Latest Technology News

Twitter introduces Happening Now to keep you up to date with sport and more

Twitter may have a bookmarking system in the works, but there are new features that are already rolling out to users. The latest addition is called Happening Now which will be used to highlight tweets about a particular topic.

It's a feature that's not a million miles removed from the existing Moments feature, but Twitter seems to think it's what people want. To start with, Happening Now is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US and it will highlight sports. Over time, however, it will expand to other parts of the world and cover different events as well.

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Twitter not only changes its mind about 'inflammatory' ad, it's going to change its policies too

Twitter was accused of censorship after banning an "inflammatory" ad campaign by Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn. But just one day after implementing the ban, the company has backed down, saying the video -- which sees Blackburn talking about fighting to stop "the sale of baby body parts" -- can be promoted on Twitter.

Despite maintaining its belief that the video contains inflammatory language, Twitter now says that it is permissible within the context of the ad. Furthermore, the company says that it will "refine" its policies around the issue.

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Telemetry: OxygenOS secretly collects user data, sending OnePlus a wealth of information

OxygenOS, the customized version of Android used by OnePlus on its smartphones, has been found to be collecting data about users -- and it's not anonymized. Telemetry is something that has been associated with Windows 10, but now the Chinese smartphone manufacturer has its fans concerned.

That a phone collects certain information about usage is not particularly unusual -- it helps to identify problems and speed up software development. But a security researcher's discovery that his OnePlus 2 was sending highly detailed information back to OnePlus without consent has set privacy alarm bells ringing (the issue also affects more recent OnePlus handsets). OnePlus might prefer that you spend your time thinking about the upcoming OnePlus 5T and OnePlus 6, but this tale of telemetry is going to dominate for a little while.

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Hackers using websites to mine cryptocurrencies

Cyber-security experts are warning that criminals are hacking into other people's machines to mine cryptocurrencies for them.

According to a Trend Micro report, school, charity and file-sharing websites have been found infected with a particular code that makes the visitor's machine mine cryptocurrency.

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Newegg makes it easier for consumers to build a PC

Once you build your first PC, it is hard to go back to buying pre-built machines. Not only is building a computer a great learning experience, but it is very personal too. You get to pick every component of your PC, piece by piece. It is super rewarding and very fun.

Unfortunately, a first build can go very wrong. It is not uncommon for first-timers to buy the wrong parts. Compatibility aside, they can dedicate too much of their budget on a certain component, when they should be putting more money towards another. If you have an unlimited budget it can be quite easy, but come on, not many people can claim that. Thankfully, online retailer Newegg is launching new kits that put "newbies" on the right track.

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FormBook malware attacks target US and South Korea

malware alert

High-volume FormBook malware distribution campaigns have targeted businesses in the aerospace, defense contractor and manufacturing sectors according to new research from cybersecurity company FireEye.

The attackers behind these campaigns employed a variety of delivery methods to distribute this information stealing malware including PDFs with download links, DOC and XLS files which contained malicious macros and ZIP, RAR, ACE and ISO archive files containing executable payloads.

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Email is scammers' favorite platform

Phishing

Email is still the number one cybercrime infection vector, but it's far from being the only one you should be paying attention to. A new whitepaper from Symantec, entitled ISTR, says business email compromise as well as spam are also dangerous players in the game.

Here are the numbers: email is the most popular platform among scammers. One in nine email users have had a malicious email sent to them in the first six months of this year. And that's just the global average. In the Wholesale Trade industry, that figure jumps to one in every four users.

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PornHub users hit by sustained, targeted malvertising campaign

Malware shield

Millions of PornHub users in the US, UK, Canada and Australia were targeted by a malicious advertising campaign lasting for more than a year. The malvertising attack tried to trick users of the world's most popular porn site into installing fake browser updates.

Security researchers from Proofpoint found that PornHub users had been exposed to Kovter ad fraud malware for over a year. The KovCoreG group is believed to be responsible for distributing the Kovter ad fraud malware, so if you've visited PornHub recently, it might be a good idea to check your system for signs of infection.

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How to check that you're using the real Adblock Plus Chrome extension

News broke recently that a fake version of the Adblock Plus browser extension had made its way into the Chrome Web store. It is thought that 37,000 people installed the phony version, and now Adblock Plus -- the real one -- has responded to the news.

While acknowledging that the fake extension was removed from the store fairly quickly, Adblock Plus questions how it got there in the first place. It also provides instructions for anyone who is concerned that they may have a malicious version of the extension installed.

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Microsoft invites you to report malicious and phishing websites as it crowdsources security

Microsoft is opening itself up to submissions from the public, making it possible for people to provide information about malicious websites. A new page on the Windows Defender Security Intelligence (WDSI) website gives anyone the opportunity to pass on details of phishing sites and other malicious pages directly to Microsoft.

The WDSI portal is described by Microsoft as being in preview, so it's possible that what you see now may change over time.

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Look what's back! It's only Twitterrific 5 for Mac

It seems like an eternity since we last used Twitterrific. It was a hugely popular Twitter client for the Mac and was our go-to tool for ages. Development slipped and we switched to other tools such as the official Twitter tool.

Sadly, the official Twitter client is awful. It’s resource-heavy and direct messages can take ages to go through and we often see messages appear on our iPhone or iPad, minutes before they hit our Mac. A frustrating experience, but at least it’s free.

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Kodi: Users who stream illegal content should 'Bugger off'

A week ago, Kodi took to Twitter to express its hatred for popular third-party add-ons site TVAddons, claiming that it should be shut down as it brought "nothing but misery to everyone."

The media software developer has continued its war of words since, attacking not only TVAddons again, but also end users, stating that anyone who uses Kodi to stream content illegally "can just bugger off and never come back." And that’s not all.

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New platform cuts the cost of using Google BigQuery

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Companies often have multiple business intelligence tools deployed across different departments. This means IT teams can end up having to build data pipelines dedicated to each tool at the cost of agility and resources.

BI and big data specialist AtScale is launching its latest platform, AtScale 6.0, which aims to help users deploy analytical workloads on Google BigQuery, cut costs and speed up delivery of results.

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Banks targeted in hybrid debit card scam

ATM keypad

Researchers at SpiderLabs, the research arm of Trustwave have released results of their investigations into a major attack targeting Eastern European banks.

The attack uses mules to open new accounts with minimal deposits and, crucially, request a debit card. When the new card is delivered it's shipped elsewhere and hackers then use stolen credentials to manipulate the bank's systems and raise the overdraft limit, allowing cash to be drawn from ATMs.

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Install Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Bloatware Free Edition now

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is due to begin its rollout on October 17, but if you want to install it right now, and without joining the Windows Insider Program, you can.

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Bloatware Free Edition isn’t an official release from Microsoft -- it’s a special edition built using the MSMG Toolkit v7.7 and the latest Windows 10 Fall Creators Update RTM Build 16299.15. As you can tell from the name, the Bloatware Free Edition removes a lot of unwanted extras from the OS.

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