Polaroid announces Mexican Android tablets with TV antennas
I am young enough to never have watched TV on a set with rabbit ear antennas. All of my TV watching has happened by cable or satellite. Believe it or not, many people still watch TV using over-the-air antennas. This is done for a number of reasons, but most recently, cord cutters have made it popular. Proponents of over-the-air TV will be quick to tell you that the HDTV can actually be better because it is uncompressed, unlike cable.
Apparently, OTA TV broadcasts are still very popular in Mexico. Today, Polaroid announces new tablets with integrated telescoping TV antennas for that country. Is this a cool new feature or a relic of the past, being retrofitted on new technology?
Hard drive failure responsible for two thirds of data loss
There may be a gradual move to storing more and more files in the cloud, but businesses and end users are still highly reliant on good old-fashioned hard drives. This technology, though convenient, does have its downsides; hard drives fail. A survey conducted by data recovery firm Kroll Ontrack found that nearly three quarters of those questioned (72 percent) had lost data from a drive in a laptop or desktop computer. A far lower percentage (15 percent) lost data from SSDs -- reflecting the fact that fewer SSDs are in use than mechanical drives -- while 13 percent attributed their most recent data loss to RAID or virtual services.
Not all of the data loss came as a result of hardware failure. Software and human error accounted for around 20 percent of data loss, but drive crashes and other hardware problems were responsible in two thirds of cases (66 percent). This is a significant increase from 2010's figures when just 29 percent of data loss was attributed to hardware failure. Paul le Messurier, Program and Operations Manager at Kroll Ontrack is very matter of fact about the findings:
Deep learning platform lets businesses benefit from neural networks
Neural networks, which allow machines to learn in a similar way to the brain, have until recently mostly been the preserve of academia.
Now though Ersatz Labs has announced the launch from beta of its deep learning platform to allow businesses to benefit from the technology.
WinRAR extends BZIP2, LZMA, PPMd support
RARLab has updated its archive manager WinRAR to version 5.10 with a small selection of improvements and new features.
Top of the list must be the extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
High-quality video streaming becomes critical for businesses
According to a new survey carried out by Wowza Media Systems almost 70 percent of people are using four or more devices a day and expect to get high-quality video streaming on all of them.
It also highlights the rise of video streaming as a business tool with more than 80 percent of respondents saying that live and on-demand video is essential within organizations.
The Internot: Billions of people choose not to go online
Google, Facebook and other tech giants are investing in ways to bring Internet access to those far flung parts of the world which are still offline. Creative methods include using balloons, satellites, drones and lasers. Despite this concerted effort, an estimated 4 billion people still don't have access to the Internet.
The Internet Society (ISOC), a global not-for-profit organization founded in 1992, has published its inaugural Global Internet Report in which it charts the spread of the Internet, highlights trends, and illustrates the principles that, it says, "will continue to sustain the growth of the Internet". Importantly it identifies two distinct groups of non-Internet users and reveals the barriers that must be overcome in order for them to gain access.
Feedly suffering from a DDoS attack, service currently down due to extortion scheme
If you moved to Feedly after the much lamented shut-down of Google Reader, as many RSS users did, then you may have noticed that the service is currently down. To prevent customers from wondering about the problems, the company has released an announcement.
Feedly says it is currently under a denial of service attack, with the attacker demanding money to bring an end to service interruption. In a brief post on the company blog, the developers let all customers know of the problem, and promise to update users as the situation develops.
Hackers use terrible passwords too
Lots of people are putting themselves, as well as others, at risk by using weak passwords like their phone number, a loved one's name, date of birth, "password", "123456" or "qwerty". You would assume that those who can crack their passwords, or create malware, do not exhibit the same irresponsible behavior, right?
According to security company Avast, hackers are not much different from the rest of us. Sure, they may not use "123456", the most popular weak password of last year, but their passwords are not too far off, as the majority of them only contain lower-case letters. And, on average, a hacker's password is just six characters long.
Move and copy files more easily with MyFolders
MyFolders is a free Windows shell extension which makes it easier to copy or move files to any folder, or to open common folders in a couple of clicks.
The program installs quickly and easily. There’s no obvious interface, so to see how it works, select a file in Explorer, right-click and choose the new MyFolders menu.
Microsoft's lockscreen app coming soon to Windows Phone 8.1
When Microsoft introduced Windows Phone 8.1 in early-April, the company revealed that the latest iteration of its tiled smartphone operating system will allow users to change the default lockscreen with a custom one. This feature is not available in any of the builds Microsoft launched through the Preview for Developers program, as it will be accessible through an app.
Microsoft then said it is working with prolific platform developer Rudy Huyn, who is known for popular apps like 6tag and 6sec, to make the feature happen. Only hours ago, Windows Phone head Joe Belfiore shed some light as to when we can expect the app to launch.
Troubleshoot Windows 7 and 8 service triggers with Service Trigger Editor
If you’ve ever spent time troubleshooting low-level PC problems then you’ll know that understanding Windows services can be very helpful. The standard Services applet (Win+R > services.msc) tells you a lot about what’s happening on your system -- but there is one important exception.
Windows 7 and 8 support service "triggers", a mechanism which allows Windows services to start when a particular event occurs (a device is plugged in to the computer, say). The Services applet highlights these by listing their Startup Type as "Manual (Trigger Start)" or "Automatic (Trigger Start)", but double-click a triggered service and it won’t tell you anything more.
Dell offers best practices for BYOD security
The rise in use of mobile and BYOD technology is great when it comes to giving employees anytime, anywhere access to data. But it presents new challenges for IT departments in terms of keeping data safe and secure across enterprise networks and mobile platforms.
In a recent Dell Global Security Survey BYOD was highlighted as a root cause of security breaches. Of those polled 57 percent ranked increased use of mobile devices as being a top security concern in the next five years. Part of the problem is employee resistance as people find workarounds to avoid restrictive security policies. An ever increasing choice of device types and different operating systems can also add to security risks. To help companies gain maximum benefit from mobile device usage whilst keeping data secure Dell has come up with five best practice recommendations for enterprises.
Popular Android keyboard SwiftKey goes freemium
Among many third-party Android keyboards, SwiftKey is considered to be one of the best and most popular of the bunch. It has been available in Google Play as a paid app -- I purchased it myself a while back -- but the company behind it just decided to take the freemium route.
This means anyone with a compatible Android device can now take advantage of what SwiftKey has to offer, without having to worry about an expiring trial. Being a freemium app means that, while it may be available for naught, SwiftKey still has to generate revenue. And, it will do just that, through the new SwiftKey Store.
Apple device hijackers arrested in Russia
You may recall that at the end of last month, a number of iOS users were locked out of their devices by ransomware, being faced with a message that their iPhone or iPad had been "hacked by Oleg Pliss", and a demand for $100 to unlock it.
Well, the Sydney Morning Herald (via MacRumors) is now reporting that the device hijacking miscreants behind this scheme have been arrested by the Russian authorities. Some Russian folks were affected by the security incident, as well as those in Australia (and a few other countries such as the US and Canada).
Analyzing IBM analytics
When people last week started reading my IBM eBook (available Friday in paperback from Amazon and most distributors -- make Mrs. Cringely happy and send one to all your friends) the tales of IBM customer and employee woe were generally accepted as simple fact but some people had a hard time with my assertion that IBM analytics will probably not be successful (I said IBM is already too late to that party).
One especially informed reader hit me pretty hard on the topic and I think our conversation is worth repeating here. He’s asked to remain anonymous but I assure you he’s in a position to know.
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