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Amazon and Microsoft said that Alexa and Cortana would be able to talk to each other by the end of the 2017, but the two personal assistants have yet to receive this functionality until today. However, even without Cortana's help, Alexa is making a big leap forward in the Windows space.

Amazon has teamed up with leading PC manufacturers Acer, ASUS, Lenovo and HP to include its personal assistant on new Windows 10 devices that will arrive in 2018.

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The Bitcoin bubble means there is a massive interest in cryptocurrencies, particularly from those looking for an easy way to make a quick buck. It's also led to secretive mining tools making use of people's CPUs without their knowledge, mining for profitable cryptocurrency for persons unknown.

We've seen this with both websites and browser extensions, and now a security researcher has discovered a series of fake Android apps harboring an undisclosed Coinhive cryptocurrency miner. The repackaged APKs take advantage of the CPUs of the smartphones the apps are installed on.

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Businesses are increasingly turning to software to allow them to spot cyber threats. But this can lead to a problem in the form of alert fatigue, where there are just too many warnings to allow them to be properly investigated.

Network threat detection specialist Bricata has put together an infographic to highlight the problem of alert fatigue.

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Given the high number of data breaches in the past year and the number of records involved, many consumers now rank identity theft as one of their top concerns with 66 percent of Americans saying it's the crime they most worry about.

Security company McAfee is using this week's CES to move beyond its traditional antivirus products and launch its own Identity Theft Protection.

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Fans of the game Fortnite have been frustrated by a combination of reduced performance, and an inability to log into the game at all. The company behind the title, Epic Games, says that patches installed to mitigate against the Meltdown and Spectre bugs are to blame.

Since installing patches to address the vulnerabilities, Epic has noticed a very significant spike in processors usage. The extra strain on backend cloud services has noticeably slowed down Fortnite for some users, and rendered others unable to play the game at all.

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Microsoft has had something of an on-off relationship with Bitcoin over the years, and once again the Windows-maker has chosen to drop support for the cryptocurrency -- at least temporarily.

It has been reported that Microsoft is uncomfortable with the fluctuating value of Bitcoin, as well as the increased transaction fees. As such, customers will no longer be able to add to their Microsoft account balances using Bitcoin.

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As if the Meltdown and Spectre bug affecting millions of processors was not bad enough, the patches designed to mitigate the problems are introducing issues of their own. Perhaps the most well-known effect is a much-publicized performance hit, but some users are reporting that Microsoft's emergency patch is bricking their computers.

We've already seen compatibility issues with some antivirus tools, and now some AMD users are reporting that the KB4056892 patch is rendering their computer unusable. A further issue -- error 0x800f0845 -- means that it is not possible to perform a rollback.

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I must be honest -- I am starting to become fatigued by all of the vulnerabilities and security failures in technology nowadays. Quite frankly, between Spectre and Meltdown, I don't even want to use my computer or devices anymore -- I feel exposed.

Today, yet another security blunder becomes publicized, and it is really bad. You see, many Western Digital My Cloud NAS drives have a hardcoded backdoor, meaning anyone can access them -- your files could be at risk. It isn't even hard to take advantage of it -- the username is "mydlinkBRionyg" and the password is "abc12345cba" (without quotes). To make matters worse, it was disclosed to Western Digital six months ago and the company apparently did nothing until November 2017. Let's be realistic -- not everyone stays on top of updates, and a backdoor never should have existed in the first place.

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With the popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it's perhaps little surprise that a number of websites have recently been discovered using visitors' computer to do a little mining. The latest site found to be indulging in the activity is BlackBerry Mobile -- but this time it's thanks to the work of a hacker.

As with other sites carrying out surreptitious mining, it was a CoinHive mining tool that was found embedded in the code of the site. The same hacker also placed the same miner on a handful of other sites.

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Many people diss Chromebooks because they simply don't understand them. No, Chrome OS -- the operating system that powers these laptops -- is not just a glorified web browser. Actually, the OS is a full Linux distribution that is both extremely secure and easy to use. True, they can be deficient for some tasks, such as video editing and hardcore gaming, but let's be honest -- not everyone has those needs. If everything you do is in a browser -- email, web surfing, social media, YouTube, Netflix, etc. -- there is no reason to run Windows and open yourself up to malware and other bad things. Hell, Chromebooks even have Microsoft Office support these days!

Today, Acer unveils its latest Chromebook 11, and it is absolutely beautiful. The 11.6-inch Chrome OS laptop comes with 4GB of RAM by default, plus your choice of either 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage. There is even an optional touch-screen variant, which will come in handy for its Google Play Android app support. Road warriors will appreciate the impressive 10-hour battery life. The Celeron processor is passively cooled, meaning there are no fans to bother you with noise.

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The revelations about the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affecting millions of processors around the world has raised a huge number of questions for many people. While businesses and large organizations are rushing to ensure that their systems -- and their data -- are protected, the average computer user has been left wondering what on Earth is going on.

While there are a lot of very technical write-ups about the implications of the Spectre and Meltdown bugs, as well as explanations of just how the exploit works, the average Joe has been left somewhat in the dark. To try to remedy this, Google has answered a series of questions relating to the security issues.

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Since Donald Trump's inauguration, there have been countless calls for him to be banned from Twitter. As well as concerns that his often rash and bombastic statements could cause diplomatic nightmares nationally and internationally, there have also been suggestions that his particularly aggressive tone and threats violate Twitter's policies.

But Twitter has consistently refused to either ban the US president or remove his more controversial tweets -- despite doing the same with other users. Now the company has taken steps to explain why this is. In essence, it's because Trump -- and other world leaders -- have been granted a special status.

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Not so long ago, when you stepped on a long-haul flight, you had to rely on their entertainment system to keep you and your kids entertained. And that’s if worked at all.

Thanks to your tablet or smartphone, you can now download your favorite movie or boxset and watch what you want, on your own personal device, when you want. You also control what your kids can watch, which is a bonus. You have the smartphone or tablet, now you need the relevant app to download content.

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Java established itself as one of the leading programming languages shortly after its debut, over two decades ago. According to the TIOBE Index for January 2018, it is actually the programming language that most people are interested in. For newcomers, it is among the top picks, no doubt due to the sheer number of jobs available.

The TIOBE Index, which provides a glimpse into our interest in programming languages based on searches on Google, Bing, Wikipedia and YouTube, among other major resources, puts Java at the top of the pack with a 14.21 percent rating. It holds a comfortable lead over its main rivals, though at least one of them is starting to gain ground again -- C.

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HP has issued a voluntary worldwide recall after discovering a problem with laptop batteries. Affecting notebooks and mobile workstations, HP says the lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.

The recall covers various Pavilion, ENVY and Zbook models sold through the likes of Amazon and Best Buy as well as direct from HP. In all, some 50,000 computers sold between December 2015 and December 2017 are affected.

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