Latest Technology News

It's no joke -- LG G5 coming April 1

With top of the line specs, a metal build, and a modular design, LG's G5 is no doubt one of the hottest smartphones announced so far this year. Many consumers are looking to buy one, but, as you may know, the new flagship has yet to be released, despite being unveiled a month ago.

LG took the wraps off G5 right before Samsung announced its latest flagships, but, so far, only Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge have hit store shelves. That is about to soon change, however.

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A Brexit would be 'hugely damaging' to UK's tech industry

If Britain were to leave the European Union, that would hurt its emerging tech sector, and hurt it badly. Those are the results of a new survey conducted by recruitment agency Talent Point.

Last year, the company registered 3,347 job seekers, with 24.73 percent coming from the EU, mostly thanks to the freedom of movement within it.

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Your older Amazon Kindle may lose connectivity today, but there's an update

The Amazon Kindle has been around since 2007, and plenty of updates have been made to both hardware software during the years since it was released. If you have an older model then it still works just fine and, while Amazon would almost certainly like to sell you a new one, the company is still content to sell you books for older models.

All models released prior to 2013 are now at risk of losing internet connectivity and the company is notifying customers still utilizing those devices.

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FBI can crack iPhone security and is classifying the method to prevent Apple fighting back

The FBI attempts to force Apple to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone have been in the headlines for a while now, stirring up debate about which side of the argument is in the right. Apple has refused point blank to help, but a recent twist saw the FBI changing its mind by saying it doesn't need Apple's help after all.

An outside party -- believed, but not known, to be Israeli security firm Cellebrite -- contacted the FBI to help access Syed Farook's iPhone. The Justice Department said it is "cautiously optimistic" that the proposed method, which is currently being tested, will be successful, but some reports suggest that it has already been used to break into some iPhones. Apple will obviously want to take steps to secure other devices if the hack is effective, but it has been classified to keep it secret.

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French media goes on the offense against ad-blockers

French media is bringing the fight to ad blocking software. According to a report by The Guardian, a number of local outlets are preventing readers who run ad-blockers from accessing their content.

The sites, some of which are major media publications, are part of a trade association representing online businesses. They’re saying that by using ad blocking software, users are depriving the companies of valuable revenue sources, killing the business.

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Red Hat proves open source is big business -- posts $2.05bn yearly revenue

Open source is big business. To quantify and define "big business", how about I throw out a number -- $2,000,000,000. That is a lot of zeros! But what does it represent?

It is a figure that Red Hat has surpassed for its 2015 earnings, as it just posted revenue of $2.05 billion for last year. This makes it the first-ever open source software company to ever meet or exceed $2 billion in revenue in a year.

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Keyless entry makes car theft easy

Thieves can probably steal a bunch of cars with ease, if they are equipped with keyless entry. Those are the results of a new study done by a group of German car security researchers, looking into just how secure the technology is.

According to a news report by Wired, keyless entry for cars is not secure at all. As a matter of fact, out of 24 different cars, from 19 different manufacturers, all have been easily hacked through a method of amplifying the signal from the key fob in the house.

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Data scientists spend lots of time doing stuff they don't enjoy, but they still love their jobs

Data analytics

Data scientists spend a lot of time doing things they don't like, such as sorting out problems with unprocessed information, but they still love their jobs according to a new survey.

The second annual Data Science report from data enrichment platform CrowdFlower shows that there’s a perceived shortage of data scientists, with 83 percent saying there aren’t enough to go around, up from 79 percent last year.

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CCleaner 5.16 FINAL tweaks browser cleaning tools

Piriform Software has released CCleaner 5.16 and CCleaner 5.16 Portable for Windows PCs. Once again, the latest release focuses on fine-tuning the program’s browser-cleaning tools, with tweaks for Opera, Chrome and Edge the major highlights.

CCleaner 5.16’s main feature is added support for cleaning Opera’s GPU and Application caches, while it also updates the management of Chrome Browser Plug-ins.

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Stickers, Stamptags, Taptags or Stickits... Twitter is testing a new image editing tool

Sometimes sharing a plain old image just isn't enough. Sometimes you might feel the need to adorn an otherwise dull image with clipart-style graphics. Sound like you? If so you're going to love the sound of a new image tool Twitter is testing... if not, brace yourself for an influx of irritation in you timeline.

Currently being referred to as Stickers (sound familiar?) -- although names including Stamptags, Taptags or Stickits are also in the running -- the tool is undergoing testing with a select group of tweeters. It allows users to add graphic overlays to photos and also introduces some extra social features in a bid to stand out from other tools available elsewhere. Meme creator, anyone?

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Sitefinity delivers improved content management and customer analytics

In modern fast-moving business environments, marketers need to be able to respond quickly to changes and deliver appropriate content.

To help deliver this ability, business transformation specialist Progress is releasing new versions of its Telerik Sitefinity platform for content management and customer analytics.

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Ginni the Eagle: IBM’s corporate 'transformation'

I promised a follow-up to my post from last week about IBM’s massive layoffs and here it is. My goal is first to give a few more details of the layoff primarily gleaned from many copies of their separation documents sent to me by laid-off IBMers, but mainly I’m here to explain the literal impossibility of Big Blue’s self-described "transformation" that’s currently in process. My point is not that transformations can’t happen, but that IBM didn’t transform the parts it should and now it’s probably too late.

First let’s take a look at the separation docs. Whether you give a damn about IBM or not, if you work for a big company this is worth reading because it may well become an archetype for getting rid of employees. What follows is my summary based on having the actual docs reviewed by several lawyers.

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Google will launch Android Pay in the UK 'in the next few months'

Ready to compete with the already-established Apple Pay, Google's Android Pay is due to make its first foray into Europe when it launches in the UK in the coming months. To make things easy for retailers, Android Pay can be accepted anywhere that already supports contactless payments.

In addition to places such as Starbucks, Costa, KFC and Waitrose, Android Pay can also be used to pay for Tube, bus and train journey with Transport for London. The UK debt will follow a successful US launch and growth into Australia, but Google has not yet revealed whether the reward schemes enjoyed by those in the US will also make their way to the UK.

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Freeware screen recorder oCam adds mouse click effects

Freeware desktop capture and recorder tool oCam has been updated to version 254 with new mouse effects. It’s now possible to highlight left and right mouse clicks with various animations, making your actions much clearer to the viewer.

This is all very configurable, with five animation styles, your choice of color, size and duration, and a preview window to simulate the results.

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Avram Miller on the death of Intel's Andy Grove

Avram Miller, who is my friend and neighbor here in rural Sonoma County, wrote a very insightful post on the passing of Andy Grove.

It’s well worth reading.

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