Latest Technology News

Correct handling of corporate data is important not just to guard against security threats and data breaches, but to avoid the risk of regulatory fines and lawsuits too.

But a new report from secure erasing specialist Blancco Technology Group shows the two weakest links in a company's data governance program are uncontrolled user access to data (53 percent) and managing where data is stored (43 percent).

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It was 15 years ago this week that my son Chase Cringely died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) at age 74 days. I wrote about it at the time and there was a great outpouring of support from readers. Back then, before the advent of social media, parents didn’t get a chance to grieve in print the way Mary Alyce and I did. We shed a light on SIDS and, for a couple years, even led to some progress in combating the condition, which still kills about 4,000 American babies each year.

When you lose a child, especially one who dies in your lap, as Chase did with me, you can just curl up and die yourself or you can try to fix the problem. With the help of readers all over the world I tried and failed to build a practical SIDS warning device with the idea of not curing SIDS, but avoiding it. You see the syndrome only lasts for about 11 months, from age 1 month to one year. And while events such as Chase’s can’t be made not to happen, with proper detection and the simplest of alarms the baby can be literally roused out of death.

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Summer is right around the corner, meaning the temperatures in many places will begin rising to uncomfortable levels. It's funny -- in the winter, many people get cold and dream of summer, and once that season comes, they complain about the hot weather. There' s just no pleasing some folks!

Thankfully, with the invention of air conditioning, human beings can use technology to stay cool. If you aren't lucky enough to have central air in your home, a window unit is the next best thing. Today, GE Appliances announces that its Wi-Fi connected window models are getting Amazon Alexa support. In other words, using the power of your voice, you can control the air conditioning.

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If your telecom's poor connectivity is preventing you from working from home, you're not alone. There are four million Brits suffering from the same woes, according to new research from uSwitch.com, the price comparison and switching service.

In the past year, almost half (43 percent) of employees in the UK have worked from home at least once. Among the younger workforce, those aged 18 - 34, the percentage jumps to 55. Yet, 58 percent have suffered from slow speeds and poor call quality. The problems were so pervasive that 46 percent of those with issues believe they can no longer work from home until something changes.

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In 2016, approximately 185 million new Internet users went online, with the vast majority of these coming from nations like India. This represents a huge increase in the market. However, while the Internet population continues to grow, there has also been an increase in bots as well. The word "bot" covers a wide variety of automated programs: while some source data for search engines and help people match their queries with the most appropriate websites, others are not so helpful.

In the past year, bad bots accounted for 19.9 percent of all website traffic -- a 6.98 percent increase over the same time in 2015. Bad bots interact with applications in the same way a legitimate user would, making them harder to prevent. However, the results are harmful: for example, bad bots can take data from sites without permission while others undertake criminal activities such as ad fraud and account theft.

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Without trying to sound like a broken record, there's really no future in Windows 10 Mobile. If it wasn't clear years ago, it is crystal clear now. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a new manufacturer embracing the platform last year, and a niche one at that. That was NuAns with its Neo handset, which is probably the last memorable smartphone released with Windows on board.

A year later the company is unsurprisingly admitting defeat. NuAns is replacing the Neo with the Neo Reloaded, which, you guessed it, runs Android this time around. The smartphone just hit Indiegogo, and you can get one for as little as $355.

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More than half (52 percent) of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK’s IT sector have no idea what they’d do if key staffers decide to quit. This is according to a new report by the Aldermore Future Attitudes, which claims these businesses are lacking a succession plan.

The report puts things in a dangerous perspective -- 22 percent of SME IT businesses see senior executives leaving as their biggest business threat.

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Amazon Echo, and the associated Alexa voice assistant, are wildly popular. This is fairly surprising, as you would expect such a successful product to come from Apple or Google. While the latter has since launched its "Home" competitor, Amazon's offering still reigns supreme in the hearts and minds of consumers.

Not satisfied with resting on its laurels, today, Amazon announces that it is pushing the envelope even further. You see, the company will be launching a new product -- Echo Look. This device works with Alexa like the other Echo products, but with a unique twist -- it has a camera. No, it is not designed for communications, but instead, for fashion. The Echo Look will help you look stylish, by taking your photo or video in an outfit, and making suggestions.

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The rapid growth in numbers of IoT devices has seen them become a favored attack route for cyber criminals. This has left companies looking for a way to integrate strong security into millions of devices.

To address this problem, security platform Mocana is launching a new developer kit that provides businesses, who may not have deep cybersecurity or cryptography expertise, with a way to simplify the integration of hardware-based security features into IoT devices.

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Thanks to media streaming and cloud storage, many home consumers no longer need massive hard disk drives. Instead, a fast SSD with a lesser capacity can often meet needs. Of course that isn't a fact for everyone -- some folks still prefer local storage, and mechanical HDDs are ideal from a cost perspective.

Home users aside, businesses still largely have a need for hard drives with large capacities. Trade secrets and customer information can't always be stored in the cloud. While some data centers are embracing solid state drives for better performance, that is not really cost effective at this time. Today, Western Digital begins shipping the 12TB HGST Ultrastar He12 Helium 7200 RPM hard disk drive. This is a HDD with monstrous capacity that is designed for the enterprise.

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When you are a PC gamer that seemingly already owns everything for gaming, what is left to buy? Besides your hardcore gaming rig, you probably already have a mechanical keyboard, mouse, and headset, right? Heck, you may even have a fancy mousepad. But does your pad even glow, bro?

Today, SteelSeries launches the QcK Prism dual-surface RGB illuminated premium gaming mousepad. Yeah, it is a gaming mousepad that glows thanks to RGB lighting. While not the first RGB mousepad, SteelSeries says it is the first-ever dual-sided variant. You see, one side is cloth, while the other is hard plastic.

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With the right training and knowledge, many cyber attacks can be avoided. Addressing this human aspect of security is the idea behind a new platform from British start-up CybSafe.

Human error is a major cause of data breaches and security training needs to be able to positively change user behavior.

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Is flexible working all it’s cracked up to be? It’s a question that’s popped up a lot recently, following IBM’s recent "clampdown" on remote working. It’s a valid question. In a world of apps, robots, drones and countless other technological advancements, it’s important to challenge what’s valuable and what isn’t.

For this reason, we recently did some research into workers across the globe on the topic of flexible working. There were some interesting findings across the 25,000+ global workers surveyed, but in answer to the question; yes, flexible working is all it’s cracked up to be. If it’s done right.

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Businesses of all sizes are under increasing pressure to protect corporate email records and make them easily accessible for audits and legal discovery.

Data protection and recovery specialist Arcserve has acquired email archiving technology FastArchiver and is making it available through its Arcserve UDP solution portfolio. UDP Archiving efficiently stores archived on-premise, public or private cloud email in a location independent of the primary mail system.

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Dalenryder Password Generator is an interesting collection of simple security tools, nicely presented in a big-buttoned, touch-friendly interface.

Tap "Quick Password" and the program generates and displays a strong 12-character long password. You can optionally include symbols or change the password length to anything from 4 to 30 characters, then generate a password and copy it to the clipboard in a couple of clicks.

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