71724739
submission
jfruh writes:
While industry conventional wisdom has teens abandoning Facebook to their grandparents, a new survey finds that it's still the number one social network among teenagers, with 71 percent of them using it. Second place? Instagram, owned by Facebook, with 50 percent. Perhaps the most surprising finding in the survey is that fully a third of teens use Google Plus.
71722241
submission
itwbennett writes:
Depending on how you've configured the device, your backup drive may have been indexed by Google, making some seriously personal information freely available online to anyone who knows what they're looking for. Using a few simple Google searches, CSO's Steve Ragan discovered thousands of personal records and documents online, including sales receipts with credit card information and tax documents with social security numbers. In all cases, the files were exposed because someone used a misconfigured device acting as a personal cloud, or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) was enabled on their router.
71720567
submission
itwbennett writes:
Adam Wulf recently spent two weeks live-streaming himself writing every line of code for a new mobile app. He originally started to live-stream as 'a fun way to introduce the code to the community.' But he quickly learned that it helps him to think differently than when he was coding without the camera on. 'Usually when I work, so much of my thought process is internal monologue,' he said, 'but with live streaming I try to narrate my thought process out loud. This has forced me to think through problems a little differently than I otherwise would, which has been really beneficial for me.'
71700205
submission
itwbennett writes:
Romania has become the place to go in Europe, Russia and the Middle East for IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses, which were free and easy to get until the Internet grew as big as it has. New rules expected later this year may see address-hungry users in Asia and North America turning to the Romanians, too. This is the story of how the country came to have such a large stockpile of IPv4 addresses, and how it is now helping satisfy demand for scarce IPv4 addresses.
71698697
submission
itwbennett writes:
Zynga founder Mark Pincus is rejoining the gaming company as CEO effective immediately, replacing Don Mattrick, who led Zynga for less than two years. The company reported a net loss of $45 million in the fourth quarter of 2014. In 2013 it laid off more than 500 employees, or 18 percent of its workforce. Pincus’s return is surprising, because he led the company during its downturn as well as in its heady early days.
71691985
submission
itwbennett writes:
Not to be left out of all the container fun, Microsoft has developed a container technology to run on its Windows Server operating system. The Windows Server Container can be used to package an application so it can be easily moved across different servers. It uses a similar approach to Docker’s, in that all the containers running on a single server all share the same operating system kernel, making them smaller and more responsive than standard virtual machines. In addition to the Windows Server Containers, Microsoft will also release a container for applications that require strong security, based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtual machine. The new technologies will arrive with the next release of Windows Server, due in 2016.
71690455
submission
itwbennett writes:
Employees at three call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines sold hundreds of thousands of AT&T customer records, including names and Social Security numbers, to criminals who attempted to use the customer information to unlock stolen mobile phones, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said. AT&T has agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty, which is the largest related to a data breach and customer privacy in the FCC's history.
71687645
submission
jfruh writes:
LG is something of an also-ran in the smartphone race. So why not try to gin up social media buzz for its latest high-end model? LG will let people in a host of countries use its G4 free for 30 days — with the hope that this will result in positive buzz on social media sites.
71687593
submission
jfruh writes:
You might think that DSL lost the race to cable and fibre Internet years ago, but Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs is working on a host or projects to extract more and faster bandwidth out of existing technologies. The company's G.fast technology aims to get hundreds of megabits a second over telephone lines. Other projects are aiming to boost speeds over fibre and cell networks as well.
71664441
submission
itwbennett writes:
When CompTIA's Fifth Annual Trends in Cloud Computing study came out in November, 2014, one of the striking trends was the number of companies who were shifting clouds: 44 percent of companies had moved either infrastructure or applications from one public cloud to another; 25 percent of companies had moved from a public cloud to a private cloud; and 24 percent of companies had moved from a public cloud back to an on-premise system in the last year. So what's behind all this cloud switching? Some of it is rogue IT coming out of the shadows; some of it is companies looking for greater security. But one of the simplest explanations is the recent availability of choice.
71659507
submission
jfruh writes:
Vietnam's streets are notoriously chaotic, choked with scooters and other vehicles that rarely stop for pedestrians. Now a group of university students have built a robotic crossing gaurd that will lead you by the hand across traffic and admonish drivers violating traffic rules.
71659471
submission
jfruh writes:
If you thought the Internet destroyed privacy as it was understood for most of the 20th century, wait until the Internet of Things, the upcoming omnipresent web of Internet-enabled embedded devices, really gets rolling. The apps being written for the IoT have privacy policies that don't protect much and that nobody reads anyway. Already data from Fitbit has been used as evidence in a personal injury lawsuit. What's next?
71655757
submission
itwbennett writes:
A group of university students has deployed a humanoid robot to help people safely cross busy urban streets. The 6-food, 3-inch tall machine, clad in a uniform and helmet and grasping a baton in its right hand, cuts an imposing figure. It has an array of ultrasonic sensors to help it navigate and can also speak prerecorded phrases to introduce itself to users.
71649827
submission
itwbennett writes:
The Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that promotes development of bitcoin, is 'effectively bankrupt' and has shed most of its staff, according to Olivier Janssens, a member of the foundation's board of directors. Janssens attributed the foundation’s financial straits to two years of 'ridiculous spending and poorly thought out decisions,' adding that the board has tried to remedy the situation by finding a new executive director. Two other board members, however, said the foundation was not bankrupt, though in need of some kind of restructuring.
71633399
submission
itwbennett writes:
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline. The company is facing stiff competition at both ends of its business. At the low-end, a new wave of low-cost Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi are taking away market share, while on the high-end Samsung is locked in a fierce battle with Apple. Samsung will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.
