Smart plugs have major security issues
Plugging things into a smart electrical plug might not be the wisest of choices at the moment, because they could easily be hacked, putting both your physical and digital life at risk.
This is according to a new report by Bitdefender, which says that smart electrical plugs could be hacked, and the attacker could not only gain access to your personal data, but also reprogram the plug.
Twitch is exposing your activity by default -- here's how to fix the privacy issue
As someone that grew up playing video games in the 1980s, I am rather intrigued by the current trend in watching other people play. It is not so different from when I was a kid actually -- upwards of ten children from the neighborhood would all gather around one NES waiting for their turn to play. If you think about it, we probably spent more time watching others playing than doing so ourselves.
One of the most popular video game streaming platforms is Twitch. There are countless folks broadcasting themselves playing games, and even more spectating. The service has introduced a new feature that some folks might not like. By default, it will expose your activity on friend lists. Don't like that? Luckily, there is a fix.
ImBatch 5 adds multithreading for 400% speed increase
High Motion Software has updated its powerhouse image processor ImBatch with multithreading support for even greater performance. The new feature is only available in the $29.95 licensed edition, but is it worth the money? We took a look.
We used a test set of 345 PNG images, 918 megapixels in total, and set up only two processing tasks: just a "Sharpen" and a "Save as JPG".
Nvidia slams Intel for fudging CPU vs GPU benchmark results
Intel’s recent claims that CPUs are better than GPUs when it comes to deep learning on neural networks has sparked a rebuttal from Nvidia. In case you don’t know what this is all about, here’s a short recap:
Machine learning is currently a really big deal. It’s a huge market with untapped potential in many industry verticals, which is why a lot of different companies are trying to get in on the action. It is widely taken as a fact that GPUs are a better solution than CPUs when it comes to deep learning, because neural networks require low precision computation, and not high-precision, which is what CPUs are usually made for.
EFF: T-Mobile One plan may break net neutrality rules
The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that T-Mobile's new One plan, which offers unlimited data, calls, and texts, may fall afoul of net neutrality rules due to the restrictions that it imposes on how customers can consume data.
T-Mobile One, which was announced yesterday, is claimed to do away with data "buckets", which CEO John Legere calls "the single biggest pain point in wireless", but limits the quality of video streams for customers who do not wish to pay an additional monthly fee to enjoy high-definition content.
Stress-test your PC with HeavyLoad
Jam Software’s quick and easy PC stress-tester HeavyLoad has just been updated to version 3.4, its first release in more than two years. The package is as easy to use as ever, maxing out your CPU, allocating RAM and drive space and stressing your GPU with a click.
This release is mostly about compatibility, in particular improving results with the latest OpenGL drivers and handling individual cores in Windows 10.
Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and ninety-four 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.
Several promising apps and games were released this week, such as the Agricoal 2-player game and the Rockband-like game Gu.
Traditional malware falls as mobile malware rises in July
The number of active malware families attacking businesses fell by five percent in July, but mobile malware now accounts for nine percent of the total -- up 50 percent from June.
These figures come from threat prevention company Check Point based on intelligence drawn from its ThreatCloud World Cyber Threat Map.
Security researcher accuses Microsoft of 'sneaky data mining' in Windows 10
Ah, you can never get enough paranoia nowadays, can you? Security researcher Mike Patterson -- founder and CEO of security analytics organization Plixer -- says Microsoft's Windows 10 sends encrypted data from your machine every five minutes, and there’s basically very little you can do to stop it.
Even when he opted out of everything he could find, regarding data transfer, the OS still continued to do it. The weirdest part about it is that you can’t really determine what is being sent. The content was encrypted so that it is impossible to know what’s going out, essentially hiding this information from the end-user.
China wants to monitor and control all live streams in real time
China's overarching control of the internet, technology, and its people in general is nothing new. The Great Firewall of China is famous for placing huge restrictions on what citizens are able to access online, and recently the government banned the use of social media as a news source.
The latest target for the Chinese government is the increasingly popular activity of live streaming. The proposal includes a requirement for all live streamed content to be monitored around the clock.
Eddie Bauer point of sale systems hit by malware, customers notified
If you aren't thinking twice every time you swipe your card at a retail location, be it a store or restaurant, then you haven't been paying attention lately. It should give you reason for pause, but sadly you still have to do it. Just cross your fingers on the other hand.
Previous examples have included Target and Home Depot to name just two. The latest is retailer Eddie Bauer. The company is warning customers it’s point of sale system was hit by malware.
Microsoft helps Apple macOS users switch from Evernote to OneNote with import tool
Evernote is a very popular organization and note-taking solution. Not only is it easy to use, but it is cross-platform. In other words, users can sync their content between multiple devices running different operating systems. Unfortunately, earlier this year, Evernote did something shocking. It limited its free "Basic" option to two devices. This was not popular.
This abrupt change was a deal-breaker for users that leveraged more than just a pair of devices. While some folks were willing to pay for a tier that met their needs, other people decided to switch to other solutions, such as Microsoft's free (and wonderful) OneNote. In fact, Microsoft created an import tool to help Windows users make the switch. Today, that tool comes to Apple's macOS (OS X 10.11 or higher).
Twitter introduces new notification settings and a tweet quality filter
There are many complaints levelled at Twitter, but two crop up time and time again. The first is that if you follow a lot of people, you're likely to be overwhelmed with notifications; the second is that there's just too much crap out there.
Twitter is introducing a couple of changes to address both of these problems with an update that's rolling out today. Arguably the more interesting of the two is the "quality filter setting".
UK tech salaries continue to grow
Salaries for tech jobs in the UK are still rising in the second quarter of the year, despite the fact that the number of jobs in the industry is slowly declining. This is according to a new report by Dice, the online career site for the technology community.
Together with Watch, it lists the most wanted jobs and skills in the industry. The two companies say cloud and security skills are still most wanted, both in permanent and contract roles.
Cisco will cut 5,500 jobs
According to reports, Cisco Systems is planning a mass jobs cull with 5,500 jobs in danger -- or around seven percent of its global workforce.
Cisco, the world’s biggest networking equipment company, is expected to announce more details of any potential cuts in the next few weeks a part of an ongoing transition to a more software and cloud-orientated strategy.
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