Category: Biz Tech

Next year could likely be a very big one for Apple and its iPhone lineup. It marks the 10th year of the company that started the touch screen era for smartphones, so Apple could have exciting surprises up its sleeve. Rumor has it that the Apple iPhone 8, which should hit the scene in 2017, would sport a curved physical design with better display resolution. Apple has reportedly asked suppliers to boost the output for organic light emitting displays (OLEDs) and submit sample screens

Amazon Web Services will be launching the Amazon AWS Alexa Partner Program, the cloud giant announced Tuesday at the AWS Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. AWS has heard a "deep desire to integrate Alexa and

Apple's iPhone is apparently the most coveted holiday item this year, according to a survey conducted by investment firm Piper Jaffray. While Apple stirred a bit of a controversy with its latest devices, particularly the iPhone 7 with no headphone jack and the MacBook Pro with redesigned (read: missing) ports, it still tops the holiday wish lists this year. Apple devices have always been in high demand, but it seems that this year, the iPhone is even more coveted than it was last year.

In the wake of Donald Trump's surreal ascension to POTUS, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly defended his company's culpability in Trump's win. Critics have pointed to Facebook's propagation of fake news via the site's algorithmically curated "Trending Topics" module and—perhaps even most dastardly—within users' News Feed as directly responsible for the rise of America's first potentially authoritarian-ish leader. Zuck's public refutation exists within a larger debate as to whether Facebook is or is not a media company, and therefore responsible for

Government Communications Headquarters, the UK signals intelligence agency, in Cheltenham, United Kingdom. (UK Ministry of Defence). Alex Grigsby is the assistant director for the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.Two weeks ago, with much fanfare, the United Kingdom released a new strategy that sets out UK government’s approach to improving the country’s cybersecurity over the next five years. It follows the UK’s previous effort dating back to 2011, and allocates

An employee of a foreign exchange trading company works near monitors showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaking on TV news (top) in Tokyo, Japan, November 9, 2016. (Toru Hanai/Reuters). With Donald Trump’s victory, the prospects for digital trade have dimmed. This development owes much to the hostility towards trade that Trump brings to the presidency. But it also involves shifts more fundamental than Trump’s rejection of trade agreements. The rise of digital

4188 28 by Adam Segal November 16, 2016 A man stands in a phone box in front of graffiti art on a wall near the headquarters of Britain's eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, in Cheltenham, western England April 16, 2014. (Eddie Keogh/Reuters). The Council on Foreign Relations is holding a half-day, multi-session symposium to bring together leading policymakers and experts for candid analysis of online privacy, with a particular focus on the United States,

4224 28 by Adam Segal November 18, 2016 A man is silhouetted against a video screen with an Facebook logo as he poses with an Samsung S4 smartphone in this photo illustration taken in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, August 14, 2013. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters) Here is a quick round-up of this week’s technology headlines and related stories you may have missed:1. Disinformation. Disinformation everywhere. Since Donald Trump’s election, the “fake news” phenomenon has received enormous attention and pressure has

People have a general idea of how much a rocket-propelled grenade costs. What about a cyber weapon? (Baz Ratner/Reuters), Max Smeets is a D.Phil candidate and research affiliate of the Cyber Studies Programme at the University of Oxford. His work analyzes the proliferation of cyber weapons.Can a non-state actor take down critical infrastructure with a cyberattack? If it is not possible today, will it be possible in the future? Experts disagree about

4192 28 by Karen Kornbluh November 23, 2016 In this latest episode of the Net Politics podcast, I sat down with Rayid Ghani, director of the Center for Data Science and Public Policy.I spoke with him about how big data is shaping and influencing public policy. Listen to the podcast below, or check it out on Soundcloud.Post a CommentCFR seeks to foster civil and informed discussion of foreign policy issues. Opinions expressed on CFR blogs are solely those of the author or commenter, not of CFR, which

4237 28 by Adam Segal November 29, 2016 New York City skyline is seen at sunrise during a power outage August 15, 2003. (Reuters) The Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program has launched a new Cyber Brief. This one is authored by CFR Senior Fellow and Net Politics contributor Rob Knake.The U.S. federal government has long debated using insurance as a tool to create incentives for better cybersecurity in the private sector, and has tried to prod the insurance industry to offer

The AI can add animations to static images, although the researchers acknowledge that it rarely generates the "correct" future.

Techies would probably recall Kevo Convert for its notable debut at CES this year with its smart lock solution that features electronic keys. Now its maker has made the device available for preorder. Smart Lock Kit Once installed, the Kevo Convert can automatically lock your door after 30 seconds. It can also be locked and unlocked via Bluetooth. To extend the range for users to control their door from anywhere, an upgrade to Kevo Plus is required. Using a dedicated app, users can also

In late 2000, rumors about about a new personal transportation device that could change the way people got around started making the rounds. Steve Jobs initially said it could be "as big as the PC," while John Doerr speculated that it would be more important than the Internet. So when the Segway was actually introduced in December 2001, anticipation was very high. But while it did grab the imagination of those like Steve Wozniak, the product was big and heavy and

I never thought it could happen. I never thought that Donald Trump would become President of the United States. I just couldn't conceive of a world in which a celebrity competition reality star, oft-failed businessman, former Comedy Central Roastee, and friend of Grimace would be tapped to lead the greatest economy and military the planet has ever known. And I wasn't the only one. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. At this moment, I can only attribute

The sub-$100 Pinebook runs on an ARM CPU and Linux.

