Latest Technology News

IBM’s artificial intelligence computer Watson is expanding into the weather forecast territory. According to the company, it is buying The Weather Company’s B2B, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com, Weather Underground and The Weather Company brand.

The TV segment -- The Weather Channel -- will not be acquired by IBM, but will license weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract, the company added.

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You can't cast a stone these days without hitting something regarding the Internet of Things, be it a product, story or cautionary warning. That last one seems to be the primary focus lately as people worry, in some cases unnecessarily, about the security of the devices being thrust onto the market.

Now one of the big players in the tech game is getting involved as Microsoft joins forces with Pacific Control Systems for an enterprise management system based on Microsoft Azure.

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On 23 April 2014, a small Chinese company called OnePlus got a lot of press attention when it introduced the OnePlus One, an Android phone with flagship specifications for the amazingly-low price of $299 for the 16GB variant and $349 for the 64GB model.

OnePlus introduced the world to its second flagship phone earlier this year, the OnePlus 2, during a virtual reality press event. Once again, OnePlus impressed reviewers with great specifications at a great price. Now that we have quickly gone over OnePlus's past, let's come to the present day and the launch of the company's latest Android phone, the OnePlus X.

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Apple's super-thin MacBook is wonderful in many areas; however, there is a particular aspect that is arguably deficient. You see, it has a cutting-edge USB 3.1 Type-C port, which is awesome, but that, unfortunately, is the only port (besides a 3.5mm audio jack).

If you need to connect multiple USB Type-A devices, or access an SD (or micro SD) card, you are out of luck. Luckily, accessory-makers are always creating products to meet consumers' needs. Today, Satechi announces its Type-C Hub Adapter for Apple MacBook.

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Google has fired warning shots at Symantec, threatening that Chrome would start to flag the company's security certificates as unsafe. The threat comes in a blog post penned by Google software engineer Ryan Sleevi who is still seething after Symantec employees issued a number of unauthorized security certificates.

Some of the certificates were owned by Google -- including Google.com -- and a Symantec-led audit suggested that the problem affected just 23 test certificates. But further probes revealed that there were in fact more than 2,500 certificates involved. Google is understandably fuming and is now holding Symantec to ransom.

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Have you ever lost a mobile phone and wondered where it went? Security company Avast had the same thought and deliberately 'lost' 20 phones to find out what happened to them.

Avast installed three security apps on all the phones, the free Avast Anti-Theft app, Lookout Mobile Security, and Clean Master. It then randomly placed 10 phones in San Francisco and 10 in New York. Each phone was marked with contact information on where to return the device if found.

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OnePlus is taking a break from challenging flagships, as today the company announces its first mid-range smartphone. Called OnePlus X, it sports a premium design, competitive hardware specifications and a price tag of just $249. In keeping up with tradition, it too will require an invite come purchase time, but this is said to only last for the first month after going on sale.

The lower price tag -- compared to the OnePlus 2 flagship -- might lead you to believe that OnePlus X is lacking in the hardware department, but the new smartphone is actually quite impressive in terms of specs. You get quite a lot more than the price tag might suggest.

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Comcast has just invoked a three years old agreement with Verizon which allows it to use its network. According to Comcast’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts, the network will be used to test a wireless service.

Roberts said during the earnings call on Tuesday that his company plans to "trial and test some things".

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The haughty headline from yesterday's Apple fiscal fourth quarter 2015 earnings report isn't big revenue or profit performance ($51.5 billion and $11.1 billion, respectively), but a figure given by CEO Tim Cook during the analyst call: "We recorded the highest rate on record for Android switches last quarter at 30 percent".

Blogs, and some news sites, set the statement off like an atomic blast of free marketing for Apple. The fallout spreads across the InterWebs this fine Wednesday, largely undisputed or corroborated. Just because Cook claims something doesn't make it true. To get some perspective, and to either correct or confirm the public record, today I asked a half-dozen analysts: "Does your analysis of the smartphone market support that assertion?"

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The UK government is sending mixed messages about how it views privacy and security. Fears have been mounting since Prime Minister David Cameron wondered aloud "in our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?" -- his view obviously being that, no, we don’t want to allow such a thing.

Following the revelations about the spying activities of the NSA and GCHQ, public attention has been focused more than ever on privacy and encryption, Cameron having also suggested a desire to ban encryption. Today, some fears were allayed when it was announced that the government was not seeking to require software developers to build backdoors into their products. That said, the government said that companies should be able to decrypt 'targeted' data when required, and provide access to it.

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Those 800,000 IT experts Europe will be missing by 2020 won’t be that easy to find, as the new study suggests that Millennials are not really crazy about a career in cyber-security.

These are the results of the annual study of millennials entitled Securing Our Future: Closing The Cyber Talent Gap. According to the study, young adults are not really interested in cybersecurity, but what’s even worse -- the number of young women in the US interested in a cyber-career is five times smaller.

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Wow, and weird, is my reaction to YouTube Red, which is live starting today. The experience is so different from the regular service, I am stunned. Fast-loading is the first thing, so be careful what you click—or turn off autoplay. Videos on Facebook feel like a moped racing a Lamborghini compared to YT Red.

Using this 2012 MissFender video as example: Pressing the stopwatch on my Nexus 6P at the same time I click to enter the URL, 9 seconds passes before I can start watching the vid. The time includes the auto-loading ad, how long it plays before YouTube permits me to skip, and lag caused by my own responsiveness dismissing the advert.

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Ripples of excitement met the Surface Book when it was announced, but it's a device that has divided opinions. The price is enough to make many people balk, and the looks are not to everyone's taste, but it's the performance that Microsoft is pushing -- even if it is unwilling to back up its claims with benchmarks.

There are, however, lots of reports of problems, some of which are shared by the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. Even before launch there was a firmware update prepared, but if you were hoping that it would fix problems with a flickering screen, freezing caused by the video driver, and problems with charging after re-attaching the keyboard, you'll be disappointed. Not that you know there was any disappointment out there thanks to the cherry-picking of positive reviews Microsoft has indulged in...

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JP Morgan Chase announced its own smartphone payment platform on Tuesday, called Chase Pay. The platform, due to make its debut mid-2016, will be a direct competitor to the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung.

Chase Pay is built upon the Current C, a retailer-led mobile payment system that has largely been written off by Silicon Valley techies for its reliance on barcodes rather than the more sophisticated NFC (near-field communications) technology adopted by its competitors.

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While not all open source solutions are better than the closed source alternatives, opting for the former for underlying infrastructure is generally a good idea. This will provide a business with flexibility and stability while sometimes saving money too.

A Singapore school, the Yale-NUS College, had some needs revolving around the cloud, so it wisely chose two open source friendly companies to help -- Dell and Red Hat. The OpenStack cloud solution, a product that was co-created by the two aforementioned companies, has been a huge success for the college.

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