Category: What’s On

Online business software provider Zoho has come out with new offerings for multichannel commmunication and marketing-focused email management. The tools are designed to help companies build better relationships with customers who communicate with them in a wide variety of ways. Released last week, the latest version of Zoho's software for customer relationship management (CRM) features what the company said is the first email client designed specifically for salespeople. Zoho SalesInbox provides marketers with multiple ways to organize email messages according to

Today, Facebook officially took the wraps off what co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the "biggest and most advanced hardware lab" in the company's history. Designed for Facebook engineers and designers working on everything from improved data center equipment to virtual-reality cameras, the Area 404 lab covers 22,000 square feet, "the size of half a football field," at the company's offices in Menlo Park, Calif., Zuckerberg said. The facility takes its name from the standard HTTP 404 error message delivered when

The good news is that most of the people who buy the Apple Watch like the product. The bad news is that not as many are buying the device as last year. Although the Apple Watch is still the leader in the new world of smart watches, holding a 47 percent market share in 2016, that figure is down from the 72 percent share it held in the second quarter of 2015, according to figures compiled by market research company

The culmination of the world’s first tournament of automated computer security systems is set to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 4. The Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) will be hosted by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the Paris Hotel, where seven security teams will put their automated systems to the test for a chance to win almost $4 million in prizes. “Today's approach to cybersecurity depends on computer security experts: experts identify new flaws and threats and

A federal judge sentenced a man to six months in federal prison Thursday for hacking into hundreds of Apple and Google accounts and stealing scores of personal photos, including some belonging to celebrities. U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt also issued a $3,000 fine to Andrew Helton, who pleaded guilty to a federal hacking charge in February, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.Helton, a 29-year-old resident of Portland, Ore., acknowledged that for two years starting in March 2011

Well that didn’t take long. Just two years after its debut as a standalone app, Facebook is reporting that Messenger has reached more than 1 billion active monthly users. That's in addition to the more than 1 billion users on WhatsApp, the company’s other popular messaging app. Facebook's main app, with 1.5 billion active monthly active users, is believed to be the single most popular iOS app on the market, giving the company three apps with more than a billion users

Data centers are notorious for how much energy they require. Now, however, Google thinks it has found a way to mitigate that problem. Over the last few months, the tech giant has been using an artificial intelligence (AI) system built by DeepMind to control certain parts of its data centers to make its vast server farms more environmentally friendly. DeepMind is the British AI company that Google bought for more than $600 million two years ago. The company is famous for

By transitioning Skype from a peer-to-peer architecture to a cloud-based one, Microsoft aims to enable the messaging and file-sharing service to better keep up with changing technologies and user habits. While the move hasn't been completed yet, changes made so far have already helped support a number of new features on Skype, including mobile group video calling, near-real-time translations of conversations and bots for automated, artificial intelligence-powered services.The transition to the cloud will help make the service more mobile-friendly and effective

Seldom does a week go by without news, rumors and speculation about new phones, but the past week was especially busy with smartphone chatter. Apple, Motorola and Samsung have all been in the headlines over the past several days regarding phones they have in the works. Apple iPhone 7 LeaksA few days after photos appeared of the upcoming iPhone 7, a video emerged that seemed to show the new smartphone -- two months in advance of its anticipated release. A China-based

Efforts to upgrade U.S. communications infrastructure to 5G technology got a big boost from the federal government today. The Obama Administration just announced the launch of a $400 million Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, led by the National Science Foundation (NSF), designed to accelerate the deployment of next-generation wireless technology. The program will invest in efforts by researchers experimenting with and testing novel technologies, applications and services capable of making wireless communication faster, smarter, more responsive and more robust over the next

During its Shape Tech Expo in San Francisco this weekend, AT&T plans to demonstrate how it is using drones to inspect its cell towers from the air. The company is also looking at other future applications that could include using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide improved LTE coverage during crowded events or disasters. AT&T has been testing various uses for drones over the past year, and the company is already using the technology to inspect cell towers. Among the other

Negotiators had been talking for hours with the hunkered-down killer of five police officers in downtown Dallas when the man suddenly resumed firing with an assault rifle. Fearing additional casualties, the officers deployed a small, remote-controlled robot to carry an explosive device near shooter Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, which they then detonated, killing him."We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Police Chief

