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There’s a burgeoning
environmental disaster playing out in Southern California — but unlike
the widespread media coverage on the Deepwater Horizon, this leak has
been...
12/29/2015
Strangling Superfish: Microsoft will block ad-injection software to prevent attacks
Lenovo’s Superfish scandal of early 2015 was one of the most significant computer security issues of
the last decade. For those of you who don’t recall, the Chinese
manufacturer shipped a number of IdeaPad models with a root certificate
installed that fundamentally broke SSL encryption, and allowed a third
party to inject content virtually at will, as well as to spy on any
user’s...
The Tech Stories That Surprised, Shocked, and Amused Us in 2015
Every day, thousands of tech stories make headlines, but only a
select few stir up a prolonged frenzy or keep our attention for weeks
at a time.
This year had its share of surprising announcements, from BlackBerry
embracing Android to Google becoming Alphabet. The Apple Watch also hit
stores, while drones hit ... ferris wheels?
Tech companies and their execs got into fights, Silicon...
CES 2016 Preview: Smart Home Gadgets
Last year's CES focused a lot on the Internet of Things, a
clunky, vague term that came to define products fitted with electronics,
software, and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Basically, it means everything from your oven to your toothbrush to
your dog's food bowl will be able to connect to your phone, the Web, and
your social networks, where you'll control every possible parameter and
share...
Report: Samsung Pay Coming to Lower-Cost Phones
The gift-giving season may be over, but Samsung reportedly has one more present for owners of lower-priced smartphones.
Samsung Pay Global Co-General Manager Thomas Ko this week told Reuters that the mobile payment service will expand to more handsets "within the next year."
Initially introduced in South Korea via a handful of phones, Samsung Pay arrived in the U.S. in late...
Phablets, iDevices Popular This Christmas
If you turned on a shiny phablet or unwrapped an Apple gadget this Christmas, you're not alone.
According to an annual holiday report from mobile analytics
firm Flurry, new device activations and app installs shattered records
this year — and tipped...
Updated Google Glass pops up on FCC’s website
The FCC isn’t where most
people go for leaked product photos and pre-release information, but
every now and then a few tidbits slip out of the government database.
Today is one such...
Samsung TVs Will Control Your Smart Home
The connected home is about to get even more connected: Samsung is turning your TV set into a smart home controller.
All of Samsung's 2016 SUHD (or "Superior 4K UHD") TVs will come with Internet of Things hub technology from SmartThings,
allowing users to control lights, locks, thermostats, speakers,
cameras, and other home appliances, the companies have announced.
Too lazy to leave the...
Privacy-as-a-Service Scatters Data in Disappearing Clouds
When attackers breach through layers of encryption and
firewalls, one good way to keep cloud-based data safe is to keep it
scattered, in constant motion. Dispel, a start-up focusing on
enterprise-grade digital privacy for small to midsize businesses (SMBs)
and individuals, offers digital privacy rooted in ephemeral cloud
infrastructure.
In Dispel's case, "ephemeral"—a term popularized...
BMW to Unveil AirTouch 3D Gesture Control System at CES
BMW is taking gesture control to the next level.
The German auto maker on Monday announced
plans to show off a futuristic new feature — dubbed AirTouch — at the
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. The technology lets
you control your car's entertainment, navigation, and communication
functions "using simple hand gestures made with a flat hand."
"AirTouch allows the...
Ashley Madison Adds 4 Million Users Since Hack
They say no publicity is bad publicity, and that might just be true for Ashley Madison.
Because even a massive data breach that exposed millions of
unfaithful spouses apparently can't keep the site down. Turns out, the
infamous adultery site has gained some 4 million members since the very
public breach and dump of user data.
At the time of the breach this August, Ashley Madison claimed to...
Mass Effect Andromeda Loses Senior Development Director
One of the top directors of Mass Effect: Andromeda has left the project and BioWare.
Senior Development Director Chris Wynn announced his departure on
Twitter a week ago, though he didn't explain why he decided to leave.
It is with a heavy heart today to say that I am moving on from BioWare and Mass Effect: Andromeda, and returning to the USA.
— Chris Wynn (@The1Wynn) December 22, 2015
BioWare...
Comcast begins rolling out DOCSIS 3.1-based gigabit home Internet
Comcast announced
that it installed the first gigabit DOCSIS 3.1-based cable modem in a
customer’s home near Philadelphia this week. Savvy readers may recall
Comcast already unveiling a 2Gbps service...
Save Big on a Samsung Galaxy Prevail Smartphone
Looking for an affordable smartphone for your kids? Check out today's deal from FreedomPop.
