A new piece of Android malware appears to offer pornographic images but instead takes pictures of the user via the phone’s front facing camera, then locks up the device and demands a $500 ransom.

Called Adult Player it was discovered by researchers at Zscaler. Having checked that a camera is available and taken a picture, it sends details of the victim's device and operating system to the remote servers before displaying the user’s picture on a personalized ransom screen.

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Everyday humans create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, according to IBM. This data comes from virtually everywhere -- sensors used to gather environmental information, posts to social media sites, cell phone signals and more. In order to best determine how to put this data to use in meaningful ways, the science of analytics has changed (think: the amount of data that can be analyzed, the tools and methodologies that enable us to do so, etc.). Most importantly, companies can now be predictive based on data analytics, enabling them to better forecast demands and proactively prevent certain issues.

I spoke to Murali Nadarajah, Global Head of Big Data Analytics for Xchanging, a publicly listed multi-national business technology and services provider, about how organizations today are using predictive analytics, and how the ability to be predictive has -- and will continue -- to change the business landscape enabling the development of new approaches and products.

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It’s easy to get complacent about your PC’s security. You checked your browser settings a while ago, you’ve a good antivirus suite installed, that should be enough -- right?

Well, maybe, but it’s still wise to test your defenses occasionally, and security researcher Didier Stevens has crafted a special file to help you do just that.

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The Action Center in Windows 10 is a pretty handy addition. It displays past notifications from apps and your system -- if you miss a message from Windows when it pops up you can find out what it said in the Action Center. You can also access various quick actions there.

But if you have no need for the Action Center -- and to be honest I’ve hardly ever used it -- it can be disabled with a simple registry tweak.

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Windows 10 might be the last time IT does a major OS rollout across their organization. Here on in, rather than releasing a new version of the Windows operating system (OS) every few years, there will be regular and continual updates to Windows 10 in perpetuity.

For enterprise IT departments, this new business model and Microsoft software release strategy requires a whole new level of vigilance and support.

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With the latest beta build of iOS 9 being released a month ago, it would seem that the new version of the mobile operating system is nearly ready for prime time. In fact, many of us in the Apple Seed program were lead to believe that iOS 9 is actually available.

A message popped up on devices running the latest iOS 9 beta, advising users to update their handsets. I saw it last night, and went straight to the settings menu to check for updates, only to find out that my iPhone 6 Plus is up to date.

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No less an authority than colorful cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee firmly believes that the now infamous hack of the US-based Ashley Madison sex-cheating website was an inside job.

Statistically, this is extremely likely to be the case for most cyber security breaches. KCS’ own research shows that 80 percent of corporate cybercrimes can be traced to staff, and this figure is increasing. This can be the result of deliberate cybercrime or it could be that the staff member has been careless with their personal log-in details.

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At an ongoing media event in New Delhi, India, Samsung today launches the Galaxy Note 5, its latest flagship phablet device, in the country. Unlike the Note 4, and several other Galaxy smartphones and phablets, the Note 5 is comparatively well priced. The South Korean technology conglomerate announced that the Note 5 will be available for purchase starting Rs 53,900 (roughly $800), and will go on sale starting September 20.

Unveiled at an event last month, the Galaxy Note 5 is the company's latest flagship phablet device. It sports a 5.7-inch QHD Super-AMOLED display with a pixel density of 515ppi. It is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Exynos 7420 SoC with four Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2.1GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.5GHz, coupled with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. It comes in two storage variants: 32GB and 64GB, and doesn't support microSD card. On the software side, it runs on Android Lollipop with TouchWiz UI on top of it.

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The long-anticipated Skype Messaging app is finally here. That is, if you have a Windows Phone smartphone, and just happen to be running Windows 10 Mobile developer preview. The company quietly released the new messaging client on Sunday.

The Skype Universal Messaging app, as evident in the screenshots and descriptions, comes with a user interface that seems very similar to the built-in messaging app on Windows Phone 8.1 and above. The app, as you would expect, also offers a quick option to do voice calling.

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The old adage about how children grow up so fast can easily be applied to many things. The tech world is littered with things we take for granted, and these would once have felt like science-fiction to us. Streaming music is one of those things -- who would have thought you would one day have all of the music you wanted with no vinyl, tapes or CDs?

Pandora is now celebrating ten years in the business. It's hard to believe the little service, created by by Tim Westergren and powered by the Music Genome Project, managed to crack the code and bring music that suits a particular taste, even introducing artists you may have never heard before. Create a station based on an artist, or multiple ones, and Pandora will cook up something to keep you interested.

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Yesterday, I joined the 61 percent. The figure represents the people who, in a MusicWatch survey of 5,000, had turned off auto-renew on their free Apple Music trial, which for all ends September 30. Unless something really big comes out of this week's media event, where new iPhones could debut and iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan receive release dates, I will listen elsewhere. For now, I will stream higher-fidelity tracks from Tidal, and expand my musical horizons at services like SoundCloud.

Strange thing: I don't dislike Apple Music. Curated playlists are "frak me" good. Family pricing, $14.99 per month, is very reasonable. The library is voluminous; if I want to listen to it, Apple Music likely has it. Then there is the benefit of easy access to my own library of about 14,000 tracks alongside juicy fruit picked from the orchard.

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British metal band Iron Maiden has teamed up with Japanese firm Onkyo Corporation to produce a set of headphones -- or Ed-Ph0n3s, named after the Eddie mascot. Founding member and bassist Steve Harris used the headphones when mixing the new album The Book of Souls, and fans of the Maiden will be able to get their hands on a pair of their own too.

Designed specifically with rock and metal listening in mind, the Ed-Ph0n3s were on display at IFA 2015 in Berlin this week. We'd already seen mock-ups of the full-ear bins at CES earlier in the year, but now we've seen the finished product and know more about the specs.

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Having trouble locating Lumia Storyteller, Lumia Beamer, Photobeamer, and Lumia Refocus in the Windows Store? Quit trying; they are no longer available to download. That's because Microsoft has pulled these services from the official store as part of its ongoing “streamlining” efforts, it announces in a blog post.

The company has pulled Lumia Storyteller, Lumia Beamer, Photobeamer, and Lumia Refocus apps, and noted that those who have it installed on their device, will stop receiving any app updates after October 30, 2015. The said apps won't be able to offer online services. Lumia Panorama and Video Uploader are also among the affected apps, and they too won't receive any updates from the company.

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The on-going refugee crisis in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East has grabbed hearts and headlines around the world. As European governments argue over who should take in the thousands of desperate people, European citizens have criticized the speed and scale of the help offered, whilst simultaneously donating money, food, and equipment to help those in desperate need.

Now Google has stepped in, offering €1 million ($1.1 million) to the organizations providing help to refugees. In addition to this, Google.org (the branch of the company "using innovation to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges") is setting up a page to make it easier for people to make donations, and says that it will match any money donated by Google users.

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Email danger isn't new, and we've all been (hopefully) vigilant for years. Don't open attachments is the general rule, though there are some obvious exceptions -- the person confirms they sent it to you. Otherwise, a message from someone you know may very well not have not been sent by them -- I got one a few days ago from a company contact and it had a file attached. Don't open it! When I inquired she replied to me that the address had been hacked.

Absolutely nothing I've just said will protect my kids or parents -- they will happily click away. The problem is, these things seemed to go away, at least mostly, but now they are on the comeback trail according to a new report.

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