Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has thrown his support behind Xiaomi, and said the company’s products could succeed internationally. ”Xiaomi has excellent products; they’re good enough to crack the American market,” Wozniak told a group of reporters Sunday at the company’s offices in Beijing. Xiaomi, which has become one of the in China, invited Wozniak to visit and meet with its engineers. Wozniak said he had only just started using a Xiaomi smartphone but that he was impressed by the company and its products. Xiaomi is best known for its Android smartphones but it also and is developing a Wi-Fi router. In the future it aims to create “smart” household devices that are controlled via smartphone.
Browsing on my PC during the festive season, I was hit with the nastiest piece of malware I’ve ever had to deal with. An official looking message popped up, replete telling me that I had in some way broken the law and was subject to jail sentences and fines. These would go away if I paid $100 to “The State” by using Ukash, a form of bitcoin. The ransomware had locked my PC. I couldn’t even start it in safe mode. A technical friend worked on it for some hours and eventually managed to install some strong anti-malware software after many attempts. Ransomware has been around for a few years but it has become increasingly sophisticated. It’s In the UK last year, the software was demanding two bitcoins to unlock the computer, which at the time was equivalent to around $825. It was sufficient for British banks and police to put out a warning. Symantec technology specialist Mark Shaw says the company has been tracking the growing since they came on the scene in 2009.
Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.8 trillion in 2014, a 3.1 percent increase from 2013 spending of $3.7 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner. In 2013, the market experienced flat growth, growing 0.4 percent year over year. Spending on devices—including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones, and tablets—contracted 1.2 percent in 2013, but 4.3 percent in 2014. Gartner analysts said convergence of the PC, ultramobiles—including tablets—and mobile phone segments, as well as erosion of margins, will take place as differentiation will soon be based primarily on price instead of devices’ orientation to specific tasks.
If you aren’t already deluged with information from your email, social media, and websites, how would you feel if your appliances and gizmos start sending you messages? The so-called “Internet of things” is an envisioned network of interconnected objects, where everything from office supplies to refrigerators will have an online presence. While consumers have been keen on connected cars, fitness trackers, and smartwatches, getting them interested in other linked tools will likely be At CES 2014, tech vendors are trying to stoke some Internet of things fires. developed with Crock-Pot. Users can turn the cooker on or off, set timers, and adjust the temperature—all via their smartphone and Wi-Fi or 3G/4G networks. The cooker hits U.S. stores this spring for US$99, and Belkin wants to launch other connected, phone-operated products such as air purifiers. Easy links Meanwhile, French startup Sen.se showed off a home network led by Sense Mother, a hub that looks like a sleek white Russian doll, and small sensors called Motion Cookies. The Cookies can be stuck on anything from a backpack to a baby crib to a pill container, and relay data such as whether objects have been moved or used, the local temperature, or whether you’ve walked enough steps each day.
Corsair has become the latest storage vendor to offer smartphone and tablet users a flash stick that can be plugged straight into their devices using the USB On-The-Go (OTG) standard. Available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, the Flash Voyager Go USB 3.0 is a way for mobile owners to beat the fact that an increasing number of devices come without an external Micro SD card slot for backup or offline storage. USB OTG has been around for a while but it is only recently that flash drive vendors have started supporting it in the most convenient way of integrating both micro-USB Type A or B connectors (for mobile devices) with a standard connector for a PC. Previously, users had to hitch a drive up using a USB-to-micro USB converter cable. Along with the OS (Android, iOS, but not yet Windows Phone), the mobile device also has to support the USB OTG standard; a few now do (for instance some Samsung handsets and Google’s Nexus 5), but a surprising number of relatively recent devices don’t (stand up Google’s Nexus 4). A full list of compatible .
Kaspersky Lab experts have discovered that PC gamers around the globe were hit by 11.7 million attacks in 2013. Currently Kaspersky Lab knows of 4.6 million pieces of gaming-focused malware, with an average, users of 34,000 attacks related to gaming malware taking place daily. Russian gamers were the worst hit of all, as hackers made 8,813,050 attempts on them throughout 2013. Vietnam was in second with 503,947, followed by China on 376,058. ”Gaming has an ever-increasing fanbase, which also means that the number of potential victims for cybercriminals is rising as well. The cybercriminals are taking a lot of effort into their attacks and we can see the upsurge in sophistication. Especially in times like Christmas, when a lot of new games are being released, gamers need to be attentive stay secure,” said Christian Funk, senior virus analyst with the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kasperksy Lab.
