Category: What’s On

When it comes to wearables, the headlines often seem dominated by smart watches and fitness-tracking bracelets. However, as the Consumer Electronics Show wraps up in Las Vegas on Friday one thing is clear -- there's a lot more to wearables than just bangles and timepieces. Among the wearable Innovation Award winners at this year's CES were a heart-rate-monitoring strip that sticks to a user's torso; a sensor-embedded "digital shirt" for athletes; and a wireless smart insole for tracking steps, gait and

The Jetsons probably had no idea how soon the average American would see robots become a reality. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, a number of devices showed the futuristic concept is here and now. Robotics exhibits at CES grew 25 percent from last year's show, according to the event's organizers. "It speaks to the category's growth and ability to disrupt and transform the consumer technology industry," said Karen Chupka, senior vice president of CES and corporate

If you don’t visit Facebook at least once a day, you’re in a dwindling minority. Facebook still remains the most popular social media site by far, according to a new survey by Pew Research. While its growth has slowed as other social sites continue to grow in popularity, the level of user engagement on Facebook has increased nonetheless. Facebook membership numbers since 2013 have been mostly static, according to the Pew Research study, which surveyed 2,000 adult Internet users in September.

Reporting about widespread government surveillance of ordinary citizens helped win the Guardian and the Washington Post a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. But many ordinary citizens themselves have offered a "Ho-hum everybody does it" response to the spying revelations made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The lackadaisical public reaction does not bode well for the future of privacy. And that's the same conclusion that the Pew Research Center came to in December after canvassing thousands of Internet, technology and

FBI Probes Revenge Hacks by U.S. BanksU.S. banks that were attacked by Iran-based hackers in late 2012 reportedly considered hacking the Iranians in response, according to Bloomberg News. That would-be retaliation has apparently gotten the attention of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), which is now looking into the banks' actions, Bloomberg reported. The FBI is "looking into whether hackers working on behalf of any U.S. financial institutions disabled servers that were being used by Iran to attack the Web

It was a bit less spectacular and a lot less glamorous than most Hollywood disaster movies. But the recent mega-breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment had more than its share of drama and improvisation. Numerous media outlets this week published behind-the-scenes looks at how the crisis, one of the worst cyberattacks on an American company, was handled internally. Among other unusual steps, studio CEO Michael Lynton communicated with other senior execs using old BlackBerry devices that had been in a storage room

Already well recognized for its efforts to develop self-driving cars, Google is reportedly also working on getting its Android mobile operating system built directly into a variety of vehicles. Such a system would allow drivers to use mobile apps without having to connect their cellphones to their cars, according to a Reuters article published Thursday. Google rolled out its preview of Android Auto in June. Designed to support easier in-car use of audio and messaging apps, Android Auto has been touted

Wireless giant T-Mobile has agreed to pay more than $90 million as punishment for placing unwanted third-party charges on phones, also known as "mobile cramming," the Federal Trade Commission said Friday. If the announced agreement is approved by a U.S. District Court, it would resolve an FTC lawsuit filed in July that accused T-Mobile of billing customers for unwanted charges, including horoscope, love tip and celebrity gossip services. T-Mobile received 35 percent to 40 percent of each charge, the FTC said

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is pointing the finger of blame for the Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) cyberattack directly at North Korea. In collaboration with other U.S. government departments and agencies, the FBI said it has enough evidence to conclude that the Communist nation is responsible for the attack. Now, President Barack Obama is responding. The hackers compromised Sony Pictures' computer systems, stole data and intellectual property, and ultimately caused the movie giant to can its new comic film, "The

Sony Pictures Entertainment was warned by hackers to "obey" or else, now the entertainment giant is warning news organizations how to treat its stolen data in the wake of the attack.Sony Pictures attorney David Boies wrote a three-page letter to several news media outlets, noting that the Sony documents were stolen information, and that anyone who received a copy should not review them -- but rather destroy them. The New York Times was the first to report on the strongly

Less than a week after announcing new in-house search capabilities, Facebook has quietly stopped serving up results from Microsoft's Bing search engine. The change, made without fanfare, was confirmed by a Facebook spokesperson, according to a report by Reuters.Bing, rolled out by Microsoft in 2009, remains a distant second behind Google in terms of search engine market share. According to the latest U.S. desktop search engine rankings from the analyst firm comScore, Google led the way in October 2014 with

