What the heck is happening at Apple?

tim cook

"What the heck is happening at Apple?" people ask me. "Has the company lost its mojo?" "Why no new product categories?" "Why didn’t Apple, instead of AT&T, buy Time Warner?" And "Why are the new MacBook Pros so darned expensive?"

After first getting out of the way the fact that Apple is still the richest public company in the history of public companies, let’s take these questions in reverse order beginning with the MacBook Pros. In addition to their nifty OLED finger bar above the keyboard, these new Macs seem to have gained an average of $200 over the preceding models of the same size. What makes Apple think it can get away with that?

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AdWords malvertising targets macOS users

Attack key

Researchers at threat prevention company Cylance have discovered a malvertising campaign on Google AdWords for the search term "Google Chrome", where unsuspecting macOS users were being tricked into downloading a malicious installer.

The installer, identified as "OSX/InstallMiez" (or "OSX/InstallCore"), ultimately downloads a malicious file named "FLVPlayer.dmg". The malware hash changes on each download, making it difficult to detect and track.

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What you need to know about data centers

Data center

Data centers, in the sense of a centralized space where business information is stored, have always been important, but as we move towards an increasingly digital economy, and indeed, way of life, they have taken on even greater significance. The importance of data centers to our everyday actions can be glimpsed simply by taking a look at the amount of energy that they consume.

According to the National Resource Defense Council, the Internet, which relies on data center infrastructure for its utility, represents 1.1 to 1.5 percent of all global electricity use -- with the associated annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to between 70 and 90 large coal-fired power plants.

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Hello 'Sense with Voice' is an evolution of the company's original sleep system revolution

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When people think of health, they often forget about sleep. This is unfortunate, as getting meaningful nighttime rest is an important part of a healthy life. The problem? Fitness wearables that double as sleep-trackers have a fatal flaw -- if you wear them day and night, when the heck do you charge them? This was my problem with Microsoft's (now-canceled) Band -- I wanted to wear it at night, but on some evenings, I couldn't, as I had to charge it.

A company called "Hello" brilliantly solved this dilemma, by offering a dongle that connects to your pillowcase (called "Sleep Pill"), which then transmits to a nightstand device (called "Sense"). A mobile app (for Android or iOS) allows the user to interface with it all. The sleep system not only tracks your movements, but things such as noise, light, and temperature too. I've been testing Sense by Hello, and I have been loving it -- I highly recommend it. Today, the company unveils an upgraded model called 'Sense with Voice'. As you can guess, yeah, it offers all-new voice controls, but the new model offers much more than just that, including additional sensors!

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British empire strikes back with new cyber security strategy backed by £1.9 billion investment

Great Britain UK keyboard laptop

The UK government has today launched a new National Cyber Security Strategy, setting out decisive action to protect the nation's economy and the privacy of British citizens, and strike back against attackers, while encouraging industry to up its game to prevent damaging cyber-attacks.

The strategy sets out how the UK will use automated defenses to safeguard citizens and businesses against growing cyber threats, support the UK's growing cyber security industry, develop a world-class cyber workforce, and deter cyber-attacks from criminals and hostile actors.

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Analyze and compare video quality with QCTools

QCTools.200.175

QCTools is an open-source cross-platform tool for analyzing and objectively measuring video quality.

The program is aimed at helping professional users identify problems with digitized footage, but it could also help to compare video codecs, conversion tools and more. QCTools is available for Windows, Linux and Mac. It’s a lightweight package -- a single executable and a few text files -- and installed easily on our test PC.

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Enterprises put themselves at risk by running outdated Microsoft products

windows update

According to a new report 65 percent of Windows systems are still running Windows 7, and a small percentage of devices are still running Windows XP.

The survey from trusted access specialist Duo Security analyzed more than two million endpoints and found 63 percent of them running Microsoft operating systems. Yet only 24 percent are running Windows 10. Windows 7 remains the most popular despite there being over 600 vulnerabilities affecting unpatched versions.