Typing PIN numbers and passwords into a smartwatch or similar wearable can leave you vulnerable to hackers, according to researchers from Binghamton University and the Stevens Institute of Technology. The researchers found that it's possible for attackers to figure out secret access codes by tracking and measuring "fine-grained" hand movements used when inputting security information into wearable devices. In 5,000 key-entry tests for three different security systems over nearly a year, the researchers found they were able to successfully crack 80

Three months ago, after 10 months of negotiations, Canadian tech giant Mitel Networks Corp. announced that it would buy video conferencing solutions provider Polycom Inc. for close to $1.9 billion. Now it appears that Polycom has had a huge change of heart. Today private equity firm Siris Capital Group LLC said it has agreed to acquire Polycom for $2 billion in cash and take it private. Previously, the plan was to consolidate the enterprise communications businesses of Mitel and Polycom.The deal

Three months ago, after 10 months of negotiations, Canadian tech giant Mitel Networks Corp. announced that it would buy video conferencing solutions provider Polycom Inc. for close to $1.9 billion. Now, it appears that Polycom has had a huge change of heart. Today, private equity firm Siris Capital Group LLC said it has agreed to acquire Polycom for $2 billion in cash and take the company private. Previously, the plan was to consolidate the enterprise communications businesses of Mitel and Polycom.The

Quantum computers promise to enable faster, far more complex calculations than today's silicon chip-based computers. But they also raise the possibility that future computers could retroactively break the security of any digital communications that exist today, which is why Google is experimenting with something called "post-quantum cryptography." While quantum computer development remains in its early stages, some such computers are already in operation. In theory, future generations of quantum computers could "decrypt any Internet communication that was recorded today, and many

Tech giant Google made a bid to expand its cloud services offerings to big media companies yesterday with the announcement that it has acquired Anvato. The company provides a software platform that automates the encoding, editing, publishing, and distribution of video content across multiple platforms. The Mountain View, Calif. startup has already won over some major media companies on its own, including NBC Universal, Fox Sports, and Univision. Anvato will now become part of the Google Cloud Platform, a group that

iPhone and Mac fans who want to test out Apple's latest operating systems can now download the public beta versions of both iOS 10 and macOS Sierra. Both were released today, a few months before the final versions are launched in the fall. Apple has described iOS 10 as the "biggest release ever" of its mobile operating system. New features arriving with this update include expanded capabilities for Siri, Apple's intelligent digital assistant, as well as "differential privacy," a new technology

Pivotal, the developer of the Cloud Foundry open source cloud development platform, is teaming up with Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Announced today, the partnership means that Ubuntu is now the preferred operating system for Cloud Foundry. Cloud Foundry was originally developed by VMware and is now owned by Pivotal Software, a joint venture by EMC, VMware and General Electric. Canonical and Pivotal have worked together over the years, so today's news formalized the long-standing relationship between

Despite some setbacks with an earlier program aimed at getting more people online, Facebook is pushing ahead with a new effort to provide wireless Internet access to remote parts of the world: the OpenCellular wireless access platform. Designed to support a variety of connection options from 2G to LTE, the OpenCellular system will be open sourced so telecom operators and other organizations can more easily build locally appropriate infrastructure to work with the platform, according to Facebook engineer Kashif Ali.The system

Enterprises that depend on Symantec’s antivirus products to protect their networks may want to rethink their strategies. According to Google’s Project Zero, Symantec’s flagship enterprise security product is riddled with vulnerabilities that could be putting millions of companies at risk. The bugs affect all Symantec and Norton branded antivirus products, the Google team said. “These vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets,” Google researcher Tavis Ormandy wrote on Project Zero’s Web site yesterday. “They don’t require any user interaction, they affect

Chipmaker Qualcomm is expanding its support for Google’s new mobile virtual reality technology, Project Tango, with today’s announcement that the technology will be supported on its popular Snapdragon 820 processor, along with future processors in the Snapdragon 600 and 800 tier. “Tango is an excellent example of the innovative thinking that delivers valuable next-generation mobile experiences today,” Brent Sammons, senior marketing manager at Qualcomm, wrote on the company’s blog today. “It has the potential of becoming ubiquitous within mobile devices.”Leveraging a