The stars are aligning in Redmond, analysts suggest, and there’s a good chance that Microsoft can lead the tablet race after being smothered by Apple and Android in 2013. Microsoft hasn’t been in such a strong position for years. ”The tablet in the enterprise is theirs to lose,” says Aberdeen Group analyst Andrew Borg. Everything from PC refresh cycles to the booming tablet market to trends that put the device-purchasing decision back into IT’s hands are turning Windows 8 tablets poised to strike Let’s start with the most dramatic, highly anticipated turnaround in technology today, as shown in a Forrester survey conducted late last year: iPads held the vast majority of BYOD tablet deployments, with and Windows 8-based tablets practically nonexistent. But plans in the next 12 months show Windows 8-based tablets surging from far behind to lead the pack.
Intel last week said it will ditch the venerable McAfee brand for its security products and services, and offer free mobile security software to customers running Android, iOS, and other operating systems on their smartphones and tablets. The company announced both moves at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the massive trade show that ran last week in Las Vegas. McAfee is one of the oldest brands in computer security, a name that’s been in use most of the years since its 1987 founding, even as the company changed hands several times. But Intel wants to shed the brand this year for “Intel Security” in a staged roll-out as products update. ”We aren’t making the move lightly, we’re not divorcing entirely,” said Mike Fey, the CTO of McAfee in an interview, adding that Intel will retain the long-used logo, a red shield with the letter “M” dominant. “Outside the U.S., McAfee actually doesn’t translate well, but Intel is [an] understood [brand].”
Neiman Marcus has been notifying customers of a data breach after hackers stole merchant card information for an undisclosed number of shoppers. The high-end retailer said it is working with the U.S. Secret Service and a forensics firm to investigate the theft, which it said it learned about in December from its merchant card processor. ”On January 1st, the forensics firm discovered evidence that the company was the victim of a criminal cyber-security intrusion and that some customers cards were possibly compromised as a result,” Neiman Marcus said in an emailed statement. ”We have begun to contain the intrusion and have taken significant steps to further enhance information security,” the company said.
One of AT&T’s big announcements at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has open Internet advocates crying foul. Last week, the telecom giant for its wireless network, a program that will allow businesses to foot the bill for the bandwidth of their videos, applications or other content, rather than counting it against subscribers’ monthly data caps. For digital rights groups like Public Knowledge and Free Press, the plan of the nation’s second-largest wireless provider appears another step toward a pay-for-play Internet where carriers and well-heeled companies can reach agreements that amount to giving preferential treatment to certain types of content over others. Businesses that could not afford to pay—garage startups are a favorite example—might find themselves at an even steeper competitive disadvantage against their larger and more established rivals. AT&T bills the plan as a boon for consumers, promising no-cost delivery of popular content from companies that choose to participate. The company says sponsored and non-sponsored data will be delivered at the same speed, but that content from a participating company will be marked as such so consumers will know that it won’t count against their data plan.
Wireless users in the U.S. could gain new blocks of unlicensed wireless spectrum as several high-profile auctions are completed over the next 18 months, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said last week. Major wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth currently operate in such spaces—blocks of the radio spectrum that are open to use by any technology and do not require formal FCC licensing—but some of those spaces are now crowded with signals. If more space became available, it could allow the tech industry to develop and popularize new and as-yet-unrealized communications services. At least, that’s the hope of companies in the industry that are pushing for an expansion of the current spectrum. ”I’m a big proponent of unlicensed spectrum,” in Silicon Valley.
Hewlett-Packard has unveiled its second-generation all-in-one workstation, the Z1 G2, which offers designers, photographers, illustrators, and other creative pros a graphics and processor boost, Thunderbolt 2.0, a 27-inch display with optional touch capabilities and an audio upgrade. The Z1 is unique among HP’s Z-series of workstations, as it ditches the tower in favor of an iMac-like all-in-one design that squeezes the entire computer into one compact unit, described by the company as “power without the tower.” HP expects to ship its Z1 G2 Workstation in February, with pricing starting at $1999.
Microsoft is patching Windows XP on this month’s Patch Tuesday, shoring up a vulnerability that can lead to computers being taken over entirely by attackers. While the bulleting about the patch is ranked important second in severity behind critical known exploits of the vulnerability can result in attackers executing arbitrary code with kernel privileges, according to a . “Successful exploits will result in the complete compromise of affected computers,” the post says. According to Microsoft the same problem affects Windows Server 2003 and will be patched this month. ”It’s only rated important for a variety of reasons, including the fact that for XP in April,” says Russ Ernst, director of product management at Lumension. “If you’re still using XP, this will be an important patch to deploy. And, hopefully you are working on your migration plan.”
