Big Blue is watching you -- IBM patent aims to help stamp out fraud
Proving who you are online is usually a matter of entering passwords or other codes. Which means if your information falls into the wrong hands someone else would have no problem pretending to be you.
IBM has been working on this problem and has patented a technique that analyzes online behaviour to work out if you really are who you say you are.
Reset the Net shows a groundswell of opposition to the NSA
Internet heavyweights such as Reddit, Imgur, BoingBoing and the WikiLeaks Party are joining forces to encourage internet users to take control of their privacy. Reset The Net is a campaign that flips the virtual bird at the NSA by inviting people to make use of privacy and encryption tools to keep themselves protected online. Also involved are such names as Greenpeace, Amnesty International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the campaign is gathering momentum as internet citizens find themselves increasingly disillusioned by the post-Snowden world.
We have already seen an upsurge in the use of online encryption, but this has been largely employed by those who are more technically minded. The Reset the Net website asks web users to make a pledge: "On June 5, I will take strong steps to protect my freedom from government mass surveillance. I expect the services I use to do the same". Reset the Net is not an end in itself, but more of an awareness-raising campaign that aims to educate people as much as send a message to the NSA and its ilk.
New partnership brings easy-to-use encryption to Microsoft email users
The best way to keep data from emails and attachments from falling into the wrong hands is to use some form of encryption. But it needs to be easy to use if it's going to be effective.
Systems integrator and network consultancy BrightPlanIT has announced a partnership with DataMotion that will see it reselling cloud-based solutions for secure email, file transfer, customer contact and forms processing.
Pirate Bay founder arrested as Demonoid returns from the dead
The Pirate Bay saga is one that has been running for a number of years now, and the latest chapter sees one of the founders arrested in Sweden. Peter Sunde had been on the run for two years after failing to make an appearance having been sentenced to two years in prison. He had been handed an eight month term for aiding and abetting breach of copyright laws, although those associated with the site have long-maintained that they should not be held responsible for the sharing of copyrighted material as no data was stored on the site.
Sunde had been sought by Interpol and his arrest coincided with the eight-year anniversary of the police raid of Pirate Bay servers. He had been living in hiding in Berlin, but having family in Sweden meant that he often returned to the country. Torrent news website TorrentFreak reports that the arrest was a joint operation between Swedish and Polish law enforcement agencies.
Acer unveils Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC) Experience Center
Acer has opened its BYOC Experience Center in Aspire Park over in Taiwan, a place which is designed to showcase the firm's Build Your Own Cloud ecosystem and its usefulness to both individuals and business organizations.
This is all part of Acer's push into cloud territory, as it looks to diversify away from the PC hardware business which has been hit hard lately by a downturn in demand (as tablets have gathered much momentum).
My two years with Chromebook
Colleague Alan Buckingham is on a summer sojourn using HP Chromebook 11. I took similar journey during August and September 2011, but the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook -- much as I liked the overall user experience -- couldn't satisfy my needs. In May 2012, with Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550's release, all changed. I started down a permanent path, looking back once for a few weeks. I am a Chromebook convert and eagerly watch to see where Alan will be when the summer sun fades to autumn colors.
"Can I use Chromebook as my primary PC?" It's a question I see often across the Interwebs. The answer is different: You can use Chromebook as your only computer. The only PCs in my home are Chromebooks. There are no Macs or Windows machines doing double duty. Chromebook is more than good enough. Most people will be surprised just how satisfying Chromebook can be -- and how affordable. For 96 cents more than the cost of one entry-level MacBook Air, you can buy from Amazon four HP Chromebook 11s -- the model Alan uses now. User benefits are surprisingly similar.
Sophos helps enterprises secure mobile access
With more and more demands to go mobile and allow employees to use their own devices, the challenge for businesses is to keep their data secure.
Following a recent survey which showed that 84 percent of organizations allow access to public cloud services like Dropbox and 65 percent don’t encrypt data between cloud and mobile devices, security specialist Sophos is launching Sophos Mobile Control 4.0.
The real cost of transitioning your business to the cloud
As knowledgeable as heads of IT and CIOs inevitably are, there is at least one area where an admission of ignorance is wiser than faked knowledge -- how to determine the true cost of transitioning an enterprise's IT into the cloud.
At first, this might seem counter-intuitive. After all, moving from on-premise IT to the cloud is such a fundamental strategic shift, with so many financial, technical and business considerations, that you'd expect any cloud proposal to contain a detailed breakdown of the costs of transition. This was certainly possible in the early days of cloud computing, when there were only the costs of in-house servers and software to measure.
