Announcement
75 articles, 2016-07-21 00:01 1 Microsoft Discontinues Skype for Windows Phone WP8.1 users left without an option to chat with contacts 2016-07-20 17:15 2KB news.softpedia.com (2.09/3)
2 Microsoft reports strong quarter driven by cloud (2.04/3) Microsoft has reported quarterly profits of $3.12bn, largely driven by the success of its focus on cloud services 2016-07-20 10:30 3KB www.computerweekly.com 3 Google deploys DeepMind AI to cut data centre power consumption Machine learning technology improves power efficiency by a claimed (1.02/3) 15 per cent,Datacentre,Databases,Cloud Computing ,Artificial Intelligence,Google 2016-07-20 15:59 2KB www.v3.co.uk 4 Facebook Messenger Hits 1 Billion Monthly Active Users Mark The service also powers 10% of all VoIP calls 2016-07-20 15:46 1KB (1.02/3) mobile.softpedia.com 5 Google is making it harder to root Android 7.0 Nougat Rooting Android remains very popular with a certain crowd of users, (1.02/3) but fact of the matter is for most folks it is an unnecessary hassle. I have gone through the pros and cons of hacking the operating system in previous articles, so I will not discuss them again here... 2016-07-20 15:05 5KB feeds.betanews.com 6 Widespread BT outage caused by a faulty UPS This morning, thousands of BT and Plusnet customers complained (1.02/3) about dodgy internet connections. The problem has now been fixed, and the cause identified as a failed UPS owned by Equinix, leading to massive disruption. This morning, thousands of BT and Plusnet customers complained about... 2016-07-20 14:40 1KB feeds.betanews.com 7 The best screen capture software 2016 Screenshot tools with custom hotkeys, built-in image-editing, annotations and webcam support for better grabs 2016-07-20 15:45 6KB www.techradar.com
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8 The best free audio editors and mixers 2016 Make and edit your own podcasts, music, ringtones and more 2016-07-20 14:00 8KB www.techradar.com (0.01/3)
9 Reinventing Bahrain’s Kanoo Group through digital technology Kanoo Group IT director explains the company's IT transformation, including why implementing Office 365 across the business was his biggest career challenge 2016-07-21 00:01 2KB www.computerweekly.com 10 BitKeeper Reaches 7.3, Adds Fast Import from Git and More Recently released BitKeeper 7.3ce includes a new feature aimed to quickly import Git repositories, the possibility of deleting tags, and several changes to existing features. 2016-07-20 21:22 2KB www.infoq.com 11 What CIOs should know about the Brexit While the result was unexpected to many, there is no need for knee- jerk reaction. Planning should begin now to mitigate risks to your operations and to look for opportunity. Avoid hasty and unwarranted cost cutting, protect key investment programmes, but create some space in... 2016-07-20 21:22 1KB www.computerweekly.com 12 Don’t Version Your Web API Versioning of Web APIs by adding a version to the URI or using versioned media types does not work on the open web. What we rather need are contracts that evolve with the changes we need, Sebastien Lambla claimed in a recent presentation, describing ways of avoiding... 2016-07-20 21:22 4KB www.infoq.com 13 Puppet Releases Docker-Focused Features in Project Blueshift In context of its Project Blueshift, Puppet has added a new set of Docker images for running Puppet software released to Docker Hub. Blueshift is a demonstration of solutions to the problem of managing heterogeneous software, using Puppet as the unified way of managing the new software stack. 2016-07-20 21:22 3KB www.infoq.com 14 BitBucket Cloud Adds Beta Support for Git Large File Storage Previously available on BitBucket Server, Git Large File Storage now reaches BitBucket Cloud, Atlassian’s cloud-based code management solution, writes Atlassian engineer Szilard Szasz-Toth. 2016-07-20 21:21 2KB www.infoq.com
15 New interactive tool to explore the brain -- ScienceDaily PyramidalExplorer, a free distributed software toolkit, has been developed to allow researchers to study the organization of the pyramidal neuron in depth. 2016-07-20 21:11 3KB feeds.sciencedaily.com 16 Robots get creative to cut through clutter: Algorithm balances 'pick and place' with 'push and shove' -- ScienceDaily Clutter is a special challenge for robots, but new software is helping robots cope, whether they're beating a path across the Moon or grabbing a milk jug from the back of the refrigerator. The software not only helped a robot deal efficiently with clutter, it... 2016-07-20 21:11 3KB feeds.sciencedaily.com 17 DirectX Tool Kit For DirectX 12 Programming book reviews, programming tutorials,programming news, C#, Ruby, Python,C, C++, PHP, Visual Basic, Computer book reviews, computer history, programming history, joomla, theory, spreadsheets and more. 2016-07-20 21:03 4KB www.i-programmer.info 18 EMC shareholders vote in favour of Dell deal Dell to buy EMC for $67bn? Where do we sign, ask EMC shareholders,Hardware,Software,Cloud and Infrastructure ,Dell,EMC,VMware,M&A 2016-07-20 20:58 2KB www.computing.co.uk 19 More disappointment for Japanese waiting for 'Pokemon Go' Japanese fans eagerly awaiting the launch of "Pokemon Go" in the character's country of birth faced another day of disappointment Wednesday. 2016-07-20 20:58 2KB phys.org 20 US Navy sued for pirating 3D virtual reality software, developer seeking $600 million German software-maker, Bitmanagement, has sued the US Navy for deploying copies of its 3D virtual reality software on more computers than it had licenses for, and is now seeking a $600M settlement. 2016-07-20 17:42 2KB feedproxy.google.com 21 Arrow Launcher for Android A clean and powerful Android launcher from Microsoft,Utilities ,Microsoft,Android,review 2016-07-20 17:32 1KB www.v3.co.uk
22 Microsoft Bookings aims to make it easier for businesses to manage customer appointments Microsoft Bookings lets businesses provide a simple interface for customers to schedule and manage their appointments, along with a bookings dashboard and management tools for businesses themselves. 2016-07-20 17:26 2KB feedproxy.google.com 23 Why 100 million monthly Cortana users on Windows 10 is a big deal Microsoft's big bet on machine learning is paying off already 2016-07-20 16:59 5KB www.techradar.com 24 Prisma for iOS Popular free art photo editor with picture effects,Mobile Software ,Image and Photo Software,review,iOS,Apple,iPad,iPhone 2016-07-20 16:58 1KB www.v3.co.uk 25 Alleged Honor Note 8 with 6.6-Inch Display Pops Up at TENAA The tablet could come with a 2.5GHz octa-core CPU 2016-07-20 16:56 2KB news.softpedia.com 26 The clock is ticking for free Windows 10 upgrades and Microsoft is having one last nag When it comes to encouraging people to take advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft has not been shy about pushing things -- some would say a little too much. But now the clock really is ticking. The deadline for free upgrades of... 2016-07-20 16:46 1KB feeds.betanews.com 27 BBC+ app tailors content to individuals Users of BBC app can shape their experience based on the content they want to consume 2016-07-20 16:30 3KB www.computerweekly.com 28 Samsung May Unveil the Galaxy Tab S3 and Gear S3 During IFA 2016 The event is scheduled for early September 2016-07-20 16:26 2KB news.softpedia.com 29 DWP blames policy changes for a further shift in Universal Credit rollout A Public Accounts Committee hearing coincided with news that the DWP is delaying the rollout of Universal Credits 2016-07-20 16:07 3KB www.computerweekly.com
