Latest Technology News

Is your business accepting payments on mobile devices, or considering it? If so, you are in good company. Large retailers, such as Nordstrom’s, have seen increased sales after integrating an mPOS (mobile point of sale) solution. Major restaurant chains, including McDonald’s and Olive Garden, are using it, too. In fact, a report by 451 Research projected that by 2019, the global mPOS installed base will reach 54 million units, which is quadruple the number from 2015.

According to a Juniper Research report, by 2021, more than one in three POS systems will be mobile. It’s no wonder mPOS solutions are catching on. They are not only convenient, but also provide tangible benefits to both merchants and customers. Shortened transaction time, elimination of lines, scalability capability, and less reliance on cash all increase sales and heighten customer satisfaction. But any data transfer comes with risk. To ensure a safe and secure mPOS experience, follow these best practices:

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Another day, another development in the Galaxy Note7 recall. This time, Samsung indicates that it is making good progress getting US customers to turn in their affected units, after a report by Apteligent released earlier this month revealed consistent usage rates following the recall program's introduction.

Samsung says that it has exchanged "about half" of the Galaxy Note7 units that it has sold in the US. The company has already shipped 500,000 safe devices in the country, and is believed to have sold around one million units before the recall news broke.

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Math is hard to avoid, even if you’re a total mathphobe, and anyone might find they occasionally need to use an equation in a document.

High-end packages like Microsoft Word have equation editors built-in, but if you’re not so lucky then MathMagic Lite is a convenient free-for-personal-use alternative.

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One-hundred and ninety-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.

This week saw the release of a first batch of converted win32 applications like Kodi, Tweeten or PhotoScape X Pro  in Store.

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Data breaches have become the norm in recent years with 2014 earning the nickname the "year of the data breach" and 2015 being known as the "year of the breach". So far in 2016, even more data breaches have been made public, including LinkedIn, MySpace and Dropbox and we will likely see more before the year comes to a close.

For companies, being the victim of a breach is unnerving enough, but there also implications to their reputation, brand and finances. However, breaches also have an indirect impact on organizations and some end up facing the "collateral damage" of such an attack for some time after the initial breach.

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The social networking giant has managed to attract the ire of advertisers after it revealed that it overestimated video viewing figures for two years. A flaw in the tool used to measure the number of views meant that figures relating to video viewing times were inflated by between 60 and 80 percent.

Just how long people spend watching videos is important information for advertisers, but Facebook managed to miscalculate average viewing times by ignoring views lasting under three seconds. With so much of Facebook's incoming revenue derived from advertising, and the importance the company places on video, the snafu is an embarrassing one that advertisers will take some time to forget.

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Google has launched a new reward scheme that offers incentives for users to report videos that violate the site's guidelines. YouTube Heroes program also enables YouTubers to earn points for doing things like adding subtitles to a video and responding to questions in the help forums.

While the promise of rewards for helping to "create the best possible YouTube experience for everyone" is appealing, critics are not happy with the fact that users will now have an added incentive to report videos.

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Now that smartphones have high-quality cameras, people seem to be snapping more photos than ever. Thanks to the cloud, it is super easy to back up those images, and then consume them on a device at a later date. There is no need to print photos anymore, right? Not so fast. Actually, if you head to your local CVS or Walgreens drug stores, you will see many people still having photographs printed for frames and albums. Are these people just creatures of habit or Luddites? Perhaps. Regardless, there is a demand for photo printing.

HP has a new portable photo printer that is downright cute. Called 'Sprocket', it is compatible with both iOS and Android, letting the user print photos on the go. Millennials should go wild for this thing, as you can customize the photos with filters and virtual 'stickers' using a special app before sending them to print over Bluetooth. Not to mention, you can peel off the back to expose an adhesive -- yes, you can stick them on things! Best of all? It doesn't use any toner or ink! No, it is not magic -- it uses a really cool 'ZINK' technology.

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Back in January, Microsoft announced Minecraft: Education Edition. Later, the company released an 'early access' version to some educators. At the time, some folks were dubious that a video game could serve as a legit tool in the classroom. With that said, Minecraft isn't really a video game in the traditional sense -- it can be viewed more as a virtual world. In theory, the platform could better engage young students when compared to, say, sitting in a dull classroom and staring at a chalkboard.

Whether Minecraft: Education Edition will be a success remains to be seen, but we will find out soon. You see, on November 1, the tool will leave 'early access' and become available to all educators. It will be sold, of course, on the Windows Store. It will cost $5 annually per user, but Microsoft promises price breaks for school districts that purchase certain licenses. In other words, larger districts can likely negotiate to pay less per user.

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Breaches and attacks have run rampant through most major industries, and organizations are beginning to realize the importance of employee and stakeholder security awareness. Healthcare and retail have been in the brightest spotlights with the rise in ransomware and credit card data breaches in the last couple of years, but they are not the only ones facing this challenge. Wombat Security's Beyond the Phish report found that telecommunications and transportation industries also struggle with a wide range of security issues.

Ultimately, an organization can improve its defenses by elevating the level of security best practices across its employees and addressing the biggest offending categories of awareness.

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Data protection has historically been viewed as a function owned by a few individuals, or the domain of the IT department. However, it is vital that all employees share the responsibility of preventing and mitigating information security breaches.

When an organization creates a corporate culture dedicated to data protection, it provides more disciplined operations, increased customer and stakeholder trust, and minimized risk.

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Yahoo users who have not changed their passwords for a while are being advised to do so. The company has confirmed that it suffered a major security breach back in 2014 and information relating to 500 million accounts was stolen.

Yahoo says that the attack was carried out by a "state-sponsored actor" but does not elaborate on who it might be. The data accessed includes "names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers".

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Classrooms could be a thing of the past by 2025, according to new research by Polycom. Its Education in 2025 -- Technology Innovation survey takes a closer look at education and technology and has some interesting takeaways. While almost two thirds (64 percent) of respondents believe students engage with content primarily in the classroom, just a quarter (25 percent) believe that will still be the case in ten years' time.

More than half (53 percent) of education professionals believe real-time video collaboration and mobile devices will be the number one way students will engage with content in 2025. At the moment, however, things should be much, much better than they are.

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You aren't really safe on the Dark Web. That runs counter-intuitive to the reason for its existence. Then again, it isn't really the kind of place you want to go anyway. It's a series of sites that exist on darknets, an overlay network designed to keep things hidden and with good reason -- it's usually used for criminal activity.

But if you know how to get there then you can make some money -- selling drugs, weapons, malware and anything else that can cause harm.

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The Raspberry Pi is popular for three major reasons -- it is small, inexpensive, and doesn't consume a lot of electricity. This makes the board very popular for things like education, servers, IoT projects, and media playback. Unfortunately, as many consumers find out quickly, the Raspberry Pi computers are woefully underpowered for some needs. In other words, despite the low cost, it isn't necessarily a bargain.

Today, SolidRun announces an Intel Braswell-based MicroSoM. Unlike the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi, this is x86 compatible, meaning it can run full Windows 10. Plus, if you install a Linux distro, there will be far more packages available, such as Google Chrome, which is not available for Pi. Heck, it can probably serve as a respectable desktop. Even though it costs more than the Raspberry Pi, is it a better deal?

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