Microsoft on Monday made available the first public preview of Skype Translator, its service for real-time language translation. The preview program will kick off with two spoken languages, Spanish and English, according to Skype. Additionally, more than 40 instant messaging languages will be available to Skype customers who have signed-up via the Skype Translator sign-up page and are using Windows 8.1 on their desktops or mobile devices. It’s also available to users with Windows 10 Technical Preview. Microsoft is expected to

Just days after Stephen Hawking, a preeminent British physicist, warned artificial intelligence (AI) could end mankind, MetaMind announced its new AI platform and an initial $8 million in funding from Khosla Ventures and Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff. MetaMind has developed what it calls “deep learning” software that combines natural language processing and computer vision to solve complex data problems. The technology’s goal is to pave the way for automated predictions and smarter decision-making for businesses -- faster and with

If you've been waiting to get your hands on Microsoft’s new polling data application, this is your lucky day. The company announced this week that it is opening up Bing Pulse 2.0, its experimental polling analytics technology, to anyone who wants to use it -- free of charge -- for part of its beta test. “Bing Pulse 2.0 beta brings an easy-to-use, self-service version of this voting technology to event planners, producers and participants of any size gathering,” Microsoft said. “Bing

If some information leaked online this week is any indication, Samsung's next Galaxy phone will feature a yet-bigger and improved display. A screenshot of the new phone was published on the Chinese Web site CNMO, which said it got the information from the database of benchmarking site AnTuTu. The specs supposedly show details of the yet-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy S6. The most prominent features of the new Galaxy, which follows the S5 released earlier this year, seem focused on screen size and

Wireless carrier Sprint is launching an aggressive pricing strategy aimed at pulling wireless customers away from Verizon and AT&T. Under a program that kicks off Friday, Sprint is offering to cut in half the monthly rates paid by customers currently with those competing carriers. And it appears Sprint's offer is not just a come-on gimmick. Those half-off rates are "not just a promotion. This will be the customer's ongoing price," according to Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure.Currently the third-largest mobile carrier in

If you have an Xbox and you're having a hard time signing on to Xbox Live, there may be a nefarious reason for that. A hacker group that made a name for itself by attacking online gaming services has apparently struck again. In a Twitter post, Lizard Squad claims it took Xbox Live down. This is the same Lizard Squad that executed a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that crashed Sony's PlayStation and Entertainment Network back in August.This may be

When it comes to smartphone sales, the growth is still there -- but it’s slowing. Smartphone sales growth will continue at nearly 10 percent each year through 2018, well off the pace of recent years, according to a new mobile phone forecast from International Data Corp. (IDC). Worldwide smartphone shipments will reach a total of nearly 1.3 billion units in 2014, an increase of 26.3 percent over last year, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.Looking ahead, though, IDC expects

When Google recently rolled out the new Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system, it touted the release as its biggest Android update yet, with an emphasis on delivering an integrated experience across multiple devices. However, early users are fuming mad over Lollipop, with bugs and problems souring the Lollipop experience. What's the problem? As one of our commenters wrote, "Where do I begin?" Batteries that drain too fast, Wi-Fi connection difficulties, and apps not working properly. Some have also reported trouble loading

In its bid for the wearables market, Sony Corp. is developing a watch made out of electronic paper for release as soon as next year, reported Bloomberg. Although not yet officially announced, the move is considered a trial of the company’s new venture-style approach to creating products. The face and wrist band of the watch will be made from a patented material that lets the surface area of each function as a display and change its appearance. Sources with information about

Just one week after announcing a new search partnership with Yahoo, Mozilla is rolling out a new Firefox interface that will enable one-click searches for an array of specific search engines. In addition to a set of pre-installed search engines, the new interface will also allow users to specify other search engines for one-click queries. Following the recent expiration of a 10-year agreement with Google, Mozilla announced a five-year partnership making Yahoo the default choice for desktop and mobile searches on

Five weeks after launching its OS X Yosemite operating system, Apple has released an updated version: OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 (14C68k). This second beta version comes swiftly on the heels of the first, which was made available Monday but didn't seem to address some of the issues with Wi-Fi that were plaguing users and developers. Since OS X Yosemite made its debut on Oct. 16, community members on Apple's support forums have identified a number of bugs associated with the release.