30 More Universal apps show up on the Xbox One including Netflix, Hulu and Cast The first Universal Windows 10 app showed up on the Xbox One earlier this month, but a few more have now made an appearance for those running the latest version of the preview OS. 2016-07-20 16:00 2KB feedproxy.google.com 31 UK falls behind most European countries in safe data storage rankings A report based on independent data ranks the UK behind most major European countries as a safe location for storing data 2016-07-20 16:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 32 Aster Group to implement ServiceNow Housing developer to use cloud-based service across multiple business functions following succesful implementation for IT service desk. 2016-07-20 16:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 33 Get Windows 10 app now shows a countdown to July 29; icon shows an alert Microsoft's Get Windows 10 app is gearing up for the final days of the free upgrade offer, as it now shows a countdown. The icon in the system tray also shows a yellow alert symbol. 2016-07-20 15:38 2KB feedproxy.google.com 34 ICO wants 'cookie law' amended Law has 'not delivered', says watchdog,Security,Privacy,Law,Government,Web ,cookie,Digital Technology,Information Commissioner's Office 2016-07-20 15:19 3KB www.v3.co.uk 35 OnePlus Teases the Soft Gold Color Variant of OnePlus 3 The Soft Gold variant should be released soon 2016-07-20 15:13 2KB news.softpedia.com 36 Wikileaks gets blocked in Turkey following AKP email leak Wikileaks has been blocked in Turkey following the publication of thousands of emails belonging to Turkey's ruling AKP party. The emails were published less than a week after a coup attempt in Turkey. 2016-07-20 15:08 1KB feedproxy.google.com 37 LogMeOnce adds features to track and wipe mobile devices The increasing use of mobile devices and spread of BYOD means that there’s a risk of data falling into the wrong hands if a device is lost or stolen. The increasing use of mobile devices and spread of BYOD means that there’s a risk of data falling into the... 2016-07-20 15:07 3KB feeds.betanews.com 38 SAP Q2 2016: cloud revenue edges forward, 3,700 S/4 Hana customers Second-quarter results show 3% growth in cloud revenue to reach 14% of the €5.2bn revenue total, as operating profit jumps 10%. 2016-07-20 15:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 39 Google uses AI to cool down its servers, save energy Google is putting its Go-winning digital mind at work, as DeepMind develops AI systems to cool down data centers. The new machine- learning system used 40% less energy than normal. 2016-07-20 14:52 3KB feedproxy.google.com 40 Is your Skype experience terrible? It should get better with its move to the cloud Microsoft announced today that it's finishing up Skype's transition from peer-to-peer to the cloud soon. According to the company, many of Skype's issues were due to the ongoing transition. 2016-07-20 14:36 1KB feedproxy.google.com 41 Benelux CIO interview: Paul Elich, CIO at KLM Paul Elich, CIO at Dutch airline KLM, tells Computer Weekly about building innovation into IT departments and the ongoing de- duplication of internal systems since its merger with Air France 2016-07-20 14:29 1KB www.computerweekly.com 42 Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Leaks in Short and Blurry Video The video is made available by MobileFun 2016-07-20 14:16 1KB news.softpedia.com 43 Snapchat Now Allows Users to Send Personalized Bitmojis Snapchat announces a partnership with Bitmoji 2016-07-20 13:52 1KB mobile.softpedia.com 44 New solution delivers compliance for business Instagram users Businesses are increasingly adopting Instagram within the enterprise as a tool for building brand awareness and connecting with prospects and customers. Businesses are increasingly adopting Instagram within the enterprise as a tool for building brand awareness and connecting with prospects and customers. But as with any form of business communicati… 2016-07-20 13:51 2KB feeds.betanews.com 45 Insurance firm frees itself from legacy shackles Insurance intermediary is moving its IT infrastructure into the cloud in a 12-month project that also sees it update its end-user computing technologies 2016-07-20 13:50 4KB www.computerweekly.com 46 Free Decrypter Available for Bart Ransomware Victims can now recover their files for free 2016-07-20 13:44 1KB news.softpedia.com 47 Microsoft changes how it reports Windows 10 numbers, no longer chasing a billion devices We know that Windows 10 is on upwards of 350 million systems now, because Microsoft told us three weeks ago. We know that Windows 10 is on upwards of 350 million systems now, because Microsoft told us three weeks ago. The last time Microsoft released any... 2016-07-20 13:34 2KB feeds.betanews.com 48 New identity platform delivers passwordless authentication We regularly hear stories about the imminent death of the password. Add in thousands of Internet of Things devices needing to authenticate and it’s clear that the time has come for a better system. We regularly hear stories about the imminent death of the password. Add in... 2016-07-20 13:32 2KB feeds.betanews.com 49 Researchers discover software flaw that puts ALL our communications at risk The flaw in question affects equipment used by cell towers, radios, networks, and of course, our own mobile phones. While there's a patch available, most devices won't ever receive it. 2016-07-20 13:28 2KB feedproxy.google.com 50 Anonymous Launches DDoS Attack Against Rio Court That Blocked WhatsApp in Brazil WhatsApp reinstated in Brazil following the DDoS attack 2016-07-20 13:09 2KB news.softpedia.com 51 Businesses can minimize software costs by 30 percent Businesses can cut software costs by 30 percent if they stick to software management best practices, Gartner has announced -- research director Hank Marquis says potential savings are just Businesses can cut software costs by 30 percent if they stick to software management best practices, Gartner has... 2016-07-20 13:03 2KB feeds.betanews.com
52 Save 96% off a MCSE Data Platform Certification Exam Prep With today's highlighted deal, save $1,250 off a MCSE Data Platform Certification Exam Prep. Build Enterprise-scale data solutions like an expert. Certification of completion is included in this deal. 2016-07-20 13:02 2KB feedproxy.google.com 53 Investigate suspect EXEs with Professional PE Explorer Professional PE Explorer is a portable tool which allows investigating Windows executables including EXE files, SYS, DLL and more. Professional PE Explorer is a portable tool which allows investigating Windows executables including EXE files, SYS, DLL and more. The download is so tiny you’ll... 2016-07-20 13:01 2KB feeds.betanews.com 54 Google Photos for Android Gets Updated with Improved Album Sorting Google Photos version 1.24 has already started rolling out 2016-07-20 13:01 1KB mobile.softpedia.com 55 Microsoft Delays Minecraft Update Because the Team Was Playing Pokemon Go Now we know for sure they’re not using Windows phones 2016-07-20 12:16 2KB news.softpedia.com 56 Breitbart's tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos permanently banned from Twitter Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart’s tech editor and self-described “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” has been permanently banned from Twitter. The microblogging site’s decision follows accusations that Yiannopoulos incited his followers to send abusive tweets to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. … 2016-07-20 12:15 3KB www.techspot.com 57 SmartBear brings Ready API testing power to millions of Visual Studio developers Ready API 1.8 by SmartBear Enables Developers to Speed API Delivery at Scale and in Preferred Coding Language 2016-07-20 12:08 2KB sdtimes.com
