73322901
submission
jfruh writes:
With Nokia's handset business now sold off to Microsoft, you might be wondering what the remainder of the company does, exactly. The company is trying to use its expertise at other end of its old business, offering data centers and virtualized infrastructure to wireless networking companies to make their businesses more efficient. Competitors include Ericsson, another mobile phone also-ran.
73321623
submission
itwbennett writes:
ITworld's Josh Fruhlinger asked seasoned (and some not-so-seasoned) tech professionals what they wished they knew back when they were newly minted graduates entering the workforce. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the best advice has more to do with soft skills than with tech skills. To wit: 'When [managers] say they are suggesting you do something, it's not really a suggestion — it is an order disguised as a suggestion. Plain-speaking is a lost art at big companies and corporate double talk is the name of the game.' What's your best piece of advice for the newest among you?
73258997
submission
itwbennett writes:
Uber Technologies is revising its privacy policy to allow it to access a rider’s location when its smartphone app is running in the background, and to send special offers to users’ friends and family. Writing about the policy update in a blog post Thursday, Katherine Tassi, managing counsel of data privacy at Uber, noted that users will be in control in either case, and will be able to choose whether to share that data. The company has faced criticism in the past over how it handles sensitive information, particularly over its so-called ”God view” tool that apparently lets some Uber employees track the location of customers that have requested car service.
73218349
submission
itwbennett writes:
A lawsuit that alleges Yahoo’s email scanning practices are illegal can proceed as a class action complaint, a development that will shine the spotlight on the Yahoo Mail use of messages’ content for advertising purposes. Plaintiffs allege that emails sent to Yahoo Mail users by people who do not have Yahoo Mail accounts are scanned by Yahoo in violation of federal and California wiretapping laws.
73217633
submission
itwbennett writes:
In a bid to fight tax avoidance by international business behemoths like Amazon and Apple, the European Commission is proposing mandatory rules to make companies pay taxes to all the countries in which they generate profit. To make sure that companies are taxed for all the profit they generate, the Commission wants to introduce a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), said Valdis Dombrovskis, Commission vice president responsible for economic and financial affairs. EU countries in which a company is active would be entitled to a portion of its unified tax return.
73207101
submission
itwbennett writes:
U.S. and Chinese researchers have developed semiconductor chips that are nearly entirely made out of wood-derived material. Aside from being biodegradable, the chips could be produced for only a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductors, according to the group of 17 researchers, mostly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with others from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
73185373
submission
itwbennett writes:
Friction between the lead Kubuntu developer Jonathan Riddell and Ubuntu reached extreme temperatures on Monday when the Ubuntu Community Council (UCC) asked Riddell to step down from 'leadership in Kubuntu' as well as 'all positions of leadership in the Ubuntu Community.' According to Riddell, the bone of contention was a years-long, ongoing inquiry by Riddell about the distribution of donations collected by Canonical from Ubuntu.com. The Kubuntu Council met this morning and has come out behind Riddell, saying they didn’t find his behavior in violation of Ubuntu Code of Conduct.
73054135
submission
itwbennett writes:
Google has started to update its ranking system for Google Maps searches after racist search terms brought up the White House among their top results. The updates build on a previous algorithmic change that was developed for Google Search ... in 2007.
73043999
submission
itwbennett writes:
In follow-up to a story that appeared on Slashdot yesterday about a critical vulnerability in the NetUSB service, networking device manufacturers ZyXEL Communications and Netgear have confirmed that some of their routers are affected and said they are working on fixes. ZyXEL will begin issuing firmware updates in June, while Netgear plans to start releasing patches in the third quarter of the year.
73036725
submission
itwbennett writes:
The U.S. Commerce Department has proposed tighter export rules for computer security tools and could prohibit the export of penetration testing tools without a license. The proposal would modify rules added to the Wassenaar Arrangement in 2013 that limit the export of technologies related to intrusion and traffic inspection. The definition of intrusion software would also encompass 'proprietary research on the vulnerabilities and exploitation of computers and network-capable devices,' the proposal said.
73036587
submission
itwbennett writes:
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, has disclosed it fell victim to a cyberattack in June last year that affected about 1.1 million people. The attack targeted a single database that contained information about CareFirst members and others who accessed its websites and services, the company said Monday.
73015707
submission
itwbennett writes:
During the combined 33 year run of Late Night With David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman, Dave and his crew introduced some, um, original technologies that, while not having the impact of, say, Windows, Google or the iPhone, still made quite an impression. From The Late Night Monkey-Cam Mobile Unit to The Late Show Hose Cam, here are 5 innovative (or, at least, original) uses of technology that Dave and company gave to the world.
73014735
submission
itwbennett writes:
Using payment cards with an embedded chip makes payments more secure in physical stores, but it’s still relatively easy for criminals to copy card details and use them online. Payment specialist Oberthur Technologies has another idea, which it will soon be testing in France. Oberthur’s Motion Code technology replaces the printed 3-digit CVV (Card Verification Value) code with a small e-paper display. The code changes periodically, reducing the time a fraudster has to act.
73011249
submission
itwbennett writes:
Google Tone is an experimental feature that could be used to easily and instantly share browser pages, search results, videos and other pages among devices, according to Google Research. 'The initial prototype used an efficient audio transmission scheme that sounded terrible, so we played it beyond the range of human hearing,' researcher Alex Kauffmann and software engineer Boris Smus wrote in a post on the Google Research blog.
73009169
submission
itwbennett writes:
NetUSB, a service that lets devices connected over USB to a computer be shared with other machines on a local network or the Internet, is implemented in Linux-based embedded systems, such as routers, as a kernel driver. Once enabled, it opens a server that listens on TCP port 20005 for connecting clients. Security researchers from a company called Sec Consult found that if a connecting computer has a name longer than 64 characters, a stack buffer overflow is triggered in the NetUSB service.
