The Kenya Wildlife Service has a powerful new tool in its fight against the poachers who threaten endangered species living in the country's most remote areas: a high-tech network of custom cameras called Instant Wild that can instantly locate illegal activity as well as keep tabs on nearby animals.
. You might have your passwords stored with a password management tool, such as the popular LastPass or 1Password apps. Should you be worried? Yes and no. : Is it reasonable to assume that developers of popular password management software (LastPass,...) are/will be forced by law enforcement to install backdoors in their encryption algorithms? when all internet security/privacy hell broke loose. due to government pressure, it's not outside the realm of reason that the government could compel developers to weaken their systems. Jeffrey Goldberg offers on Quora, however, a few reassurances:
The main threat to the lies in attempts to control the Internet through governance policy, according to Google executive and "godfather" of the Internet, Vint Cerf. Speaking recently at the Campus Party event at the O2 in London, Cerf said that technical issues such as the the across networks by ISPs and introduction of DNSSEC protection provide less of a threat to the continued development and freedom of the web than the "tension" around introducing rules for how the web is run. "I want to point out that, despite all the interesting and hard technical problems associated with the expanding Internet, the harder problems have to do with policy," he said. "There is a great deal of tension about who is in charge of the Internet, who should have control over how it evolves and how it is used." He added, "We are still struggling to understand what sorts of rules should be applicable for the use of the Internet, and what rules there should be for its implementation and deployment."
Most collaboration applications will be equally available on desktops, mobile phones, tablets, and browsers by 2016, reports Gartner. Currently, for mobile content access, collaboration, and productivity enable employees to collaborate in real time and work more effectively, but the fragmentation of options creates complexity and challenges for businesses. "In the past, collaboration on mobile devices meant interaction through wireless messaging and voice calls," says Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner. "Today, smartphones and tablets have larger screens, touch-based user interfaces, location support, broad network connectivity, enhanced cameras and video support, voice over IP (VoIP), and so on. Such features enable a range of applications—both traditional and new—for employees to better communicate, collaborate, socialize, create and consume content," Basso says. "Empowering workers with mobile collaboration capabilities through smart devices, personal cloud sharing, and mobile apps is a smart move for organizations to innovate in the workplace and stay competitive."
With millions of dollars of gadgets on display, the temptation to steal from some of the world's largest electronics trade shows can prove too strong for some. On Sunday afternoon outside of the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, IDG reporters witnessed a man held to the ground by security staff for allegedly stealing from one of the show's exhibitors. No details were immediately available, but the incident happened just outside Samsung's hall and Samsung representatives were present in the area. The man was shouting loudly and the spectacle had attracted a small crowd of show-goers. When an IDG reporter attempted to film the scene, he was physically blocked by a security guard who at one point pushed his camera. Shortly after the event Messe Berlin apologized for the actions of the security guard. See
Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has moved into a commanding position as the overwhelming favorite to win the chief executive's chair at Microsoft, according to online bookmakers. Just over a week ago, U.K.-based Ladbrokes had As of Sunday, however, the odds had shortened dramatically: Elop, still the favorite, was at 1 to 4. Betting $100 on Elop to get the nod would return a profit of just $25, compared to the earlier odds, which with the same $100 bet would have produced a profit of $500. Another bookmaker, PaddyPower, had even less attractive odds for Elop. The Irish firm listed him at 1 to 12, meaning someone would have to put up $120 for the chance to earn a profit of only $10.
The connected fridge was for a long time seen as a joke, but companies like Philips are, with the help of smartphones and tablets, looking to resurrect the concept of connected kitchen appliances in various ways. At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin this week, Philips demonstrated a number of concept devices, including a cooker and a coffee maker, that can users communicate with using their smartphone. By using Wi-Fi to connect the HomeCooker Next (shown above), users can choose a recipe and the appliance will know how to make it by stirring, changing the temperature and managing the cooking time, according to Philips executive vice president Pieter Nota. All users have to do, if Philips can turn the concept into a real product, is add the ingredients. Hopefully the company will include security measures to prevent hackers from burning your risotto.
