Google announces better Glass, new Glassware

Google Glass Viewfinder

Following feedback received from early adopters (known as Explorers), Google has announced a significantly revised Glass wearable. But, unlike prior iterations, it looks like this one will not be available as a free-of-charge upgrade for current users, who will now have to pay full price to get the latest and greatest.

The improved Google Glass is touted to offer better performance courtesy of a RAM capacity increase to 2 GB, which is 1 GB more than before (prior versions only allowed 682 MB of RAM to be effectively used, making the difference quite substantial). There are also more Google Now cards available, which will display extra information like shipping delivery estimates and car location.

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Pony Loader malware targets Bitcoin wallets

identity theft

A new piece of malware being traded on the criminal market aims to steal victim's BitCoin wallets. Damballa Threat Research, which identified the Pony Loader 2.0 malware, says it expects to see an increase in thefts.

Pony Loader, also referred to as Fareit, has been around for a few years and has the ability to steal sensitive information from a victim's computer and install additional malware. This may include taking stored credentials for email, web and FTP accounts. In the past, Pony has been used to distribute the P2P GameOver Zeus Trojan.

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Paint.NET 4.0 is here at last, offers major new features, performance improvements

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It’s been a long wait -- nearly six years in fact -- but dotPDN LLC has finally unveiled Paint.NET 4.0 FINAL, the first major update to its popular freeware image-editing tool for Windows since version 3.5 was released in October 2008.

The new build comes with the promise of major performance improvements, particularly on multi-core processors, anti-aliased selections, a revamped user interface, a number of new features and revised system requirements that lock out Windows XP and Vista users.

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Mobile threats can prove overwhelming for organizations

Mobile threats

Mobile device usage and BYOD offers many advantages for business, but it also results in more entry points for cybercriminals looking to attack corporate networks.

A new report by research specialist GigaOm and incident resolution company AccessData highlights the need for organizations to be prepared and incorporate mobile devices into their overall security planning.

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Create portable versions of applications using Evalaze

Evalaze200-175

Portable applications can be very convenient, especially if you regularly use different computers. Just copy the programs to a USB stick and you can run them anywhere, no installation required, and no traces left behind afterwards.

Unfortunately many applications don’t have an official portable version, but there are other options you can try. Evalaze is a free (for non-commercial use) tool which converts full applications into a single portable exe file which runs on any Windows PC, from XP up.

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HTC pokes fun at the Samsung Galaxy S5's 'bad design'

HTC-v-samsung_contentfullwidth

HTC has taken to Twitter to have a dig at Android competitor Samsung’s design flaws when it comes to the latter’s flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone.

The US Twitter account of the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer posted a picture that pictured its HTC One M8 next to a lineup of three different colored plasters along with the slogan "Introducing the cure for bad design".

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BDReader displays comics by panel...sometimes

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BDReader is a comic book viewer with ambition. It doesn’t just zoom to page width and wait for you to scroll: the program also supports “panel view”, which uses computer vision technology to detect the panels in a page, and display them in order. at the maximum possible size for your page.

There are one or two other comic readers which try to do the same thing, but they’re typically commercial products for tablets. Can an open source Windows tool really compete? We grabbed a copy to find out.

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PBS Kids comes to Apple TV, Android and Chromecast

sesame-street

Many of us grew up with PBS programming, such as Sesame Street. While that show is still around -- it seems it will last forever -- others are now popular with today's youth. But while we may remember a console TV and antenna, today kids expect things like cable and set-top boxes, even smartphones and tablets. Public television is moving on to meet these new needs.

Today PBS Kids announces an expansion of its reach, coming to Apple TV, Android and even Chromecast. Along for the ride, are many of kids' favorite shows, including that old standby, Sesame Street. Big Bird will be joined by others, though, like Daniel Tiger.

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McAfee issues warning that mobile malware is on the rise

mobile security shield

A lot is made of malware and ransomware and other ailments on the mobile platform, especially with Android. Most customers are unlikely to encounter a problem, but the fact is it does exist if you go looking in the bad places -- yes, you must seek it out.

Now anti-virus company McAfee has issued a report and the findings, while sounding dire, reveal that customers at risk are those doing what they shouldn't be. The company warns "against downloading unofficial apps and purchasing from third-party app stores, which have become a haven for shoddily created apps.  Consumers often do not adequately check the 'permissions' section of the app to see if it is secure, leaving them exposed to malware or hackers that may access their data through vulnerabilities that were never patched before the app was released to market".

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Time’s up! CryptoLocker ransomware is back in business

Despair

CryptoLocker recently had something of a setback when law enforcement agencies managed to seize control of servers running it and the GameOver Zeus botnet. Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) declared this would give computer users a unique two week opportunity to secure their systems, which seemed a rather precise claim.

It turns out that prediction wasn’t too far off the mark. Three weeks after that warning, and CryptoLocker is indeed making its return, this time as a standalone threat. The new strain does not rely on 2048-bit RSA encryption nor need a Command and Control server to work.

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Rainbird AI set to hit open beta on 21 July

developercropped

Rainbird Technologies has announced that its artificial intelligence software will enter open beta on 21 July, so in just under a month from now, the company hopes that a range of devs, schools, charities and non-profits will benefit from the product.

Rainbird AI is a web-based platform designed to make artificial intelligence tech available to and usable by those without any programming skills or knowledge.

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Kaspersky Lab uncovers new Android and iOS spying tools

Mobile spy CCTV

Security company Kaspersky Lab has published a new report uncovering previously undiscovered Remote Control System (RCS) Trojans that work on both Android and iOS. It's also mapped their massive international command and control network.

The Trojans are part of the allegedly 'legal' spyware tool, RCS, also known as Galileo, developed by the Italian company, HackingTeam. Kaspersky's researchers were able to map the presence of more than 320 RCS command and control servers in over 40 countries. The majority of the servers being found in the United States, Kazakhstan, Ecuador, the United Kingdom and Canada.

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Google Glass can help you survive the zombie apocalypse

Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis Zombie

Still trying to justify the cost of Google Glass to yourself, or your significant other? The ability to use it to evade zombies and get fit in the process might not be enough to tip the balance, but it’s certainly another tick in the 'for' column.

Immersive fitness app Zombies, Run! has been adapted to work with Google’s wearable. If you’re not familiar with it, the app essentially turns a real-world jog into a journey through the zombie apocalypse. On Android and iOS it’s pretty much an audio-only affair, but the Glass Edition changes that.

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CloudPhysics helps deliver reliable storage for virtual data centers

Cloud storage

Storage is often at the heart of many of the problems companies encounter when running their data centers in the cloud.

Analytics specialist CloudPhysics is looking to help admins pinpoint and resolve storage-related issues with a new Storage Analytics product. This uses big data analysis techniques to predict problems and issue Smart Alerts so that issues can be fixed before they become critical.

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Microsoft selects Opera as default browser for its Android phones

x2-nokia

Earlier today, my colleague Wayne Williams reported that Microsoft is releasing its first Android phone. While not the first smartphone from Nokia to be powered by Google's operating system, it is the first under Microsoft's leadership. Let that sink in for a minute -- Microsoft is releasing a device powered by Linux. Has hell frozen? Are pigs flying? Surely, this is the sign of the apocalypse.

Every smartphone needs a default browser however, and the Nokia X2 is no exception. Sadly, Microsoft has not ported Internet Explorer to Android -- I would welcome that in the future though. No, it has chosen a different browser as default and it is not Chrome or Firefox, but Opera.

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