The logo of Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index listed company Microsoft (MSFT) is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 22, 2016. Reuters/Lucy Nicholson/Files SAN FRANCISCO With the world growing more concerned about attacks by militant groups on civilians, Microsoft Corp on Friday outlined new policies to crack down what it called “terrorist content” on some of its consumer services. In a blog post, […]
The BACtrack Skyn wearable alcohol biosensor is seen in an undated handout artist’s rendering courtesy of BACtrack. BACtrack/Handout via Reuters SAN FRANCISCO A San Francisco-based company has won a U.S. government-sponsored competition with an alcohol monitoring devices that can be worn on the wrist, the latest milestone in the development of wearable technologies that monitor and diagnose medical conditions. BACtrack, a privately held medical device maker, took […]
To help Skype continue making inroads into the enterprise, Microsoft has launched Skype for Business SDK (software developer kit). The new product is a set of tools that lets iOS and Android developers integrate Skype’s messaging, audio and voice capabilities into their mobile applications. The goal of Microsoft’s Skype for Business SDK is to allow Skype to power the communications experience inside applications, so developers can focus […]
Spotting native alligators and crocodiles in Florida is common, but anyone who sees a large reptile may want to take a second look — human-eaters that can grow to 18 feet long and weigh as much as a small car have been found in the Sunshine State. Using DNA analysis, University of Florida researchers have confirmed the capture of multiple Nile crocodiles in the wild. The ancient […]
Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji/Files SEOUL Samsung Electronics said it had struck a deal with a Alibaba Group Holding for owners of its phones to be able to more easily make payments with Alipay accounts – a move it hopes will boost sales in the world’s biggest smartphone market. Users of Samsung Pay will also have the option of paying with their Alipay accounts without having separately access the Alipay […]
Call them the RoboBats. In a recent article in Science, Harvard roboticists demonstrate that their flying microrobots, nicknamed the RoboBees, can now perch during flight to save energy — like bats, birds or butterflies. “Many applications for small drones require them to stay in the air for extended periods,” said Moritz Graule, first author of the paper who conducted this research as a student at the Harvard […]
A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and led by Northern Illinois University physicist and Argonne materials scientist Zhili Xiao has created a new material, called “rewritable magnetic charge ice,” that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies. The scientists’ research report on development of magnetic charge […]
Reuters/Jim Urquhart/Files SAN FRANCISCO Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that a dangerous financial bubble has formed in the technology industry – and Silicon Valley responded with a collective eye roll. In a Reuters interview, the New York billionaire said technology start-ups that had never earned a profit were able to sell shares at very high prices, likening the situation to the overheated […]
Researchers at IBM say they’ve achieved a “significant milestone” in an emerging type of memory technology called phase-change memory (PCM). Because it doesn’t lose data when power is turned off and can endure millions of read-write cycles, PCM could eventually enable new levels of performance in a wide range of devices. During a demonstration today at the International Memory Workshop in Paris, IBM researchers showed how they […]
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) revealed a more than $1 billion stake in Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in a rare foray into the technology sector, which Buffett has largely shunned apart from a poorly performing investment in IBM (IBM.N). Shares of Apple rose 3.7 percent on the news, closing up $3.36 at $93.88. Berkshire made its investment in the first quarter, before the iPhone maker in April […]
Concerns about identity theft, financial fraud and business or government tracking are creating a “chilling effect” on online commerce and free expression, according to analysis of data from a 2015 survey of Internet use conducted for the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Of the 41,000 households asked about privacy and security in the July 2015 U.S. Census Bureau survey for the NTIA, 19 […]
WASHINGTON // Researchers dived hundreds of times into a sinkhole in Florida’s Aucilla River and retrieved some of the oldest evidence of human presence in the Americas, including stone tools apparently used to butcher a mastodon. Scientists said the tools, animal bones and mastodon tusk found at the site showed that people had occupied the American south-east 14,550 years ago – about 1,500 years earlier than previously […]
Reuters/Denis Balibouse/File photo SAN FRANCISCO Warren Buffett struck media gold with a 2012 investment in debt-laden Media General Inc. Now the famed investor may try to reprise that success by supporting a bid for Yahoo Inc’s Internet assets. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman is backing a consortium that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, that is seeking to buy Yahoo’s online portfolio, Reuters reported […]
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have proved useful for things like tracking inventory, but they haven’t worked in games and other applications that require fast information processing — until now. A team of researchers from Disney and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a way to use RFID tags for near-real-time interactions with a wide variety of objects. The new system, called RapID, uses probabilistic models to enable computers […]
SAN FRANCISCO Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) $1 billion investment in Chinese ride sharing company Didi Chuxing intensifies a race to acquire technology, talent and market access in a rapidly evolving global personal transportation market. Apple’s investment comes as auto and technology industry executives and investors are placing bets that self-driving car systems, electric vehicles and ride sharing will eventually converge to allow companies to sell rides in self-driving vehicles, […]
A new study from Microsoft has found that organizations now rely more on digital infrastructures than they do on physical infrastructures. The findings indicate that cloud deployment models have now overtaken any other type of deployment in the technology sector, according to the company, which asked tech research firm 451 Research to conduct the study. “As organizations prepare for major business and technology changes, they will depend […]
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook speaks during a event for students to learn to write computer code at the Apple store in the Manhattan borough of New York December 9, 2015. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Files Apple Inc said on Thursday it has invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, a move that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said would help the company better understand the […]
The latest developer version of Opera Software’s browser features a power-saving mode the company said can extend a laptop’s battery life by almost 50 percent, compared to previous versions of the browser as well as Google Chrome. Opera 39 includes a feature that activates when a laptop is unplugged from a power source. When that happens, a battery icon appears next to the browser’s search and address […]
INTERNATIONAL. /PRNewswire/ — The CFO has never been held more accountable for the company’s success, and the ability of finance teams to extract value from company data is the key to delivering on the chief executive’s expectations. Oracle’s study, Modern Finance: Driving Transformation from Within, found that closer alignment between the CFO and CIO is crucial if finance leaders are to effectively help the business achieve its […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo FRANKFURT SWIFT’s payment network was not hacked in the $81 million heist on the Bangladesh central bank earlier this year, SWIFT’s chief executive said on Thursday, adding it was unlikely to be the last such attack on a bank. Gottfried Leibbrandt said SWIFT’s network, used by firms and institutions across the […]
A 3D printed Android logo is seen in front of a displayed cyber code in this illustration taken March 22, 2016. Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Files SAN FRANCISCO Oracle Corp and Google faced off on Tuesday in a $9 billion intellectual property retrial, with Oracle accusing Google of stealing programming to become the world’s leading smartphone player and Google saying it acted legally as a true innovator. Oracle claims Google’s […]
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 […]
Security analyst Rachit Sood (R) registers for the Black Hat USA 2015 cyber security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada August 4, 2015. Reuters/ STEVE MARCUS/Files SAN FRANCISCO A number of young technology security companies are losing access to the largest collection of industry analysis of computer viruses, a setback industry experts say will increase exposure to hackers. The policy change at the information-sharing pioneer VirusTotal takes aim […]
A wearable technology developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University may one day make touchscreens for smart watches unnecessary as users could issue commands to their devices simply by touching their own arms. The new technology would essentially transform a user’s entire lower arm into a touchpad, capable of receiving commands traced on the skin. The system, called SkinTrack, was developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute’s […]