Technology and politics -- two paths that need to cross to enable progress
In the world of politics, the wheels of change move slowly; very slowly indeed. Parties and those in power have a vested interest in maintaining the established order, and any attempts to buck the status quo are usually fairy fiercely opposed. Contrast this with the technological world where there are new innovations made every single day -- even at the weekend! Technology doesn’t run out of money and leave an entire nation on the verge of collapse. Technology is not interested in race, class, sex, sexuality or other characteristics. It is certainly true that technology is largely driven by a desire to generate profit -- we are, for the time being, living in a capitalist world, after all -- but it is profit born of fulfilling people's needs and desires.
Can the same be said of politics? To a large extent politics is self-serving. There's still an interest in generating a profit, but it is for the benefit of the few. Technology serves the masses, and has the potential to serve and benefit all. Of course, the term "technology" is rather broad. For the purposes of this article, I'm going to use it to refer to computers, the internet, smartphone, the cloud, electronic/connected devices, robots and the like. For all the gestures to democracy and choice, politicians are, for the most part, interested in serving certain sections of society. There are of course those parties and politicians who are able to take a wider view, have an interest in helping those at the bottom as much as those at the top, and value all people equally.
The most popular stories on BetaNews this past week: May 18 -- May 24
It should come as no surprise that this week's big news was Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 unveiling. Brian had been looking forward to the NYC event and was at the event to get hands on with the new device. There's certainly a lot to love about Microsoft's third generation tablet, but there is that price to consider. If you like the look of what you see, the device is available for pre-order right now -- and if you're undecided between the Surface and a MacBook Air, Mihaita compared the two. Maybe you're one of those who thinks it’s a niche product.
The Surface Mini failed to make an appearance, but there are still lots of other tablets to choose from -- although they are yet to make much of an impression in higher education, unlike Chromebooks which have found their way into Welsh schools. Will Microsoft's tablet manage to attain the longevity of Apple's iPad? You'd be forgiven for thinking that hell itself had frozen over at the news that work is underway that will make it possible to run Android and iOS apps side by side on the same device.
Sad news for springers -- Springpad shuts up shop June 25
Data organization wars have claimed a victim. Springpad, the notebook service designed to help users "get inspired, get organized, get more done" is to close. After six years of helping people store notes, recipes, project ideas and more, Springpad will close in just over a month. The world of note taking tools, managers and general information organizers has become crowded. The likes of Evernote, OneNote and even Google Keep have all been vying for attention in recent years, and there are only so many users to go around.
The closure rumors started last night with the Verge citing the oft-mentioned "person familiar with the company's plans", but now it has been confirmed. In a blog post the Springpad team confirms what hundreds of thousands of users hoped and prayed would turn out to be untrue -- as of June 25, the service will cease to function. At this stage no reasons are being given for the closure, but it will leave users scrabbling to find a new home for their data.
How APIs are changing the face of enterprise computing
The humble API has been around for a long time, enabling applications to exchange data. But in the world of mobile computing and BYOD the role of the API is under greater scrutiny.
This is one of the things that's been under discussion at the recent Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration Summit. At the end of last year there were some 10,000 publicly listed APIs, and now it's reckoned that around 24 percent of web applications and 15 percent of mobile applications use them. But what benefits are they bringing to the enterprise?
Google, somehow, gains 100% rating for protecting user data
It may seem as though Google feels the sharp end of many tongues -- be it about problems with Glass, for shaping the content of the internet, or the way it handles advertising. But more often than not, the big G finds itself on the receiving end of criticism for being in bed with the NSA for the way it handles user privacy. In spite of all of the ammunition unleashed in Google's direction, the company has -- incredibly -- been awarded a full six stars out of six by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for protecting user data from government requests.
The EFF's Who Has Your Back? report ranks and rates the performance of some of the biggest names in the world of tech for handling user privacy in the face of government data requests. Finding ourselves in a world now tainted by the activities of the NSA, privacy and accountability have become more important to internet users than ever before. The Electronic Frontier Foundation prides itself on "defending your rights in the digital world", and its annual report looks at the performance and promises of 26 companies who handle your data.
Microsoft and SAP expand partnership to deliver productivity solutions
Twin colossi of the software world Microsoft and SAP are extending their long-term partnership to deliver improved productivity and workforce mobility solutions.
The announcement focuses on three areas, enterprise cloud computing, improved data exchange between SAP applications and MS Office, and mobile support with expanded development for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1.
Dropbox 2.8 offers smarter installer, drive space warnings
Cloud backup provider Dropbox has announced the final release of Dropbox 2.8, its latest major update for Windows, Linux and Mac.
The new release adds Windows and OS X auto sign-in support for easier installation. As long as you're logged into Dropbox already, the installer won’t ask for your credentials again. (This doesn’t work if you’re using two-step verification, or a Dropbox for Business account that uses single sign-on.)
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