58 Imperson Chatbot Platform For Enterprises Released Imperson.ai aspires to make it easier for enterprises to create and manage their bots designed for popular social platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Twitter. 2016-07-20 12:06 4KB www.informationweek.com 59 GSM and LTE Mobile Networks Around the World Affected by Serious Security Flaw Telco equipment put in danger by new RCE vulnerability discovered in the compiler that generates the underlying software 2016-07-20 11:50 2KB news.softpedia.com 60 Hackers supposedly plan to knock Pokémon Go offline on August 1 A hacking group, PoodleCorp, has announced that it will attempt to take Pokémon Go offline for around 20 hours. The credibility of the threat is high as the group has taken the game offline before. 2016-07-20 11:46 1KB feedproxy.google.com 61 20 Year Celebration Edition of Rise Of The Tomb Raider lands on the PS4 this winter It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since Lara Croft first captured our imaginations in the original Tomb Raider. The latest iteration in the popular action-adventure game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, dropped late last year for Xbox… 2016-07-20 11:15 1KB www.techspot.com 62 Yelp releases API developer preview, Dell reveals digital transformation problems, AT&T and Orange team up on open source—SD Times news digest: July 20, 2016 Yelp is revamping its API; Dell reveals problems in digital business transformation 2016-07-20 11:04 3KB sdtimes.com 63 Williams F1 teams up with Thales cyber security Williams Group seals technical partnership to protect its confidential high-value data in the competitive world of F1 racing. 2016-07-20 10:50 3KB www.computerweekly.com 64 Some Galaxy S7 Actives fail more submersion tests; Samsung promises replacements for water damage It was reported earlier this month that the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active, the rugged version of the award-winning S7 handset, didn’t fair too well when submerged in water. Tests by Consumer Report showed two of the devices malfunctioning when left… 2016-07-20 10:36 2KB www.techspot.com 65 Mobile data freebies spark controversy in Sweden Telia's offer of data freebies to customers has brought criticism from some that believe it breaches net neutrality rules 2016-07-20 10:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 66 Tech is trendy now but hasn’t always been, says Techmums founder Sue Black thinks the technology industry is gradually becoming more accessible, but the journey is still slow. 2016-07-20 10:00 1KB www.computerweekly.com 67 Home Office merges IT units The Home Office is merging its IT units to create Home Office Digital, Data and Technology and has appointed CTO Sarah Wilkinson to lead it. 2016-07-20 09:30 2KB www.computerweekly.com 68 French man aimlessly wanders onto military base during Pok�mon hunt A 27-year-old in Indonesia was recently arrested for trespassing after wandering onto a military base while aimlessly playing Pokémon Go. 2016-07-20 09:30 1KB www.techspot.com 69 Flaws Found In 'Right To Be Forgotten' Data Privacy Laws A study by privacy researchers finds that attempts to obscure online information can be defeated with a bit of effort. 2016-07-20 09:06 5KB www.informationweek.com 70 WhatsApp temporarily banned in Brazil for a third time WhatsApp was shut down in Brazil yesterday, marking the third time the messaging app has been banned in the country since last December. As was the case in the other two incidents, it wasn’t too long before the Facebook-owned service… 2016-07-20 07:30 2KB www.techspot.com 71 Latest leap second plan poses a dilemma for conscientious sysadmins Leap seconds will be an occasional fact of sysadmin life until at least 2023 2016-07-20 07:12 2KB www.infoworld.com 72 Skype sets a course for the cloud, ditching some apps on the way The messaging service is moving to a new architecture and leaving some systems behind 2016-07-20 07:10 2KB www.infoworld.com 73 Oracle issues largest patch bundle ever, fixing 276 security flaws The new batch of security update addresses flaws in over 80 products 2016-07-20 07:05 3KB www.infoworld.com 74 Feds shut down tech support scammers, freeze assets Scammers duped consumers out of millions using pop-up messages generated in search results on PCs and Macs 2016-07-20 05:44 4KB www.infoworld.com 75 European shares get tech boost as SAP and ASML surge on results *SAP, ASML among top gainers; Anglo American down. LONDON, July 20- European shares advanced on Wednesday, with the technology sector leading the market higher after SAP and ASML Holding reported forecast-beating quarterly results. "So far, European earnings have been... 2016-07-20 05:12 3KB www.cnbc.com Articles
75 articles, 2016-07-21 00:01
1 Microsoft Discontinues Skype for Windows Phone (2.09/3) Redmond will officially discontinue Skype on Windows Phone 8.1 in October as it moves Skype to the cloud, deciding to offer the VoIP solution only on the latest version of mobile and desktop operating systems. Users of Windows phones will no longer be able to chat with friends on Skype if their devices are powered by Windows Phone 8.0 or 8.1, and the only way to continue running the app is to upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile. Older versions of Android will no longer be supported either and Microsoft says that from now on, Skype would only receive updates on newer versions of Android, iOS 8, Windows XP to 10. Linux and Mac versions will also continue to be supported. “The transition has been ongoing for a while and isn’t complete quite yet. The team is working hard to ensure that our users can continue to use Skype smoothly throughout the transition,” Microsoft explains. “At times, unforeseen issues have cropped up, like messages not syncing across devices, or notifications not being delivered reliably. Knowing the impact of these issues for our users, we fix these issues as quickly as we can. We do ask all our users to update Skype to ensure they benefit from our latest fixes and improvements and to enable a smooth transition to the cloud.” Seeing Microsoft dropping support for Skype on Windows Phone 8.1 is a little bit unexpected, especially because not all devices are eligible for the upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile. Approximately 50 percent of the Windows Phone device lineup cannot run Windows 10 Mobile because of technical limitations, so the company is leaving quite a lot of users behind with this decision. Microsoft says that the transition to the new cloud-based infrastructure for Skype will be completed in the coming months and only the latest versions of each operating system will be supported. 2016-07-20 17:15 Bogdan Popa
