IBM allows China to take a look at its source code

IBM logo

IBM has allowed China to review the source code for some of its programs, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, but the details are scarce.

According to the media report, the deal between IBM and the Chinese government is a completely new practice, which was implemented recently. It allows the Chinese government to take a closer look at the source code behind some of IBM’s software, but does not allow for the code to be copied or tampered with in any way.

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Kalkules is a scientific calculator anyone can use

If you’re not mathematically inclined then it’s easy to assume that scientific calculators are too complex, out of your reach, not something you’ll ever need or use.

Kalkules is a free and portable scientific calculator for Windows which shows that isn’t necessarily true.

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Don't underestimate ransomware

The problem of ransomware isn’t getting better. Recent examples of widespread attacks, including CoinVault, CryptoLocker and CTB-Locker, show that ransomware has become an important part of the cyber-criminals’ arsenal.

Despite this worrying trend, a survey we, at Kaspersky Lab, conducted recently found that a mere 37 percent of companies across the globe actually consider this to be a serious danger: an oversight businesses simply can’t afford to make.

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There are just 6.5 million paying Apple Music users

Apple Music has managed to retain just 6.5 million subscribers willing to pay for the service four months after launch. Tim Cook has revealed that there are 15 million users in total at the moment, meaning that 8.5 million are making use of the free trial period.

Apple has previously claimed that it was managing to hang onto 79 percent of free trial users, converting them to paid subscribers, but these latest figures -- direct from Cook -- are at odds with this. But the real question is, how many of these paying subscribers simply forgot to cancel their subscription at the end of the trial period?

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Apple pulls hundreds of iOS apps from its store for privacy violations

More than 250 apps have been pulled from the Apple App Store for secretly gathering users' information including email addresses, device serial numbers and details of other installed apps.

Apple's action comes as a result of a report from analytics service SourceDNA which uncovered the apps built using an SDK from a Chinese advertising company called Youmi. This allowed them to access the information via private APIs and send it back to Youmi's servers.

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Microsoft is worryingly cagey about Surface Book benchmarks

The new baby in Microsoft's Surface family is the Surface Book. The convertible device has a striking look, as well as a striking price -- particularly if you opt for the newly announced 1TB model -- but Microsoft has been keen to promote performance.

At launch, the claim was made that the Surface Book is twice as powerful as a MacBook Pro. When the $3,199 1TB model was announced, Microsoft repeated the claim. Being quite a fan of evidence, I was intrigued by the fact that the claims were not being backed up with raw data from benchmarks. I asked Microsoft for more details, and found the company to be really quite cagey (and repetitive) in what it had to say.

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Facebook warns about government-sponsored attacks on accounts

It's one thing to have your Facebook account attacked, it's quite another to have it targeted by government-sponsored attackers. It seems as though attacks of this kind are on the increase, and Facebook has implemented a warning system for anyone whose account comes under such an attack.

But this is about more than just letting you know if someone has tried to log into your account without permission. Facebook believes that the problem is serious enough to suggest that anyone who receives such a warning should consider either formatting their computer, or buying a new one.

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MAINGEAR NOMAD 15 laptop has Skylake Core i7, NVIDIA GTX 980M, G-SYNC, and 4K

Typically, when consumers want a gaming PC, they will buy or build a desktop. This works well for those people with dedicated gaming areas in their home, but what if you need to move around a lot? What if you want to travel to a friend's house or lan party to game? A gaming laptop is the most convenient option (lugging a desktop around stinks).

If you are a nomadic gamer, always on the go, MAINGEAR has a laptop that could meet your needs. The appropriately named NOMAD 15  now has options for Intel Skylake Core i7, NVIDIA GTX 980M, G-SYNC, and 4K.

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Copyfish: free OCR and translation for Chrome

Copyfish is a free Chrome extension for extracting and translating text from images, videos, PDFs and more.

The package couldn’t be any easier to use. Click the Copyfish icon on your address bar, click and drag to draw a rectangle around your text, and wait: the OCR result is displayed in a few seconds, along with a translated version.

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How to manage a smooth Windows 10 migration

New releases of Microsoft’s flagship operating system are typically greeted with a combination of angst, curiosity, confusion, and dread in equal measure. However, I believe that Windows 10 is Microsoft’s next big achievement.

Breaking the cycle of numbered releases and device specific upgrades every few years, Windows 10 is giving modern IT users what they want, where they want it. With the upgrade strategy change, Microsoft is moving away from Windows as a product to Windows as a service. This makes complete sense on paper, but migration becomes a wholly different proposition to what many organizations have experienced before.

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Teradata releases the power of IoT data

Internet of things

The number of connected devices is increasing rapidly and producing large amounts of data. Extracting value from that data and gaining useful business insights from it though is a complex process.

Big data applications company Teradata is announcing two new software products that empower business users to uncover and operationalize the insights hidden within Internet of Things (IoT) data.

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NirSoft rates antivirus engines for false positives

If you regularly download small technical Windows tools then you’ll know they’re often incorrectly flagged as malware, even when from very trusted sources.

Which security companies are the worst offenders? Freeware developer NirSoft has released a report scoring Virustotal’s 57 antivirus engines for their response to its utilities.

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Lenovo unveils YOGA 900 convertible laptop and YOGA Home 900 portable All-in-One

Windows 10 hasn't just ushered in a new era at Microsoft, but it has inspired PC manufacturers too. The Windows OEMs are finally catching onto the fact that consumers are not interested in chintzy low-quality computers. Apple has proven that people want to buy and experience well-designed and well-engineered computers. They are willing to pay the premium. Companies like Dell and HP have released absolutely beautiful hardware as of late.

Today, it is Lenovo's turn to wow the tech world. Quite frankly, I think the company has achieved its goal in building impressive Windows 10 machines with its latest PCs. Its svelte YOGA 900 convertible laptop and YOGA Home 900 portable All-in-One computers are absolutely gorgeous, and feature both Intel Broadwell and Skylake processors. Hell, the YOGA 900 convertible laptop is the thinnest convertible Intel Core "i" laptop ever. Of course, these beautiful computers also carry hefty price tags, so you had better be prepared to pay.

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New feature helps drive sales team performance

Sales platforms tend to be based on historical data which means that they don't always take account of the effect of transactions that are already in the pipeline.

Activity-based sales specialist LevelEleven is launching a new feature called Pacing, which improves the ability for salespeople and managers to use their sales pipeline data in real time.

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Windows 10 users ignore Microsoft Edge for a reason

Microsoft should not be surprised to see Windows 10 users ignoring its Edge browser, or other stock programs for that matter. People will do that, especially when there is an alternative that better suits their needs. But, as a new leaked build shows, Microsoft does not want to give up the fight just yet.

Windows 10 users who want to switch away Microsoft Edge (or some of the stock apps) might soon get a prompt, asking them to give the program a chance while listing some of its main features. But, at this point, this feels like a terrible idea, one that will surely annoy users and make them ignore Microsoft's efforts in the future, no matter how good its software might be.

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