About 2.5 million Chromebooks were sold globally in 2013, or about 1 percent of the entire PC market, according to market research firm IDC. Most of those sales were driven by consumers, not by enterprise users. introduced in 2011, is still an outlier for most businesses, even as it becomes an alternative for consumers and schools. By 2017, IDC expects the Chromebook to reach about 6 million shipments, or more than 2 percent of the PC market. But how much progress has the made into the enterprise? “Beyond education, it’s probably virtually zero,” said IDC analyst Loren Loverde. There were 314.6 million PCs shipped in 2013.
Apple hasn’t infringed on a disputed Motorola patent in its iPhone, an appeals court said Friday. The ruling is a blow to Motorola, which had petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., after an earlier ruling by the International Trade Commission. as part of its battle against Apple because the trade court has the ability to block the import of products it considers to be infringing on U.S. patents. Because Apple manufactures the iPhone overseas, Motorola had been hoping to get the phone blocked from the U.S. market. Its original complaint to the ITC had covered a number of patents, but its appeal only concerned the ITC’s finding on U.S. Patent 6,272,666, “Method and apparatus in a wireless communication system for controlling a delivery of data.”
Optical cables that connect peripherals to Thunderbolt 2 ports in Apple Macs are getting longer, but also more expensive. Other World Computing on Friday started selling a 30-meter Thunderbolt 2 optical cable for $899. It will be able to stretch 4K video streams from a Mac to a 4K monitor for the full length. Corning this week at International CES demonstrated optical cables stretching 200 feet, or 61 meters, that are also Thunderbolt 2 compatible. The technology transfers data at speeds of up to 20Gbps (bits per second). Corning has already shown optical cables that extend to 100 meters on the original Thunderbolt technology, in which data transfers happen at 10Gbps. Prices and availability on the new Corning cables were not provided.
Dropbox service returned Friday night, after an outage of several hours that the file-sharing service blamed on an issue that came up during regular maintenance. A social network post allegedly from a hacker group had claimed responsibility for the outage, but Dropbox dismissed claims that user info had been leaked as hoax. Users trying access the Dropbox website from around 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. PT were redirected to a acknowledging the outage. “We are aware of an issue currently affecting the Dropbox site,” a message posted on the site said. “We have identified the cause, which was the result of an issue that arose during routine internal maintenance, and are working to fix this as soon as possible.” The main page of the Dropbox site returned by 8 p.m. PT, but attempts to log in produced an error message. Just after 8:30 p.m. PT, Dropbox posted via Twitter that service had been restored.
Criticism hurts—especially when you’re not sure where it’s coming from, or why, and have no way to respond to it. That’s the feeling among some business owners, who say a new rating system that Facebook introduced to better is actually doing more harm than good. The system, which is currently in a testing phase for the desktop version of Facebook, lets people leave ratings on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, in addition to text reviews, on businesses’ Facebook pages. So, if a simple “like” will not suffice, there’s this. But some small business owners say the system contains numerous flaws that have caused headaches for them and made it difficult to manage their companies’ pages on Facebook. Among their complaints: The ratings can be left anonymously, sometimes with no real feedback attached to them, and without any way to respond to the reviews or correct mistakes in them. Claims confusion Part of the issue is that the system allows for discrepancies between a business’s overall rating and the reviews that are viewable on its page. The way the system works now, someone can write a positive review but leave a low star rating for the business, which is factored into its overall grade. That makes it hard, some business owners say, to understand what’s really going on.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a battle between TV broadcasters and Aereo, a startup that streams television over the Internet, as the final step in a case that could have broad implications for the future of online TV services. The TV networks and broadcasters asked the Supreme Court to take the case after a federal court in New York last year that Aereo’s service wasn’t breaking copyright law. Aereo allows subscribers access to over-the-air TV signals via the Internet. It installs arrays of tiny, coin-sized antennas in major cities and offers its service to viewers who live within the already established transmission area. Broadcasters say it infringes on their copyright because it’s redistributing their programming without permission, but Aereo disagrees.
Mimo's infant tracker keeps tabs on your baby's vitals, and takes the traditional baby monitor to the next level.
This game is a demonstration of autonomous-driving technology right on your living room floor. Oh, and it's a blast to play.
Car apps represent a sea change in how people use their cars—not just for simple mobility, but for getting things done while mobile—and they were the biggest car-tech news out of CES 2014.
Think 3D printing is just for plastic knick-knacks? Think again. This one lets you print delicious sweets. Want.