2 Microsoft reports strong quarter driven by cloud (2.04/3) Microsoft has reported profits of $3.12bn for the quarter ending 30 June 2016 and revenues of $20.6bn, driven mainly by cloud computing. Although overall revenues were down 7.5% compared with the same period a year ago, the profits were in sharp contrast to £3.19bn losses for the same period a year ago due to a write down of the assets acquired from Nokia. Microsoft’s strong performance, particularly by its cloud services, boosted investor confidence and saw the company’s share price rise 4% in after- hours trading in New York, according to the BBC. Revenue in “Intelligent Cloud” grew 7% to $6.7bn compared with the same period a year ago, with the Azure cloud services division being the best performer, with revenue growth of 102%. Server products and cloud services revenue increased 5% and enterprise mobility customers nearly doubled year-over-year to more than 33,000, Microsoft said. The Microsoft figures come just a day after IBM reported a 30% growth in revenue to $3.4bn for its cloud business for the same quarter compared with a year ago. “This past year was pivotal in our own transformation and in partnering with our customers who are navigating their own digital transformations,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “The Microsoft Cloud is seeing significant customer momentum and we’re well positioned to reach new opportunities in the year ahead.” Revenue in “Productivity and Business Processes” grew 5% to $7bn, with Microsoft Office commercial products and cloud services revenue up 5% driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 54%, Microsoft said. Office consumer products and cloud services revenue grew 19% with Office 365 consumer subscribers increasing to 23.1 million. Dynamics products and cloud services revenue grew 6% with Dynamics CRM Online paid seats growing more than two-and-a-half times year-over-year. Microsoft has focused on its cloud services in the face of a worldwide decline in PC sales, which was reflected in the performance of its personal computing division in the past quarter. Overall revenue for personal computing declined 4% compared with the same quarter a year ago, but Windows OEM non-Pro revenue (consumer sales) grew 27%, outpacing the consumer PC market, according to Microsoft, and Windows OEM Pro revenue (corporate sales) grew just 2%. Xbox Live monthly active users grew 33% year-over-year to 49 million although revenue for the quarter was down 9% on the previous year. Surface revenue increased 9% driven by Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, and search revenue – excluding traffic acquisition costs - grew 16%, but phone revenue declined 71%. Nadella told analysts that Microsoft’s focus in the quarter had been on strategic applications, including the $26bn LinkedIn acquisition. LinkedIn, he said, will ultimately be integrated across the portfolio, driving usage across multiple products, including Office 365. 2016-07-20 10:30 Security Editor
3 Google deploys DeepMind AI to cut data centre power consumption (1.02/3) Google has deployed machine learning know-how picked up from its DeepMind acquisition to improve data centre efficiency and reduce power consumption and therefore costs. The artificial intelligence (AI) technology is applied to the management of the servers and other electronics at the company's proprietary data centres, and is used specifically to fine-tune the cooling systems. "It controls about 120 variables in the data centres. The fans and the cooling systems and so on, and windows and other things," DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis told Bloomberg at a recent conference on AI in New York. He added that the company's technology was deployed in Google data centres only in recent months, but has already resulted in a 15 per cent improvement in power use efficiency. The software uses an adapted form of the machine learning software developed by DeepMind to play Atari 2600 video games. Deployed in the data centre, the software learns how the servers work and manipulates fans and other elements to reduce their use when not needed. Hassabis did not go into greater detail about the deployment or say whether Google will make it available to other companies. However, the improvements in efficiency will go a long way to paying for the DeepMind acquisition, given Google's estimated four gigawatts of annual electricity consumption. Google paid around $400m to acquire the London-based AI startup in January 2014. It was founded by Hassabis in September 2010, along with Mustafa Suleyman and Shane Legg. Hassabis and Legg were machine learning experts, while Suleyman was an entrepreneur who handled the business side of the company. However, the use of DeepMind's technology has been controversial, not least because it was deployed by Google to analyse some 1.6 million NHS patients' records in a deal with the Royal Free NHS Trust revealed earlier this year. 2016-07-20 15:59 www.v3
4 Facebook Messenger Hits 1 Billion Monthly Active Users Mark (1.02/3) Messenger is now one of the world's most popular chat applications. WhatsApp crossed the 1 billion users mark in February, years after Facebook acquired this messaging application. Moreover, WhatsApp reached the 1 billion mark seven years after its release, while Facebook's Messenger managed to report the same performance in just over years since it was launched in 2011. Facebook Messenger is considered to be the second most popular iOS app and its Android version has more than 1 billion downloads in the Play Store. Moreover, Facebook Messenger introduced group calling last April and peer-to-peer calling back in 2013. The company also claims that 10 percent of all Voice over IP (VoIP) calls made globally take place within Messenger. Facebook also announced that in order to celebrate the 1 billion mark, the application will allow people to use floating balloon stickers in their conversations. The company made a similar move when it integrated a soccer game inside Messenger in order to celebrate Euro 2016. Facebook is constantly making changes to its Messenger application, just this year the company introduced chat bots to Messenger. Facebook also recently updated its Android Messenger version with Instant Articles, to make it easier for users to read and share content online. 2016-07-20 15:46 Alexandra Vaidos
5 Google is making it harder to root Android 7.0 Nougat (1.02/3) Rooting Android remains very popular with a certain crowd of users, but fact of the matter is for most folks it is an unnecessary hassle. I have gone through the pros and cons of hacking the operating system in previous articles, so I will not discuss them again here, but suffice to say that both the software and the hardware have matured so nicely that the vast majority of people can be perfectly happy with their new smartphone or tablet as it comes out of the box. Google has been somewhat permissive with regards to rooting, but, behind closed doors, it has been working hard to close the open avenues. While hacking Android has become harder, Nougat will take things to the next level, bringing new security features to make sure that your device stays the way its maker intended. Using a feature called verified boot , Android 7.0 Nougat will check the cryptographic integrity to detect if your device has been tampered with. Rooting certainly meets this criteria, as the process involves modifying system files in order to introduce a new class of user with elevated permissions. It basically enables superuser access, a feature which is available in Linux but is dropped in the standard version of Android for -- mainly -- security reasons. (Now would be a good time to check the two articles I mentioned in the opening paragraph to get an idea of what I am talking about, if you have not done so already.) In a way, rooting Android can make the device more secure, but realistically speaking it opens up a can of worms. And this is something especially worrisome as Android devices are increasingly targeted by malware and used in larger numbers in the enterprise. Understandably, Google wants to make its OS safer and to do that it has come up with features like verified boot to make sure that everything is working as it should be, and that no one -- not even the intended user -- can do something to change that and expose themselves to unnecessary risks. Marshmallow is the first Android distribution to provide alerts on the system integrity, but this is only with Android 7.0 that they are made mandatory. This is a pretty big deal, and here is why: if your device fails the tests -- Google gives a corrupt boot image and verified partition as examples -- it may not boot at all. But if it does boot, it will do so in a "limited capacity" and only with your consent. Among other things, rooting affects the boot image. As enthusiasts may know, this