71836505
submission
itwbennett writes:
Sprint is now offering to deliver and set up phones, tablets and other connected devices for free at homes, offices and other locations chosen by the customer. The offer is currently limited to eligible upgrade customers, but starting September, new customers in selected markets will be able to choose the new Direct 2 You option, when buying online or through call centers.
71836413
submission
itwbennett writes:
The Dutch police, as part of an investigation, recently obtained a database from a CoinVault command-and-control server containing decryption keys. The information obtained from that database allowed Kaspersky to build a decryption tool that you can now get for free.
71828825
submission
itwbennett writes:
On Friday, Tokyo Electric Power sent a robot into the primary containment vessel (PCV) of reactor No. 1 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The pipe-crawling, snake-like robot, which can transform itself into several configurations depending on the terrain, was deployed to determine the state and location of melted-down fuel in the reactor. Unfortunately, the ability to change shape didn't wasn't enough to keep it from getting stuck.
71828605
submission
itwbennett writes:
An otherwise unremarkable hacking group likely aligned with China appears to be one of the first to have targeted so-called air-gapped networks that are not directly connected to the Internet, according to FireEye, which released a 69-page technical report on Sunday on the group. FireEye picked up on it after some of the malware used by the group was found to have infected defense-related clients in the U.S., said Jen Weedon, manager of strategic analysis with FireEye.
71753347
submission
itwbennett writes:
U.S. government agencies have stopped Intel from selling microprocessors for China’s supercomputers, apparently reflecting concern about their use in nuclear tests. In February, four supercomputing institutions in China were placed on a U.S. government list that effectively bans them from receiving certain U.S. exports. The institutions were involved in building Tianhe-2 and Tianhe-1A, both of which have allegedly been used for 'nuclear explosive activities,' according to a notice (PDF) posted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Intel has been selling its Xeon chips to Chinese supercomputers for years, so the ban represents a blow to its business.
71751559
submission
itwbennett writes:
Doing a Google Image search for 'CEO' reveals just one female face in the top results: CEO Barbie. The doll (which may not even be a real Barbie product) appears way down in the results, under a sea of male, mostly white faces, a stark reminder of how under-represented woman are at the top of the corporate ladder. Nor is Google alone in its results, noticed earlier by The Verge. Search for 'CEO' on Bing and the service offers to refine your search to 'women CEO'—using the same picture of Barbie.
71726963
submission
itwbennett writes:
Last year, Intel convinced small, little-known Chinese tablet makers to use its chips instead of only ARM’s. Now it wants those companies to churn out PCs, potentially upsetting a market that has been dominated by Taiwanese manufacturers. Over time, Intel is hopeful that this army of Chinese vendors can join their big brother Lenovo in developing convertible PCs. These companies will want to make a change, given that PCs are generally higher-end products with better profit margins over low-end tablets, said Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president on Thursday. 'It’s no fun selling $59 and $99 solutions to the market,' he added.
71725271
submission
jfruh writes:
When Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm filters a meme you posted out of your friends' feed, you might find that annoying. When your bank's algorithm denies you a mortgage, that has a serious effect on your life. But both kinds of algorithms are generally opaque to customers and regulators, and the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has set up an office dedicated to figuring out these algorithms affect our lives and intersect with the law.
71724895
submission
jfruh writes:
The Innovation Act is a bill winding its way through the U.S. Congress that aims to reign in abuses by patent trolls. But the Association of American Universities and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities are opposing the legislation, insisting that it be rewritten so that it's "narrowly tailored to address the abuses of this small minority of patent holders without substantially weakening the U.S. patent system as a whole."
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.
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.
71696523
submission
angry tapir writes:
Hoping to build on the success of Docker-based Linux containers, 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.
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.
