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Bluetooth headphones are very cool, but they have a huge problem -- they run on batteries. And so, while people seem happy to invest in expensive wireless options like Apple AirPods, when they run out of power, they can leave the consumer feeling quite foolish. Why? Because "old school" wired headphones never had this problem.

Sadly, many smartphone manufacturers have done away with 3.5mm audio jacks, making it harder than ever to use traditional headphones. Logitech wants to cater to fans of wires, however, as the company today launches the G333 wired USB-C gaming earphones with integrated microphone.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining momentum as a vital business resource as organizations discover new use cases in their efforts to improve processes, increase efficiency and automate costly, manual tasks. Industries such as financial services are ideal for AI-driven applications and a related technology, machine learning (ML), because they can bolster customer service and leverage data to increase competitiveness.

AI includes software that’s designed to work in ways similar to the human brain, while machine learning encompasses programs that alter themselves based on data that’s fed into the programs in order to train them.

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Cybercriminals had a busy year in 2020, with rapidly increasing numbers of distributed denial of service (DDoS) weapons, widespread botnet activity, and some of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded. As COVID-19 drove an urgent shift online for everything from education and healthcare, to consumer shopping, to office work, hackers had more targets available than ever -- many of them under protected due to the difficulty of maintaining security best practices in an emergency scenario.

At the same time, the ongoing rollout of 5G technologies has accelerated the proliferation of IoT and smart devices around the world, making unsuspecting new recruits available for botnet armies to launch crushing attacks on a massive scale.  

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Business conversations have included digital transformation for decades. However, more recent innovations have made it much easier for businesses to seamlessly integrate digital technology into their operations. 

While these technologies improve efficiency, support personalization, and promote safety, they also challenge risk managers to protect company information, prevent data breaches, and reduce potential threats that can accompany doing business with third-party vendors.

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Cybercriminals are using more sophisticated ransomware tactics and more dangerous variants, like Ryuk, to earn an easy payday. This has seen a 62 percent increase globally and a 158 percent spike in North America since 2019.

The latest Cyber Threat Report from SonicWall highlights how COVID-19 has provided threat actors with opportunities for more powerful, aggressive and numerous attacks, thriving on the fear and uncertainty of remote and mobile work forces navigating corporate networks from home.

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Today’s business leaders are faced with competing challenges and uncharted waters as they continue to navigate the impacts of COVID-19. During the past year, we’ve seen a rise in e-commerce and increased reliance on the cloud to facilitate communications and collaboration and support contactless services.

As business and IT decision makers look to capitalize on new or existing cloud investments and accelerate digital transformation efforts, implementing nimble IT resources is an essential component of the process and will set businesses up for long-term success. Getting the most out of their investment means taking advantage of every opportunity to improve operations and customer experiences through seamless integrations. One such technology that can help in this regard is APIs.

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If you are a Linux user, you can't go wrong with Intel. That company's processors, chipsets, wireless cards, and other hardware have long been very compatible with Linux-based operating systems. An all-Intel system should be a headache-free experience with Linux. If you want to game or do other graphic-intensive actions, however, an NVIDIA GPU has historically been the best option -- a better experience than AMD graphics cards.

Nowadays, AMD-based systems are Linux-friendly too, and Radeon graphics are becoming more commonplace in computers running Linux distros. Today, popular Linux-based computer-seller System76 finally launches its first-ever laptop to have both an AMD processor and AMD graphics -- the 2021 "Pangolin" that we told you about in December. This is not only historic for System76, but it is a godsend for Linux users that are fans of AMD.

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Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is used by 90 percent of enterprises as the primary source of trust for identity and access, but it's also exploited in many cyberattacks.

Since AD is rarely safeguarded effectively, attackers have come to depend on weak configurations to identify attack paths, access privileged credentials and get a foothold in target networks.

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Understandably, more and more people are choosing laptops these days, as they are more convenient for those that need to work on the go. By utilizing a docking station, you can usually turn notebooks into makeshift desktops too. With all of that said, true desktops do provide better expandability, upgradeability, and sometimes, better performance too. And so, some consumers are better off with a desktop PC.

If you are in the market for a Windows 10 desktop, you can't go wrong with Dell's XPS Desktop. Today, the company refreshes this beautiful desktop with 11th Gen Intel Core processors. It even comes with an optical drive (DVD-RW or Blu-ray burner) -- something that has become quite rare on modern computers.

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The latest Quarterly Threat Insights Report from HP shows that 29 percent of malware captured between October and December 2020 was previously unknown, due to the widespread use of packers and obfuscation techniques by attackers seeking to evade detection.

In addition 88 percent of malware was delivered by email into users' inboxes, in many cases having bypassed gateway filters. It took 8.8 days, on average, for threats to become known by hash to antivirus engines, giving hackers over a week’s head-start on their campaigns.

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German cybersecurity company Avira is launching a new security for Mac product with free as well as premium versions, developed from the ground up on Apple’s latest tech stack.

The all-in-one solution blocks and removes threats, enables worry-free browsing, shopping and payment through real-time protection, and protects data with VPN encryption.

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If you've installed Windows 10 updates this month, you may well have started to experience problems with printing, as well as seeing blue screens with an APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error. After acknowledging the problem, Microsoft initially offered a workaround, but now the company has released a proper fix for the issue.

The fix takes the form of an out-of-band update for Windows 10 as Microsoft rushed to patch the bug introduced by the March 2021 cumulative updates. In all, there are four patches to install, each for different builds of Windows -- KB5001565, KB5001566, KB5001567 and KB5001568.

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Kodi is an excellent open source media player that provides the user with an immersive experience. While the software gets a bad reputation due to people using it for piracy, many folks only use it for legal media consumption. As more and more illegal Kodi add-on maintainers face legal trouble, and streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ remain competitively priced, fewer folks are seeking pirated content nowadays.

Not familiar with LibreELEC? Please know it is a Linux distribution that exists solely to run Kodi. It supports many hardware configurations, including traditional x86_64 for PC and some ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi 4. Following the release of Kodi 19 "Matrix," LibreELEC 10 BETA 1 finally becomes available for download. Sadly, support for the Raspberry Pi 0 and 1 is now discontinued.

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When you are a system builder, there are certain important aspects that can sometimes get overlooked. For instance, many builders will opt for a cheap power supply and then wonder why their system crashes or is unstable. I know a PSU isn't as exciting as a CPU, GPU, or RAM, but it is still an important component.

Another overlooked thing? Thermal paste -- that gooey stuff that sits between your processor and its cooler. True, some CPU coolers come with pre-applied thermal paste nowadays. And yes, that stuff is probably fine for most regular users. If you care about cooling, however, and you plan to overclock or game, you should wipe off that pre-applied junk and apply a better compound.

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When the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent UK lockdowns are discussed, much of the focus is on the negative impact on the economy, our physical health, and our mental health. But, while the damaging effects are unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed, it’s not all doom and gloom.

While many businesses have suffered as a result of the pandemic, others have flourished. Exercise equipment, homeware, DIY, and gardening retailers, amongst others, were some of the businesses that flourished during the first national lockdown. When it comes to business-to-business, technology providers, ecommerce sites, video conferencing software solutions, and healthcare providers led the way. So did the companies who tapped into their services.

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