Category: What’s On

Russian Hackers Use Twitter To Hack U.S. TargetsIf your company has been experiencing an unusual amount of traffic from Twitter lately, you may be in for a shock. A hacker group suspected of being supported by the Russian government has been using the micro-blogging platform to hack into U.S. computer networks, according to a new report by computer security firm FireEye. The hacking group is what is known as an advanced persistent threat, and has been classified as APT29. Using a

After much hype and an abundance of testing, Windows 10 -- the latest version of the Microsoft Windows operating system -- begins this week, with release starting July 29. The new OS is scheduled to roll out in phases, going first to Windows Insiders and then being released in waves to users who have made reservations online. Enterprise users will begin seeing Windows 10 on August 1. Windows 10 will be the "last" version of the operating system. Rather than releasing

Tech giant Google said it has reduced transcription errors by 49 percent with the latest improvements it's rolled out to Google Voice and Project Fi. The search giant's researchers and engineers achieved the performance upgrade using something called a "long short-term memory deep recurrent neural network." Combined with content provided by Google Voice users, that network enabled researchers to find a way to improve the accuracy of voicemail-to-text transcriptions, which in the past could prove either unintelligible or "humorously intelligible." A

A redesign of YouTube’s mobile platform was one of a number of key announcements made by Susan Wojcicki (pictured), the company's CEO, yesterday. Wojcicki gave the keynote address at VidCon in Anaheim, Calif., for the second straight year. She was greeted as a hero at the annual online video conference, receiving numerous rounds of applause during her talk. She said mobile video is the top priority for YouTube, which is observing its 10th anniversary this year. That focus is borne out

Have you ever received an e-mail that sounds snarky and overreact because you're reading the undertones between the lines? Or has anyone ever snapped at you for an offensive e-mail that you sent with the best of intentions? IBM is working to eliminate that problem with Watson Tone Analyzer. Big Blue is convinced a computer can accurately and automatically detect the tones conveyed in a message and has taken on the challenge of helping you assess and refine your tone in

Redmond is acquiring field service management solutions provider FieldOne Systems to beef up its CRM business. Here’s the pitch in a nutshell: Consumers expect companies to engage with them in new, more convenient ways. That includes field service capabilities. Once it integrates FieldOne's technology into Dynamics CRM, Microsoft is convinced that its clients can better manage and deliver service to customers in the field. “Field service management is a specific but critically important area of customer service, providing companies with the

Microsoft is touting the latest update to its operating system, due for release starting July 29, with the line, "It's the Windows you know, only better." Underscoring the distance that Microsoft wants to put between the new OS and the previous version is the fact that it's named Windows 10 -- there will be no "9" to succeed the less-than-beloved Windows 8. Windows 10 will also be the "last" version of the operating system, according to Redmond. Rather than releasing future

An updated version of Microsoft’s Power BI service will be released July 24, the company announced Friday. The goal of the updated service is to enable business users to benefit from business intelligence and analytics without requiring sophisticated help from analysts, data scientists, or other tech staff. The new set of business-intelligence tools will replace Microsoft's current Power BI for Office 365 service. Also available on July 24 will be Power BI Desktop -- formerly known as Power BI Designer.Enhancements to

The newest version of Apple's mobile operating system is set for release this fall, but the company is -- for the first time -- offering the public a chance to take iOS 9 for a test drive. The public beta is now available for anyone to download, although Apple recommends that users first back up their devices and/or use secondary devices in case the preview OS has errors or functional problems. When it announced the coming release of iOS 9 earlier

Electronics giant Samsung is bleeding on the smartphone side, with seven straight quarters of decline. The company hopes to correct that in the quarter ahead by beating Apple to the punch. Samsung is set to roll out its next Galaxy Note phablet device in mid-August. That breaks the company’s release cycle, which usually sees new Note devices hit the market in September. The electronics giant needed to do something different because the Galaxy S6 didn’t drive the revenues it had hoped.In

Mobile application developers will be able to test the quality of their apps through a new service -- AWS Device Farm -- unveiled by Amazon Web Services. The announcement was one of several made during the AWS Cloud Summit taking place Thursday at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Other new developments announced during the event included Amazon API Gateway, a managed service designed to help customers create and manage application programming interfaces at any scale; an expanded SaaS

