Hacker group aims to take down Xbox Live and PlayStation Network for Christmas
There will no doubt be many new games and consoles under trees this holiday season. That means a lot of people joining the online gaming community and trying to get started with their new toys. The networks need to be ready for the vast influx of users. Now a hacker group is vowing to prevent all of this.
This isn't a new thing, as last Christmas Lizard Squad knocked both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network offline. This time around it's Phantom Group planning to do exactly the same thing. The group announced its intent on Twitter with such threats as "We are going to shut down Xbox live and PSN this year on Christmas. And we are going to keep them down for one-week straight #DramaAlert".
P2P file sharing and its impact on business
When you think of peer-to-peer file sharing you probably bring to mind services like Kazaa and Limewire that were among the early sites allowing users to share media, or of more recent operations like Pirate Bay.
But while it's easy to think of P2P in terms of individuals downloading music or movies, a new report from security rating company BitSight reveals that it’s a problem for businesses too.
ImBatch adds more 'image to PDF' power
High Motion Software has shipped ImBatch 4.5.0, the latest edition of its free-for-personal-use image batch processor.
This release is mainly about the "Save to PDF" task, which now has more power than many specialist image-to-PDF tools.
The bible is dangerous for you and your phone
For the religiously-inclined the appeal of installing an electronic bible on a phone is (somewhat) understandable. But as well as providing a biblical fix when out and about, apps of a religious bent could also harbor a worrying payload.
The Threat Insight team from Proofpoint looked at thousands of iOS and Android apps, and found that a disturbing percentage of seemingly innocent apps pose a threat to users. Apps were found to include secret tracking components, as well as data-stealing elements and the ability to make unauthorized calls. The figures make for frightening reading.
Box and Salesforce team up to improve cloud collaboration, productivity
Salesforce and Box have announced a partnership that aims to enable closer business collaboration and greater productivity.
The two companies have announced Salesforce Files Connect for Box to help businesses access files securely and Box SDK for Salesforce to assist the software development cycle.
Microsoft wants you to upgrade to Windows 10... whether you like it or not
Microsoft managed to piss off a lot of people with Windows 10. Some people love it, but certainly nowhere near 100 percent of the install base (whatever size Microsoft claims this may be). It's possible for any operating system to be disappointing, but what Microsoft has managed to get wrong with Windows 10 -- time and time and time again -- is the way upgrades have been delivered.
We've had stories of installation files being downloaded without permission. There are the privacy concerns. There is the confusing installation process that has misled some into upgrading to Windows 10. But even after weeks and months of complaints, the forced Windows 10 upgrades are still happening. If anything, the problem is getting worse. Microsoft is making it harder and harder for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users to avoid Windows 10. A coerced user is not a happy user, yet Microsoft continues to force Windows 10 down people's throats in a number of ways. WT actual F?
Adblock Plus updates Acceptable Ads and reveals how it makes money
Ad-blocking tools are more popular than ever before, and this spells potential disaster for anyone who relies on ad revenue from their web site. Previously something only available to desktop users, the widespread hatred of ads saw the tools spreading even to iOS.
A while back Adblock Plus revealed that its Acceptable Ads program -- which gives users the options of permitting the display of certain non-intrusive ads -- would be independently overseen. Today we not only learn about the latest updates to the program criteria, but also how monetizing is possible.
13 million MacKeeper accounts leak online
The anti-virus software for Apple’s OS X, MacKeeper, kept the user data of more than 13 million of its customers online without much protection, and someone eventually stumbled upon it.
Yes, stumbled is the perfect word in this instance, as the data was accessed through an IP address, no username or password required.
iPhone sales will decline in 2016
According to a recent report by Morgan Stanley, iPhone sales are set to drop for the first time ever in 2016.
An analyst at the firm named Katy Huberty, who worked on the report, is responsible for this prediction. She said that Morgan Stanley thinks that unit sales of the iPhone will decline by six percent during this fiscal year.
Microsoft releases Windows 10 Redstone Build 11082 to Insiders on the Fast ring
Having rolled out Threshold 2 under the guise of the November Update last month (and then removed and reinstated it shortly afterwards), Microsoft is now on the Redstone branch of Windows 10 development -- the next big update which will be pushed out to all users of its new operating system next year.
Build 11082 is now available for Windows Insiders on the Fast ring and Microsoft’s Gabe Aul introduced the new build saying:
Philips announces 23-inch 1080p monitor with integrated USB notebook docking station
Notebooks are wonderful for their portability. I often use a laptop to work in my car, coffee shop -- heck, anywhere really. When at home, however, I like to interact with a large monitor, keyboard and mouse. While I can connect multiple peripherals with USB, and a display with HDMI, this can result in a huge mess of wires. Docking stations can help remedy this, and there are many such options on the market.
Today, Philips announces a very interesting new product that takes the docking station a step further. You see, it is a computer monitor with an integrated docking station. By connecting a single USB 3.0 cable, you can transmit video and audio, plus utilize USB peripherals and gigabit Ethernet.
VMware backs out of Virtustream venture, leaving EMC on its own
VMware, the US cloud software company, said it will not participate in the joint venture cloud services Virtustream with its parent company EMC.
The announcement was made in a recent regulatory filling, which you can read here.
LG's new Gram 15 is the lightest 15-inch laptop
Even though CES 2016 is not for another month, LG today announced some of the products that it will showcase at the upcoming consumer electronics trade show. Among them is Gram 15, which is claimed to be the "lightest 15-inch laptop in the world".
But just how light is it? LG says that Gram 15 only weighs 980 grams, or 2.16 lbs. To put things into perspective, it is considerably lighter than Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, and more than twice as light as the 15-inch version of aforementioned laptop.
What will 2016 bring for the cloud?
For almost a decade, each year has been dubbed "the year of the cloud". As the cloud continues to mature and more enterprises further their cloud adoption plans, it seems only natural that 2016 will indeed be (another) "year of the cloud".
But as our understanding of the cloud matures, so does the complexity of the conversation. Here are several predictions for how the cloud conversation will evolve in 2016:
Hillstone adds extra security layer for AWS customers
When moving applications to the cloud it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that security can safely be left to the provider.
For Amazon Web Services customers there's now an extra layer of security on offer from Hillstone Networks. Hillstone CloudEdge is deployed as an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) gateway to provide an additional layer of security protection.
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