Siri knows what makes Cookie Monster sad
Siri has become known for providing amusing answers to certain questions and today a new one has taken the internet by storm.
When asked the question "What is zero divided by zero?", Siri responds in a witty yet comical manner, citing Cookie Monster’s cookies as an example.
How personalization is changing the face of marketing [Q&A]
[BetaNews Recommended Reading] Companies today have access to more information about their customers than ever before. This gives them the opportunity to effectively personalize their marketing messages, but are they failing to take advantage of the opportunities this offers? And with large volumes of often unstructured data available how difficult is it to find and use the right information?
We spoke to Sara Vera, data scientist at CRM specialist Insightly to find out more about the challenges enterprises face in adapting to a personalized world.
How to turn off Apple Music's automatic subscription renewal
Apple Music comes with a free three-month trial which, according to some people who haven't been paying proper attention, is something Taylor Swift arranged with Apple. Thanks Taylor. Three months is a good amount of time to try out the service, but Apple automatically signs you up for an auto-renewal payment option. So when the trial comes to an end, you’ll start paying for the service, regardless of whether you're still using it or not.
If you’d rather decide for yourself when (or not) to join up as a paying member, rather than being forced into it, it’s easy enough to turn off the auto renewal, although the process is far from obvious.
One Plus Two touted to have a better fingerprint sensor than iPhone 6
As you’ve doubtless seen, the sequel to the popular OnePlus One will be revealed at the end of next month, but prior to that information about the handset is slowly being leaked out -- or indeed published by the company in the case of this latest snippet concerning the fingerprint sensor.
In a blog post, OnePlus boasted that the upcoming smartphone will have one of the most advanced fingerprint sensors on the market, in an "Apple eat your heart out" kind of way.
Windows 7 gains significant usage share ahead of Windows 10 launch
Windows 8.x enjoyed a good month in May. The tiled operating system finally overtook Windows XP for the first time in six months -- its gains coming mostly at the expense of Windows 7. But it was all change again in June according to the latest usage stats from web analytics firm NetMarketShare.
The latest figures show Windows 8.x losing share -- or business as usual you might say -- going from 16.63 percent to 16.02 percent. That’s a drop of 0.61 percentage points. Windows 8.1 actually gained 0.24 percentage points, but Windows 8 lost 0.85 percentage points. Still overall it remains comfortably ahead of XP now, so there's that consolation prize.
Washington Post implements encryption to protect site visitors
Heightened awareness about online security means that more and more websites are using encryption to boost privacy and security. A few weeks after Wikimedia announced it was using HTTPS to encrypt traffic to its site, The Washington Post has followed suit.
It's a move designed to stop snooping on readers' browsing habits. The news outlet explains that it will make it "more difficult for hackers, government agencies and others to track the reading habits". For those concerned about privacy, this will come a good news, but there's a catch; encryption does not apply to the entire site.
The organizations we least trust with our data
US consumers are most concerned about the ability of retailers and government departments to protect their data according to a new survey.
The Security Insights survey from Unisys shows that 44 percent of American respondents are worried that their personal data held by retailers is likely to be breached in the next year, as many consumers seem to be losing trust in retail data security owing to recent high profile breaches.
Microsoft details 4G LTE Surface 3 availability
While the Wi-Fi version of Surface 3 has been available to consumers and businesses for nearly two months now, the same cannot be said about the 4G LTE counterpart. It only went on sale two weeks ago, and only in Japan, and is not yet available in any other markets where the slate is offered.
This is about to change as Microsoft today announces that this week the 4G LTE version of Surface 3 will also be available to prospective business customers in Germany and UK. Consumers will have to wait a bit longer, however.
VPNs might leak your user information
If you thought that you can avoid all that mass surveillance by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), think again. A study shows that even the VPNs leak user information.
Of course it does make it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor people, but it does not prevent them from accessing the required information. VPNs are currently used by approximately 20 percent of the European internet users.
How to jailbreak iOS 8.4
With previous versions of iOS we have had to wait a while for a jailbreak to finally come out, but for iOS 8.4 one is already available. The TaiG team has moved extremely quickly to update its tool, releasing an updated version that supports iOS 8.4 shortly after Apple made it available to the public yesterday.
Apple has packed dozens of security fixes in the new version of the mobile operating system, but the TaiG team announced on Twitter that the exploit it uses to jailbreak iOS has not been patched.
Twitter says Apple Music is more hit than miss, but there's a lot to hate
Apple Music launched yesterday and Oxford University's TheySay sentiment analysis company monitored Twitter to work out the overall feeling towards the new service. When the firm monitored the sentiment towards Apple’s WWDC keynote three weeks ago, the announcement of Apple Music received an overall 85 percent approval rating from tweeters, but now that it’s here, the actual service is proving far less popular.
Dr Karo Moilanen, Oxford University professor and co-founder of TheySay, observed: "Compared to the sky-high positive sentiment ratings that Apple products and announcements typically reach on Twitter, this time Apple Music invoked a healthy dose of strong negative sentiment (ca. 24 percent) amongst tweeters".
Google puts lipstick on Gmail -- adds new themes and emojis
I am definitely a Gmail power user. Not only do I use it for much of my personal email, but business communications too. Does it bother me that the search giant scans the contents of my messages for advertising? Yes, a bit, but I realize there is no such thing as a free lunch.
What does really bother me, however, is how archaic Gmail looks nowadays. The appearance is boring and drab. To make matters worse, I know Google is capable of a beautiful redesign -- it is frustrating that the company just doesn't. Today, Gmail gets a little lipstick by way of new hi-res themes and new emojis.
DNS Jumper 2.0 brings turbo DNS testing
Sordum has released DNS Jumper 2.0, an update of its freeware DNS changer for Windows.
New startup options mean you can have the program load along with Windows, test for the fastest DNS server and apply it automatically, no more manual interventions required.
Microsoft issues a surprise new Windows 10 release -- build 10159
Hey... wait a minute. Didn't we just get a new build of Windows 10 yesterday? Yes, of course we did. Less than 24 hours ago, Microsoft released build 10158 and today there is something of a surprise announcement for Windows Insiders who are signed up to the Fast Ring: another new preview version in the form of build 10159.
Microsoft has been criticized for the speed at which preview builds have been trickling out, and it seems that the company is listening to feedback. You'll notice that there is only a single digit build increase, but Gabe Aul reveals that this doesn't mean there's nothing to see. As well as more than 300 bug fixes, there is also "one very interesting change".
Medium.com ditches passwords to increase security
Remembering all of the passwords required to gain access to all of your online accounts is a pain. You could opt to use a password manager, or you might decide to use the same password for everything. But Blogging platform Medium.com has another option -- just don't use one!
The site has been anti-password for some time; users log into their accounts using an existing Twitter or Facebook account. For people who are not social network users, however, there's a new option. Working in a similar way to the 'I've forgotten my password' system used by many sites, Medium allows users to log in using nothing but their email address -- and says the system is more secure than regular passwords.
Most Commented Stories
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.