• Article

Last week it was discovered that all it takes to crash an iPhone is a text message. Send the string of characters to an iPhone-owning friend (or foe) and boom, instant restart for them.

Skype users are beginning to discover that they’re the victims of a similar bug. As originally reported by VentureBeat, and confirmed by ourselves, sending a certain 8-character message causes Skype to crash, and receiving it results in the app crashing every time you try to sign in.

Continue reading →

When buying a laptop, there are some specific things you should look for, such as RAM, storage and battery life. You should also pick the size and weight that best meets your needs. When choosing a processor, however, you should really do your homework. Not all processors are created equal -- you can have two with identical clock speeds with extremely different performance.

Today, AMD announces its all-new 6th generation A-Series notebook processors (previously referred to as "Carizzo") and you should definitely take notice. Not only are these new notebook processors very powerful, but extremely capable too. Will your next laptop be powered by a 6th gen A-Series processor?

Continue reading →

Besides being a video game console, the PlayStation 4 is also a media machine. Quite frankly, along with the Xbox One, it is one of the best such media players, since it can play Blu-ray and all of the popular streaming services. You can even buy and download films to the internal 500GB hard drive.

Unfortunately, Sony's console does not come with a remote control; the user is expected to control their media with the game controller. True, if a users wants a proper remote, they can buy a third-party Bluetooth variant, but what if they want one remote to handle all of their devices? Today is their lucky day. You see, Logitech Harmony remotes with Hub can now control the console. Unfortunately, there is a big catch.

Continue reading →

Many (OK, most) people use Google to conduct their web searches, and why not? It is a great search engine which I use regularly too.  However, it is important to remember that there are other choices available too. While some talk up the privacy benefits of DuckDuckGo, I find its results to be lacking. For me, besides Google, the only other worthy search engine is Bing. Not only does Microsoft's search engine offer great results, but it is pretty too. While Google's search interface is bare-bones, Bing offers a more visually pleasing experience with beautiful photos.

If you are a Bing fan like me, you would probably like to visit the Bing Headquarters for a tour right? Of course you would; that would be friggin' awesome! Guess what? This can become a reality. Simply enter the Ultimate Bing Experience III sweepstakes and you and a friend might win a trip to Seattle on August 10, 2015.

Continue reading →

Today the US Senate passed the USA Freedom Act without amendments, signalling the start of the significant surveillance reform that has been called for since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the agency's activities. It had already been determined that the bulk collection of phone metadata was illegal, and the expiry of Section 215 of the Patriot Act at the end of May brought this data collection to an end anyway.

The USA Freedom Act sets in concrete the end of the phone data collection program and is seen as a major victory for privacy advocates. It will come as good news to Snowden himself who will undoubtedly feel a sense of relief that his risk-taking paid off. The bill is still to be signed into law by President Obama, but this is now little more than a formality.

Continue reading →

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is more usually associated with social networking, but the company has its fingers in plenty of other pies as well -- including Internet.org. Now the company is expanding its Facebook AI Research (FAIR) program to help with the automatic sorting and analysis of pictures, videos, text, and other data.

Facebook already has research teams looking into artificial intelligence in Menlo Park and New York, and the expansion sees the creation of a new team in Paris. The aim is create system that make it easier to manage the ever-growing quantities of data that are generated day in, day out by Facebook users.

Continue reading →

Most current user interfaces rely on some form of two-step interaction, point and click, or tap and lift, or press and hold for example.

The latest development from Quantum Interface promises to deliver a more seamless experience by using predictive navigation to infer user choices before they're made.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's turnaround under Satya Nadella is both striking and awe-inspiring. For a while there, Microsoft was seemingly uncool, Windows 8 was despised and the company's mobile presence was horrid. Now? Microsoft is arguably cooler than both Apple and Google, Windows 10 looks to be its best operating system ever, and it has an arsenal of great cross-platform apps, such as Office, Skype, OneNote and Outlook.

Today, Microsoft continues its impressive upward trajectory and acquires one of the best to-do services available -- Wunderlist.

Continue reading →

In today’s fast-paced business world, driving efficiency is often at the heart of growth plans. When thoroughly planned, outsourcing plays a vital role in ensuring productivity is high, enabling managers to focus on business development and disruptive innovation.

However, some organizations cause irreparable damage to their business by outsourcing too early, while others risk falling behind to more innovative competitors by ignoring the opportunities available; and some companies outsource the wrong mix of activities. It’s unclear whether this balancing act is why the outsourcing market in the UK declined in Q1 compared to the same period last year, although it could also imply a wariness to trust third parties with internal business processes.

Continue reading →

When a consumer is ready to buy a new smartphone, they primarily have two options -- iPhone or Android. While both of those options are great, a duopoly can be harmful to consumers. Having more options is preferable. True, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Firefox OS are options, but hardly lighting the world on fire. Can any mobile platform truly compete?

For many, Ubuntu is the light at the end of the tunnel. Whether it will ultimately be a success is unknown, but it certainly has a chance. Today, the latest and greatest phone running Canonical's operating system is released -- the BQ Aquaris E5 HD Ubuntu Edition.

Continue reading →

Purchasing IT equipment is an expense for any company, big or small. But you don’t always have to make big purchases in order to supply your employees with the means to do their jobs properly.

A lot of companies, especially SMEs and new startups will make the most of IT hire companies. With these suppliers, you can hire everything from laptops and desktops to printers and iPads. With such a vast selection of choice you can be sure your company will have all the IT equipment they could ever need without spending large amounts of money. And the benefits of hiring your IT equipment don’t stop there. Hiring IT equipment can actually help your business grow. And if you’re curious as to how it can do that, then we suggest you read on.

Continue reading →

New research by cloud storage specialist CTERA Networks highlights the challenges that enterprises face in providing cloud storage and file sharing services, while reducing IT costs and maintaining security and data control.

It shows that security of data remains a major issue with 35 percent of organizations experiencing corporate data leakage in 2014 as a result of employees sharing files via often-unsanctioned file sync and share (FSS) services, a four percent increase over 2013.

Continue reading →

In the digital age, money is rapidly evolving into lines of computer code which can easily be hacked, ransomed or stolen by organized criminal gangs (OCGs).

While computerized digital transactions have been instrumental in promoting international commerce and the creation of what is becoming a global economy, they come with a price. The fact that much of the world’s wealth is now stored on computer servers means that this wealth can be stolen or ransomed by cyber criminals. There are also fears that cyber terrorists, possibly state activists in the pay of a foreign power, might simply wipe all records of a significant proportion of the West’s wealth in order to create economic chaos and a financial meltdown.

Continue reading →

Consumers love getting personal, timely and relevant offers from retailers but they don't like having to share the data that makes them possible.

This is one of the main findings of new research by predictive marketing and consumer intelligence specialist Boxever. Of 507 consumers surveyed more than 60 percent indicated they prefer offers that are targeted to where they are and what they are doing, but 62 percent said that they don't want retailers tracking their location.

Continue reading →

ERightSoft’s veteran encoder SUPER has been updated to build 65 with new support for playing and encoding HEVC/H.265 4K video streams.

There’s no extra work involved to make this happen. Just choose an Output Video Codec as usual, and HEVC/H.265 appears in the "may not play on QuickTime" list for any appropriate container.

Continue reading →