Two days after reporting that 655,000 healthcare records were found for sale on the dark web, the site DeepDotWeb said today that another insurance database with at least 9.3 million patient records is being shopped around by an anonymous hacker. Over the weekend, a hacker using the name "thedarkoverlord" was offering for sale records taken from databases managed by three healthcare organizations in Missouri, Georgia and the Midwest, according to the site. The hacker, who was seeking payment in Bitcoins with

A lot of people love Uber, the San Francisco-based vehicles-for-hire company. What they don't love is being uncertain about how much they will have to pay to hire those vehicles. Uber has come under fire for its so-called surge pricing, which jacks up the amount of users' fares when demand for rides exceeds the number of drivers available. Now, the company is modifying its app to make it easier for users to see upfront how much their rides will cost. On

With just weeks to go before it launches its one-year Anniversary Update of Windows 10, Microsoft has been rolling out a series of preview builds aimed at fixing various bugs. The most recent build, announced yesterday, resolves a number of issues found in the PC and mobile versions of Microsoft's operating system. The updates come on the heels of last week's "Bug Bash," during which Microsoft gave developers a variety of "quests" to test Windows 10 for glitches and problems. Thousands

Backed by the wide-scale social influence of Facebook, WhatsApp appears poised to have an even greater impact on the global communications market, including voice calling as well as text messaging services. Yesterday, the Facebook-owned mobile messaging service announced it is now supporting more than 100 million voice calls every day, a service it began offering just 18 months ago. WhatsApp also rolled out a desktop version of its application this week, mirroring recent moves by Facebook's other communication app, Messenger.What Is

Security experts regularly urge people to make their online accounts safer with two-factor authentication. Now Google has introduced new settings designed to make that easier for Google Apps administrators and users. By changing their Google sign-in and security settings, users can now opt for an alternative to the six-digit codes Google usually sends out to enable identity verification via mobile devices. Instead, Google Apps users can choose to receive automated prompts on their smartphones that lets them verify sign-in requests with

What’s being called a sophisticated but possibly futile cyberattack on GoToMyPC, a British remote PC access provider, has caused its parent company to reset the passwords of all its clients. GoToMyPC is owned by Citrix, the American software company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking and other services. Citrix bought GoToMyPC from ExpertCity in 2004. The attackers apparently used login names and passwords found in other data breaches to get at the GoToMyPC accounts. The global password reset ordered

It may seem like the number of hacking attempts increases every year, but the number of attacks originating from within the borders of at least one country have declined in the past year, according to a new study by network security firm FireEye. In its "Red Line Drawn: China Recalculates Its Use of Cyber Espionage," report, FireEye said that the number of hacks coming from the Chinese has fallen dramatically in the last year. But while the overall number of Chinese

During its annual SugarCon conference last week, customer relationship management (CRM) firm SugarCRM unveiled a new machine learning-based offering that's currently in development: Sugar Intelligence Service. The service, which will be delivered through a Siri- or Cortana-like artificial intelligence (AI) agent called "Candace," will combine companies' in-house data with other outside sources to provide predictive analytics and a more 360-degree view of customers.No release date or pricing information has been announced at this time. The intelligence service will function as a

A new enterprise offering introduced by Oracle today is designed to enable independent software vendors (ISVs) to transition their businesses to the cloud, the company said. The new platform, called the Oracle Cloud Platform Ready for Independent Software Vendors, will allow ISVs to quickly register and publish their Oracle Cloud-compatible applications on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, allowing them to fast-track new business opportunities in the cloud. Oracle's new cloud platform is part of its Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), a partnership program designed

Beijing's patent regulator has ordered Apple to stop selling its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the city because their design too closely resembles that of a Chinese phone. Apple is appealing the ruling, which marks the latest challenge to the tech company in its second-largest market.The two iPhone models violated design patents held by Chinese device maker Shenzhen Baili because of similarities in external design with the company's 100C phone, the Beijing Intellectual Property Office wrote in a statement

By the end of this week, Facebook expects to complete a "major" update to Messenger for Android that will enable people to use the app to send and receive standard SMS text messages. Vice president of messaging products David Marcus announced the update yesterday in a post on his Facebook page. Rolling out to "most countries," the latest version of Messenger for Android will be a fully integrated app that supports a variety of other features on top of standard texting,

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 plug-in has received little love from browsers lately, with Mozilla announcing that its Firefox