Building on its previous work in electronic collaboration forms that include audio and video conferencing, Cisco Systems is now offering ways to manage workers’ day-to-day interactions and tasks. The networking giant this week announced the availability of Project Squared, a service aimed at offering an online gathering place for getting work done.Project Squared is delivered via an app or the Web. It is the latest response to changes in the way people work in 2014, which often involves being on

To better its customer service, Comcast is pulling out at least some of the stops. One of the initiatives the cable giant is undertaking has to do with the frustration customers experience while waiting around for technicians who may or may not show up exactly during the two-hour window the company offers.And who wants to wait around for two hours, anyway? Comcast CEO Brian Roberts demonstrated a new app last week that lets customers track a technician’s schedule in

With a nod to Moore's Law that says IT performance improves exponentially, Google today unveiled double-digit price cuts to its cloud services. The move is Google's latest salvo in its ongoing price war with other cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Announced during the Google Cloud Platform Live developer conference taking place today in San Francisco, the price cuts accompany several other new developments in the company's cloud offerings. They include the rollout of Google Container Engine, designed

You might say Microsoft is acknowledging there's more than OneDrive in this cloud -- with the other drive being Dropbox, which is teaming up to allow users to access its storage service directly from Office apps and edit Office files from the Dropbox app. Here are a few of the features promised to users of the two joined services:Users can edit Office files via the Dropbox mobile app and sync changes across devices. They can also create a file at home

In the wake of yet another poor earnings report, Sprint is laying off thousands of workers. The telecom giant said it would cut loose about 2,000 workers as part of a cost-cutting program that aims to turn around the ailing company. In summary, Sprint reported operating revenues of $8.5 billion for its second fiscal quarter of 2014, which represents a $192 million operating loss. Marcelo Claure, the company's newly-minted CEO, has been pushing out aggressive rate cuts on its smartphone plans,

Fans of YouTube who would rather not see those "You can skip this ad in 5 seconds" popups before their video of choice starts playing might one day have the option of an advertising-free, paid subscription service. Speaking at Re/code's Code/Mobile conference this week, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the Google-owned company is "thinking about how to give users options." YouTube already has a program in which some content creators can offer paid monthly subscriptions to their programming at rates starting

Storage giant EMC is making bold moves in the hybrid cloud market, acquiring three companies in the space and announcing that it has “redefined” the hybrid cloud for the enterprise with the roll out of the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution. First, the acquisitions. EMC grabbed The Cloudscaling Group, Maginatics, and Spanning Cloud Apps for undisclosed amounts. The company said these acquisitions help forward its hybrid cloud vision across cloud infrastructure, storage and data protection.Cloudscaling provides OpenStack-powered infrastructure-as-a-service for private and hybrid

For the latest smartphone in the Droid line, Verizon and Motorola tackled one most common complaint from users of those devices: battery life. The two companies unveiled the Droid Turbo on Tuesday, and Motorola said the phone's battery can last for a full two days -- 48 hours -- of normal use. The oversize battery has a huge 3,900 milliamp-hours (mAh) of power. By comparison, the iPhone 6 Plus is rated at 2,915mAh. Another feature of the new phone is the

On a scale of 1 to 10, the new Apple iPad Mini 3 rates only a 2 when it comes to the ease with which it can be repaired. The unit, which hit store shelves this week, was rated by the gadget-repair site iFixit, which proclaimed that the iPad Mini 3 is almost indistinguishable in design and internal components from its predecessor, the iPad Air 2. iFixit found that inside the Mini 3 is a variety of almost a dozen chips

Android Lollipop Rolls Out on New Nexus Devices Nov. 3The first devices featuring Google's latest update to its Android operating system -- Android 5.0 Lollipop -- will be the 5.96-inch-screen Nexus 6 "phablet" and the 8.9-inch-screen Nexus 9 tablet. The Nexus 9 is expected to be the first to hit the market, with a scheduled ship date of Nov. 3. Starting at $399.99, the Nexus 9 is already available for pre-order. Designed in partnership with HTC, the tablet features a 2.3GHz

Microsoft has taken a lot of heat for unpopular Windows releases and less-than-hip tablet roll outs, but apparently Redmond is doing plenty right. The company on Thursday announced $4.54 billion in net income, or 54 cents per share in earnings, on revenue of $23.2 billion for the third quarter, outpacing its competition. Cloud strength and hardware sales helped buoy the firm’s record earnings. The good financial news comes in despite the $1.14 billion of expenses connected to Microsoft’s restructuring plan announced

With enterprises now averaging more than three dozen infected IT devices daily and attacks by point-of-sale (POS) malware like Backoff rising by double digits, companies today need to "operate under the assumption they are in a state of continuous breach." That's one of the findings from enterprisesecurity firm Damballa's "Q3 State of Infections Report," released today. During the third quarter of this year, global ISPs and enterprise customers saw a 32 percent increase in IT security events compared to the second