McAfee, Intel-Tochter und Anbieterin von Sicherheitssoftware, hat ihre Sicherheitsprognosen für 2014 bekannt gegeben. Demnach können sich mobile Nutzer auf viele Angriffe gefasst machen.
Die „New York Times“ und der britische „Guardian“ haben von der US-Regierung Gnade für den früheren US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiter Edward Snowden gefordert. Beide Traditionsblätter appellierten heute in Leitartikeln an Präsident Barack Obama, Snowden eine sichere Heimkehr in die USA zu ermöglichen. Der IT-Spezialist hält sich seit vergangenen Juli in Russland auf.
Für Blackberry war 2013 war alles andere denn ein gutes. 2014 soll für den kanadischen Smartphone-Hersteller besser werden. Der neue Blackberry-Chef John Chen will mit einer neuen Strategie die Wende schaffen. Doch viele Marktbeobachter und Analysten trauen dem Unternehmen nicht mehr viel zu.
Google nimmt die Smartphone-App Bump zum bequemen Austausch von Dateien vom Netz. Erst im September hatte der Suchmaschinen-Spezialist die Entwicklerfirma der Anwendung für einen nicht offiziell genannten Preis übernommen.
Das Sparpotenzial der Schweizer Handybesitzer bleibt riesig. Laut dem Vergleichsdienst Comparis werfen alle Mobilfunknutzer zusammen insgesamt 3,1 Mrd. Fr. aus dem Fenster, weil sie nicht zum für sie günstigsten Angebot wechseln.
Samsung plant Berichten zufolge eine neue Version des Galaxy Grand. Nun tauchten erste Gerüchte über die Ausstattung des neuen Modells auf. Das neue Produkt soll offenbar unter dem Namen Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo laufen.
Trends wie Cloud, Byod, Big Data oder Mobile rütteln an den Grundfesten der klassischen Informatik. Im Gespräch mit ICT-Kommunikation erläutert Arno Schmidhauser, Leiter Weiterbildung an der Berner Fachhochschule (Technik und Informatik – BFH/TI), wie sich solche Entwicklungen bei IT-Aus- und Weiterbildnern niederschlagen und wie man an der BFH auf die neuen Anforderungen reagiert.
Microsofts neues Betriebssystem Windows 8 tut sich nach wie vor schwer am Markt. Nach Veröffentlichung des Updates Windows 8.1 hat Windows 8 nunmehr den Marktanteil von zehn Prozent überschritten. Allerdings wächst das Vorgängersystem Windows 7 weiterhin schneller als das neue Microsoft-Betriebssystem.
Wer in die USA reist, muss damit rechnen, dass die eigenen elektronischen Geräte durchsucht werden - und zwar ganz ohne jeglichen konkreten Verdacht. Die entsprechende Praxis des Heimatschutzministeriums hat nun eine US-Bundesgericht für zulässig erklärt.
Unbekannte haben Nutzernamen und Telefonnummern von 4,6 Millionen Snapchat-Mitgliedern ins Netz gestellt. Über den Messengerdienst lassen sich Fotos und Videos an Freunde schicken. Die Bilder sind allerdings nur höchstens zehn Sekunden lang zu sehen. Der Dienst ist besonders bei Jugendlichen beliebt - und gilt in dieser Altersklasse als Konkurrenz zu Facebook.
Google is working with hardware makers so TVs, smartphones and PCs can play 4K content from YouTube and other streaming services while consuming almost half the bandwidth required by high-definition videos today. Google has taken steps so TVs, smartphones, tablets and streaming devices are able to play 4K content from YouTube and other streaming services while consuming almost half the bandwidth required by high-definition videos today. A number of TV makers and hardware companies have pledged support for VP9, a 4K video format developed by Google. Users will be able to stream 4K video from Youtube and other services on their devices with support from the hardware companies. “Starting in 2014, you’ll see products from major mobile, PC and TV partners that are using a new, more efficient video format called VP9 that gives you HD quality at half the bandwidth,” said Francisco Varela, global director of platform partnerships at Google, in an email.
While the Vibe Z has some promising specs, it won't be available in the US anytime soon.
Skype said its social media properties were targeted, with a group styling itself as the Syrian Electronic Army appearing to claim credit for the hacks. ”You may have noticed our social media properties were targeted today,” Skype said in a Twitter late Wednesday. “No user info was compromised. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.” Skype’s Twitter account, blog and Facebook page appeared to have been attacked by the SEA, a group that supports the Syrian government, according to reports. The Skype blog was still inaccessible late Wednesday and redirected users to the Skype homepage. The SEA reproduced in a Twitter message a copy of what appeared to be its message using the Skype account on Twitter. The message : “Don’t use Microsoft emails(hotmail,outlook),They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments.More details soon #SEA.” It did not figure by late Wednesday on Skype’s Twitter feed.
