Gone are the days of skydivers landing on the tops of buildings wearing Google Glass, or new Chromebooks, tablets and smartwatches. This year, the focus of much of Google’s big I/O conference was to propel the Android operating system into new areas others have pioneered, like peer-to-peer payments and smart …
Businesses using Android devices will be getting some new features to play with in Android M, the next version of the mobile operating system that’s slated for launch in the third quarter this year. Google’s next update to Android contains a number of changes to its enterprise-focused tools, along with …
Developers creating content for Google’s Cardboard virtual-reality system should look to short online videos for inspiration and avoid drawn-out experiences. Content for Cardboard should be “snackable virtual reality,” said Jon Wiley, the product’s principal designer, during the I/O developer conference on Friday. “For Cardboard, you want [an experience] to be …
Right around the time that the Stuxnet attack so famously sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010, the U.S. National Security Agency reportedly was trying something similar against North Korea. The NSA-led U.S. effort used a version of the Stuxnet virus designed to be activated by Korean-language computer settings, …
Speaking machines don’t exist despite being put on the wish list at the 1956 A.I. conference at Dartmouth College. That was nearly 60 years ago and we seem no closer to accurate speaking machines. What went wrong? Today we will look at how speaking machines remain out of reach waiting …
Italian architects have called on the government and the Antitrust Authority to close down a crowdsourcing platform in a new round of the battle against disruptive technology. Taxi associations convinced a Milan court to ban the UberPop car-sharing app Tuesday on the grounds that it constituted unfair competition and put …
The creator and chief operator of the Silk Road has been sentenced to two life sentences in jail for running the online drug marketplace, which federal prosecutors estimated facilitated the sales of more than US$213 million worth of drugs and other unlawful goods between 2011 and 2013. The life sentences …
Apple again took the top prize in Consumer Reports‘ survey of technical support providers, thumping rival personal computer makers by a large margin and edging out third-party local support. The publication posted the results of its poll of 3,200 computer owners Thursday. Those users had contacted a company’s technical support …
Google targeted people’s growing digital insecurity at its I/O developer conference this week with a number of new products that aim to protect communications and improve authentication. Project Vault is a new hardware device created by Google’s Advanced Technology and Products (ATAP) lab for people who need the absolute highest …
Google and Apple are two of the staunchest competitors in any industry, especially with regard to their Android and iOS operating systems for smartphones and tablets. One reality of the last nine months is that Apple has gained a tight grip on the market for high-end, pricier smartphones, the only …
Many data centers today inventory physical assets the same way grocery stores track food, with barcodes and scanners. It’s not efficient and a certain percentage of assets will become “lost” because asset databases haven’t been updated. But Intel is considering adding active RFID tags to its chipsets, replacing barcode scanning …
Instead of trying to scroll through your contacts list on a tiny smartwatch, Google thinks you should be able to just touch your sleeve to initiate a phone call. That’s just one example of what developers might be able to do with Project Jacquard, unveiled at the I/O developer conference …
Telecom giant Ericsson announced this week it is testing out 5G networks in the U.S. and Sweden, and has already exceeded 2Gbps throughput using multiple radio streams at the same time. Ericsson made the announcement by releasing a photo of a van and asking “What seats 8 comfortably, gets 20 …
PC shipments will continue to contract during 2015, but it won’t be the fault of the Windows 10 free upgrade, research firm IDC said today. “It’s all about how you look at it,” Loren Loverde, an analyst at IDC, said in an interview today. “The first half of this year …
Two U.S. senators are pushing proposals to extend the National Security Agency’s domestic telephone records dragnet, but a diverse coalition of civil liberties and advocacy groups have called on lawmakers to vote against those plans. Proposals by Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, and Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, …
Google executives have a vision that one day soon your jacket, shirt, pants — even your socks — might control your phone, tablet or even the lights in your house. Ivan Poupyrev, Google’s technical program lead, received wild applause at a morning session at Google I/O today when he talked …
Intel and Altera are apparently once again on speaking terms and said to be nearing a deal in which Intel would buy the smaller chip maker for $15 billion. News of a possible deal first surfaced in media reports in late March, but those negotiations broke down after Altera supposedly …
Identifying users who access Tor hidden services—websites that are only accessible inside the Tor anonymity network—is easier than de-anonymizing users who use Tor to access regular Internet websites. Security researchers Filipo Valsorda and George Tankersley showed Friday at the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam why Tor connections …
Intel and Altera are apparently once again on speaking terms and said to be nearing a deal in which Intel would buy the smaller chip maker for US$15 billion. News of a possible deal first surfaced in media reports in late March, but those negotiations broke down after Altera supposedly …
The term “threat intelligence” surfaced a few years ago. It is unclear where the term originated, and there is not complete agreement on exactly what it means. The Gartner Group defines it as “evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or …
6 hottest IT jobs for new tech grads Image by Shutterstock There are close to 2 million new college grads flooding the marketplace in 2015, and after a few years of less-than-stellar economic growth, 2015 offers new opportunities for these young workers to start their careers. Where will these newly …
Chromebook Pixel LS review Chromebooks have proven to be quite popular over the last few years, with various models getting high star ratings and user reviews on Amazon. A Chrome OS redditor bought a Chromebook Pixel LS and posted a very positive review of it. Le7els shared his thoughts about …
In a recent analysis of more than 30,000 websites, most had at least one serious vulnerability for 150 or more days last year. “These are the vulnerabilities that can get you into trouble,” said Jeremiah Grossman, founder at WhiteHat Security, the company behind the report. “They can compromise some or …
In mobile computing, I’m usually willing to put up with a little extra bulk and weight if it means I can actually get real work done. This is often true when it comes to tablets like the iPad Air–I’ll pack in an extra Bluetooth keyboard so I can type on …
With Google I/O 2015 well underway, we’re rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of Material Design — the dramatic redesign of Android and other Google products unveiled at last year’s developers’ conference. Material Design introduced a new look not only to the Android operating system but also to the ecosystem of …
Forging ahead with its bread-and-butter mobile platform, Google is offering a developer preview of its upcoming Android M OS, which focuses on improvements in areas ranging from app permissions to mobile payments. What’s new in Android M With Android M, Google is focusing on six areas to improve the core …