The 3Doodler, a sort of handheld 3D modeler, made its public debut at the in Berlin this week after racking up thousands of pre-orders as part of a Kickstarter program. The gadget extrudes heated plastic, similar to an electric glue gun, that allows users to make a variety of objects. The company plans to offer stencils on its website for beginner users to make everything from the Eiffel Tower to a horse-drawn carriage. During its Kickstarter program, which launched in February, the company raised $2.34 million and presold 26,000 pens.
Though the National Security Agency spends billions of dollars to crack encryption technologies, security experts maintain that properly implemented, encryption is still the best way to maintain online privacy. The Guardian newspaper and other media outlets last week based on internal internal NSA documents that explain how the spy agency bypasses encryption technologies by using backdoors, brute force attacks, lawful intercepts via court orders, and partnerships with tech vendors. The reports, based on by former NSA-contract employee Edward Snowden, suggest that many encryption algorithms now widely used to protect online communications, banking and medical records, and trade secrets have been cracked by the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. Steve Weis, chief technology officer at PrivateCore and holder of a Ph.D in cryptography from MIT, said despite the NSA activities, the mathematics of
The internet is chock full these days, and if you want to stand out and compete you need not only a great website but also a memorable—and preferably short—domain name. If you try to register your chosen domain name today with a .com or even a country-specifc extension and you'll inevitably find that it's already taken. Around 110 million .com websites are registered, which leaves the option of settling for another so-called top-level domain (TLD) such as .co.uk, .org or .net, or compromising and using a longer name for your site. However, the web is about to get a whole raft of such as .london, .mail and .dentist. Even if you already own a .com or .co.uk domain, you'll do well to pre-register one or more of the new domain names that are appropriate for your site before the prime candidates get snapped up by savvy website owners. Since 2003, there have been just 22 TLDs and most are geographic. Starting soon, though, there will be a whopping 1400 new TLDs, with around 700 available to consumers and businesses—the rest are largely brands such as .microsoft, .ferrari and others which only those companies will be able to register and use.
More of us are accessing the Internet from mobile devices, as measured by site access by mobile browsers.
For sheer volume of bulletins—14 all together—Microsoft's Patch Tuesday this month will prove onerous, with one critically important set of patches aimed to fix flaws in all versions of the Internet Explorer browser that can result in remote code execution on victims' machines. In addition, three other critical bulletins flag patches that address flaws in SharePoint, Windows XP, Outlook 2007, and Outlook 2010, all of which can result in attackers gaining the ability to execute code on host computers. The critical Internet Explorer bulletin is the most important to address, says Ken Pickering, director of engineering at CORE Security, because it affects the most widely-used application and requires a restart. He advises addressing the fixes right away. "Patches that require a restart have proven time and time again to create the greatest number of vulnerabilities as IT is either hesitant or too overwhelmed to bring the network down," he says.
Apple holds a press event at its Cupertino headquarters on Tuesday. In this video report, we preview what you can expect.
Obad malware grows through zombie net, while Hesperbot takes a new tack on banking malware
Spotify's new Connect service was launched this week and audio device makers used the IFA electronics show to launch the first wave of products that tie into it. I tried it out with the Yamaha RX-A830, a $900 audio receiver that also supports Pandora and Rhapsody streaming on some models. allows home audio equipment such as speakers and amplifiers to directly stream content from the popular Internet music service. To use the feature, you'll first need a Spotify Premium account. These cost $10, €10, or £10 depending on your country. And you'll also need to download the Spotify Connect app, which is currently available for iPhone and iPad. Android and desktop versions are promised "in the coming months." The service works in a similar way to the Google's recently-launched Chromecast dongle for TVs.
This year's IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin offered smartphones, tablets, 4K TVs, a much-anticipated smartwatch, and new spins on the camera. Consumer electronics manufacturers from all over the world headed to the annual expo, which is as much a launch pad for products ahead of the year-end sales period as it is a chance to strut their tech stuff with the latest developments by their engineers. Samsung launched a Both had been the subject of rumors and leaks before IFA began, so their appearance was expected. The Gear, which has a 1.6-inch screen, was met with mixed reactions. Some liked its futuristic functionality while others were reserving judgement on the new product sector until the devices become smaller and offer more functions.
