President Bashar al-Assad’s forces seized a wide swath of rebel territory in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo, spurring the flight of tens of thousands of civilians amid intense fighting that threatens the collapse of the opposition’s last major urban stronghold. Activists and rebel leaders said pro-Assad forces on Monday recaptured the northern districts of the city, which has been divided between opposition forces on the east […]
Samsung has officially recalled all Galaxy Note 7 due to faulty batteries that caused many handsets to explode or catch fire. The smartphone is no more officially available in the market but its Grace UX is being rolled out to other devices. Grace UX is the updated version of TouchWiz, which is currently available in most of Samsung phones. Grace UX was first launched in Galaxy Note 7, […]
Last month, Google officially introduced Android 7.1 Nougat, which, at that point, had already been running on its pair of Pixel phones and other handsets via developer previews. At the same time as the announcement, Google also included a December rollout schedule for Android 7.1 Nougat to Google’s somewhat overlooked flagships. Now, to the delight of Nexus owners, the exact release date has been confirmed. Android 7.1 Release […]
Political advertising may get more attention but with Election Day hours away, a liberal super PAC is betting direct outreach to voters is actually more effective. For Our Future has “a goal of 8,093,518 knocks by Election Day,” according to its most recent publicly posted strategy memo. The group was formed last June and supports Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Democratic candidates for Congress, including U.S. […]
ABU DHABI // Residents in the areas of Al Ruwais, Al Hamra, Ghayathi, Al Gheweifat and some internal western areas woke up to patches of fog on Monday morning. Humidity is expected to hover around 70 to 95 per cent in the interior and coastal areas on Monday and increase overnight boosting the chance for more visually-impairing mist and fog, especially over the western part of the […]
Recently uncovered security flaws could mean trouble for owners of devices that run the Android operating system. Researchers at security firm Check Point recently discovered the vulnerabilities, together labeled Quadrooter, which may affect as many as 900 million Android devices. Speaking about the discoveries last week at the Def Con security conference in Las Vegas, Adam Donenfeld, Check Point’s lead mobile security researcher, revealed four new privilege […]
Using folded DNA to precisely place glowing molecules within microscopic light resonators, researchers at Caltech have created one of the world’s smallest reproductions of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. The reproduction and the technique used to create it are described in a paper published in the advance online edition of the journal Nature on July 11. The monochrome image — just the width of a dime […]
Adobe’s Flash browser plug-in has been suffering a slow death by a thousand cuts, and today it learned of yet another. A blog post by a member of Apple’s Safari development team has revealed that the version of Safari due out this fall — Safari 10, set to ship with macOS Sierra — will arrive on users’ Macs with Flash deactivated by default. The aging and vulnerable […]
WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces and the Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters they are advising this week pushed closer to Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria. Defense Department officials confirmed that photographs taken by an Agence-France Presse photographer in the village of Fatisah that were released on Thursday showed American commandos, dressed in camouflage, assisting fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces during […]
Separate investigations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have been launched into how smartphone makers and wireless service providers handle device security updates for their customers. Following a resolution adopted by FTC commissioners Friday, the agency is ordering eight mobile device companies to submit information about how and when they decide to issue security patches for vulnerabilities. The companies that must […]
NASA and the U.S. Department of State were among the federal agencies that received low marks on IT security, according to a recent report card issued by the New York-based firm Security Scorecard. Also receiving low grades were the states of Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Washington. The 2016 U.S. Government Cybersecurity Report, released earlier this month, analyzed the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of some 600 local, state and federal government […]
Networking equipment maker Juniper Networks revealed this week that it had found spying code planted in some models of its firewalls. The products affected by the malicious code include those running ScreenOS, a Juniper operating system that runs several of the company’s appliances that act as firewalls and enable VPNs (virtual private networks). The vulnerable versions of ScreenOS include 6.2.0r15 through 6.2.0r18 and 6.3.0r12 through 6.3.0r20, according […]
Unlike Apple, which exerts start-to-finish control over the chips and software that go into its iPhones, Google must deal with a far more diverse hardware/software environment for Android smartphones. But the tech giant might be looking to increase its influence over the systems-on-chip (SoCs) that go into Android devices. An article published yesterday in The Information noted that Google has recently talked with different chip-makers to give […]
ABU DHABI // Gathering clouds threaten rain over the eastern and western regions at the start of this week, according to the National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology. Scattered rain has been on the radar and started falling sporadically in the mountains and near Al Ain late last week. More of the same is expected this week, said NCMS meteorologist Sufian Farrah. “For three days, the country […]
GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles. The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of […]
People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Samsung logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. Reuters/Dado Ruvic LAS VEGAS Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS) will release monthly security fixes for Android phones, a growing target for hackers, after the disclosure of a bug designed to attack the world’s most popular […]
With the debate continuing over how Android security compares to the security of other mobile platforms, Google is getting more proactive. The mobile operating system maker just launched Android Security Rewards, complete with cash incentives to encourage security researchers to keep digging for — and reporting — flaws. Google will provide both money and public recognition to security researchers who discover and disclose vulnerabilities to the Android […]
Chinese inventor of the e-cigarette Hon Lik poses for a photograph in central London, Britain June 9, 2015. Reuters/Stefan Wermuth LONDON Before Hon Lik invented the e-cigarette, a device now shaking up the Big Tobacco industry, he was a pharmacist in China struggling to quit a two-to-three pack a day smoking habit. Once in 2002, Hon forgot to remove a nicotine patch from his stomach before bed […]
NEW DELHI: The T S R Subramanian committee, constituted about three months ago to review laws related to environment and forest protection, has recommended some big-ticket changes to the rules and legislation. These include a complete overhaul of certain laws, special fast-track dispensation for power, mining and linear projects, self-certification of compliance by industry and diluting the powers of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The committee’s […]
Remember BadUSB? If you use a USB device to move digital files from one machine to another, you need to know the latest news on this flaw in design specs that could put your computers at risk. Attack code for this flaw, which is impossible to patch, is now public. Security researchers Brandon Wilson and Adam Caudill released two patches to existing firmware for the Phison 2251-03, […]
Over the past three years, Google’s Android operating system has grabbed a major share of the global smartphone market. But there’s more than one flavor of Android out there, and Google is increasingly finding one flavor being pitted against the other. In one corner is the truly open-source Android, which falls under the purview of Google’s Android Open Source Project (AOSP). When Google launched the project in […]
Security experts are keeping an eye on the Shellshock vulnerability, also known as the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, as a focus for malicious scanning and at least one botnet. They warn, though, that hackers haven’t even begun to test the limits of the vulnerability. The Shellshock vulnerability, also called the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, could be even an even greater threat than the Heartbleed bug. Disclosed in […]
By Robert Castleman: As a holder of BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY), I get a great deal of pushback from some pretty smart people that think BlackBerry is a failed company in its death throes. Here, I outline why I think BlackBerry stands a chance, even if it still is a very high-risk holding. To understand my investment thesis, we will have to take a dive into software development and […]
A high volume of holiday packages overwhelmed shipping and logistics company UPS, the company said on Wednesday, delaying the arrival of Christmas presents around the globe and sending angry consumers to social media to vent. Amazon.com responded with an email to affected customers offering shipping refunds and $20 gift cards to compensate. A convergence of factors, including higher volume than expected and recent patches of bad weather, […]
