Latest Technology News

Branching out into yet another field, Amazon has launched its own pet product brand, Wag.

This is not the first time the company has launched an own-label product -- it has already enjoyed success with household goods and baby products. Available to Amazon Prime subscribers, the Wag line starts off with dry dog food, but it will expand into further supplies soon.

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Earlier today, LG revealed its latest Android flagship smartphone. It is called the "G7 ThinQ" and oh wow, it looks damn nice! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised -- LG has long made impressive smartphones. With the exception of the fairly terrible LG G5, both its "G" and "V" series have been consistently great.

This new G7 ThinQ has something that may annoy you, however -- a notch. Yeah, all the manufacturers seem to be copying the iPhone X in this regard. It's a very polarizing topic -- some folks like a notch, while others hate it. Me? I don't really care either way, to be honest. LG has taken a cool approach to handling the notch on the G7 ThinQ, however. You see, using software trickery, you can make the notch disappear -- sort of. The top of the screen gets filled in with black, so it appears there is no notch. Some may call this gimmicky. I call it clever. And it is.

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While many companies seem to focus on a race to the bottom these days, offering low-cost and low-quality devices, Huawei has taken a much different approach. You see, Huawei makes extremely elegant tech products that are also affordable. If you buy one of its tablets, laptops, or smartphones, you will be in for a treat. They are well-designed and won't break the bank. Quite frankly, you can tell the company truly cares about what it produces -- Huawei wants its customers to be delighted, and it succeeds.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is a favorite of mine. I have been testing the Android smartphone recently and I am very impressed by the build quality, performance, and exceptional camera. With Mother's Day soon approaching, it's definitely a device you should consider buying for your mom. If she has been wanting a new smartphone, the Mate 10 Pro will make her very happy. If you can't afford a new smartphone for your mother this year, do not worry -- we here at BetaNews are giving one away!

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A new study of password and account security on 55 of the world's most popular travel-related sites reveals that 89 percent leave their users' accounts potentially exposed to hackers due to unsafe password practices.

The research by password management company Dashlane tested each website on five critical password and account security criteria. A site received a point for each criterion it met, for a maximum score of 5/5. Any score below 4/5 was considered failing and not meeting the minimum threshold for good password security.

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Workload automation specialist Turbonomic has released a major update to its software, delivering application-aware infrastructure and making any type of workload -- virtual, cloud and container -- self-managing.

Turbonomic's AI-powered decision engine analyzes performance, cost and compliance data across the entire IT stack and generates trustworthy decisions at scale faster than before.

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Samsung’s flagship smartphones get a lot of coverage, but not everyone can afford the latest state-of-the-art handsets. The South Korean tech giant offers a number of more affordable devices, and today it announces the Galaxy A6 and A6+.

The new phones feature powerful front and rear cameras, Super AMOLED screens and Samsung’s signature Infinity Display, offering an 18.5:9 screen ratio. The larger Galaxy A6+’s Dual Camera has a Live Focus mode, meaning users can control the depth of field and bokeh effect before or after taking a shot.

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A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in two Schneider Electric applications heavily used in manufacturing, oil and gas, water, automation and wind and solar power facilities.

The vulnerability, discovered by cyber exposure company Tenable, could, if exploited, give cyber criminals complete control of the underlying system.

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Your web browser remembers every page you visit, making it easy to return to a site you saw earlier. Timeline is a similar idea, but for the latest version of Windows 10.

It remembers all of the different tasks, apps and files you’ve been working on, across your various Windows devices. In future it will even work with Microsoft’s many iOS and Android apps, and maybe third-party apps too.

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Microsoft has just released another huge update to Windows 10. The April 2018 Update introduces lots of new features and general improvements, including Timeline, and Focus Assist, as well as some lesser known improvements.

Of course, a big update like this requires a big download, and the files that Microsoft places on your system don’t get removed afterwards. In other words, the April 2018 Update could be responsible for taking a massive bite out of your free hard drive space -- tens of gigabytes in fact. Fortunately it’s easy enough to reclaim this.

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The most common infection vectors are still email phishing and drive-by downloads according to the latest threat report from AI security specialist Cylance.

The report provides a real-world glimpse into major cyber threats that affected Cylance’s customer base in 2017. Along with industry trends and analysis, and data from thousands of government entities and organizations of all sizes across 160 countries that have adopted a prevention-first approach to security.

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Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time with companies across different industries, listening and working to understand their unique needs. As their respective landscapes evolve, it’s clear that each of them is looking for technology that accelerates the execution of their most imperative objectives. With that in mind, I want to take a look at a few specific industries, examining issues they face as well as their plans for innovating for the future. First up: financial services.

From my perspective, there are three pivotal shifts underway.

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Best friends are hard to come by. Once the right one is found, we tend to make conscious choices to invest in those relationships in order to build the right foundation for the future. Unfortunately for many CIOs, it’s a pretty short list of applicants. As organizations change and grow, CIOs will be the resident experts on things like big data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and automation. Not only is this a weighty charge, CIOs are at the forefront of change management, which can feel isolating as they forge new paths.

Now, as automation becomes mainstream, many CIOs are finding an unlikely ally: the robots themselves. But, just like our real-life best friends, it’s important that CIOs choose wisely. By taking the right path to deployment and unleashing the true benefits, CIOs can ensure that their new best friends will be around for the long haul. Here are three ways CIOs can partner with robots to make the most of the relationship.

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These days, thanks to smartphones and tablets, consumers are quite adept at typing on glass. Believe it or not, this was not an easy transition. Many early smartphones had physical keyboards, making typing a better experience. Ultimately, screen real estate won out, and consumers preferred all-screen devices, such as the iPhone.

Unfortunately, while typing on a touch screen smartphone is very doable, it isn't exactly a comfortable or productive affair. When possible, most people would probably prefer to use a larger physical keyboard. Battery-powered Bluetooth keyboards make this possible, and one model in particular -- the Logitech Keys-To-Go -- is extremely portable, making it easy to throw in a bag. Today, Logitech unveils three new color options for this popular product.

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For almost a decade, most of us using Facebook have trusted it with our personal data. We shared pictures, locations of fun places we visited, friends --old and new -- with whom we connected, 'liked' activities, and much more.

And we did this not knowing our personal information was being used in ways beyond anyone's comprehension. As we watch the Facebook story unfold, we may wonder whether this crisis could have been avoided had personal data privacy and governance been better handled. Such initiatives could be complex and expensive for any company, but is it fair to say there are no shortcuts to this approach? How prepared is any company that relies on personal data?

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At its F8 conference today, Facebook revealed details of an upcoming tool it is working on --- Clear History. The tool will let Facebook users not only see which sites and apps gather information about usage, but also let users delete this information.

The privacy-centric tool comes as the social network slowly comes to the realization "that people want more information about how Facebook works and the controls they have over their information". The ability to delete browsing histories from Facebook appears to be a direct response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which private data was shared without consent.

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