Facebook contains plenty of your personal information, but having a Facebook page is a far cry from having a personal Web site. Unless you use , a cool Web site building service that pulls data from your Facebook account and uses it to create a slick-looking Web site you can call your own. Strikingly builds your Web site very quickly. Strikingly is easy to use, especially if you rely on its one-click feature: Give it permission to access Facebook and it does all the work for you. It pulls relevant data from Facebook, such as your profile picture, work experience, and places of residence, and arranges that into an attractive Web page that you can customize—to an extent. Strikingly lets you add and remove sections to the site it builds using its intuitive editing menu. Freelancers and job seekers will like how easy it is to add a section highlighting work samples, while parents and photo enthusiasts will like the ability to quickly add a photo gallery. If there's no quote on your Facebook page, Strikingly will add one to your site for you.
To set the stage for this year’s International CES—the annual consumer electronics trade show that invades Las Vegas at the beginning of January and devours all in its path—let me tell you a little story about last year’s event. At one point early on in that show—my first-ever CES—I was trying to get from an appointment at one end of the Las Vegas Convention Center to another meeting far, far away. I hadn’t counted on time, distance, and the crush of slow-moving humanity. In an effort to get from Point A to Point B, I put my head down and started zigzagging my way down aisles, across booths, and through doors. I wound up getting completely turned around, no closer to my final destination than before, and having to flag down passersby for some clue— clue—as to where I was (other than quite possibly still within the city limits of Las Vegas). I was horrifically late for my meeting. it’s easy to lose your way on the massive show floor at CES. My point here is not to give you an opportunity to point at me and laugh—though if you’ve already started, by all means, continue. Rather, it’s to emphasize just how easy it is to get lost during CES—even if you never set foot on the show floor.
Phone numbers paired with user names of over 4.6 million alleged Snapchat users were posted online by hackers, a few days after a security research group claimed a vulnerability in the social sharing service that could allow attackers to match phone numbers to Snapchat accounts. “This database contains username and phone number pairs of a vast majority of the Snapchat users,” said a post on website SnapchatDB.info. The account has since been suspended, apparently by the hosting service. A cached version of the site can be viewed . The information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue, according to the post. “The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it,” it added. The hackers said they had “censored” for now the last two digits of the phone numbers in order to minimize spam and abuse, but asked people to contact them for the uncensored database, which they may agree to release under certain circumstances.
The C-MAX Solar Energi's battery can charge using only the sun -- at least, conceptually. When parked under a special energy concentrator, it will "creep" back and forth a short distance to maximize the light hitting its rooftop solar panels.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection can search travelers’ laptops and other electronic devices without a show of reasonable suspicion, according to a federal judge’s dismissal of on Tuesday. In its suit, the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that having border officials search the contents of a laptop violated the U.S Constitution unless the officials had a reasonable suspicion that the contents related to a crime. Judge Edward Korman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, disagreed and threw out the suit. The ACLU said an appeal is being considered. ”We’re disappointed in today’s decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans’ laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing,” ACLU attorney Catherine Crump said in a press release from the organization. Crump argued the case in 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the suit on behalf of Pascal Abidor, a student with dual French and U.S. citizenship, and of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association. In 2010, customs officials confiscated Abidor’s laptop as he entered the country from Canada on a train trip from Montreal to New York. They searched the computer while detaining Abidor for several hours, then released him without charges.
Games, productivity, and Windows 8.1—chances are if a story was about one of those subjects in 2013, you wanted to read about it. With just a few hours left until a brand new year, we’re taking a look back at the one we’re about to complete. Specifically, we’re highlighting the 15 most-read stories on PCWorld this year. Even if there’s nary a multiplayer in your immediate vicinity, you can still enjoy a good game on your PC. Apparently, a lot of readers took comfort in that discovery. Maybe the only thing that draws readers more effectively than games is that word “free” in the headline.
New gaming consoles form Microsoft and Sony dominated the news in 2013, but the .
Being a technology writer (and an unapologetic enthusiast of shiny new things), I'm constantly trying out new software. I love it! …But I don't love the after effects. An app experimentalist's PC clogs up with junk pretty fast. Every few months I have to go through my app catalog and get rid of all the detritus plugging up my hard drive. Here's the problem though: Windows' built-in add and remove programs feature isn't particularly helpful. It doesn't tell you what a program does, or how many other people ended up uninstalling it, for example. So instead of going the Control Panel route, I've been trying out a relatively new program called (which I'll refer to as "SIRT" from here on out to avoid question mark overload). This PC utility offers more useful information than the Control Panel, but doesn't overwhelm you the way other PC utilities can. When you run it, SIRT shows you a simple list of every program installed on your PC. Beside each program name is a five-star rating based on input from other users, as well as the percentage of SIRT users that uninstalled that particular program.
Archos announced smartwatches starting at under £50 (US$83) and an Android tablet specially designed to make home automation a breeze. The new smartwatches have a lean and thin design similar to products from Pebble, and will be compatible with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS devices, Archos said in a statement. Smartwatches from Pebble . The company did not provide availability information for the smartwatches, but products will be shown at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas between January 7 and 10. Smartwatches are used in conjunction with smartphones to show messages, incoming calls, news, weather, social network posts and even webpages. Smartwatches are also being used as fitness trackers. Sony, Samsung and Qualcomm are among the top players in the smartwatch market today, and many companies are expected to show products at CES.