Cyber Security

‘3 key reasons why hackers can’t beat Apple Pay’s security’

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Hackers always enjoy a product launch, and for good reason. Come the public release of any new smartphone, app, or service, hackers are given a new challenge and toy to play with, and will race to be the first group or lone wolf to crack its defences. This is particularly true for Apple products, where there is a massive jailbreaking community.

Jailbreaking is a popular practice that lets hackers remove the controls Apple builds into its products to stop people taking certain actions — like downloading applications from third-party stores.
Continue reading ‘3 key reasons why hackers can’t beat Apple Pay’s security’ →

Theft Scheme

Vietnamese man gets 13 years for massive ID theft scheme.

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A Vietnamese man linked to a data breach of 200 million personal records at a subsidiary of credit monitoring firm Experian has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Hieu Minh Ngo, 25, was sentenced Tuesday on charges including wire fraud and identity fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the DOJ said.

Ngo was linked to a data breach at Court Ventures, a data broker Experian purchased in 2012.
Continue reading Vietnamese man gets 13 years for massive ID theft scheme. →

Windows

Microsoft suspends Windows 10 previews as it nears official launch.

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Microsoft on Monday suspended delivery of new preview builds of Windows 10, saying that it was “very close” to wrapping up the operating system.

“We’re suspending the availability of Windows 10 builds briefly while we prepare for [using the official roll-out process], and the next build that we flight to you will be delivered using the production channels,” said Gabriel Aul, engineering general manager for Microsoft’s OS group, in a revised blog yesterday. “We’re very close to our public release and we’re working very hard to get everything just right.”

Aul promised that the suspension would be short, but that disk images — large files in .iso format that testers can use to do a “clean” install of the OS — would also be deferred. “We really need Insiders to be using, stressing, and validating our distribution and upgrade processes,” Aul said in explaining the .iso pause.
Continue reading Microsoft suspends Windows 10 previews as it nears official launch. →

Technology

These Glasses Could Help the Blind See.

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Many people with normal vision imagine blindness as utter darkness, the unbroken black of a dead TV screen. But approximately 90 percent of people who are designated as legally blind (defined as having less than 20/200 vision in your better eye, with corrective lenses) have some degree of remaining sight. They may have decent peripheral vision but no sight in the center, or they may have only central sight, or “tunnel vision.” They may be able to see light or large objects that are very close.

Now, scientists in the United Kingdom are trying to address the needs of the legally blind with a pair of “smart” glasses.
Continue reading These Glasses Could Help the Blind See. →

Technology

‘Ghost’: Technology that leaps out of the screen.

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Exciting new technologies, which allow users to change the shape of displays with their hands, promise to revolutionise the way we interact with smartphones, laptops and computers. Imagine pulling objects and data out of the screen and playing with these in mid-air.

Today we live in a world of flat-screen displays we use all day — whether it’s the computer in the office, a smartphone on the train home, the TV or iPad on the couch in the evening. The world we live in is not flat, though; it’s made of hills and valleys, people and objects. Imagine if we could use our fingertips to manipulate the display and drag features out of it into our 3D world.
Continue reading ‘Ghost’: Technology that leaps out of the screen. →

Smartphones

Is your smartphone making you dumb?

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HOUSTON: Smartphones may be detrimental to the users’ ability to learn, a year-long study of first-time mobile device users suggests.

The research shows the self-rated impact of smartphones among the users.

“Smartphone technology is penetrating world markets and becoming abundant in most college settings,” said Philip Kortum, assistant professor of psychology at Rice University in Houston and the study’s co-author.
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Windows

Global PC Market Contracts Nearly 12 Percent Ahead Of Windows 10 Launch.

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Windows 10 can’t get here soon enough. We’ve been hearing about the downturn in the PC market for years, and things haven’t gotten any better in recent quarters. With Windows 10 less than three weeks away, IDC has released its PC sales figures for Q2 showing that the industry witnessed a year-over-year decline 11.8 percent to 66.1 million units.

“Although the second quarter decline in PC shipments was significant, and slightly more than expected, the overall trend fits with expectations,” said IDC’s Loren Loverde. “We continue to expect low to mid-single digit declines in volume during the second half of the year with volume stabilizing in future years.”

Looking at overall global sales, Lenovo was the market leader with 20.3 percent of the PC market. HP, Dell, Apple, and Acer rounded out the top 5 with 18.5 percent, 14.5 percent, 7.8 percent, and 6.6 percent respectively. When looking solely at the U.S market, the positions jumble up quite a bit with HP taking the top spot with a 26 percent share. Dell secured second place with 23.9 percent, while Apple, Lenovo, and Toshiba rounded out the top 5.
Continue reading Global PC Market Contracts Nearly 12 Percent Ahead Of Windows 10 Launch. →

Software

A software update led to Wednesday’s NYSE problem.

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An incompatibility with a software update and subsequent attempt to fix it were the root cause of glitch that forced a nearly four-hour-long suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

The exchange traced the problems back to an update applied to a single system on Tuesday evening. The new software was related to an upcoming industry-wide test of a new timestamp procedure for communications.
Continue reading A software update led to Wednesday’s NYSE problem. →

Cyber Security

Computer Security Experts Release Report Slamming Proposals To Backdoor Encryption, As FBI Makes Latest Push.

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from the bad-ideas dept

Later today, FBI director James Comey will testify before two separate Senate panels about “going dark”, the buzz phrase for law enforcement’s ridiculous fear of strong encryption. In preparation for this, Comey has posted an article claiming that he’s not “a maniac” and recognizes the value of strong encryption… but.

Continue reading Computer Security Experts Release Report Slamming Proposals To Backdoor Encryption, As FBI Makes Latest Push. →

Apple

Spurs Forward Matt Bonner Blames ‘Way Bigger’ iPhone For Trashing His Three-Point Shooting Percentage.

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For most of his professional career, NBA player Matt Bonner has donned a San Antonio Spurs uniform. Including his first two seasons with the Toronto Raptors, Bonner’s been a reliable shooter, hitting over 46 percent of his shots over his career, including 41.4 percent from three-point land. That’s pretty good for a center-forward, though he’s coming off his worst shooting season of his 11-year career, and he blames the iPhone 6 for his woes.

If that’s where the story stopped, you’d probably assume he spent too much time posting to Twitter and playing mobile games and not enough time practicing his jumper in the gym. However, that’s now why he blames Apple’s newest flagship device, at least not directly. Instead, he theorizes that the enlarged iPhone gave him tennis elbow, which in turn threw off his shot.
Continue reading Spurs Forward Matt Bonner Blames ‘Way Bigger’ iPhone For Trashing His Three-Point Shooting Percentage. →

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