Mobile payments in high demand with consumers
Cash is overrated among businesses, a new study by NTT DATA suggests. Consumers don’t really use it that much, and expect the payment industry to move more towards digital wallets in the future. This is according to a new report, based on a poll of 2,000 consumers and 300 executives.
A third of consumers expect mobile money to dominate within a decade. But there is a strong discrepancy between executives and consumers -- 40 per cent of executives, in various industries, think people will pay the same for transactions in a decade than they do today. Among consumers just 27 percent expect transaction values to stay the same.
How well would your city survive a zombie apocalypse?
If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead you’ve probably, at one time or another, considered how well you’d fare in a zombie apocalypse.
Where you live would certainly have a major impact on your ability to survive, and with this in mind, and to celebrate Halloween, CareerBuilder's EMSI (Economic Modeling Specialists Intl.) looked into how well the major US cities would cope in the event of an actual zombie outbreak.
Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD brings fast external storage to Microsoft's game console
While the PlayStation 4 can be cracked open for storage upgrades, the Xbox One cannot. Luckily, Microsoft went an arguably better route -- USB storage expansion. This way, users can connect a second drive, while still utilizing the internal drive too.
Today, Seagate announces a new external SSD for the Xbox One. The unimaginatively named 'Game Drive for Xbox SSD' uses flash storage rather than a mechanical spinning hard drive, which should improve game load times.
Microsoft expands Surface Book lineup with new 512GB model
Available in a multitude of configurations, the Surface Book can meet the needs of many buyers in the premium segment. But, just in case you are looking for even more flexibility, Microsoft has introduced a new model in the range, which offers a higher storage capacity at a price that does not break the bank.
The Surface Book range is now comprised of seven models, four of which feature dedicated graphics. The other three -- the latest one included -- come with Intel's HD graphics, which is less powerful but not as costly an option. So, what does the new Surface Book model offer?
Prevent malware changing your DNS with DNS Lock
Freeware developer Sordum has released DNS Lock, a free tool which prevents malware (or anything else) changing your IPv4 DNS addresses. Launch the program’s single executable and it prompts you to enter your primary and secondary DNS IP’s.
DNS Lock offers you a choice of Open DNS and Google DNS Servers, too, although it only displays the raw IP addresses without identifying what they are.
What you need to know about predictive analytics
In an era when data is seen as an increasingly valuable commodity, the tools and techniques used to analyze that data gain extra importance.
Historically analysis, even using computers, has been something of a labor intensive task because the raw data needed to be verified and complex models built to process it. But due to the growth of machine learning and data mining techniques we’re now seeing an increase in predictive analysis where machines can take historical and current information and apply it to a model to predict future trends.
Google now alerts you to early voting for 2016 US election
As the big (or dreaded) day of November 8th draws ever closer, many states have now opened early voting. The process is pretty simple, but we've seen long lines in some locations. It's an interesting approach, given that new stories and revelations hit the news cycle on an almost daily basis.
Not every state has early voting available, and it opens on various days depending on your location. So how do you find out when and where to head to the polls?
AllDup 4 finds visually similar images
Freeware duplicate file finder AllDup has hit version 4.0 with some major additions and updates.
The program can now detect visually similar pictures in the image formats BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG and TIF, even if they’ve been flipped, rotated, reduced in quality or colors, or marginally cropped. Enhanced audio file scanning allows the program to find duplicate FLAC and MP3 files, even if they have different tags.
Watch Leonardo DiCaprio's new climate change film, Before The Flood, here for free
With the tagline "the science is clear, the future is not", the climate change documentary Before The Flood wears its heart on its sleeve. With Martin Scorsese as executive producer, and featuring none other than Leonardo DiCaprio, the film paints a bleak picture of man's effect on the environment.
Before The Flood was produced by the National Geographic Channel, and received a cinema release on October 21. But the documentary is seen as being so important, it is also being made available to stream for free to bring it to as wide an audience as possible.
Automatically clear your clipboard with ClipTTL
You’re working away in one app, but realize you need data from another. So what? That’s what the clipboard is for: copy here, paste there and it’s sorted in seconds.
But the story isn’t over. The information you copied will remain in the clipboard until it’s replaced, visible to others, consuming RAM (maybe a lot, if it’s an HD image), and annoyingly appearing in other documents if you accidentally hit "paste".
Today's ghostly Google doodle is a Harry Potter-inspired Halloween game
It's that time of year again when the pumpkins are glowing, the kids are out trick or treating, and things start to go bump in the night. To celebrate Halloween 2016, Google has launched a new game as today's doodle.
You're invited to go ghostbusting. You must help your feline companion to defeat ghouls and ghost with a little spellcasting -- with a doodly twist, of course.
How to reset NVRAM on late-2016 MacBook Pro models
Things can go awry with any computer from time to time, and getting things back to normal is often just a matter of knowing the right trick. With a Mac, resetting NVRAM is a quick fix for a number of issues, and Apple has changed the way you go about doing this with the late-2016 MacBook Pro models.
One of the reasons for the change is that these latest models do not feature the startup sound, so timing the required key presses is a slightly different matter now. Here's what you need to do.
New MacBook Pro (2016) starts automatically when opened without the iconic startup chime
When Apple unveiled the new MacBook Pro range last week, much was made of the Touch Bar and other things that have been added. What was not noticed immediately is that the company has also ditched the famous startup chime that used to sound when powering up the laptops.
More than this, Apple has eliminated the need to use the power button. Just as laptops wake from sleep when the lid is opened, the new MacBook Pro automatically powers up when the lid is lifted -- even if they are fully switched off.
What you need to know about service oriented architecture
Service oriented architecture is a principle that allows businesses to manage their IT and business transformation in order to give themselves a competitive edge. It offers benefits including insight into the running of the entire business, seamless integration of systems and the cloud, and linking of front and back office systems.
The World Wide Web Consortium defines SOA as "A set of components which can be invoked, and whose interface descriptions can be published and discovered".
Is Apple Halloween 2016 Trick or Treat?
That's the question to ask if you're considering ordering the new MacBook Pro unveiled last week or wondering whether or not to cancel an already placed purchase before it ships. For fervent fanboys who drink Apple Kool-Aid like water, "treat" can be the only answer. But for the thinking public, the response depends on several factors, such as budget and whether or not buyers believe that the fruit-logo company advocates a rational design ethic.
Let's start with the latter. Apple is finger-obsessed and has been since before the first Mac shipped, as I explained in March 2010 post: "What 1984 Macintosh marketing reveals about iPad". The company lags behind Google getting to the next user interface, which is more contextual and immediately responsive: Voice, meaning touchless interaction, rather than touch, supported by artificial intelligence. By contrast, Apple isn't ready to abandon the finger-first motif, as Touch Bar makes so obviously apparent.
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