Snapchat thumbs its nose at Brexit, opens international HQ in UK
Brexit was supposed to terrify companies out of doing business in the UK, and in some instances this has been true. But Snapchat is bucking the trend, opting to set up its international headquarters not in Ireland (as many companies do to avoid huge tax bills), but in the UK.
Snap Inc, the company behind SnapChat, will open its London offices under the name Snap Group Limited. The company says it chose the UK capital because of its "strong creative industries", and the move will be seen by many as a something of a coup for post-EU referendum Britain.
How to take control of BYOD bandwidth use
The trend for increasing numbers of employees and customers bringing their own devices into a workplace can seriously impair a businesses’ access to the Internet.
The problem is that as more mobile devices connect to the network, a business can quickly discover that its cloud-based applications, payments systems, accounting, stock control, customer relationship management (CRM) and business applications have become hopelessly sluggish.
Snooper's charter attacked: Liberty mounts legal challenge to Investigatory Powers Act's 'assault on freedom'
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 -- better known to many as the snooper's charter -- faced massive public criticism in the run-up to becoming law at the end of 2016 for the privacy-invading powers it affords the UK government to gather data about internet usage.
Towards the end of the year, the European Court of Justice ruled that the "general and indiscriminate retention" of internet data and communication is illegal, potentially threatening the Investigatory Powers Act. Now the human rights group Liberty is launching its own legal attack on the Act, asking for a High Court judicial review of the bulk surveillance powers that have been voted into law.
Get easy Wi-Fi discovery and surveying with NetSpot
NetSpot is a free tool for discovering local wireless devices and creating color-coded heatmaps.
Launch the program and it immediately detects all your local Wi-Fi devices, displaying their details in a table: SSID, BSSOD, Signal (current/ min/ max/ average), band, level, width, vendor, security, mode, and when it was last seen.
Insiders or outsiders, which is the greater threat?
Historically, the idea of a hacker has always conjured up images of the outsider trying to gain access to government or corporate systems.
But in recent years it's become clear that insiders can present just as big a threat, whether from malicious intent or just careless use of systems.
Yahoo is not changing its name to Altaba in Verizon sale!
Things are all change at Yahoo. The sale of the company to Verizon appears to be going ahead -- despite a series of setbacks along the way, including a high-profile data breach -- for $4.83 billion, and when the deal does go through, Marissa Mayer will step down from the board.
While many news reports today state that Yahoo is now called (or will be) Altaba, this is not strictly true. Verizon is not buying Yahoo in its entirety; a 15 percent stake in Alibaba and a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan will live on as an investment company going under the new name of Altaba Inc. Details of the changes are revealed in an SEC filing.
Wow! Massive Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15002 arrives on Fast ring -- and it's a doozy!
The holidays are over, and so it’s time for a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build to hit the Fast ring.
While we’ve been waiting for Microsoft to find a build that’s considered safe, and stable enough for testers to try, there have been a couple of leaked releases -- 14997 and 15002. Installing either of those was not without its risks, but the big news is if you’re a good Insider and have been waiting patiently for an official build, the wait is over. And boy, has Microsoft got a treat for us with this release.
How to detect a hacker before they steal your company's data
With massive data breaches uncovered daily or weekly, it’s hard not to be a bit numb to the urgency and magnitude of the issue. For most organizations, the problem is far from solved. Apathy in place of outrage at this juncture could diminish any help before it gets started. At the same time, misguided efforts will result in continued failure.
A giant Python-esque foot has not yet come down to condemn the ludicrousness of such a broad catastrophe but losses and damage have been mounting. This year, cybercrime overtook physical crime in the UK, marking a profound changing of the times. The National Crime Agency estimates the annual loss to UK businesses of £1 billion in direct costs, although the more realistic number is far greater, particularly considering the cost of stolen intellectual property and business secrets and other loss and damage not typically reported.
Google enhances museum experience with augmented reality using Tango smartphone
Augmented reality has a big future in consumer electronics. While much of the hardware -- such as Google's Tango and Microsoft's HoloLens -- are not yet ready for the mainstream, we are slowly getting there.
Today, Google announces that it is enhancing the museum-going experience with its Tango technology by way of the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro Android smartphone. Attendees can request one of the devices before touring the Detroit Institute of Arts, allowing them to interact with some of the exhibits in exciting new ways.
Security and the Internet of Things [Q&A]
Last year saw the Mirai botnet harness routers and other IoT devices to launch DDoS attacks against internet services.
Is this type of attack something we’re going to see more of in 2017, and what can companies and individuals do to protect themselves? We spoke to Sam Rehman, chief technology officer at attack prevention specialist Arxan Technologies to find out more about security and the Internet of Things.
Software-defined LAN: Benefits and requirements
As networks evolve, the race is on to create and define the next generation of network infrastructure, one that enables more flexibility, adaptability, and scalability than ever before, underpinned by extreme efficiency.
The software defined network (SDN) has been a hot topic for many years, driving the future of networking by shifting the mind set around, planning, implementing, managing, and using networks. Traditionally, SDN has been an approach to using open protocols, such as OpenFlow, to apply globally aware software controls at the edge of a network to access network switches and routers that typically would use closed and proprietary firmware.
HipChat-maker Atlassian snaps up Trello
The world of communication services is dog eat dog, and Australia's Atlassian has just gobbled up Trello.
The company behind HipChat -- which battles with Slack as the darling of collaborative work environments -- has today bought Trello for $425 million. The deal sees Atlassian handing over $360 million in cash, with the rest made up in stock.
How to find out if your PC is vulnerable to ransomware
Ransomware is the nastiest form of malware there is. It encrypts your files and demands a ransom to release them. While you can remove the threat, doing so will often leave your files locked, with no way to recover them.
There are a number of decryptors available, and plenty of anti-malware products promise to keep your system safe, but how do you know if you’re truly protected? Well, exposing your system to ransomware would be one crazy way of finding out, but there’s a much simpler and safer method.
Gartner: Windows 10 is on its way down -- grim forecast for the next three years
Gartner has a grim prediction for Microsoft which is pinning its hopes on Windows 10 and the forthcoming Creators Update. According to the research firm, Windows will lose OS share in 2017, and then flatline for at least the next two years.
Gartner’s prediction covers all flavors of Windows, but of course it really means Windows 10 since that is now Microsoft’s only readily available OS. Apple on the other hand is set for a brighter future, with its operating systems set to see continued growth.
Quickly generate and ping multiple IPs with sPinger
SPinger is a portable freeware program for quickly pinging multiple IP addresses and host names.
Does the world really need another ping tool? We would have said no, but it turns out there’s more than enough here to justify the program’s existence.
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