For just $49.99, you can get a 4.5-inch pre-owned Samsung Galaxy
Prevail, and enjoy 200 voice minutes, 500 text messages, and 500MB of
LTE data every month for free for the life of the device.
Get this deal
In terms of specs, the Samsung Galaxy Prevail features a 1.2GHz
quad-core CPU, 1GB...
Samsung Unveils New Bio-Processor For Fitness Wearables
The wearable device market has exploded over the past couple of years, and Samsung now wants a bigger piece of it.
The tech giant on Tuesday introduced
a new chip dubbed the Samsung Bio-Processor, designed for
health-oriented wearables. Now in mass production, the all-in-one chip
can process numerous "biometric signals" without the need for any
external processing parts. Aside from just...
MIT, Adobe aim to end ‘code rot’ by letting software auto-optimize
In a job market absolutely
stuffed with computer programming positions, few in the general
population care, or should, about the complaints of pampered coders. “Oh, is PHP disorganized and difficult to bug-check?...
Disney's VertiGo Robot Can Climb Walls
Alex Honnold and Chris Sharma better watch out. The rock climbing legends might soon face some new competition ... from a robot.
Meet VertiGo, a new robot that can actually climb walls. Developed by
Disney Research Zurich in collaboration with ETH University, VertiGo
might not yet be ready to take on Yosemite's Triple Crown any time soon,
but it is capable of its own gravity-defying stunt:...
For VR to succeed, it needs evangelists. Will it get them?
After years of impatiently
waiting, the latest generation of virtual reality headsets are nearly
here. Facebook alone has dumped over two billion dollars into the VR
market, and countless developers...
A new thought experiment shows how we could get information from a black hole
The event horizon of a black
hole has long been thought to be the edge of the knowable universe.
Black holes are little pockets of space that information can enter, but
never leave....
Rise of the Tomb Raider Coming to PC in January
According to Steam, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be available on the PC sometime in January.
Although this isn't an official release date, it does correspond with previous reports. Back in July, Square-Enix announced
that the game would be released on PC in early 2016. Two weeks ago, a
listing on Amazon France had the game set for release on January 29,
2016. The Baba Yaga DLC is...
Hyundai, others stumble with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto updates
The news was bright and
cheery: Back in 2014, Hyundai announced it would equip its 2015 lineup,
including the then-new Sonata, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
support. The Sonata got Android Auto earlier...
12/28/2015
Tech That Should Excite (and Worry) You in 2016
For more than two decades, I have written an annual column with tech predictions for the next year. But
this year I am deviating a bit from this tradition by highlighting
promising technology as well as a few areas of concern. Let me start
with the four tech products I believe will be interesting in 2016.
1. Uptick in Windows 10 Adoption Although Windows 10
did not help the PC...
North Korea’s Linux-based Red Star OS is as oppressive as you’d expect
As we’ve covered before,
North Korea has its own version of Linux called Red Star OS. A pair of
German researchers have just given the code a once over — and as you’d
expect, it’s locked down...
Handy Android Alarm Feature Disappears
The "until next alarm" for Android feature is acting awfully strange.
The feature, which lets users silence all alerts until their morning
alarm goes off, has been disappearing at random, and it's once again on
the lam.
Complaints first cropped up on Reddit, and Android Police said its
readers also alerted it to the mishap. As the blog explains, "until
next alarm" was removed...
Who Put This Huge Database of U.S. Voting Records Online?
Time to get out your deerstalker hat.
Somewhere out there is a publicly available database with approximately
191 million voting records, with details like names, birthdates,
addresses, phone numbers, and political party affiliation.
The problem? Nobody knows who owns the database, who set it up, how
it got online, or why its information is public. According to CSO, which
first...
The ArcaBoard is an extremely impractical $20,000 turbine-powered hoverboard
It’s the year 2015, and the predictions of Back to the Future Part II are being put to the test. The self-lacing shoes are sort of happening, but hoverboards —
the real kind, not the wheeled kind — are a much trickier problem. An
aerospace firm called Arca Space Corporation has started promoting the
ArcaBoard, an honest...
Santa's Sleigh Was Full of Fitbits
Did you get a Fitbit for Christmas? You're not alone.
As noted by Quartz,
the company's app shot to No. 1 in Apple's App Store on Christmas Day,
as millions of people presumably unwrapped a new fitness tracker and got
a head start on New Year's resolutions.
As of Dec. 28, the Fitbit app was in second place, eclipsed only by YouTube. On Google Play, it's currently at No....
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