On Thursday Microsoft released Office 2016 for Mac, the long-awaited productivity suite that integrates with Office 365, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint so that users have access documents across personal and work accounts from their devices just by signing in with their Office accounts. A preview of Office 2016 was made available in March and elicited some 100,000 pieces of feedback from testers. The final version came after seven updates in the intervening four months. Unlike the test version, the

If you read the news regularly, you read about data breaches and massive hacks just about every week. That can make you a little nervous about safeguarding your financial information. A new MasterCard survey reveals you are not alone. Seventy-seven percent of consumers are anxious about their personal and financial information being hacked. In fact, the fear of a hack is higher than the fear of compromised e-mail (62 percent) or a home robbery (59 percent).And get this: 55 percent of

Privacy Group Asks FTC To Push Google on U.S. 'Right To Be Forgotten'The failure of Google to offer users in the U.S. the same "right to be forgotten" protection available in Europe violates U.S. law on unfair and deceptive trade practices, according to the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. The organization on Tuesday submitted a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the agency to "investigate and act." Prompted by a 2014 ruling by Europe's Court of Justice, the right to

Redmond is cleaning house. Microsoft just announced plans to restructure its phone hardware business to better focus and align resources. Part of that alignment translates to layoffs. Microsoft will cut up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business. The result: an impairment charge of about $7.6 billion related to assets connected to its Nokia Devices and Services business acquisition. That’s on top of a restructuring charge of between $750 million and $850 million.“We are moving from a strategy to grow

Google's new image-recognition program misfired badly this week by identifying two black people as gorillas, delivering a mortifying reminder that even the most intelligent machines still have lot to learn about human sensitivity. The blunder surfaced in a smartphone screen shot posted online Sunday by a New York man on his Twitter account, @jackyalcine. The images showed the recently released Google Photos app had sorted a picture of two black people into a category labeled as "gorillas."The accountholder used a profanity

According to a recently published white paper, cable boxes have the potential to become protocol-agnostic Internet-of-Things (IoT) hubs and in the process begin to address the competing protocols and closed systems that continue to hold back the IoT industry. The paper was written by Susan Crouse, director of product management for Alticast, which sells products and software for multi-screen viewing and TV interactivity. In the white paper, Crouse suggested tying the many IoT hubs from makers including Belkin, Lowe's, Quirky and

In another sign of the ongoing changes in online search, Yahoo is testing a search partnership with Google. The search giant confirmed in a statement that "Yahoo is currently testing search results and ads from a number of partners, including Google as one of their options." A Yahoo spokesperson told us, "As we work to create the absolute best experiences for Yahoo users, from time to time, we run small tests with a variety of partners including search providers. There is

With an up-to-date Android or iOS device, YouTube users can now play back videos at 60 frames per second. Google-owned YouTube rolled out the HFR (high-frame-rate) option for desktop devices last fall, and expanded that to live streaming in May. For now, though, HFR live streaming remains available only on desktops, not on mobile devices.YouTube said 60 fps videos provide "silky smooth playback," especially for video games and other fast-action videos. The video site also supports HFR for 4K videos, although

Wireless carrier Sprint is backpedaling on the video streaming limits on its new All-In program. The company apparently underestimated the customer backlash that would haunt it for putting a 600 kbps maximum on the new plan. Here’s the backstory: On Tuesday, Sprint announced the All-In wireless plan for $80 a month. The plan includes a wireless device with unlimited talk, text and high-speed data.“If you went to a restaurant that advertised a cheeseburger for 99-cents, but when you show up, they

If you’re sick of your smartphone’s shaky Web capabilities and its tendency to lose power after just a few hours, Apple is feeling your pain. According to reports, the company’s next iPhone might offer faster Web connectivity and better battery life, all thanks to a single component. The handset, which by most indications will be called the iPhone 6S, will launch with a chip called the MDM9635M. The chip, which was introduced by Qualcomm in 2013 but didn't go into production

Under a new 10-year agreement that starts in 2016, AOL will be taking over a large part of Microsoft's display ad sales for numerous sites and services, including MSN, Xbox, Outlook.com and Skype. As part of the partnership, announced Monday, AOL will adopt Microsoft's Bing as its exclusive provider of search and search advertising services across all of its properties. In a separate deal, first reported Monday by TechCrunch, Microsoft will also sell some of its mapping-focused Bing assets -- including

It looks like 2015 will be the remembered as the summer of dueling mobile offerings. Only days after T-Mobile said it would begin allowing users to upgrade their smartphones up to three times a year, Sprint promised to go “All-In” with a new pricing structure that offers unlimited talk, text, and data for $80 a month. The company, which is the third-largest wireless carrier in the country behind Verizon and AT&T, said that the new offering will make it easier for

In a memo to employees on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spelled out his mission for the company: "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." Microsoft will also aim to "reinvent" productivity and business processes, build an intelligent cloud platform and create a more personal computing experience for its users, he said. Nadella's vision statement comes just a week after the company announced major leadership changes in which four top executives will be stepping down.

