Fujitsu wants to sell its smartphone business

Fujitsu

Fujitsu is preparing to sell off its mobile phone operations as the company faces increasing competition from its larger rivals in the mobile phone space.

Last February, the Japanese manufacturer decided to spin off both its mobile phone and PC businesses into separate companies in an effort to differentiate its offerings.

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Ouch, that hurts! Verizon's new Unlimited plans throttle customers

angry

I should have known better. Once burned is supposed to be twice as wary. Right? Disgruntled by pricing and other policies, in autumn 2015, I took my family from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile, which cut our monthly bill by more than one-third. But in May of this year we made the trek back in part because data speed is so much faster from my apartment than it is with Magenta. Better Red than dead, eh? Wrong. Oh, dumbass me. Un-carrier's aggressive pricing, and Verizon's first-ever quarterly loss of post-paid subscribers, compelled the nation's largest carrier to respond—by, starting in February, to offer comparable unlimited plan that for my family of five lines would cost just $20 more a month while delivering superior, speedy service. But what Red gave, it now takes away. I regret the decision.

Today's unlimited cellular service plan changes suck some of the most important value from all that extra bandwidth. What good is having something you can't use? Henceforth, Verizon will offer two consumer options—one (Go Unlimited) that throttles streaming video to 480p on smartphones and costlier option Beyond Unlimited that reduces quality to 720p. Go is essentially priced the same as the older unlimited plan, and it takes away even more: Tethering (e.g. Mobile Hotspot) is capped at 600kbps. There's no 4G LTE for you, baby!

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DDoS attacks increase by 28 percent in Q2 2017

DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks are seeing a major rise as hackers seek more diverse threats, according to new research.

The latest State of the Internet/Security Report from Akamai reveals that the number of DDoS attacks increased by 28 percent in the second quarter of 2017, following three consecutive quarters of activity decline, as attacks from the PBot malware hit a new high.

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Samsung announces Galaxy Note8 -- here's what you need to know

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

The Galaxy Note8 is the most important smartphone that Samsung launches this year. Its predecessor nearly killed the high-end series, which is why Samsung cannot afford to make any mistakes with its latest flagship: the Galaxy Note8 has to be great. No pressure there, right?

The good news is that the Galaxy Note8 does not disappoint: it has all the right features that you expect from a high-end smartphone and a clear edge over the Galaxy S8, which is unquestionably the best smartphone Samsung sells today.

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AI-powered analytics unlock commercial relationship data

Artificial intelligence

Details of the deals that a business has with other organizations are usually locked up in contracts or other documents such that valuable information is either not readily available or easily overlooked.

California-based Pramata is launching a suite of analytic applications that can identify critical information in existing contracts and combine it with data from business systems such as CRM and billing to benefit commercial relationships.

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What is Google Chrome Enterprise?

Samsung Chromebook Pro

Chromebooks are gaining traction because they are simple, easy to use and offer great value. For consumers, they can be fantastic options. For enterprises, however, Chrome OS needs to go the extra mile in order to become more attractive.

Google is well aware of the longer list of needs that enterprises have, as compared to consumers, which is why it has introduced a new plan, called Chrome Enterprise, that adds a whole host of new features designed specifically with business customers in mind.

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New portal helps developers integrate payment solutions

Mobile cash

One of the keys to monetizing apps is to have an effective and easy to use payments solution built in. Payment solutions company Qualpay is aiming to make this process easier by offering a portal to make the selection of systems easier.

Qualpay for Developers allows developers looking for easy-to-implement payment APIs to use the portal to evaluate and deploy multiple payment solutions or work with Qualpay to tailor the platform for specific environments.

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Microsoft will never again sneakily force Windows downloads on users

Windows 10 box

There have been various controversies with Windows 10, from issues with privacy and telemetry, to ads and forced upgrades. Following a court case, Microsoft has vowed to never force upgrade files onto users again.

Windows users in Germany were particularly unimpressed when Microsoft forcibly downloaded many gigabytes of files to upgrade from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10. Having held out for 18 months, and losing its case twice, Microsoft has finally agreed to stop its nefarious tactics.

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Watch the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 launch event here -- live!

