• Article

Today Apple revealed that it is to acquire the digital magazine subscription service Texture. The iPhone-maker says that it has signed an agreement about the acquisition but does not say when it will complete.

The company says the move is part of its commitment to "quality journalism from trusted sources," and it has already shown its appreciation of Texture by featuring it in the App Store's "best of" selections.

Continue reading →

Security vulnerabilities in some popular smart cameras, used as baby monitors and for security surveillance, could lead to them being exploited by hackers.

Research from Kaspersky Lab has found multiple issues with cameras, manufactured by Korean company Hanwha Techwin, that could allow attackers to obtain remote access to video and audio feeds from the cameras, remotely disable the devices and execute arbitrary malicious code on them.

Continue reading →

A study sponsored by Intel has come to the rather unsurprising conclusion that smart cities save people time. The company says that major cities that have embraced the Internet of Things (IoT) can save each of their citizens up to 125 hours per year.

Being able to claw back more than five days over the course of a year seems too good to be true, but the study from Intel and Juniper Research appears to bear out the claim. The research looked at smart cities around the world, ranking them accordingly in the areas of mobility, health care, public safety and productivity.

Continue reading →

Google Glass teased an interesting future, but failed to deliver on its promise. Today, Toshiba picks up where Glass left off, with a pair of Augmented Reality (AR) glasses powered by a mini Windows 10 PC.

The glasses link together a dynaEdge AR100 Head Mounted Display (HMD) with a dynaEdge DE-100 Mobile Mini PC, which is essentially a handheld, battery-powered Windows 10 system.

Continue reading →

University students and anyone in higher education in the UK can now take advantage of Amazon's Prime Student. The monthly plan costs just £3.99 -- half the regular price of Prime -- and it includes unlimited one-day deliveries, access to Prime Video, Prime Music and much more.

Anyone eligible for the program can take advantage of a six-month free trial to see if it's something that works for them. In addition to numerous Amazon services, Prime Student also gives subscribers money off textbooks, stationery and university essentials.

Continue reading →

Just as with any popular platform, WhatsApp has fans who are quite happy to use it while conceding that there are things that need to be improved. Having -- eventually -- made it possible to delete messages after sending them, WhatsApp is now extending the timeframe in which deletions can be made.

The Delete For Everyone option is now available to users for 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds after a message has been sent.

Continue reading →

Thanks to a surge in healthcare attacks, cryptocurrency mining and fileless malware, McAfee Labs latest quarterly threat report has seen an average of eight new threat samples per second.

Highlights of the report include the healthcare sector experiencing a 211 percent increase in disclosed security incidents in 2017, and fileless malware leveraging Microsoft PowerShell growing 267 percent in the fourth quarter.

Continue reading →

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the world wide web, and as has become traditional, its inventor has penned a letter for the occasion. In it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee calls for regulation of the web to prevent it from being "weaponized".

His letter suggests that "the web is under threat," and highlights a number of problems that exist, including the digital divide, privacy, fake news and the dominance of social media. He suggests that a regulatory framework could be needed to prevent a handful of companies from "weapon[zing] the web at scale."

Continue reading →

In the latest attempts to clean up its platform, Twitter has suspended a number of accounts for trying to game the system. A number of well-known accounts were hit for stealing tweets without giving credit, and mass retweeting each other's content to force virality -- a practice sometimes known as tweetdecking.

As is customary, Twitter is not willing to comment on individual cases, but it is thought that the company was unhappy with repeated violations of its policies against spam.

Continue reading →

Apple has unveiled new logos for its MFi Program. The Made For iPhone/iPad/iPod Program is a certification program used to indicate that third-party accessories meet Apple's standards for quality.

Having launched a new set of simplified logos, Apple is giving manufacturers 90 days to switch to the new designs. The change may seem minor, but there are three tweaks worth noting.

Continue reading →

As Windows 10 continues its trend of being a bloated and confusing mess (tighten it up, Microsoft!), Linux-based operating systems continue to be an excellent alternative. There are no shortage of great Linux distributions from which to choose either -- Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint -- you can’t go wrong.

For those converting from Windows, one great choice is Netrunner. This is a Debian-based operating system that leverages the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It is very reminiscent of the much-loved Windows 7. The OS comes pre-loaded with a lot of useful software, and Linux beginners will really benefit from that. Today, a new version of the distro becomes available for download -- Netrunner 18.03 Idolon.

Continue reading →

It is hard to get excited about a desk lamp. I mean, let's be honest -- they supply light and that's the end of the story, right? Well, no. Not necessarily. Actually, thanks to LED technology, there have been big advancements in both design and lighting capability.

Believe it or not, I am excited about a desk lamp, and there are many reasons why. It is from a company called TaoTronics and the product name is "LED Desk Lamp with Wireless Charger" (model number TT-DL036). As the name implies, it can wirelessly charge your compatible smartphones, such as the Galaxy S8 or iPhone 8. Actually, any device with Qi charging capabilities can be charged just by being placed on the lamp's base.

Continue reading →

Snapchat and Instagram have both temporarily removed GIPHY integration from their products following the appearance of a racist GIF. A statement put out by Snapchat says: "We have removed GIPHY from our application until we can be assured that this will never happen again."

Instagram made a similar move, and it's not clear when GIPHY will rectify the issue. (Warning: a tweet containing the GIF in question is featured in the article below).

Continue reading →

As a big fan of the GNOME desktop environment, I have long been a Fedora user. After all, that operating system uses GNOME as its primary environment. Since Canonical killed Unity and moved its focus to GNOME, I have a renewed interest in Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions, such as System76's wonderful Pop!_OS. I suspect I am not alone in my feelings.

Today, Ubuntu Linux 18.04 'Bionic Beaver' Beta 1 becomes available for download. Ubuntu 18.04 is significant, as it will be an LTS (Long Term Support) version. As was the case when Unity was the primary DE, GNOME is not available in this beta stage. Instead, there are other flavors from which to choose, such as Kubuntu with KDE Plasma and Xubuntu, which uses Xfce.

Continue reading →

My first-ever console was Atari 2600. My favorite game for it was Mario Bros. -- it was before the brothers became super on Nintendo Entertainment System. It was Super Mario Brothers on NES that made me -- and countless others -- huge video game fans, however. My love for Mario, Luigi, and the rest of the Nintendo world, remains strong to this day.

To celebrate Mario, an annual holiday has been established -- MAR10 Day. Get it? It is on March 10, as the abbreviation looks like the word "Mario." Well, Google is apparently getting in on the Mario love, as it is bringing the plumber to its Maps service for a limited time.

Continue reading →