is where the kernel -- a core component of an operating system -- is, so any attempts to modify it will most likely be quickly detected by verified boot. That is not to say that hackers will be unable to root Android -- far from it -- but for the most part it will be much harder to do it. Android vendors are already cracking down on rooting using all sorts of techniques. Samsung, for instance, has implemented a flag in its software that, if triggered, will show that the device is tampered, which may lead to some issues depending on how you use your Galaxy device: your warranty may be voided if you send it for repairs and your company might rightfully refuse to enroll it due to security concerns. Other vendors have made it impossible to unlock the bootloader, which basically stops any rooting attempts dead in their tracks. I have tried all sorts of apps and tricks to root a Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 only for rooting to fail every single time. It wasn't until I unlocked the bootloader -- because Xiaomi allows it on that device -- that I managed to do it, and that was through a pre-rooted ROM, mind you. Nexus devices may seem safe at the moment, but realistically speaking that is because Google is making it super easy to unlock their bootloaders. It is so simple that everyone can do it with a little bit of patience and time to spare. More importantly though is the fact that Nexus handsets are aimed at developers and enthusiasts, who, among other reasons, buy them for being easy to hack. But, as far as other vendors and manufacturers are concerned, their desire is to close as many doors as possible. And they will embrace features like verified boot, which will trigger an error if a single byte in a whole block is corrupted. You can read more about how it works by hitting the link in the third paragraph, but there is also a downside to it. Google says that by using verified boot the impact of data corruption increases, and therefore reliability is reduced. However, there is an error correction feature that will help recover from data loss, which should also minimize the chances of it impacting users. Google notes that there is an overhead of 0.8 percent with regards to space but no performance toll, unless, of course, there is data corruption detected. That said, for the most part, it looks like a mature implementation though only time will tell how good it will actually be when used on production devices. Vendors may find a way to drop this feature, as Android is open source after all and quite easy to modify with the right tools and knowledge, but they risk losing access to Google's services in the process. Those make the difference between a useless Android phone and one that you might want to buy, with access to the Play store, Chrome and Maps preinstalled and so on. And, really, who in their right mind would take that chance? Photo Credit: AlexandreNunes / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 15:05 By Mihăiță
6 Widespread BT outage caused by a faulty UPS (1.02/3) This morning, thousands of BT and Plusnet customers complained about dodgy internet connections. The problem has now been fixed, and the cause identified as a failed UPS owned by Equinix, leading to massive disruption. Equinix, owned by Telecity, said there had been a problem "with one of our UPS system at 8/9 Harbour Exchange (LD8)" in London. The exact cause is not yet known, but further investigations are underway. This morning's outage -- which caused problems ranging from not being able to get online at all, to intermittent connectivity issues -- affected around 10 percent of BT customers. The company has apologized and issued a statement saying: "The issue has now been fixed and services have been restored". As reported by the Register , an Equinix spokesman said: Photo credit: Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 14:40 By Mark
7 The best screen capture software 2016 (0.01/3) Snapping a screenshot is rarely as simple as just taking a picture of your desktop. There's usually a reason behind every screenshot - posterity, demonstration, preservation - that means each particular case needs something special. That's why we've selected our top five tools for doing more with your screenshots, like adding annotations and fancy adornments, using custom hotkeys, or even accurately capturing specific screen regions without the need to resort to additional software to get the job done. The days of hitting [PrtScn] and pasting your shot into Microsoft Paint are over. We've covered Windows apps almost exclusively here but don't feel left out if you're using a different operating system. On OS X/macOS, there's absolutely no need for a separate screenshot tool – you can do everything with keyboard shortcuts. [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[3] captures the whole screen, [Ctrl]+ [Shift]+[4] captures a region, and there are many other edge cases described on Apple's support pages . Screenshot Captor is a real overachiever, with extra webcam and document-scanning tools, plus a host of editing options Screenshot Captor seems to have ideas above its station somewhat. Far from just being a screenshot app - and, rest easy, it does do that - it'll grab images from your webcam, and it even includes a full suite of scanning tools to make sure your documents look their best. But those advanced features don't stop there. Ever wanted to capture the contents of a scrolling window? It'll do that automatically, and even trim the margins for you. Need to capture a screen region of a fixed size? Piece of cake. Splicing areas out of screenshots, annotating, interfacing with advanced image editors, blurring areas you don't want seen? It's all here. If there's a downside, Screenshot Captor is a little esoteric in terms of its general interface, but the important bits are all well explained and easy to grasp. It's donationware, so while it's free to use, make sure you chip a little bit into the pot if Screenshot Captor is something you use regularly. With SnapDraw Free, there's no need for a separate image editor - it can annotate, crop and edit images captured from your screen or webcam in any way you see fit If you're capturing screenshots for something that needs to be well presented - a user manual, perhaps - it pays to put in a little effort. Or at least you would if SnapDraw Free didn't do absolutely everything for you: borders, backgrounds and even awesome-looking fading reflections are all available by simply clicking a check box. What's more, you can dig down when it comes to capturing, taking shots of everything from multiple monitors at once all the way down to a single object within a window. It's not quite a fire-and-forget screenshot tool, but that's not a negative. There are ton of annotation features, you can layer individually captured windows and elements on top of a single screenshot, and there are even 3D transformation tools available to give your shots some action. Oh, and you can even automatically upload your images to an FTP server or email them. That's a lot of features. Gadwin PrintScreen is simple to use, and so convenient you'll wonder how you ever managed without it Gadwin PrintScreen is the screenshot app we regularly turn to here at TechRadar, and for good reason. It's streamlined and extremely convenient, sitting quietly in the system tray until you need it. When you do, it's either bound to a hotkey of your choice - handy if you need the mouse cursor in shot - or accessible from a handy auto-hiding control panel that disappears when you fire off a screenshot, capture a window, or snip a rectangular area. Annotation and image editing is sadly locked away in its paid-for Professional edition (US$24.95, about £18.94, AU$33.35), but Gadwin Printscreen doesn't leave you entirely stranded; it can automatically add shadows or watermarks to your images, save them in a number of formats, resize them automatically, or run an image editor of your choice immediately after capture. The latter ability means you can effectively extend its abilities - point it at Microsoft Paint for rudimentary sketching and cropping, or a more powerful free image editor if you wish. PC gaming platform and marketplace Steam has its own screen capture tool that works with any game you're playing Don't be too baffled. Yes, Steam is primarily a way of buying and downloading games. But it also applies its own overlay when you're playing games, one which (amongst other things) allows you to take screenshots. If you've ever tried to take game shots using Windows' built-in tools (or even some of the other software we've listed here) you'll know why this is important - the advanced graphics modes that games apply usually leave you with a grey image and the moment completely lost. You're not restricted only to games available through Steam, either - just about everything you own can be added to your Steam library manually, and as long as you launch it through Steam you'll get the benefit of its overlay, which defaults to using [F12] as a screenshot key. Shots are usually saved to an obscure folder which differs for each game, so check up on them through Steam's View > Screenshots menu, then right- click and select 'Show on disk' to find out where they are. Windows has its own built-in screen capture tool. It has fewer features than the downloadable alternatives, but might be all you need for simple tasks Included with the majority of Windows systems since the XP days, the Snipping Tool is an oft-ignored app tucked away in the deepest recesses of the Start menu. It's simple, but it has the power to take useful screen captures. Not only can you grab fullscreen images, rectangles and the current active window, it's also capable of performing free-form snips: drag your mouse around the area on screen you're interested in highlighting and it'll bring in only those pixels within your sketch. You can scribble on your shots with rudimentary pen and highlighter tools, set a delay on captures if you need to set something specific up, but that's literally it: the Snipping Tool is very, very basic when it comes down to it, and most of the time you'll be better off using Windows' built-in screenshot tools unless you want to capture a very specific region. Article continues below 2016-07-20 15:45 By Alex
8 The best free audio editors and mixers 2016 (0.01/3) When you want to edit a sound file – whether it's to create a custom ringtone for your phone, make your own podcasts or record music – the prospect of choosing the right tool for the job can be a daunting one. The complexity of some audio-editing tools might be enough to scare you away, but it's more likely to be the price tag attached to such software that sends you running. Never fear, though – there are free options packed with professional-quality features. Whether you're looking for a tool to help create a soundtrack for your home movies, or you need something to help you convert your old record and cassette collection into MP3 format while removing background static, there's a free software download out there for you. Before you begin, it's worth noting that most audio editors use the LAME codec. It's probably already installed on your system, but if you receive a warning that you need to install it, you can download a free codec pack containing it. Audacity is a feature-packed audio-editor with professional-quality tools Available for any desktop platform you care to mention, Audacity is our first choice for audio editing. It has a huge following, and it's one that is entirely justified. It's a powerful tool that would put some paid-for product to shame, and although the interface might initially seem slightly intimidating, it's actually surprisingly approachable even for beginners. Audacity is equipped with an extensive suite of built-in tools, enabling you to edit pre-recorded files, capture sound through an attached microphone, or even stream music and podcasts. There's support for a wide range of audio formats for both importing and exporting, and the range of built-in effect is impressive. There's also a great selection of third-party plug-ins to make it even more versatile (one of our favourites is autotune add-on Gsnap , for that T-Pain effect), and a comprehensive manual is available to help you to get to grips with the more complicated aspects of the program. Free Audio Editor puts all the essential sound-editing tools right at your fingertips Free Audio Editor 's name tells you everything you need to know here. You have to deselect a few checkboxes to avoid installing unwanted software, but the tool itself is worth the effort. It can be used to record audio via line-in, work with existing audio files, or to rip CDs. One thing that makes Free Audio Editor stand out from the competition is the way the interface has been designed. Rather than hiding option deep in confusing menus, everything you need to right at your fingertips. A neat effects sidebar makes it simple to get to the tools you need, and you can even bookmark those you use most to make your life even easier. You can get as hands on as you like, but many of the readymade filters such as breath reduction (particularly handy for podcasts) and background noise reduction mean that you'll be able to perform many audio clean-up tasks in just a few clicks. MP3 Cutter and Editor is a simple tool for trimming audio files to size Free MP3 Cutter and Editor is a simple program designed with a very specific type of audio editing in mind. Audacity would be a better choice if you want fine control of your tracks, but if you're looking for nothing more than a quick and dirty program for trimming the fat from your MP3s, this is perfect. Open your MP3 file and you can cut out unwanted sections, add a fade-in or fade-out, adjust the volume, and convert between stereo and mono. That's it. It might sound limited, but it's extremely good at what it does (for example, if you have saved a live recording as one large MP3 and then want to divide it up into a number of individual tracks). It's not the sort of task you would need a professional audio editor for, and Free MP3 Cutter and Editor fits the bill nicely. WavePad Audio Editor Free is available as a desktop app, and for mobile devices The iPad has, over the years, become recognised as a value tool for music creation, but not so much for editing tracks. WavePad Audio Editor Free is an interesting app for a couple of reasons: not only is it a free audio editing app, but it's also available for iOS and Android as well as Windows. The mobile apps are surprisingly powerful - helped, perhaps, by the fact that the iOS and Android versions are designed like the desktop software. There are a number of filters and editing options available such as trimming, a high pass filter, normalization and merging files, and you can add more tools via in-app purchases. There are some nice extra touches too, including voice-activated recording, and an auto-trim editing function. ocenaudio is an excellent option for everyday sound-editing tasks Like Audacity, ocenaudio is available for multiple platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac). While not bursting with features, it's a great tool for everyday audio editing. Real-time effect previewing should help to speed up your work as there's no need to apply a change just to try it out, and a highly precise selection tool makes it easy to apply the same effect to multiple section of a files. You