The reaction to the election of Donald Trump is as much a function of social media and its negative effects on the populace as anything the candidates did or said. People like to say social networks, especially Facebook, are a great way to maintain relations with old high school chums and relatives you ditched when you were 20. In reality, if you wanted to stay in touch pre-Facebook, you found a way. Facebook makes it simpler, but not better. In sales, there

The Lego-compatible, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled SBricks Plus have four ports that are inputs and outputs, so you can attach sensors, motors, and lights.

The smart home is gaining ground, but it's still a muddle of confusing standards, competing platforms, and gadgets that don't do what you might expect. But the promise of products that can make your life a little easier is hard to resist, so I'm here to answer the inevitable questions that arise. Whether it's figuring out the best connected door lock to assembling the right recipe to wake you up with a faux sunrise at the optimal moment based on your

The coolest vehicle I saw at AutoMobilityLA (aka, the LA Auto Show) this week wasn't even real, at least initially. To debut its new I-PACE all-electric crossover, Jaguar herded media into a Hollywood studio with a dozen or so tables in a large room, each topped with HTC Vive VR headsets, Dell Precision workstations, stereo headphones, and a joystick controller. Keep in mind that automotive journalists are a jaded bunch, and I heard a few grumbles from one writer who falls

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has demonstrated its memory-driven computing architecture The Machine, bringing its vision for the future of computing closer to fruition.The idea behind the project, which has been running for five years, is to

Although women comprise a small fraction of tech professionals—just one in four, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology—several nonprofits and startups are working to jumpstart women's participation in computer science. In a previous column, I considered Grace Hopper Academy, a New York City coding bootcamp designed explicitly for women. GHA's sister school, Fullstack Academy, takes that program online with a Remote Immersive program. Most recently, I examined how the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) has expanded female

Everything across the utilities landscape should be connected, instrumented, and measured, according to Cisco Australia CTO Kevin Bloch, in order to move forward from automating operations to augmenting human decision making and predicting the future using

Every tech magazine comes out with a "best products of the year" list at around this time. Readers love lists—and it is shopping season, after all. Plus, it's an easy story to do: Just open up a Web browser and start searching for the best of everything, then rewrite what you read online. Maybe throw in a few outliers, so the list is less generic than the countless other stories that have essentially the same products. Here at PCMag, we

American Airlines has selected IBM Cloud to be a service provider as it moves its internal applications to the public cloud.The airline has said that it was looking to move some of its customer web site

Over the years, I have often written about Silicon Valley's desire for Washington to stay out of its hair. Except for lucrative defense contracts, the tech industry would prefer to work unrestrained by politics and government regulations. That trend lasted well into the early 1990s, but when Bill Clinton was running for president, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and then-CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, figured that if they wanted to realize their vision of the Internet and bring technology to the

Vocus Communications has said it will be investing more in data analytics and digitising its customer service processes over the next year in order to continue competing in the telecommunications landscape."This year, we have decided to

Illegal file sharing is in the news again, as a report from the Australian government finds piracy on the decline thanks to the rise of legitimate streaming services. Respondents indicate they would be glad to pay for content rather than illegally download it, provided the alternatives are reasonable. Piracy, it seems, is not simply about getting free content, but about finding content in the most convenient manner possible. The report brings me back to the days of Napster, which arrived in 1999

(Image: file photo)Nearly a million users across Europe were thrown off the internet during the weekend into Monday after criminals tried to hijack home routers as part of a coordinated cyber attack.Security researchers said that routers

Two weeks before the election, I traveled to Maine for a conference and drove through Massachusetts and New Hampshire on my way. In Silicon Valley, which was mostly Clinton country, I'd seen very few signs or bumper stickers promoting any candidates. But as I drove through the northeast, plenty of Trump signs were displayed on people's lawns, fences, and car bumpers. I did see a few Clinton signs, but Trump signs dominated the landscape. In fact, as I was driving up

The Asus ROG GT51 ($4,999) combines a powerful aesthetic with equally strong internal components, resulting in a distinctive looking and high-performing gaming desktop. Design-wise, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's definitely a conversation piece—if you want your rig to look like the gaming system it is, it'll probably work for you. With dual Pascal graphics cards, a ton of RAM, and a useful array of ports and storage, the GT51 is able to run any modern

Small to midsize businesses (SMBs) looking for a soup-to-nuts Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony system will do very well with 8x8 Virtual Office Pro. The service offers both basic and a good selection of advanced features as part of its base pricing bundle, which starts at $24.99 per user per month. There's a good selection of calling plans and, perhaps most important, a good number of integrations available with popular third-party software such as Salesforce and Sugar CRM. For this