Latest Technology News

At today’s Apple event, Tim Cook spoke about the success of the App Store, with the big numbers being 140 billion downloads to date, 106 percent year-over-year growth, and 500,000 games in the store. But while there are some excellent games and franchises available, someone, he lamented, has been missing, until now… Mario!

Yes, Nintendo’s most famous character is set to finally arrive, officially, and exclusively on iOS, but anyone hoping for a traditional Super Mario Brothers game will likely be disappointed.

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Cash is dumb. No, I do not necessarily mean stupid; I mean it is not "smart" from a technology standpoint. Understandably, some folks like the idea of paper money as it allows their honest transactions to occur below the radar, and for a privacy standpoint, I understand that. However, cash also assists people that commit crimes, such as drug dealers -- and that is not cool. Once all monetary transactions are digital, and cash no longer exists, law enforcement will have an easier time tracking illegal transactions, while honest folks can more easily track and budget their finances.

Digital payment systems, such as Samsung Pay and Apple Pay are paving the way for a cashless society. Google's Android pay is also part of the push, and today, it is getting even better. Not only is it adding many new banks to the program, such as Chase, but it is also adding support for mobile Google Chrome and Uber's Payment Rewards program.

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A security researcher has revealed a way to determine the password needed to access a protected Windows or OS X account. Using Rob Fuller's technique, it doesn't matter if the computer in question is locked, and it uses a USB SoC-based device to crack user credentials.

By modifying the firmware of a USB dongle, Fuller was able to make the device appear as an Ethernet adaptor. By spoofing a network connection, it is then possible to trick a target computer into giving up an account password.

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Organizations have an increasing number of employees who travel. According to a 2015 report by Strategy Analytics, the global mobile workforce is expected to grow to more than 1.75 billion by 2020, accounting for almost half of employees. For organizations of all sizes, mobile workers make communicating in an emergency increasingly difficult.

In the event of an emergency effective communication is crucial. The safety of employees is of importance to organizations. When a location-based crisis occurs (such as a fire, explosion, natural disaster or terrorist attack) organisations need to have the tools in place to communicate with employees quickly and reliably. For example, if there were riots taking place in the same area an employee was traveling, it is important for an organization to be able to notify that person and make them aware of the danger, as well as provide the necessary actions to guide them to safety.

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Samsung has recalled the Galaxy Note7 after receiving reports of exploding batteries from early adopters, and the Federal Aviation Administration has taken notice. Due to the risks posed by the faulty batteries, the Android flagship could soon be banned on flights.

There is no telling when or if a Galaxy Note7 will explode -- which is likely why Samsung has announced a recall so early -- and there is no telling what could happen if that takes place during a flight. By the looks of units which have exploded so far, it could lead to some serious burns, at least -- which cannot really be treated in the air.

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Every browser claims to protect users from hijackers and adware, but their defenses are limited and over time it’s easy for your system to fill with junk. ZHPCleaner is a free tool which aims to help by scanning your PC, detecting dubious addons, toolbars and settings, and removing them on demand.

The program is very convenient to use. There’s no adware, no registration, no need to install anything, not even an archive to extract -- just download and run the single executable, and click "Scanner".

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UK carrier Three is committed to its plan to offer ad-blocking for customers using its network at some point in 2017, despite opposition from the EU.

In May, the carrrier first revealed its plan to block mobile ads for its customers for the entirety of one day in June. Three is of the belief that its users should not be forced to use their mobile data to display ads which are irrelevant to them and often invade their privacy.

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Ubiquitous in the workplace, mobile devices vastly increase employee productivity, connectivity and their ability to collaborate. Employees can easily access corporate networks and sensitive enterprise data with a mere swipe -- whether they are bringing their own device (BYOD) or via a corporate-issued device. At the same time, mobile devices present significant privacy and security challenges for organizations.

Employees commonly install personal apps on devices they also use for work. Often, employees don’t think twice about whether an app they’re using could potentially expose their corporate network to risk. In fact, an alarming percentage of mobile apps used within the enterprise are able to access sensitive device functions, or otherwise exhibit behavior that may pose security risks to the organization and violate its BYOD policies. Without understanding what these apps do, organizations are playing Russian roulette with their security.

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I have a TV producer friend I worked with years ago who at some point landed as one of the many producers of American Idol when that singing show was a monster hit dominating U.S. television. She later told me an interesting story about Carrie Underwood, the country-western singer who won American Idol Season 4. That story can stand as a lesson applicable to far more than just TV talent shows. It’s especially useful for the purposes of this column for explaining IBM’s Watson technology and associated products.

You see the producers of American Idol Season 4 knew before the season was half over that Underwood would win. And, by the same token, I’m about to argue that IBM already knows that its Watson artificial intelligence technology has lost. In each case they chose not to tell us.

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I've been at CloudSec 2016 in London, listening to various security professionals from the likes of Trend Micro and Microsoft talk about the challenges businesses face in securing their data in the cloud.

As you could probably have guessed, talks have centered around the ever-expanding threat landscape, the continued industrialization of cybercrime through various underground marketplaces around the world and general cyber security trends.

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Increased reliance on the Internet means businesses face a number of different security threats aimed at bringing down websites, impacting performance or stealing information.

Many of these attacks are aimed at the application layer. Content delivery specialist Limelight Networks is adding to its Cloud Security services with the launch of a new Web Application Firewall (WAF).

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In just a few hours, Apple will be taking the wraps off its latest smartphones, the iPhone 7 and dual-camera equipped 7 Plus. Will Apple ditch the headphone socket as rumored? Will we get our first glimpse of the Apple Watch 2? We'll find out soon enough. The event is scheduled to start at 10am PDT/6pm BST, and as always it will be streamed live so you can tune in at home or (maybe) work.

Apple likes to preach to the faithful, so there are the usual restrictions in place. Live streaming the event requires Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later; Safari on iOS 7.0 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 6.2 or later, or an Apple TV fourth generation. Windows 10 users can also tune in using Microsoft Edge.

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One of the biggest problems organizations have in staying secure is a lack of visibility across the whole enterprise, giving hackers the opportunity to exploit gaps between security solutions.

Access control specialist SecureAuth is taking the lead in the creation of a Connected Security Alliance with the aim of building a reference architecture that will help organizations address every stage of the attack lifecycle from initial penetration, to lateral movement, to escalating privileges.

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Popular Wi-Fi scanner Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector has finally hit version 2.0. The release brings support for Windows 10, and introduces the first Mac version.

Compatibility improvements include new support for the Wi-Fi standards 802.11ac Wave 1 and Wave 2. There’s also a Network Vendor column to identify the manufacturer of each network device.

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The question many businesses are asking themselves is, 'should we be moving to the cloud?' The public cloud is clearly a success, as shown by the significant adoption of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Companies are benefiting from the pay-as-go nature of the cloud, as well as from the ability to turn up services as needed without the traditional hardware spend. Gartner recently reported that cloud computing will affect more than $1 trillion in IT spending by 2020.

But even with this growing popularity, corporate IT departments are still struggling with how to integrate public clouds into their data center initiatives. One of the main reasons for this hesitation is the uncertainty around maintaining workload performance once the data gets to the cloud. This is a valid concern, but one that can be overcome. We spoke to Len Rosenthal, chief marketing officer for infrastructure performance specialist Virtual Instruments, to discuss how workload analysis and modeling is the first step for any cloud migration initiative.

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