can work with locally stored files, or even open those hosted online. The somewhat sparse interface quickly becomes a joy to use, and if you spend a little time familiarising yourself with the keyboard shortcuts, you should fly through common tasks in next to no time. There's a decent range of effects to choose from, and there's even the option of exporting your creations as a ringtone for your iPhone. Enjoy advanced audio editing features with mp3DirectCut Despite its name, mp3DirectCut does more than just slicing up MP3s (although it does that very well). You can record directly into the program or work with existing audio files, and although there are no fancy options, all of the basics are covered. As well as simple track splitting, you'll also find tools for normalising audio, increasing the volume, and fading. Automatic pause detection is available to help make it easier to decided where to split a track, and if you have created cue files to automate file processing, there's support for those here. mp3DirectCut also features a batching processing option that can be used to quickly apply the same settings and effects to entire folders full of files, which is handy for normalising a series of tracks, or increasing the volume of a set that were recorded at the same time. Acoustica Basic Edition is the best choice for cleaning up old vinyl and cassette recordings Acoustica Basic Edition is a superb audio editor, and is particularly good at cleaning up old audio recordings from vinyl or cassettes by removing unwanted noise. Opting for the free version means missing out on options such as a multi- track editor and support for 7.1 surround sound, but you still get a lot to play with. It has a very professional look and feel, and the Effect Chain - an area where you can build up and play with a layered series of filters - is a particular highlight. There's support for DirectX and VST plug-ins, so you can easily expand the program's repertoire. If you want to get a taste for audio editing with the freedom to move beyond the basics when you feel ready, Acoustica Basic Edition is an excellent starting point. Wavosaur is a great option for stripping vocals from songs to make your own karaoke tracks Wavosaur differs from the rest of the software we're looking at because it's a portable app. You can therefore save it to a USB stick, ready for use on any PC without installation. Despite its tiny size, Wavosaur packs a punch. It's designed with MP3 editing in mind, but supports other key formats as well. It also boasts features like pitch shifting and vocal removal (ideal for making DIY karaoke tracks, and as with Audacity, its feature set can be expanded with VST plug-ins. The basic program hasn't been updated in quite some time, but don't let that put you off - it's an absolute gem of an audio editor. Article continues below 2016-07-20 14:00 By Mike
9 Reinventing Bahrain’s Kanoo Group through digital technology Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) conglomerate Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Group is amid a company-wide digital transformation that has created some of the biggest challenges its IT head has ever faced. Group IT director Jameel Al Sharaf is tasked with taking the 125-year-old business forward, while improving efficiency and cutting costs. Since his appointment in 2013, Al Sharaf has busied himself with transforming nearly every aspect of the firm’s technical operations. With a solid record as former IT director for Bahrain’s sovereign wealth arm Mumtalakat, he is well equipped to take on the role as a transformative agent for one of the region’s oldest businesses. He told Computer Weekly : “My role is quite challenging because of the change management aspect. How do I convince people to implement new technology within such a long-standing business? How do I explain IT in layman’s terms? That’s very challenging.” Al Sharaf said Kanoo’s diversified travel, shipping, industrial materials and transport business is steeped in legacy, both in terms of systems and strategies. “I was excited to embrace new technology and digitise the company, but I had to work hard to explain change in a simple manner and I faced some scepticism. My role involves a lot of diplomacy and hand-holding.” The group employs 4,000 people at its head office in Bahrain and satellite offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. “With a company this size there is obviously a lot of bureaucracy and approvals are needed. I had to work through those layers and so far we have completed 16 projects, mainly focusing on modernising the company’s infrastructure.” 2016-07-21 00:01 Alicia Buller
10 BitKeeper Reaches 7.3, Adds Fast Import from Git and More Recently released BitKeeper 7.3ce includes a new feature aimed to quickly import Git repositories, the possibility of deleting tags, and several changes to existing features. Importing from Git is still to be considered a work in progress, says BitKeeper developer Wayne Scott, due to a few limitations. In particular, git repositories that include submodules cannot be imported, the -M option command in git fast-export , used for move detection, is not supported, nor are octopus merges, i.e., merges having more that two parents . A new bk untag command in BitKeeper 7.3ce allows developers to delete tags, which was not possible previously. Tags are versioned in BitKeeper, meaning their change history is stored in the repo, including whether a tag has been moved, i.e., assigned to a different changeset, or deleted. Related to this, bk changes -t has been modified so it shows only the currently tagged changeset. Alternatively, you can use bk changes -tt to show all tagged changeset, including when the tag has been moved or deleted. Additionally, BitKeeper 7.3 no longer bundles a number of OSS programs such as GNU diff and patch , and libraries such as zlib, pcre, lz4 and others. Binaries for all of them are expected to be found on the system where it runs. An exception is allowed for diff on Windows: BitKeeper embeds a GNU diff 2.8.7 binary to be used in case no system GNU diff is found. BitKeeper 7.3 also includes several bug fixes and performance improvements, such as a faster bk fast-export , which is now a couple orders of magnitude faster for large repositories, and correct behavior of pull with parallel deletes of symlinks. BitKeeper 7.3ce is the second open-source release of BitKeeper, following the initial open-sourcing of version 7.2ce in May 2016 under the Apache License version 2. Its source code is mirrored on GitHub while BitKeeper itself is used for actual development. BitKeeper was the official versioning control tool for Linux from 2002 to 2005, when BitKeeper’s maker stopped providing it free of charge to the community. This led to the decision of launching the Git project to become the Linux kernel’s source code management tool. 2016-07-20 21:22 Sergio De
11 What CIOs should know about the Brexit The outcome of the EU referendum has triggered a sharp, negative response from the corporate sector. According to new research by Deloitte, 73% of chief financial officers (CFOs) said that they are less optimistic about the financial prospects for their company . Over the coming months, the terms on which the UK leaves the EU will start to become clearer. In the meantime, business leaders – including the CIO – should communicate and plan for potential changes. So how should technology leaders respond? 2016-07-20 21:22 Stephen Mercer