Intel said Friday that it has hired a pair of high-level engineers from Nike and Oakley to assist the company with building wearable computing devices. Intel said that it had hired , described as the man who led development of the Oakley AirWave heads-up goggles, to work at the “new devices” team being formed within Intel. Moritz has spent his entire 16-year career at Oakley, where he most recently led the integration of the Oakley Airwave smart ski goggles pictured above. At Intel, Moritz will join , described as a news organization within Intel run by former members of its communications team. Both will work for to stream video to TVs.
With the Labor Day holiday marking the unofficial end of summer on the markets, tech stocks got off to a fairly positive start in the new season as several major deals and the mobile phone market came under especially intense scrutiny. Major exchanges and market indexes were mixed Friday in the wake of a tepid government jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 14,922.50, down by 14.98 points, while the Standard and Poor’s 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both closed up slightly higher for the day. The Dow, the S&P and the Nasdaq were all in positive territory for the week, however. The Nasdaq Computer Index of more than 100 tech-related stocks closed Friday at 1755.4, up by 3.82 for the day and also in positive territory for the week. Tech stocks were among the most heavily traded shares Friday, with Microsoft and Nokia in the top five volume leaders of the day. This is not surprising, given the announcement Tuesday that Microsoft will buy the Finnish company’s mobile phone business. Microsoft will pay €3.79 billion (US$5 billion) for Nokia’s Devices & Services business and €1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents.
The U.S. National Security Agency’s efforts to defeat encrypted Internet communications, detailed in news stories this week, are an attack on the security of the Internet and on users’ trust in the network, some security experts say. . The NSA, the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and other spy agencies have used a variety of means to defeat encryption, including supercomputers, court orders, and behind-the-scenes agreements with technology companies, according to the news reports. . “The fundamental fabric of the Internet has been destroyed.”
Startup Aava Mobile will show a Windows 8.1 tablet with an 8.3-inch, high-definition screen and Intel’s upcoming Atom tablet processor code-named Bay Trail at the Intel Developer Forum next week. The tablet’s screen can display images at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, and the device will join a handful of Windows tablets with screen sizes under 10 inches. running Windows 8. The Aava Mobile tablet doesn’t have a name yet and won’t be sold directly to consumers, said Piotr Frasunkiewicz, co-founder of the startup, based in Oulu, Finland.
While still afflicted with reticence over providing a native iPad version of Office, Microsoft has updated OneNote for iPad in a way that, according to the company, makes it independent from its desktop counterpart. Specifically, note-takers can now create notebooks and create, delete and rename notebook sections on their OneNote for iPad. The new features come in response to requests from users who wanted to do “everything from within OneNote” in the iPad, Avneesh Kohli, a program manager on the OneNote team at Microsoft, in a blog post Friday.
Yahoo received 12,444 requests from the U.S. government for user data in the first half of this year, resulting in 11,402 instances of data disclosure, it said Friday in its first transparency report. For nearly 7,000 of the U.S. requests between Jan. 1 and June 30, only non-content data was disclosed, such as basic subscriber information including email and IP addresses, billing information, names and locations, Yahoo said. But more than 4,500 U.S. government data requests resulted in the disclosure of actual content like communications from users’ Mail and Messenger accounts, Yahoo Address Book entries, files uploaded, and photos on Flickr, according to the . The total number of accounts specified in Yahoo’s government data requests comprised less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of Yahoo’s worldwide user base, according to the company.
A startup called Oyster wants to become your “Netflix for e-books.”
