PC market shows signs of recovery


PC shipments will continue to decline in 2016, according to a new IDC forecast, but the drop will be slightly lower than previously expected. What's more, things will improve even more in 2017.
IDC expects PC vendors to ship a total of 258.2 million units this year, a figure which would be 6.4 percent lower than last year. The previous estimate was a 7.2 percent fall, which IDC announced in August. Growth will still be negative in 2017, but shipments are expected to decrease by just 2.6 percent compared to this year.
Symbol-to-accept strengthens multi-factor authentication


One of the more popular ways of securing logins in recent times has been the use of push-to-accept technology, sending a verification message to a user's mobile device.
However, this runs the risk of users inadvertently approving login requests that they didn't initiate. Adaptive access company SecureAuth is launching its new Symbol-to-accept technology to boost security without sacrificing convenience.
Netflix now lets you watch your favorite movies and TV shows offline


Many people stream their favorite movies and TV shows today through Netflix. The service, which boasts around 86 million subscribers, is available on all the major platforms, making it easy for users to enjoy it pretty much everywhere and on every PC, smartphone and tablet. That is, as long as there is a working Internet connection.
That changes today, as Netflix announces that it is also making its content available offline. Users are now able to download movies and TV shows and watch them while, for instance, traveling on an airplane or in a remote area. Here is what you need to know.
60 percent of enterprises have fallen victim to social engineering in 2016


A new study from cyber security company Agari reveals the scale of social engineering attacks on industrial organizations across the US.
Of over 200 security leaders surveyed 60 percent say their organizations were, or may have been, victim of at least one targeted social engineering attack in the past year, and 65 percent of those who were attacked say that employees' credentials were compromised as a result. In addition, financial accounts were breached in 17 percent of attacks.
Free online test can tell if you're 'pre-disposed' to negative or bad behavior


In the 2002 movie Minority Report, a law enforcement squad called "Precrime" arrests future criminals before they commit their act. Imagine if businesses could predict the future behavior of potential employees before hiring (or not hiring) them? That’s what Veris Benchmarks’ products aim to achieve.
The company also offers Veris Prime, is a free online test that you can take for yourself, and which measures your personal trustworthiness and shows how your results compare to white collar criminals.
C programming language showing signs of weakening in 2016


Created in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie, C is a dinosaur among computing languages. It’s large, powerful, and has dominated the programming ecosystem for over three decades. Technology changes every few years, and today there are hundreds of programming languages. It’s remarkable that one language has been able to remain so popular over the years, and there’s a reason for that.
Software developer Daniel Angel Munoz Trejo sums up C’s benefits well when he writes, "its closeness to the hardware, great portability and deterministic usage of resources make it ideal for low-level development for such things as operating systems kernels and embedded software. Its versatility, efficiency and good performance make it an excellent choice for high complexity data manipulation software...C is still unsurpassed when performance is the priority".
Get regular 'take a break' reminders with stretchly


Stretchly is an open-source tool which displays regular "take a break" reminders when you’re working on your PC, Linux system or Mac. There are plenty of similar tools around, but stretchly has some unusual touches which help it stand out from the crowd.
Application size isn’t a strong point: 134MB, really?! But that’s what you get with Electron apps, and at least there’s no need to install anything: just unzip and go.
New Android malware breaches over a million Google accounts


Researchers at cyber security company Check Point have uncovered a new malware variant that has breached more than a million accounts and is infecting over 13,000 Android devices a day.
Called Gooligan, the malware roots Android devices and steals email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them. With this information, attackers are able to access users' sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, and G Suite.
AWS could become Amazon's biggest business


Holiday sales from Black Friday and Cyber Monday could very well help Amazon hit its target of $134 billion in annual sales, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could make up for $12 billion of it
The company began offering web services to its customers over 10 years ago and in recent years this division has grown from a small to significant portion of the online retailer's business. AWS currently operates in 38 availability zones within 14 geographic locations and large companies such as Netflix, Adobe and Spotify have turned to the company for hosting and operating their websites and services.
Turn your Raspberry Pi into a 3D Christmas tree with this new board


If you need help to get into the festive spirit, and an Eggnog Latte from Starbucks isn’t quite cutting it, perhaps transforming a Raspberry Pi into an illuminated 3D Christmas tree will do the trick.
The Pi Hut has created a Christmas tree board kit that you simply assemble and plug into your Pi. Once done, sit back and feel the joys of the holiday season as they come rushing towards you. Ho, ho, and indeed ho.
Sentiment analysis helps sales teams measure customer reaction


One of the problems sales teams face is knowing how their pitches, presentations and marketing materials are perceived by the customer.
Cloud-based sales and content management platform Pitcher is hoping to offer teams better insight with its newly patented Sentiment Analysis Module (SAM).
The Internet Archive to set up Canadian mirror to stay out of Trump's reach


Many people are concerned about just what Donald Trump might do when he becomes president in 2017, and some of the biggest concerns lie in the fields of technology and the internet. Worried about what the arrival of President Trump could mean, the Internet Archive is collecting donations to fund a Canadian mirror of the site.
The Internet Archive of Canada will lie outside of the jurisdiction of the US government and is being built based on the idea that "lots of copies keep stuff safe". Currently based in San Francisco, a blog post by the Internet Archive makes reference to fears about greater online restrictions that could be put in place by the US.
The Church Committee calls on Obama for leniency for Snowden if not a pardon


The calls for Edward Snowden to be pardoned by President Obama before Donald Trump takes office have been getting louder. But while many would like to see him given a get-out-of-jail-free card, there is a growing recognition that this simply might not happen.
The latest call in support of Snowden comes from the Church Committee (nothing to do with the church, rather the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, responsible for investigating illegal CIA activity in the 1970s). In a letter to the out-going president, 15 former members of the committee say that while it is open to debate whether Snowden's actions "merit a pardon, they surely do counsel for leniency".
Automatically map the network drives you need with Network Drive Control


Set up your own home network and you can have Explorer automatically map any remote drives you like, whenever you log on. Connect to another network, though, and Explorer will still try to connect to the drives that aren’t there, along with drives for work, school, or whatever else you might have set up.
Network Drive Control can help by checking a network as you log on, and only mapping the drives you need for that environment.
Deutsche Telekom hack affects 900,000 customers


German telecommunications giant and T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom was the victim of a cyber-attack over the weekend, which left some 900,000 users affected, the company confirms in a blog post.
This weekend, a hacker (or more likely, hackers) infiltrated the company, and tried to infect users' home routers with malware. Deutsche Telekom said its network was not affected "at any time".
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