Latest Technology News

The FBI holds an iPhone that was owned by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, Syed Rizwan Farook, and wants Apple to crack it. Apple CEO Tim Cook is defying the FBI request and the court order that accompanied it, saying that cracking the phone would require developing a special version of iOS that could bypass passcode encryption. If such a genetically modified mobile OS escaped into the wild it could be used by anyone to crack any current iPhone, which would be bad for Apple’s users and bad for Amurica, Cook says. So he won’t do it, dag nabbit.

That’s the big picture story dominating the tech news this week. However compelling, I’m pretty sure it’s wrong. Apple isn’t defying the FBI. Or at least Apple isn’t defying the Department of Justice, of which the FBI is supposed to be a part. I believe Apple is actually working with the DoJ, which doesn’t really want to compel Apple to do anything except play a dramatic and very political role.

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Each carrier would like you to believe that its network is better than those of its rivals. It may be touted as the most reliable or the fastest but, at least in one regard, it definitely takes the cake. Such claims can be hard to believe though when they come directly from the horse's mouth. After all, it is easy to lead the pack when you decide exactly what the rules are.

RootMetrics has conducted its own tests to find out which major US carrier has the best cellular network and, based on its findings, Verizon comes out as the clear winner, well ahead of AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

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A significant portion of UK businesses, 63 percent of them, plan to move their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud in the near future, according to a new report by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF).

The adoption rate of the Cloud among UK’s businesses currently sits at 78 percent, the same as a year before, but "substantially higher" than when the research was first conducted back in 2011, the report says. The report also says that the adoption is likely to increase to 85 percent in the next two years.

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How much of your company's data do you actually use? According to search technology specialist Lucidworks, businesses typically only analyze around 10 percent of the data they collect.

The rest becomes what the company calls 'dark data' -- information that lurks unused. Much of this data is unstructured and doesn't fit into any convenient database format. This means that companies don't have the tools to make sense of it or simply find they have too much to handle.

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HoloLens is one of the most exciting things that Microsoft is working on. First showcased more than a year ago, this headset could transform how we interact with technology on a daily basis, making it possible to display holograms on top of everyday objects. Imagine having a huge TV that is playing your favorite show showing up on your bedroom wall, or seeing snow falling down around you on a hot summer's day. The possibilities are virtually endless.

But while HoloLens has no doubt captured the imagination of many consumers, Microsoft has not made a kit available to the general public, choosing instead to only offer it for developers and businesses. Question is, why not consumers as well?

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Rogue Amoeba has released Airfoil for Windows 5.0 and Airfoil for Mac 5.0, a major new version of its tool for streaming audio from computers to supported networked devices, including AirPlay hardware such as Apple TV and AirPort Express.

Version 5 adds support for Bluetooth devices, plus introduces a new free tool -- Airfoil Satellite -- that turns other PCs, Macs and iOS devices into clients for the main Airfoil tool.

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Listen to Tim Cook and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Apple was standing up for the little guy, sticking up for the likes of you and I in fighting the FBI. The FBI, Apple would have you believe, wants Apple to break encryption, thereby weakening security for everyone. But that's not really the case at all.

The FBI has not asked for encryption to be broken; it wants access to data on the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, and it wants to do so by using the (as yet unknown) PIN that has been used to lock it. Get it wrong too many times and the device is wiped. The FBI wants custom firmware to be made available that would allow it to brute force the PIN. It's nothing to do with cracking encryption, but that's not what Apple wants you to believe. It's an exercise in misdirection and a classic straw man argument. The problem is, if the straw man goes up in flames, will Apple too?

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Ah, Linux. What can't the open source kernel do? For many projects, operating systems based on it have proven remarkably adaptable -- being made to work with countless hardware configurations. While Windows may remain king of the desktop -- for now -- Linux has its fingers in many pies for which Microsoft's offering is just too bloated. It remains to be seen if Windows 10 IoT will be embraced.

Today, Canonical announces that it will be releasing an Ubuntu Core image for Samsung's IoT-focused ARTIK platform (5 and 10 modules). What does this mean? Well, developers can now leverage one of the most popular Linux distributions on this hardware. This creates amazing potential for ARTIK.

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One-hundred and sixty-eight in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.

This week saw some great releases and application updates. Facebook's official application is available to all users for instance, and updates to Twitter, Hulu or Todoist improved these apps significantly.

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The US courts say Apple should help the FBI access the contents of an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, but Apple is refusing, on the grounds that it doesn’t want to erode the security of Apple customers.

I’m personally on Apple’s side, as is my colleague Joe Wilcox, but Donald Trump wants Apple to use "common sense" and open its phone up, while John McAfee is claiming he can help the FBI unlock Apple’s device within "three weeks", primarily through the use of social engineering. The FBI for its part says it doesn’t want Apple to create a backdoor in all iPhones, just unlock the one belonging to the killer.

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Microsoft Edge is the default system browser on Windows 10. Microsoft ships the operating system with Internet Explorer as well, and it is easy enough to use either one of the browsers to download Firefox, Chrome, Opera or any of the other browsers available for Windows.

When Windows 10 came out, I was interested in Microsoft Edge for a number of reasons. It is a new browser by Microsoft that did away with old dependencies that held Internet Explorer back. That should make it sleeker, faster and less prone to attacks.

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Mobile data these days comes at a premium. Carriers charge what could be considered ridiculous amounts for it and many customers burn through it. Unless you're predominantly on Wi-Fi then you're likely wondering where all of that data is going.

The answer, of course, is background apps -- programs that run all the time without the user realizing it. These can eat up tremendous amounts of a monthly allotment.

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Ad blocking has been going on for years, but it’s risen in popularity a lot lately, thanks in part to Apple allowing ad blockers into the App Store. Popular content blocker Adblock Plus has been having conversations with advertisers recently too and is looking to discover just why people block ads on the web.

In an interesting move, mobile network operator Three has announced that it will be using ad blocking technology created by Israeli startup Shine to block adverts on a network level.

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Facebook has teamed up with charity the Samaritans to bring its Suicide Prevention tool to the UK. It's the same tool that was launched in the US a little over a year ago, and it gives users the opportunity to report content they feel might be indicative of someone struggling with suicidal thoughts.

While Facebook itself is not involved in seeking out suicide-related posts, it has a team in place ready to handle any content that is reported. The team is able to analyze and prioritize cases, and reach out to individuals to see what sort of support can be offered -- this might be as simple as having a chat, or it could involve a referral to specialist organizations.

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Whilst businesses can call on expert resources to secure their systems, for many home users protecting a home network and the devices attached to it can be something of a dark art.

Finnish security company F-Secure is aiming to make securing systems simple even for the non-technical with its forthcoming SENSE product. We spoke to Mika Majapuro, F-Secure's director of product management, to find about more.

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