56673457
submission
judgecorp writes:
Phone maker HTC may be just trying to distract from its struggle for market share, but it has a thorough run-down of the fanciful ways tech might be used to "improve" football (or soccer, if you prefer). Smart contact lenses will make the referee omniscient, while smart kit will chart all contacts with the ball... and ultimately a robot league will feature android players controlled by the fans. Given the hoo-hah that accompanied the introduction of electronic goal-line technology, we wouldn't bet on any of it coming into play any time soon.
56604143
submission
judgecorp writes:
Vodafone has rejected a request to give free access to Facebook, to users in developing countries. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg asked Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao to drop Facebook traffic from its data plans in countries where poor fixed infrastructure forces users to rely on mobile data. Colao reportedly pointed out that this did not provide any benefit to Vodafone.
56374321
submission
judgecorp writes:
AT&T has become the first tech firm to come out against the anti-gay laws which have sparked international protest centring on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The firm sponsors the US Olympic team and has issued a statement in support of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual) equality which also strongly criticises Russia's law which bans the "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations", saying it is "harmful to a diverse society". There is now increased pressure on other sponsors for the Olympics, which include McDonalds and Coke, as well as tech firms including Samsung, Panasonic and Atos.
56367429
submission
judgecorp writes:
Fresh leaks from Snowden reveal British intelligence agency GCHQ used DOS attacks and other typical hacktivist tools against Anonymous and Lulzsec. GCHQ took down IRC chat rooms, and used fake links to get IP addresses. One of the convicted Lulzsec activists says this may explain why it "seemed like they had evidence they didn't want to use in court".
56331551
submission
judgecorp writes:
A mistyped link on an site run by Britain's NHS led to a site which installed malware on users' systems. The typo appears to have been bought up on Sunday by a person in the Czech Republic, and the erroneous domain was later seen serving advertising and malware. Seems like an interesting variation on typo-squatting...
56299751
submission
judgecorp writes:
Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner has launched Vivaldi, a social network which does not place contextual ads or allow access by governments. The service is timed to replace Opera's own social network My Opera, which closes in March, and will be based from Iceland to benefit from that country's political climate and run its data centre on renewable energy.
56298489
submission
judgecorp writes:
Reprots that the NSA and/or Britain's GCHQ deliberately targetted Belgian cryptography professor Jea-Jacques Quisquater may be jumping to conclusions, the professor has said. Investigation of an apparent NSA/GCHQ hack of Belgian ISP Belgacom uncovered evidence that ~Quisquater's PC had been infected with malware and had data extracted. However the two incidents might be coincidence: similar malware is used by Asian attackers, he said
56042525
submission
judgecorp writes:
A brief listing of the rumoured Nokia Normandy Android phone appeared to show an Android KitKat device, given a makeover with tiles similar to Microsoft Windows Phone. It seems possible that the phone maker — in the process of becoming part of Microsoft — may be using Google's operating system to furnish a platform to promote Microsoft's cloud services in competition with Google's own
56041089
submission
judgecorp writes:
Microsoft has renamed its cloud service OneDrive, after a British court found that "SkyDrive" infringed on a European trademark held by broadcaster BSkyB, known as "Sky". Sky does not have a product called SkyDrive, but it has dabbled in cloud storage
55874241
submission
judgecorp writes:
China's Lenovo has bought IBM's x86 server business to add to the ThinkPad business it bought in 2005. IBM keeps hold of Power RISC and mainframe buionesses. Around 7500 staff are apparently moving to Lenovo.
55837769
submission
judgecorp writes:
Filling in mobile coverage is a tricky issue round the world, and a British startup reckons that an open source software defined radio (SDR) implementation could do the trick. The company, Lime Microsystems provides open source baseband technology, which can adapt to any frequency partner FairWaves. It's been tried in Mexico where villagers have built their own local mobile network for a few thousand dollars.
55827797
submission
judgecorp writes:
The University of Cumbria is the first public university to allow students to pay their course fees in bitcoins. The digital currency is only accepted for a series of courses in "complementary currencies", and is clearly to some extent a promotional ploy. Lecturers at a rival university point out that in fact the coins are exchanged for pounds at the point of payment, so they could just as easily have offered to accept dogecoin.
55827473
submission
judgecorp writes:
A Russian programmer has admitted creating the modified Kaptoxa (or "Potato") malware, which was used to steal 110 million credit card details from Target customers. Rinat Shabayev said he himself did not carry out the attack or profit from it, but he did modify and sell the software which was eventually used. He wanted the money — and now has job offers appearing in the comments on the Russian site lifenews.ru.
55827139
submission
judgecorp writes:
A campaign to get the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team to the Sochi Winter Olympics In Russia succeeded — and also doubled the value of Dogecoin. The "Cool Runnings 2" crowdfunding campaign was inspired by Disney's Cool Runnings movie which dramatised the team's first Olympic effort in 1988. It accepted Dogecoin through the actions of Dogecoin Foundation member Liam Butler, and the additional trading volume doubled the value of the tongue-in-cheek digital currency
55784287
submission
judgecorp writes:
The only way to keep up with the demand for mobile data is to build smaller and smaller cells, according to Bell Labs. The head of autonomous networks there says that ultimately we will need one femto cell per user, and multiple cells within a single room to make efficient use of limited radio spectrum