Galaxy_Note_8

After the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Note7, Samsung is surely hoping that the Galaxy Note 8 will be rather more successful and rather less fire-prone. The handset is due to be revealed later on today, and you can watch the event live so you get the news as soon as it breaks.

As is usual for any major phone launch, there have been the normal round of leaks and rumors surrounding the Galaxy Note 8 (or Galaxy Note8, if Samsung retains the previous naming scheme), and we're expecting to see a Bixby-loving 6.3-inch phone with dual camera and optical zoom.

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Is Facebook down? Sort of... and there's a simple fix

facebook-sign-on-rope

Some online events unite people -- such as the recent solar eclipse which was streamed online by millions of people unable to see the spectacle in person. Another uniting event occurs when a major website goes down... like Facebook.

If you've tried to visit the social network today, you may well have found that the site doesn't load. "Is Facebook down?" you may ask, and you're not alone.

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IPVanish: A versatile VPN that doesn't log your traffic or sell your browsing data [Review]

IPVanish thumb

VPNs (Virtual Private Network) work by routing all of your web traffic to a VPN server through a secure, encrypted tunnel. Their usage has grown substantially in recent years as web users seek not only to circumvent geoblocking, censorship and ISP blocks, but also simply to enjoy a degree of anonymity online.

There are number of free and paid VPNs to choose from. While free might seem like the way to go, the truth is these tend to have restrictions, such as a limited amount of free traffic each month, fewer servers to choose from, and throttled speeds. They’re fine for occasional use, but if you plan to employ VPN protection on a more regular basis, particularly for downloading files via BitTorrent or streaming on Kodi, then a paid solution, like IPVanish, makes a lot more sense.

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Casio Edifice EQB-501: a semi-smartwatch with clout [Review]

Casio-Edifice-EQB-501-main

Smartwatches. I'm not a fan. People may fawn over the likes of the Apple Watch, but I'm yet to be convinced by timepieces of this ilk. To be honest, I'm not -- or at least haven't been for a while -- much of a fan of watches in general. But that could be about to change.

The Casio Edifice EQB-501 is a chunky, stainless steel bracelet watch that's hard to ignore; it is big, bold and striking. It is also Bluetooth enabled so it can, via a connection to your phone, automatically set the time (both locally and for a second timezone), check for emails, and serve as a phone-finding tool -- oh, and it's solar-powered. Compared to an Apple Watch it barely classifies as a smartwatch, but for me it's ideal.

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Enterprises not confident security can keep up with digital transformation

business security

Businesses are increasingly turning to digital transformation to accelerate their online presence, to enrich products, deepen customer relationships, and boost their brand.

But the bad guys have gone digital too, taking advantage of the digital ecosystem and user trust to make more sophisticated attacks. A new study sponsored by digital threat management company RiskIQ finds that for many businesses digital transformation and the changing external threat landscape are outpacing enterprise security capacity.

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There's a new speed record over a 4G LTE network

Network

Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies have managed to exceed the Gigabit speed barrier over LTE.

Together the companies were able to reach download speeds of 1.07 Gbps during an Ericsson lab trial using the Qualcomm Snapdragon X20 LTE Modem which is the first modem to support Category 18 LTE speeds.

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Western Digital My Book Duo external USB-C HDD features up to 20TB storage capacity

mbduowd

There is no shortage of diminutive bus-powered portable USB storage drives on the market nowadays -- both SSD and 2.5-inch HDD variants. Unfortunately, these drives typically offer relatively small capacities. Some professionals (and home users) need an external drive with much higher storage possibilities and being portable doesn't always matter. In these cases, a 3.5-inch-based USB drive is preferable, as plugging into a wall outlet for power is not an issue, and more importantly, it is available in higher capacities.

Today, Western Digital unveils a new external desktop drive line that should meet the needs of many. Called "My Book Duo," it actually leverages two 3.5-inch mechanical hard drives in RAID-0 to offer capacities up to 20TB. For example, the top capacity offering is comprised of dual 10TB drives. It connects with the latest-and greatest USB-C connector. Making it even more useful, it even includes an integrated two-port USB-A hub. This makes the My Book Duo storage system particularly ideal for machines without USB-A, such as the newest MacBook Pro. It will not charge a connected laptop, sadly. The external drive also features 256-bit AES hardware encryption and comes with a respectable 3-year warranty.

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