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Distracted driving isn't just stupid, it is dangerous too. If you aren't paying attention, instead opting to look at your smartphone while in the driver's seat, you aren't only risking your life, but more importantly, the lives of countless other drivers sharing the road with you. Don't do it.

Thankfully, there have been huge improvements with hands free communication. Not to mention, thanks to virtual voice assistants, you can perform tasks without taking your eyes off the road too. The problem? Some people drive with their phone in their pocket, meaning the voice assistant can't hear its wake word, such as "Alexa" or "Hey, Google." This can also happen in loud environments, such as when music is playing or when kids are fighting in the backseat. A new product from Anker called "Roav Bolt" aims to improve the Google Assistant experience in the car.

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In 2018 bad bots accounted for one in five website requests (20.4 percent of web traffic), while good bots decreased slightly to make up 17.5 percent of traffic.

This is among the findings of Distil Networks' latest annual Bad Bot Report which investigated hundreds of billions of bad bot requests from 2018 over thousands of domains to provide deeper insight into the daily automated attacks.

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A new survey of IoT developers reveals their top concerns are security (38 percent of respondents), connectivity (21 percent), and data collection and analysis (19 percent).

Performance (18 percent), privacy (18 percent), and standards (16 percent) are also areas cited as particularly challenging. These findings come from The Eclipse Foundation which has surveyed more than 1,700 developers via its IoT Working Group.

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As well as revealing the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition yesterday, Microsoft also has another treat in store for gamers -- the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Just as there had been rumors about the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition ahead of the announcement, there had also been talk about this new combined subscription. Due to launch at an undisclosed time later this year after beta testing, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate combines the existing Game Pass with Xbox Live Gold, all for $14.99 per month.

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The rise of edge devices, customer service terminals, digital signage and so on has led to increased demand for embedded processing.

Chip maker AMD is expanding its offering in this market with the launch of the new Ryzen Embedded R1000 Series SoC. This offers embedded customers dual core, quad-threaded performance, as well as the ability to run fanless, low power solutions for 4K displays, while providing leading-edge security features.

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After a wave of apparently unexpected complaints, Microsoft has announced that it is to restore the TechNet and MSDN blogs it recently started to retire.

The company warns that this is not something that's going to happen overnight -- there is a lot of content to re-activate -- but the announcement is great news for anyone who has found the blogs to be invaluable sources of information.

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Intel has announced that it is to leave the 5G smartphone modem business and will assess the opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in PCs, as well as data-centric and IoT devices.

While Intel has not indicated a link between the two announcements, the news comes just after Apple and Qualcomm said they are bringing their legal battles to an end. It means that Intel will not supply the modem for the 5G iPhone, but the company says it will continue to invest in its 5G network infrastructure business.

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Download-only gaming for home consoles is certainly the future. It is definitely not the present, however. I can envision all next-generation game consoles being produced without any optical drive or card slot, but to do that with a current-gen system would be asinine. And so, Microsoft has done it.

Yes, the worst kept secret in the video game community is officially announced today. As the leaks suggested, Microsoft unveiled the "Xbox One S All-Digital Edition." What does "all-digital" mean? Well, apparently, the Windows-maker thought optical discs were analog, as this branding simply means the Blu-ray drive has been removed. Yeah, the name sort of makes no sense. In other words, Microsoft hopes you will be crazy enough to buy download-only games at the tail end of the Xbox One's life. You won't fall for that trickery, will you?

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The latest -- and last -- series of the biggest TV show in the world kicked off on Sunday, and brought in some big numbers for HBO. 17.4 million viewers tuned in for the season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones, either watching live on TV or streaming the show on HBO GO or HBO Now.

Quentin Schaffer, executive vice president of corporate communications for HBO, is expecting the number to build further, saying it "could eventually surpass the viewing average last year of 33 million per episode". But while it’s all great news for HBO, piracy remains a dragon-sized problem. Straight after the first episode aired, Torrent Freak reported that over 120,000 BitTorrent users were actively sharing copies of it. That’s not HBO’s only concern however.

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Apple and Qualcomm have been suing each other since January 2017. The iPhone maker first sued Qualcomm for over $1 billion, contending that the chip maker was overcharging for its patent licenses, and in response Qualcomm counter-sued and tried to get iPhones banned in a number of countries, siting patent infringement.

In total, there were over 80 ongoing lawsuits in effect globally between the two tech firms, and yesterday saw the start of what was expected to be a three-week trial in a federal court in San Diego.

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Back in the day, people would have several remote controls in their living room, for things like TVs, DVD players, and stereos to name a few. It was messy and confusing, and quite frankly, caused arguments in households. Remotes were constantly misplaced, and some non-savvy family members would often get frustrated by never knowing which remote to use.

The universal remote solved that dilemma, but it caused yet another -- even though there was just one remote, there were too many buttons. Sitting down and watching TV or a DVD should be a mindless affair, where you don't need to look at the remote -- muscle memory should be able to get you through. Today, Logitech aims to revolutionize the world of media consumption with the Harmony Express -- a remote that is compact, has minimal buttons, and best of all, has Alexa built in! Logitech claims it is compatible with over 250,000 devices too.

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Having faced accusations of conducting espionage on behalf of the Chinese government, Huawei has lashed out at the US government, accusing officials of being "ignorant of technology".

Huawei has been hit with numerous bans by the US, and the country has encouraged others around the world to follow its lead. But the company's chief security officer, John Suffolk, says there is no evidence that China could make use of Huawei's 5G equipment to spy on people, suggesting that US allegations were politically motivated.

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We tend to think of hacking communities as being concentrated in the Far East or the former Soviet bloc, but of course there hackers elsewhere that we don't hear so much about.

Researchers at Recorded Future have been investigating hacking communities around the world, and their latest report covers Brazil.

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People tell us they are becoming increasingly wary of using third-party browsers such as those from Opera, Chrome and Firefox. It might come as a surprise, but many average users will opt to stick with their default OS browser, Edge, and a powerful security suite to keep themselves secure.

The question is, is this the most secure way of surfing the web in 2019? Could the connection between your computer and the internet be made more rock solid? Well, Avast certainly thinks so.

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As companies store ever larger amounts of data, the current solutions and services available to handle it become more and more costly and difficult to manage.

To address these challenges, Boston-based CHAOSSEARCH is launching a new platform that delivers rapid search and analytics through a managed service, based on simple, elastic storage.

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