An engineering breakthrough by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, has the potential to double the speed of fiber optic networks. The findings, reported by a team of photonics researchers in the June 26 edition of the journal Science, could dramatically increase the maximum power capacity of signals sent through fiber optic cables. Although not every user connects to the Internet through an optical cable, fiber optics do serve as the primary infrastructure for much of the Internet. Increasing

Networking company Netgear just made a big move in the cable modem router world. So big, in fact, that high-speed Internet users on home fronts everywhere have good reason to rejoice. The firm just rolled out the industry’s fastest-ever cable modem router. It’s the first router in the Nighthawk line and it aims at cable Internet subscribers who have an extreme need for broadband speed. The Nighthawk AC1900 Wi-Fi Cable Modem Router works with HD and 4K streaming service tiers. Netgear

The wrap up of DockerCon on Tuesday also marked the ushering in of a new era for the convention's namesake company and the containerization ecosystem in general. One visible, real-world sign of the shift came when Docker founder and CTO Solomon Hykes and CoreOS CEO Alex Polvi met on stage to shake hands and announce the launch of the Open Container Project. Being led by the Linux Foundation, the Open Container Project includes a large number of other participants, including Amazon

Are you ready for another PC on a stick? Lenovo this week joined a handful of companies that have come out with this concept by releasing the Ideacentre Stick 300. The portable gadget works with any HDMI-compatible device, which means it can be plugged it into a flat-screen TV -- or provide ultra-portable computing power to road warriors in hotel rooms or any location where there's a device with an HDMI port. Set to hit retail shelves in early July, the

Redmond rolled out Office for Android-powered tablets in January. Now, Microsoft is finally releasing Office apps for the Android phone. That means if you’re using a Samsung, LG, HTC or some other Android smartphone you can tap into the power of Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps on the run. All you have to do is download them from the Google Play store.Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office Client Applications and Services team, said the rollout completes “the Office experience

Many reporters have developed an ad hoc system of using Google-related tools in their work. Now the tech giant wants to consolidate those tools and make them easier for journalists to use. On Monday, the company announced the launch of a new site called News Lab, which intends to connect journalists with programs, data and other resources -- all from Google -- to help in their reporting. The site will feature tutorials and best practices on how to use Google products

Containers have quickly become crucial tools for rapid-scale application development, and a new project aims to protect their usefulness by establishing common standards for software containers. Among the companies joining forces for the Open Container Project announced today are Docker, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, EMC, Google, Microsoft and VMware. The Open Container Project will be run under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. Docker called the effort "one of the more significant [announcements] in the history of containerization."Among the other organizations

Windows users, rejoice. Over the weekend, Microsoft announced that its latest operating system, Windows 10, will be free for anyone who wants it. Previously, the company said that it would make the new OS available as a free upgrade, but only to certain users who were currently running Windows 7 or 8. That arrangement would have excluded anyone still running Windows XP, Vista, or even Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. But that would have left a lot of users, especially a lot

A second cache of 276,394 documents stolen from Sony Pictures Entertainment -- possibly by hackers in North Korea -- was posted online Thursday by the not-for-profit media organization WikiLeaks. Posted on the third anniversary of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the latest Sony documents include confidential memos from executives on coming films, notes on IT strategies, financial forecasts and movie marketing and merchandising plans.Among the documents is a memo that discusses a potential transaction in

Consumers are barely used to the Apple Watch, and already there’s discussion about what might be included with the next edition of the wearable. Media reports on Friday revealed details about a second-generation model that might sport a video camera and a new wireless system. The first Apple Watch was released just two months ago. The camera would be called the FaceTime Video Camera and would be integrated into the top bezel of the Apple Watch 2, letting users make and