you want to get serious about things you have two options: head into the registry, or turn to a dedicated tweaking and customization tool. Now there are endless apps to help make life easier, so here's a roundup of the best Windows 10 tweaking and customization tools.

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New research reveals the US cities that are best at password security, with Minneapolis topping the list.

The study by password manager Dashlane scores cities based on several metrics, including average password strength and average number of reused passwords.

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For the past three years, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has released new products around its birthday (28 February). It didn’t this year due to snow and other reasons, but a fortnight later -- on Pi Day -- it’s time for the wraps to come off the latest Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (Raspberry Pi 3B+ for short) is the successor to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, and improves on that device in a number of ways, while keeping the same low price ($35).

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YouTube has faced criticism not only for allowing conspiracy videos to appear on the site, but also how it has dealt with them. The latest move by Google in this area will see information from Wikipedia and other websites displayed alongside such videos in the interests of balance.

Google says that the aim of the new "information cues" is to combat conspiracy theory videos it hosts, as well as trying to combat hoaxes.

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Google has announced that advertisements for cryptocurrencies will be banned from its platform starting in June. The ban not only covers currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, but also related products such as initial coin offerings, cryptocurreny exchanges and digital wallets.

The announcement came as Google is relying on new technology to detect and remove ads that violate policies. The company says it removed over 3.2 billion ads in 2017, and while it does not give a precise reason for the cryptocurrency ad ban, it says it is part of "improving the ads experience across the web."

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There are a fair number of new features and improvements to look forward to in the forthcoming Spring Creators Update for Windows 10, most notably the new Timeline feature, Near Share, and Focus Assist.

If you’re thinking of joining the Windows 10 Insider program, or you just want to do a clean install with an up to date version of the Spring Creators Update, the good news is Microsoft has released a new ISO image.

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Just after offering up a bounty to track down the hackers who attacked it, cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced the launch of a public blockchain.

Binance Chain, as it is known, is the exchange's vision of the future, and it will focus mainly on the transfer and trading of blockchain assets. Binance also announced that its own Binance Coin (BNB) will become a native coin, changing from the current Ethereum-based ERC20 token.

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The next big feature update of Windows 10 -- widely expected to be called the Spring Creators Update -- is due out next month. Microsoft is hard at work putting the finishing touches to it, but still has time to introduce some new additions.

In Build 17120, Microsoft has added some improvements to the Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG), its virtualization-based security technology which helps to protect enterprises from advanced attacks that can infiltrate networks and devices via the Internet.

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