70273293
submission
jfruh writes:
Despite privacy concerns and doubts over its usefulness, a plan to track passengers entering or leaving the European Union in a series of national databases is likely to become reality by the end of the year. Legislation working its way through the European Parliament will authorize European nations to set up databases of the sort already in use in the UK, and to share information with each other. All the EU parties except the Greens are in favor.
70269533
submission
itwbennett writes:
In addition to personal phone numbers and email addresses for hundreds of people who corresponded with him, there’s something else inside the cache of emails that Jeb Bush released this week: computer viruses. Alongside a Web interface to read the emails, Bush also offered raw Microsoft Outlook files, and it’s in those files where the viruses lurked in file attachments. Many are old and easily detectable with modern anti-virus software, but they still might pose a threat to some people running older computers or without anti-virus software. For example, in the email database from 2001 there are several attachments that carry the “Happy99.exe” file, a computer worm for Windows 95, 98 and NT systems, also known as “Ska,” which first appeared in 1999.
70245741
submission
jfruh writes:
Sun Microsystems vanished into Oracle's maw five years ago this month, and you could be forgiven for thinking that some iconic Sun products, like SPARC chips, had been cast aside in the merger. But Oracle claims that the SPARC roadmap is moving forward more quickly than it did under Sun, and while the number of SPARC systems sold has dropped dramatically (from 66,000 in Q1 '03 to 7,000 in Q1 '14), the systems that are being sold are fully customized and much more profitable for the company.
70217805
submission
itwbennett writes:
Intel’s Rosalind Hudnell responsible for implementing the company’s much-publicized $300 million initiative to bring more women and under-represented minorities into its workforce by 2020. But even with Intel’s renewed commitment to diversity, the company’s workforce will still be just about 32 percent women in five years, Hudnell estimated. Here's a rough breakdown of how the money will be spent: The funds will be applied over five years to change hiring practices, retool human resources, fund companies run by minorities and women, and promote STEM education in high schools.
70211141
submission
itwbennett writes:
In San Francisco, overall robberies and thefts dropped 22 percent from 2013 to 2014, but those involving smartphones were down 27 percent, according to data out today. Thefts and robberies of iPhones fell 40 percent. In New York, smartphone theft dropped 16 percent overall with iPhone figures down 25 percent. And London saw smartphone thefts from persons drop 40 percent in a year. Law enforcement officials, who have been at the forefront of demands to include a 'kill switch' in all smartphones, hailed the news as proof that the technology is working as a deterrent.
70210397
submission
itwbennett writes:
In a new paper (PDF), researchers from the University of California, Davis, Southeast University in China, and University College London theorized that, just as with natural languages, some — and probably, most — written code isn’t necessary to convey the point of what it does. The code and data used in the study are available for download from Bitbucket. But here's the bottom line: Only about 5% of written Java code captures the core functionality.
70158619
submission
itwbennett writes:
Silk Road was based on an expectation of anonymity: Servers operated within an anonymous Tor network. Transactions between buyers and sellers were conducted in bitcoin. Everything was supposedly untraceable. Yet prosecutors presented a wealth of digital evidence to convince the jury that Ross Ulbricht was Dread Pirate Roberts, the handle used by the chief operator of the site. From Bitcoin to server logins and, yes, Facebook, here's a look at 5 technologies that tripped Ulbricht up.
70153323
submission
jfruh writes:
Microsoft's big plans for Windows 10 include a single codebase that runs on devices from cell phones to servers. Unfortunately, many of the phones it sells under its own brand name may not run it. Low-end Lumia phones, mostly designed by Nokia's smartphone unit before Microsoft swallowed it, only have 1GB of RAM — half what Windows 10 currently requires.
70153073
submission
jfruh writes:
Microsoft last week released Outlook apps for iOS and Android, but one group that won't be getting to use them is members of the European Parliament. They've been advised by their tech staff that the apps are insecure and that they shouldn't download them — and if they have, they should change their Outlook passwords.
70152901
submission
jfruh writes:
Five years ago, Oracle's acquisition of Sun finally closed, merging two storied but wildly culuturally different Silicon Valley institutions. With the Sun brand now completely vanished, how has the combination worked out? Tech commentator Andy Patrizio looks at the former Sun product lines in Oracle's portfolio and finds that the last half-decade has been bad for SPARC, Solaris, and MySQL but good for high-end hardware and (despite the naysayers) Java.
70146105
submission
itwbennett writes:
LTE is coming to the fat 5GHz unlicensed radio band that much of consumers’ Wi-Fi use now depends on. The idea drew skepticism at first, but the mobile industry is starting to agree on some steps to make sure wireless LANs don’t get trampled under LTE’s feet. The first trial deployments are expected to begin this year, and users could get faster service as the technology is rolled out. Here's a look at how it will work.
70049135
submission
itwbennett writes:
Some vague remarks made during Twitter's quarterly earnings call, pin the blame for the loss of 4 million users in the last quarter on Apple iOS 8. Some three million of those users were lost because of a change to the Shared Links feature in the mobile Safari browser, which displays links from people's Twitter followers. The other million were 'Twitter-owned,' CFO Anthony Noto said during Twitter's earnings call, without explaining further. Twitter CEO Dick Costollo later explained to Business Insider that the one million users it lost couldn’t get their passwords to work because of an encryption issue related to Twitter’s integration with iOS.
70048897
submission
itwbennett writes:
Verizon Communications will sell its local wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas for $10.5 billion, citing uncertainty around federal Internet regulation as one reason for the move, although Verizon executives said the sale has been in the works for several years. It's no secret that local wireline phone service has been a shrinking industry, and Verizon and other carriers see mobile as their greatest growth opportunity. Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam cited the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming net neutrality proposal as another potential threat to the growth of wired services. 'Washington should be very thoughtful how they go forward here,' he said. 'This uncertainty is not good for investment, and it’s not good for jobs here in America.'
70022715
submission
itwbennett writes:
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has indicted five people for using personal information stolen from around 200 people to fund the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Apple gift cards, which in turn were used to buy Apple products. 'Using stolen information to purchase Apple products is one of the most common schemes employed by cybercrime and identity theft rings today,' District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. 'We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists’ office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use,' he said.
70017587
submission
jfruh writes:
Sure, Microsoft has its own calendar as part of Outlook, but apparently couldn't resist dropping nine figures on Sunrise Atelier, a calendar app that works across OSes and can draw in data from multiple sources. Microsoft will reportedly continue to offer Sunrise to customers while integrating its tech into its own products.