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Bad news for Microsoft as Windows 10's market share flatlines

flatline Windows

While it was free, and being aggressively pushed on to users (whether they wanted it or not), Windows 10 saw strong growth, rapidly gaining significant market share. However, since it became a paid product, it’s fair to say the new operating system has been struggling.

In September, NetMarketShare reported that Windows 10 didn’t just show slower growth, it went into reverse gear and actually lost usage share. And things weren’t much better for Windows 10 in October either.

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70 percent of organizations are swamped by threat data

Woman Office Paper

New research from threat intelligence platform Anomali and the Ponemon Institute shows that 70 percent of security industry professionals believe threat intelligence is often too big and/or complex to provide actionable insights.

It also shows that they often fail to share essential threat data with board members and C-level executives, despite the fact that security is now a business priority.

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Tinder has spoken -- Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump

trump-vs-clinton-us-flag

There's now just a week to go in the battle between Trump and Clinton. The race to the White House is nearly over and as revelation after revelation sways polls this way and that way, voters and pundits alike are asking: just who will win this election?

Dating app Tinder thinks it knows the answer. Working in conjunction with Rock the Vote, Tinder users were invited to Swipe the Vote to see not only who they would vote for, but also which candidate they most closely matched. Around the world -- with the exception of Russia -- Clinton came out on top.

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Number of DDoS attacks down but speed and size increases

DDoS attack

The number of DDoS attacks fell more than 40 percent to 97,700 attacks in the second quarter of 2016 according to the latest threat report from DDoS security service Nexusguard.

The report reveals there was a sharp dip in distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) attacks, with DNS-based attacks falling 97 percent compared to the previous quarter. However, recent DDoS attacks on cybercrime journalist Brian Krebs and OVH, a French internet hosting provider, broke records for speed and size.

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Google discloses actively exploited Windows vulnerability before Microsoft patch is ready

Photo credit: LeoWolfert / Shutterstock

Google has shared details of a 0-day vulnerability in Windows a mere 10 days after informing Microsoft of the problem. In Google's own words, "this vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited", but the company is accused of putting users at risk.

Microsoft is yet to produce a patch for the security problem, and it's not clear when one will be released.

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UK government can save £2 billion through digital transformation

UK Government Building Downing Street

A new report has revealed that the UK government could save £2 billion by 2020 if it took the appropriate actions needed to shift its citizens to digital services and away from outdated technology and legacy contracts.

Independent charity the Institute for Government argued these points in its latest report titled Making a Success of Digital Government, in which it noted how the government has yet to see a significant return when it comes to the savings that could be generated by a transition to digital services.

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Kingston Digital 256GB waterproof Class 10 UHS-I microSDXC card has lifetime warranty

microSD256

Believe it or not, I am still amazed by the small physical size of microSD cards. I am from an era where 100MB Zip Disks were revolutionary, so having multiple gigabytes on a card that is smaller than a postage stamp is mind-blowing.

Today, Kingston Digital announces a waterproof Class 10 UHS-I microSDXC card with a massive capacity -- 256GB. If you do not need such a large capacity, however, do not worry -- the company is also offering this line of cards in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. Since some SKUs are being sold with a full-size SD adapter, it will work brilliantly with cameras, smartphones, drones, and more. Best of all? It comes with an impressive lifetime warranty.

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What you need to know about business intelligence

Business intelligence

Business intelligence, like military intelligence, is sometimes jokingly described as being a contradiction in terms. But in fact, in the era of big data and the Internet of things, the potential benefits to be gained from BI are greater than ever.

BI is about turning raw data into useful information for business analysis in order to aid the decision making process. The technology therefore needs to be able to handle large volumes of structured and unstructured data, turning it into reports that are easily understood and deliver insights that can provide businesses with a competitive advantage in the market and help their long-term stability.

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