Latest Technology News

As visual content continues to take over social media, photos and video are becoming the language of the next generation. With 74 percent of marketers using visual assets in their social media marketing, photography now plays a vital role in any marketing strategy. From this, a new generation of hybrid creative marketers has emerged, a group of already time-strapped professionals who are being asked to find and edit compelling imagery across all platforms every day.

This constant need for engaging visual content has generated a demand for new and simple design tools to meet marketers creative needs. For example, a realtor who wants to create a compelling newsletter for their distribution lists, or a local shop owner who wants to promote a holiday sale on Facebook and Instagram. However, a surprising amount of them don’t know which tools are best suited for their needs.

Apple is a company that puts a big focus on security and privacy. Unlike Google, the iPhone-maker does not make the majority of its money from advertising and harvesting user data. Heck, Tim Cook and company even famously fought a government request to help it break into an iPhone. Ultimately, if you value your privacy, Apple products can arguably be trusted a bit more than its competitors.

With all of that said, today, a bit of a failure was discovered on Apple's part regarding user privacy. You see, when an Apple user deleted their web browser history, they assumed it was gone forever -- and rightfully so. While the data no longer appeared on Apple devices, it has been discovered by ElcomSoft that it persisted on iCloud. To make matters worse, this data is easily recoverable.

This week, Microsoft re-released the telemetry updates KB2952664 (for Windows 7) and KB2976978 (for Windows 8.1).

While we don’t know what these will do this time around (Microsoft’s description is giving little away), in the past they triggered a snooping Windows task called DoScheduledTelemetryRun, and were linked to the infamous GWX (Get Windows 10) campaign that forced OS upgrades on unwilling Windows 7 and 8.1 users.

Ransomware attacks aren't new, but 2016 saw them increasing in frequency and sophistication as cyber criminals see a lucrative revenue opportunity.

UK-based Technology Services Group has produced an infographic that looks at ransomware’s rapid rise.

The way broadband speeds in the UK are advertised is misleading according to 80 percent of respondents to a new survey.

Broadband comparison site Cable.co.uk interviewed 2,000 consumers with 58 percent finding advertised speeds "very misleading" and 22 percent saying they are "somewhat misleading".

Just as healthcare providers need PALS certification to keep up with new discoveries and advancements in medicine, individuals who work in IT need to become recertified with data security measures. One particular area in need of improved security protocols is The Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is quickly becoming more and more popular and therefore more and more vulnerable.

IoT allows users to connect several devices to the internet and to each other. That includes more than just cell phones but anything from coffee makers to lamps to alarm systems. It has influenced various industries to incorporate internet capabilities into their products, taking everyday objects and allowing them to send and receive data. With these changes in the technology industry, the IoT is quickly rising to becoming the "next big thing" in the IT industry. However, there are still several problems that make the IoT risky unless they are examined and improved. Here is our list of both the potential of IoT to improve and hinder consumer lives.

The explosion of digital information flooding the modern enterprise today creates its own unique challenges. Organizations strive to integrate multiple disparate systems, connect to a global ecosystem of partners and customers, and transfer large files and data sets securely -- basically, do business today -- but doing so efficiently and securely challenges even the largest and most skilled IT teams.

Amazon recently launched a service to literally drive a truck to your data center, load it up with all of your data, and drive it back to an Amazon server farm to plug it in and push it to the cloud. The rationale behind this offering stems from the idea that businesses looking to move massive amounts of data -- terabytes and petabytes of information -- to Amazon’s cloud don’t have a fast, affordable option to do so over the internet. But what if they did?

Cyber threats to enterprises aren't confined to the desktop, mobile systems are at risk too and businesses are looking for solutions that can combine security with ease of management.

Mobile threat defense company Skycure has announced that it's working with Microsoft to integrate its Skycure platform with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS).

Two-hundred-and-eighteen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on Windows Store in the past seven days.

Microsoft released another Windows 10 Creators Update build this week to the Fast Ring channel. You can read Wayne's summary of the build here.

It has been a little while coming, but WhatsApp is finally rolling out support for two-step verification to its messaging app.

The extra layer of security means that it is now more difficult to gain unauthorized access to an account, and it is a feature that is being made available to iOS, Android and Windows users. With the feature enabled, if you -- or anyone else, for that matter -- tries to verify your phone number on WhatsApp, you -- or they -- will have to provide the 6-digit passcode you create.

Microsoft released Insider Build 15031 for PC two days ago, and promised a build for Mobile would arrive by the end of the week.

The software giant is as good as its word, and Build 15031 is now available to install.

If you want to know the current weather, you can simply gaze out a window. If you want to know the weather beyond the moment, however, there are many sources from where you can get it. Some folks will turn on the television or radio, but in the computer age, there are far more convenient ways, such as mobile apps and search engines.

One such search engine that can present you with the weather is Bing. Today, Microsoft is improving the weather functionality of its search engine by offering improved visuals. As you can see in the image above, it is much more pleasing than Google's. In addition, Bing is now offering ski resort snow reports for skiers and snowboarders.

The marketing industry has experienced a surge of new technologies in the past few years. While this creates the potential for complete transformation, the marketing landscape over the past year has remained fairly steady. As 2017 begins, the question remains whether this will be the year that technology is fully embraced by the marketing community. Will it be a transitional year with common practices being adapted to reflect new technology trends or will it witness major developments that threaten to take marketers by surprise?

In a world where customers are constantly demanding more, customer experience (CX) has become difficult and challenging to perfect, putting extra pressure on marketers. Technology has been a driving force behind the development of solutions to enhance CX. However, embracing these technologies can be perplexing as a marketer, taking the business into new and unknown areas.

2016 was a landmark year in cyber security. The cyber landscape was rocked as Internet of Things (IoT) threats became a reality and unleashed the first 1TB DDoS attacks -- the largest in history.

Security experts had long warned of the potential of IoT attacks, and a number of other predictions also came true; Advanced Persistent Denial of Service (APDoS) attacks became standard, ransom attacks continued to grow and evolve and data protection agreements dominated privacy debates. So what’s coming in 2017?

Voice assistants are changing the way consumers interact with their computers and devices. Services like Alexa and Siri are enabling people to use voice to ask questions and control home components, such as thermostats and lights. It really is an exceptional thing.

Microsoft's Cortana is also a great voice assistant, and since "she" is included in Windows 10, countless consumers already have access. Today, Microsoft announces that it is improving Cortana with a new feature called "Suggested Reminders". The assistant will scan your emails for dates and appointments, and then suggest reminders -- for times when maybe you forgot to do so yourself. Previously available to Windows Insiders, it is now an option for all Windows 10 users. There is one very big catch, however.