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The price of Bitcoin has increased dramatically this year. The most popular cryptocurrency went from a low of $958 on January 1 to $2,000 on May 19, $3,000 on June 11, and, finally, $4,500 today. The effect? Its market cap rose from $15.5 billion to $73 billion, making it more valuable than well-known major tech companies like Twitter, HP, Nokia, NXP, Baidu, Salesforce and PayPal.

But Bitcoin's rise didn't have an effect just on its market cap, as it also boosted the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Today, its value is estimated to be around $144 billion, up from only $11.3 billion a year ago. It is pretty incredible, if you think about it.

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Companies continue to be keen to exploit the power of big data analytics, and one of the most popular platforms for doing this is Google's BigQuery.

Edge cloud platform Fastly is announcing a new integration that allows the real-time streaming of logs to BigQuery. This, the first of a number of planned integrations with Google's Cloud Platform, aims to deliver better performance and faster real-time insights.

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Researchers have discovered that cyber attackers are exploiting a vulnerability that allows them to elude antivirus software to deliver malware via Microsoft PowerPoint.

The flaw itself exists in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) interface and attackers have previously used it to deliver infected Rich Text File (.RTF) documents. Trend Micro's researchers noticed that attackers have now infected PowerPoint files to deliver malicious code.

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A new study from cloud data management company Druva shows a strong trend among businesses towards moving virtual workloads to the cloud.

It reveals that in the VMware market 90 percent of companies are aiming to migrate their workloads by 2018, with a clear preference for AWS (47 percent), followed by Microsoft Azure (25 percent).

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A new survey of information security professionals carried out at last month's Black Hat conference suggests that the majority think encryption backdoors are ineffective and potentially dangerous.

The study carried out by machine identity protection company Venafi finds that 72 percent of respondents don't believe encryption backdoors would make their nations safer from terrorists.

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Android users now have a new "Question & answers" option in both Google Maps and search. This is not a general Q&A feature along the lines of Yahoo Answers, but a way to ask questions about businesses.

This appears to be Google's attempt to draw people away from the likes of Facebook when they want to ask questions about hotels, restaurants and other places they may visit. Business owners are able to respond to questions -- as are users -- and they are encouraged to create FAQs to prevent the same queries being posted time and time again.

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Technology companies are increasingly realizing that if they are to break into emerging markets, they're going to have to reduce the amount of data their apps use. Facebook Lite, Twitter Lite and LinkedIn Lite are just some of the less demanding apps to have been launched recently.

Google doesn’t want to miss out on the action. It is currently testing a data-light version of its search app for use in countries with slow connections. Search Lite (or Search (Test App)) is currently available to download from Google Play in Indonesia -- or from other sources if you're elsewhere in the world.

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Newton is my favorite email app, not least because I can use it on all my devices -- no matter if they run Android, iOS, macOS or Windows, the last of which arrived in private beta in early-May. Now, after four months of testing, it is ready for prime time.

The Windows version of Newton arrives today in Windows Store, and it's designed with Windows 10 users in mind. CloudMagic, the company behind the app, has included pretty much every feature that Newton has on other platforms, meaning the experience should be pretty similar to Android, iOS and macOS.

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If you're a Google Home user living in the US or Canada, Google is now rolling out the ability to make free phone calls.

The announcement sees the company making good on a promise from I/O 2017, and it extends the call-making capabilities of Google Assistant from smartphones to Google Home. There are, of course, a few limitations to keep in mind.

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The nightmare continues for HBO. After suffering a hack and then leaks of various shows including Game of Thrones, hackers have now struck at the network's social media accounts. The hacking group OurMine took control of the main HBO Twitter accounts, as well as those for various shows, including Game of Thrones.

OurMine is no newcomer to the scene -- the group has previously hacked Mark Zuckerberg and Netflix's Twitter accounts. Separately to this, what has been dubbed the "4th Wave HBO Leak" has been made available online. This time the data dumps include content relating to Game of Thrones season 7, and Westworld season 2.

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Raspberry Pi’s main operating system, the Debian-based Raspbian, gets updated every two years or so. The last release, Jessie, came out in 2015, and now its replacement has arrived. Say hello to Stretch.

In case you were wondering, Debian releases are named after characters from Disney Pixar’s Toy Story trilogy. Jessie was the cowgirl introduced in Toy Story 2, and Stretch is a purple octopus from Toy Story 3. So what's new in the updated release?

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Last year, Samsung had quite the disaster with the Galaxy Note7 smartphone. Some of the devices were deemed to be fire hazards, due to overheating and exploding batteries. While the company did ultimately recall all of the devices, the process was poorly handled which lead to even more negative experiences. Things got so bad that those particular Samsung phones were banned from airplanes.

The Note7 fire issue is far behind the company at this point, and the brand is as strong as ever. In fact, the Galaxy Note8 is expected to be unveiled next week in NYC. Unfortunately, there is a new battery controversy surrounding the Galaxy Note line. You see, batteries in one of the older models are now being recalled for being counterfeit. Even worse, they can potentially cause a fire. Yikes!

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Malware threats have reached dangerously high levels, according to a new report that highlights the sheer scale of threats facing businesses today.

The latest Kaspersky Lab Malware report, covering the three months of Q2 2017, claims that Kaspersky Lab's products blocked more than five million attacks involving exploits in this time period.

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Businesses struggling to get their operations in order before the GDPR kicks in in May 2018 have been given a welcome helping hand from Rackspace.

The company has revealed the launch of a new Privacy and Data Protection (PDP) offering which will help companies ensure they are up to speed with the latest data protection legislation.

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Kodi is under the spotlight for third-party add-ons that allow pirated content, but it’s far from being the only way for users to view illegal TV shows and movies.

Roku has a feature called 'private channels' (also referred to as 'hidden channels') that is designed to allow developers to test their creations ahead of making them available through Roku’s own store. Perhaps inevitably though, some of these channels are being used to stream pirated (or adult) content, and Roku isn’t happy.

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