The internet of things opens up a vast range of new opportunities for individuals and businesses. But as we saw yesterday with expert predictions on the impact of the Apple Watch it also brings additional risks.

Analysts at Gartner are predicting that by 2017 more than 20 percent of businesses will have security devices aimed at protecting services and devices in the internet of things.

Continue reading →

Ninety-eighth in a series. Welcome to this week's episode of the best new apps and games for Microsoft's Windows 8.x operating system. This week saw the release of several high profile apps in store including the official New York Times Crossword application and the simple but addictive game Dots Out.

Both are not 100 percent free however, which explains why no app was awarded the best app of the week title.

Continue reading →

We've grown accustomed to "transparency" reports in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. We all now realize we are being watched and listened to, and that tech companies like Google and Microsoft, complicit or not, have given up user data, though the latter is currently fighting a court order to do so.

"Over the past year, revelations about government surveillance have shown that we need more transparency into when and how government agencies get access to people’s information online", states Bart Volkmer of Dropbox.

Continue reading →

Having a startup business is all the rage nowadays; it is as trendy as a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Actually, if you go to Starbucks, you can probably overhear chatter from hipsters about some lamebrain scheme to launch a business. Of course, the business must have a wacky name to make it cool; throw a bunch of consonants (vowels are so passé) in a hat, pull out 5 and that's the new business name.

Despite the deluge of posers thinking they will be the next Mark Zuckerberg, there are legit people with sound business ideas too. These up-and-coming startups need all the help they can get. Today, Google announces that some startups can receive $100,000 worth of Cloud Platform credit.

Continue reading →

Use Outlook for a while and it’s all too easy to let the messages pile up. Soon your inbox is a bloated mess, too large to tackle easily, and so you just try to ignore everything older than the last week or so.

NirSoft’s OutlookStatView helps out by drilling down into your accounts and producing some detailed reports. Who’s sending you the most emails? The bulkiest attachments? How many messages are you handling each hour, day, week, month, year? It’s all just a click or two away.

Continue reading →

It's transparency time once again! After Edward Snowden opened the can of NSA surveillance worms, internet users' collected attention has been focused on online privacy. We still don’t know the full extent of the monitoring that took place, but more information continues to leak out. All of the big names -- Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and the rest -- have slowly trickled out little snippets about government data requests. A new blog post from Yahoo's general counsel Ron Bell sheds further light on the resistance the company put up against requests for data.

Just like Google and Microsoft, Yahoo is keen to let it be known that it tried to stick up for the privacy rights of its customers. A new cache of documents -- stretching to War And Peace baiting 1,500 pages -- from seven years ago shows just how much of a fight Yahoo tried to put on its users' behalves. Way back in 2007, the US government started to request information about users from a number of online companies. Yahoo was one of the companies who -- initially, at least -- refused to comply, and tried to fight the government in court.

Continue reading →

Who owns your telephone number? According to Section 251(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, you own your number and can move it to the carrier of your choice. But who owns your texting phone number? It’s the same number, just used for a different purpose. The law says nothing about texting so the major wireless carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) are claiming that number is theirs, not yours, even if you are the one paying a little extra for unlimited texting. And the way they see it, unlimited is clearly limited, with carriers and texting services not offered by the Big Four expected soon to pay cash to reach you.

Those who’ll pay to text you include mobile carriers not in the Big Four led by the largest independent, US Cellular, as well as so-called over-the-top texting service providers that presently offer free texting services. These companies include pinger.com, textplus.com, textnow.com, textme.com, and heywire.com. Service continues for now but the incumbents are threatening to shut it down any day. T-Mobile started trying to impose fees several weeks ago and Sprint, I’m told, will start trying to charge next week.

Continue reading →

Western Digital's HGST unit has announced plans to launch the first 10 terabyte hard drive, the largest capacity drive released so far.

The firm also announced it will be shipping its 8TB Ultrastar He8 drive shortly, which uses pressurized helium to fit two extra disks into the drive, but still relies on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

Continue reading →

Small displays are passé nowadays, as consumers increasingly prefer large screens. There are obvious benefits to it. Even Apple has finally acknowledged it with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which dwarf all previous iPhones when it comes to display size. But, now that we have bigger iPhones, we find ourselves in the unusual position of having to choose which one to buy.

That was not a problem before, because, since the original iPhone was introduced, Apple only had a single flagship in its lineup. In late-2013, it tried to shake things up a bit with iPhone 5c, but it was actually designed as a mid-range offering. With iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, there are more similarities. Nonetheless, figuring out which new iPhone is best for you is easy.

Continue reading →

Want a proper look at the next version of Windows? WinFuture.de, the website behind the recent batch of leaked screenshots, has recorded a video showing Windows 9 Technical Preview (build 9834) in action.

The video focuses on the Start menu, and we get to see how well it all works. The tiled section on the right is unobtrusive, resizable, and disappears when not required. Microsoft has done a superb job of making a Start menu that functions as you’d expect, but which is modern and beautifully presented. The video also shows Modern UI apps running on the desktop, and more.

Continue reading →

A report carried out by the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) has revealed that the majority of apps are failing when it comes to user privacy.

Of the 1,211 apps examined, the study found that 85 percent didn't clearly explain what data was being collected and nearly one in three requested an excessive amount of personal information.

Continue reading →

Oracle has released VirtualBox 4.3.16, the latest in a series of maintenance fixes for its cross-platform, part-open-source virtualization program.

The most notable fix in the new build affected a number of Windows hosts, which found themselves unable to open VMs. The only workaround had been to revert to the previous build (4.3.12).

Continue reading →

There was a time, when open source software was synonymous with being cheap or on the fringe. In other words, companies embraced closed source options, because that was the thing to do -- there were not many options. Quite frankly, I do not blame businesses for playing it safe.

Today however, open source software and technologies, including Linux, are viable and attractive options. Companies like Red Hat have paved the way for others to move open source from the fringe to the spotlight. Today, major player HP acquires a company named Eucalyptus to bolster its open source technology in the cloud.

Continue reading →

Life is a very precious thing, and for various reasons, not all people are lucky enough to procreate. Of course, adoption is also a great option to experience the miracle of seeing a child grow. Unfortunately, the experience of raising a child can turn tragic when something bad happens.

One of the biggest tragedies in the news lately, is toddlers dying in hot cars. When it happens accidentally, the parent will suffer in more ways than one. Of course, they will mourn the child's death, but also, live forever with the guilt. Such a horrific experience can destroy a family. Today, a new product is announced, that should prevent hot car deaths -- the Forget Me Not Child Alert System.

Continue reading →

With a visual impairment, using any software or service can be anything from tricky to impossible. Windows and other operating systems have long included features that make them easier for blind and partially sighted people to use, and now Google is adding similar playing-field-levelling features to Google Drives and Docs. While traditional desktop software has been quick to adopt new methods of opening up to as many people as possible, the same cannot be said of online tools -- Google is looking to change that.

Starting today, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms all feature support for Alt tags for images, as well as better text-to-voice conversions. Tweaks include support for vocalized spelling correction suggestions, as well as the ability to listen to comments that have been added to shared documents. The arrival and departure of collaborators something else that's now spoken aloud. Changes are also to be found in the many keyboard shortcuts -- additional shortcuts are now available to provide access to a wider range of tools and option than before, including the editing of charts and pivot tables.

Continue reading →