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.
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?
71632177
submission
itwbennett writes:
The U.S. Department of Defense hasn’t followed through on its commitment to convert to IPv6, the new Internet standard designed to make room for an explosion of new connected devices. The DoD demonstrated IPv6 in 2008 but then disabled the technology because it didn’t have enough people trained to use it and was worried about potential security risks, according to a report by the Inspector General of the department.
71624929
submission
itwbennett writes:
The most interesting people that Uber is now hiring aren’t drivers: they’re engineers. The mobile ride-hailing app has listed a slew of jobs at its new Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. In particular, Uber is looking for engineers in the areas of robotics, machine learning, communications, traffic simulation, vehicle testing, and software and hardware development.
71619163
submission
jfruh writes:
One of the weird quirks of Microsoft's Kinect motion detector is that there are actually two different devices sold under that name: one that works with PCs, and one that works with Xboxes. Now Microsoft will simplify the situation by offering only one: the Xbox version with an adapter for PCs.
71619047
submission
jfruh writes:
While self-driving cars from Google and others remain in the prototype stage, Korean carmaker Hyundai intends to release a premium sedan called the Equus this year that includes self-driving features. While a car's ability to navigate complex urban enviornments on its own is still a ways off, the Equus will allow the driver to take their hands off the wheel and feet off the brakes during highway driving.
71616301
submission
itwbennett writes:
Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich apparently thinks it could. 'It’s definitely possible,' Russinovich reportedly told an audience at the ChefCon conference in Santa Clara last week. 'It’s a new Microsoft.' While a company representative was quick to say that 'Microsoft has not made any open-source policy or business-model changes for Windows,' the mere fact that such a possibility could be seriously discussed in a public forum is a testament to how much has changed in the software world. 'Open source has gone from being a threat for my generation of executives to an asset for the next generation over the last decade and a half,' said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group. 'Another factor is Microsoft's need to make Windows competitive with Android — an area where 'being open source is a requirement,' Enderle said.
71616053
submission
itwbennett writes:
Even Google can't keep track of all its certificates. Some users reported Saturday that email clients like Microsoft Outlook and OS X Mail were displaying certificate errors when trying to send email messages through smtp.gmail.com. It seems that it wasn't the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server's certificate that expired, but one higher up in the chain that corresponded to Google Internet Certificate Authority G2 — an intermediate certificate authority operated by Google.
71539425
submission
jfruh writes:
In October, the retail landscape will see a behind-the-scenes revolution: if a customer has a chip-based credit card and the retailer only has a magnetic stripe reader, the retailer is liable for for fraudulent transactions with that card. This shift, combined with huge breaches like the one at Target last year, is causing retailers and banks to scramble to prepare.
71539275
submission
jfruh writes:
One of the selling points of iOS is that its more restictive nature makes it more secure. But even though it's easier for users to accidentally install malicious apps on Android, data collected by Google indicates that less than one percent of Android users have actually done so.
71539067
submission
jfruh writes:
Industrial control systems are designed for availability, not security — and the most commonly software that coordiantes between specialized components from different vendors only runs on Windows XP. Much of our infrastructure is based on the idea that important systems are connected directly to control panels by a single wire — an incredibly dangerous assumption in the era of IP networks.
71478899
submission
itwbennett writes:
Verizon said in January that it would allow subscribers to opt out of having a unique identifier placed on their phones that critics have labelled a ‘supercookie’ because it’s almost impossible to remove, but it didn’t say when. On Tuesday, Verizon said the identifier won’t be inserted for customers who opt out of its mobile advertising program: 'Verizon Wireless has updated its systems so that we will stop inserting the UIDH after a customer opts out of the relevant mobile advertising program or activates a line that is ineligible for the advertising program,” such as as a government or business line,' Verizon said in a change to its policies Tuesday.
71477925
submission
itwbennett writes:
A new GitHub repository traces the entire change history of France’s civil codes going back to the times of Napoleon.
71455569
submission
itwbennett writes:
The malware program, dubbed Trojan.Laziok by researchers from antivirus vendor Symantec, was used in spear-phishing attacks earlier this year against companies from the petroleum, gas and helium industries from many countries in the Middle East, but also from the U.S., India, the U.K., and others. The Trojan is spread via emails with malicious documents that exploit a Microsoft Office vulnerability for which a patch has existed since April 2012.
