People may feel overwhelmed by the deluge of email arriving in their inboxes, but will they trust Google to show them the most important messages? Analysts are divided on how well Google can sort and prioritize users’ emails as the company launches Inbox, an email application built without any reliance …
GT Advanced Technologies and Apple have agreed to a deal that will let GT close the Mesa, Ariz. and Salem, Mass. factories where it was producing scratch-resistant sapphire, and void the contracts it had signed with its one-time partner. GT, which filed to reorganize under Chapter 11 protection on Oct. …
Facebook is going old school, with a stand-alone app for discussion boards aimed at letting users talk about shared interests without having to use their real names. The company released Rooms on Thursday, its answer to the craze around posting and sharing anonymously. People can use any name they want …
German publishers said they are bowing to Google’s market power, and will allow the search engine powerhouse to show news snippets in search results free of charge, at least for the time being. The decision is a step in an ongoing legal dispute between the publishers and Google. Publishers are …
Google, the search company that’s investing heavily in robotics, is teaming with Oxford University researchers to work on artificial intelligence. In January, Google bought the London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. Now the Google DeepMind group will work with two of Oxford’s artificial intelligence (AI) research teams. The teams will work …
Apple Pay is so easy to use, it’s almost not worth writing about. It’s laughably fast and stupidly simple. So simple it’s confusing the heck out of clerks and cashiers nationwide. Here’s how it works: You walk up to the kind of payment terminal where you would normally swipe your …
The size and volume of distributed denial-of-service attacks has exploded in the past year, with a 389 percent increase in average attack bandwidth between the third quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2014, according to an Internet security report from Akamai Technologies. This should make companies consider using …
Apple’s 5K Retina iMac continues to slip in ship times, proof that the company’s problem syncing supply and demand is getting worse, not better. On Thursday, the $2,499 iMac showed a five-to-seven-day business delay between ordering and shipping. Apple introduced the 5K Retina iMac on Oct. 16 to effusive reviews, …
Some people look at technology in terms of individual pieces: What type of processor does a new phone have? How high is its display resolution? How much power can its battery hold? Me, I’m more of a big-picture kind of guy. Individual pieces are fine, but I’m far more interested …
Many companies set up subdomains for use with external services, but then forget to disable them when they stop using those services, creating a loophole for attackers to exploit. Because many service providers don’t properly validate the ownership of subdomains pointed at their servers, attackers can set up new accounts …
A 38-year-old working Apple-1 personal computer sold Wednesday at auction for a record $905,000, almost double the auctioneer’s high-end estimate. The aged Apple-1 — the first pre-assembled personal computer, although it lacked such amenities as power supply, keyboard or display — was sold by auction house Bonhams in New York …
Two months ago, a productivity executive stood before a small group of users and promised a new email inbox app that would, in his words, deliver “all of the wheat and none of the chaff.” No, that executive wasn’t from Google, and the product wasn’t called Inbox. Instead, it was …
If Hewlett-Packard’s Moonshot server doesn’t pan out, it won’t be for lack of trying. Its engineers have been hard at work this year adding various different CPU options for Moonshot, which uses a novel design to reduce energy and space requirements and is a big part of CEO Meg Whitman’s …
If you’re worried about a loved one languishing in an assisted living home, Panasonic has a tablet service to keep you connected. The electronics giant’s North American arm is launching a “telehealth” service designed to put users in contact with loved ones and caregivers as well as generate reminders. It’s …
Apple will stop support next week for an encryption protocol found to contain a severe vulnerability, the company said on Wednesday. Support for SSL 3.0 will cease as of Oct. 29, it said. “Providers using only SSL 3.0 will need to support TLS as soon as possible to ensure the …
The Internet can ease travel concerns in many ways, including flight-delay information, maps of road congestion, and ride-sharing apps. But a Wi-Fi network at the Austin, Texas, airport can now answer one of the great unknowns: How long will I have to wait in line at security? That information is …
In a move to muscle up in the app dev space, platform services provider Progress Software is in the process of acquiring development software vendor Telerik for US$262.5 million. Progress plans to fold Telerik’s tools into its developer platform, Progress announced Wednesday. Telerik will bring to Progress a sizable user …
Governments may need to tighten the regulatory screws on SaaS vendors to make them be more transparent and forthcoming about their security practices. Until then, it will be hard for health care companies in particular to fully trust cloud software vendors, according to speakers at the EU-U.S. ehealth Marketplace and …
Many companies set up subdomains for use with external services, but then forget to disable them when they stop using those services, creating a loophole for attackers to exploit. Because many service providers don’t properly validate the ownership of subdomains pointed at their servers, attackers can set up new accounts …
The latest chapter in the ongoing furor over the software known as systemd threatens to split the Debian community, after a splinter group stated that it would create a fork of the well-known Linux distribution if systemd is included in an upcoming release. “We don’t want to be forced to …
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is moving customer data and its Internet platforms to servers outside China, only months after the company apologized over privacy concerns. Since early this year, Xiaomi has been migrating the data as a way to “cut down latency and reduce failure rates” for its customers across …
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg stunned many Chinese on Thursday, not with a new Facebook feature, but because he spoke and answered questions in Mandarin for almost half an hour. Zuckerberg gave a talk in Chinese at Tsinghua University on Wednesday, and later posted a recording of the event to his …
Apple’s adventures in wearable computing won’t begin and end with Apple Watch — CEO Tim Cook’s company is forging deep partnerships to help it embrace the emerging universe of connected things. Partnerships “I’m actually quite bullish on our relationship with Apple,” said Nike CEO Mark Parker, speaking with Bloomberg TV’s …
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is moving customer data and its Internet platforms to servers outside China, only months after the company apologized over privacy concerns. Since early this year, Xiaomi has been migrating the data as a way to “cut down latency and reduce failure rates” for its customers across …
Governments may need to tighten the regulatory screws on SaaS vendors to make them more transparent and forthcoming about their security practices. Until then, it will be hard for healthcare companies in particular to fully trust cloud software vendors, according to speakers at the EU-U.S. ehealth Marketplace and Conference in …
The Data Driven Revolution In 2010, as the world economy began its rebound from a debilitating financial crisis, The Economist published a seminal piece on the importance of data in our lives. Sporting an illustration of a businessman with an upside-down umbrella, attempting to collect binary numbers as they fell, the author …