You're an audiophile and a neat freak. Years of burning CDs onto your computer have left your digital music library a tattered mess of unnamed tracks by unknown artists—and it's driving you nuts. You can go through and name them one by one, but that would be an annoying slog, and it wouldn't solve the blank album cover problem. Ashampoo MP3 Cover Finder to the rescue! MP3 Cover Finder works well, there's no doubt about that. It found art for every obscure song I could throw at it, pulling from sources including Amazon, Bing, Google, and iTunes to find the correct cover art and track information. If it couldn't use its fingerprint technology to identify the MP3 via metadata and file names, it still came up with the best match from all the information provided. In my cruelest test, I used an unreleased song for which the artist is presumed but not confirmed and the title is just a rumor. It managed to find some generic cover art of the presumed band photos as well as some fan-made art for the song. The service works great.
To dabble in scriptwriting without the full $250 investment for Final Draft, Celtx provides a pared-down set of features at a much more palatable price. The full-featured Celtx Plus package weighs in at a reasonable $15 (often $10 on sale via the Celtx company website, and with a 15-day free trial). A personal-use free edition centers on screenplays, but Celtx Plus allows for storyboards, catalogs, specialized viewing modes and includes clip art and other extras. Both free and Plus editions are available for Linux, Mac, and PC. Celtx also offers , which uses the Google Docs model to provide script and other collaborative media writing tools via browser window. The download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you must register to download any edition of the software.
Intel’s dominance of the chip market is starting to wane as PC shipments slump and smartphone and tablet adoption grows, but the manufacturer will try to prove it can make fast and power-efficient processors for mobile devices at its annual developer gathering next week. At the Intel Developer Forum next week, the company will introduce low-power Atom chips code-named Bay Trail, which will go into tablets that are priced from $150. The show will also be a litmus test for new CEO Brian Krzanich, who will deliver the keynote speech on Sept. 10 and highlight Intel’s long-term strategy as the company diversifies into the mobile market. Krzanich replaced the popular Paul Otellini in May this year, and has put mobile chips at the top of his priority list. He has also created a “new devices” group that will focus on emerging areas like wearables. The chip maker is already planning to release a TV service through its own set-top box, and Krzanich may touch upon the wearable devices during his opening keynote on Sept. 10. A distraction will be an Apple product launch event on Sept. 10, which starts just one hour after Krzanich’s keynote begins.
To turn around dropping sales, TV manufacturers are working on a number of technologies to appeal to consumers, including curved screens. LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Sony all showed curved TVs at the IFA show here this week, with various sizes and resolutions, and based on different technologies. Despite how hard I tried, however, I couldn’t see that curving the screen added anything to the viewing experience. That doesn’t mean the sets I looked at in Samsung’s and LG’s respective booths didn’t look great—they all did. But that, I’m convinced, wasn’t due to curved screens but the fact the sets were also based on OLED and/or had a 4K resolution, both of which provide real improvements.
Distant Worlds is a massive 4X game that shares many of the strengths and weaknesses of the genre: detailed systems, technology, and options; very long games that form their own histories and stories; minimalist graphics and effects; and a steep, steep learning curve. Distant Worlds is definitely aimed at the hardcore player for this genre. It does not attempt to simplify or strip down gameplay or worry much about "approachability." I have a weakness for games like this (see Aurora and Dwarf Fortress) but they're not to everyone's taste. Code Force/Matrix Games has designed Distant Worlds for a specific niche, and they've produced a game that will satisfy the target audience very well. Distant Worlds is sold as a core game and a series of expansions. This review is based on the latest bundle, which included all of the released material. The expansions don't just add "more stuff." They add in entire new categories of activity, such as planetary facilities, changes to the tech tree structure, and so on. The latest expansion, Shadows, adds something very new: the chance to play as a pirate, rather than an empire, focusing on raiding, constructing hidden bases, smuggling, and generally ruling the galaxy from the, well, shadows. The Shadows expansion also offers a mode of play where you begin at a primitive level, with no FTL capacity, and must first develop your home system and learn to build even the most basic craft. The default start position gives you a certain amount of technology and a small fleet of exploration and construction ships.
If the leaks from this morning are to be believed, the world finally be closer to getting the supersized Windows Phone it didn't even know it wanted. , posted an image of what it claims to be the Nokia Lumia 1520, a large-display'd Windows phone, which will be released before the end of 2013. .