Ignorance of digital dangers puts consumers at risk
Technology users are putting themselves at risk by ignoring how their personal information is being stored and the potential security risks that go hand in hand with digital devices.
This is the conclusion of a round table panel of security experts put together by hosting company UKFast. According to the panel the buzz of social media and the ever-evolving digital scene has created an ignorant culture of technology consumers.
Google I/O 2014 Day 1: What you need to know
Google I/O 2014 started yesterday and, thanks to a lengthy first-day keynote, the search giant has already made plenty of headlines one after another. And for good reason, as it unveiled new software, new hardware (albeit none of it was Nexus-branded) and a number of sweeping changes to its portfolio. Say what you will, but Google sure had plenty of interesting things to show without even announcing a new Nexus tablet (as we were used to in the past two years).
The amount of information from the conference is overwhelming, so here is the tl;dr version.
What happens now that phones can see?
Photos give us a window to the world -- our own experiences can only show us so much. Photos give us a richness of experience and perspective that we would otherwise be devoid of. The sudden existence of billions of smart phones, which take trillions of photos and videos per year, has given us the biggest increase we’ve seen yet in rich user data -- and now we have the technology to start to make sense of that data.
With this new technology, it’s now possible to analyze photos for myriad applications. For example, at Jetpac we use 100s of millions of travel photos shared on Instagram to develop the Jetpac City Guides app, and do object recognition on the photos to be able to recommend places such as restaurants with patios (from the blue skies in the photos), hipster bars (by the unusually high number of mustaches we spot in photos), and the best coffee shops (from the highest proportion of latte art in photos). We've also now developed deep learning AI technology to broaden our ability to be able to recognize all objects in photos. Putting deep learning on the iPhone (Spotter by Jetpac) means we can now recognize many objects from the iPhone's real-time video feed, locally on the phone. Having minimized the technology significantly, we also have room to allow you to train the phone to recognize a specific object (Deep Belief by Jetpac).
McAfee issues warning that mobile malware is on the rise
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".
LinkedIn introduces its own job search app
LinkedIn has launched its first standalone job search app that provides a dedicated service for users looking to search and apply for jobs on the social network.
The decision to release LinkedIn Job Search on iOS comes as no surprise, with 40 per cent of the network's 300 million users accessing the site on mobile devices.
What we can learn from Facebook's 30 minute outage
Facebook is at the heart of delivering applications to a generation of content-hungry consumers, who expect short, intense experiences and flawless execution when they engage with brands. Because of this, companies like Facebook invest millions to ensure their platforms are robust enough to withstand almost any situation.
Apps look simple to the user, but under the hood they are often incredibly complex. When someone Likes a post on Facebook or places a comment, a single click triggers millions of lines of code and activates thousands of servers, so managing these applications is challenging.
Parallels Access 2.0 lets you control your PC or Mac remotely using iPad, iPhone or Android device
Looking for a way to access programs on your desktop or laptop from your mobile? You could go down the route of installing something like TeamViewer, but with the best will in the world, trying to control your entire Windows or Mac desktop from your mobile is a fiddly experience at best.
A more practical solution can be found by going down the Parallels Access route, and it’s one that’s just been made even better with the release of version 2.0.
Best Windows 8 apps this week
Eighty-sixth in a series. Welcome to this week's selection of the best applications for Windows 8.
New app and game releases this week include the excellent next generation comic book reader Madefire, two TV show apps by A&E, and an adaption of the popular board game Zombies!!!.
Yo: This app can't do anything else!
While there are many fairly specialized mobile apps out there, Yo, which was just launched by Life Before Us, takes the cake for being the narrowest-focused messaging service available on Android and iOS now.
Why? Because Yo can only be used to say "Yo" to your contacts. As you can imagine, it does not even trigger a keyboard when you want to hit a friend with a message, as a touch of a button will do the trick (Life Before Us touts this as a feature, in case you are wondering why the heck I am mentioning it).
Why you may want to buy a BlackBerry again
Canadian mobile maker BlackBerry may have just cracked its biggest problem -- the weak BlackBerry 10 OS ecosystem -- as it just signed a licensing agreement with Amazon, which will bring the Android Appstore to its ailing smartphone operating system.
When the upcoming BlackBerry 10.3 OS launches this fall, more than 200,000 new apps will be available on the platform, on top of what BlackBerry World already offers. The latter is likely to feature more apps that leverage BlackBerry 10 features, while the former will take on the role of filling the biggest gaps, caused by missing popular titles like Candy Crush Saga, Netflix and Minecraft, among others.
Using online dating mobile apps risks leaking your personal data
One in five adults in the US aged between 25 and 34 have used an online dating site and mobile apps have opened up a new channel for these services to reach their clients. But this does raise concerns about the level of privacy and how user data is being protected.
Mobile security specialist nVisium has looked at the features in 30 of the most popular dating apps for iOS and Android. It found that 80 percent of the apps leaked personal information to third-party services and that 70 percent had issues that would allow a user's real identity to be disclosed.
Avast's new Android app removes ransomware from infected phones and tablets
Of all the malware threats out there, ransomware is arguably the nastiest. It locks your computer, encrypts your files, and then demands payment to free your data. You can remove it easily enough, but doing so won’t get you your files back. And unfortunately ransomware is beginning to make its way on to Android devices.
Avast has just released a Ransomware Removal app which will eliminate this type of threat from infected Android phones and tablets. It scans your device, tells you if you’re infected and if you are it will remove the malware and (according to Avast) decrypt your hijacked files.
Spanning launches new mobile app for Salesforce admins
We reported towards the end of last year that cloud backup specialist Spanning had expanded its portfolio of software to cover Salesforce.
It's now taken things a step further by launching a mobile app for Salesforce admins to allow them to monitor and control their backups from anywhere.
Extend your battery life with Comodo Battery Saver for Android
There’s no real secret to extending the battery life of your Android device: just keep your screen brightness and timeout to a minimum, while turning off, disabling or uninstalling everything you don’t really need.
Applying these tweaks at the right time is often a hassle, of course, and it could be simpler to allow the free Comodo Battery Saver to manage everything for you.
1Password for Android now supports on-device password editing and management
AgileBits has unveiled 1Password for Android 4.0, a complete rebuild of its app for giving Android device users access to passwords stored securely using the 1Password service.
Previously, the app only gave users read-only access to passwords created on other platforms, including Windows, Mac and iOS, but is now a fully fledged password manager in its own right.
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