12 Don’t Version Your Web API Versioning of Web APIs by adding a version to the URI or using versioned media types does not work on the open web. What we rather need are contracts that evolve with the changes we need, Sebastien Lambla claimed in a recent presentation , describing ways of avoiding the need to version. For Lambla, consultant and advocate of the REST architectural style, a common reason for versioning of Web APIs is due to the contracts we use to avoid breaking clients. We want to allow clients and servers to be changed independently, and to be able to communicate API changes to client developers. For Lambla, versioning is basically a way to manage coupling, which in essence is about change control. One way of versioning is to add the version to the URI as follows: http://api.equestrian.magic/v1/. One problem when the URI for a resource changes is that the resource can no longer be found with the old URI, unless redirects are used. Lambla emphasizes that the URI of a resource should never change, but with a new version it will have two different URIs, which normally means two different things, and it’s not possible to correlate them to each other. An alternative is to add the version to the domain name: http://v1.api.equestrian.magic/. Since URIs are opaque, in practice we have created a new system. With multiple systems and models, but still targeting the same data model, this becomes increasingly harder to maintain. The third alternative is versioned media types, which Lambla believes is less common today on the web, but still quite common in enterprises. It’s based on content negotiation and adds a version number to the media type in Accept and Content-Type headers: application/vnd.equestrian.ponies.v1+xml. Lambla claims though that different versions are in reality also different resources and that using different media types on the same URI breaks the identification of resources. He refers to Roy Fielding for his claim: We encourage resource owners to only use true content negotiation (without redirects) when the only difference between formats is mechanical in nature. For Lambla, none of these versioning techniques work on the open web. What we really want is something that can evolve, using contracts that smoothly can evolve with needed changes. For Lambla this is a well understood problem, and refers to the web; with many millions of microservices it has been running for 25 years without too many problems and no versioning with the exception of HTTP. The first pillar for evolvable contracts is backward compatibility. Lambla uses HTML as an example where there are lot of elements that we are discouraged from using, but they are still supported by clients since we can’t update all web sites in the world. The same principles should apply to an API; as it evolves it must still support old formats. The second pillar is forward compatibility. To achieve this, you have to ignore the unknown or what is not understood. Lambla refers to CSS as an example where new attributes can be handled without problems. To achieve this, fall-back rules are used to handle unknown attributes, an important way to get extensibility points. XML is still commonly used, and often with XML schemas. To support evolvability here we must be flexible in content and Lambla therefore strongly recommends against validating schemas in servers as well as in clients. Instead we should just find the elements and attributes we need and ignore the rest. To avoid versioning, we need to continue with support of all features, but we can’t keep all changes in an API forever. Old features that are rarely used should be removed. To know when they can be removed we need to use metrics and measure usage. We can then decide that when usage falls below for example, 1%, the feature can be removed. 2016-07-20 21:22 Jan Stenberg
13 Puppet Releases Docker-Focused Features in Project Blueshift In context of its Project Blueshift , Puppet has added a new set of Docker images for running Puppet software released to Docker Hub. Examples of these new Docker images include a Puppet Server image that allows for running Puppet Server (which can stand alone or run with accompanying PuppetDB) and a PuppetDB image that includes the accompanying PostgreSQL image. There are also two agent images, one based on the Ubuntu Xenial Puppet Agent package and the other based on the slimmed down Alpine release. Blueshift is a demonstration of solutions to the problem of managing heterogeneous software, using Puppet as the unified way of managing the new software stack. Blueshift includes information from the Puppet community on how to integrate with technologies like Consul , CoreOS and Mesos. Blueshift also includes internal engineering from Puppet. Puppet also provides examples of how to use Puppet in Docker. There are currently examples showing how to use Puppet in Docker on VMware Photon OS , Red Hat CentOS Atomic , and on CoreOS. There are also examples of how to stand up a Puppet infrastructure using Docker Compose. In one Project Blueshift example , Gareth Rushgrove demonstrates how to manage Docker containers using Puppet. The Puppet Docker module was first released around the initial release of Docker, and has been a community effort since then. The first step is to install the Puppet Docker example module: At its simplest, the Docker module allows you to install Docker with one line in your manifest. It is possible to declare as many images as desired in your manifest. In this example, an Ubuntu image is used. These simple Docker containers can now easily be applied using Puppet. Docker version will show that Docker is installed, along with details of the version. Docker ps will show that there is nothing currently running. Docker images will show that the Docker image has been created. The Docker module supports running and managing individual Docker containers. The containers can run under the host init system (like systemd or sysvinit ) or using Docker’s built-in process manager. Next two simple Docker run resources are added. Using puppet apply , we can quickly apply the updates to the two services that will run in the Docker containers. Docker ps will now show that there are currently two simple services running. Attaching to one of the services using docker attach and the container ID will show the service executing in docker. The Docker module also supports actions like mounting volumes, setting environment variables, running privileged containers, and exposing ports. Puppet can also execute commands within the context of running containers using the docker exec feature. 2016-07-20 21:22 John Okoro
14 BitBucket Cloud Adds Beta Support for Git Large File Storage Previously available on BitBucket Server , Git Large File Storage now reaches BitBucket Cloud, Atlassian’s cloud-based code management solution, writes Atlassian engineer Szilard Szasz-Toth. The basic idea behind Git LFS is storing large, binary files in parallel storage, while Git repositories only include lightweight references to those files. So, a binary file change history can be represented through the sequence of references to its actual versions, instead of full copies of them. This makes cloning and pulling newer versions of your repository much faster, since only the currently checked out versions of large files will be downloaded. According to Szasz-Toth, Git LFS is particularly relevant for game developers, mobile developers who support higher display resolutions, and web developers who use rich media. Additionally, it enables efficient use of Git for non-code related tasks, such as storing presentations, datasets, test database images, and more. Created and currently maintained by GitHub, Git LFS is an open-source Git extension aimed to better integrate large binary files, including audio, video, and graphics within Git repositories. Git LFS extends Git by adding a new lfs command to it, which supports the following options: This is how you would add a large file to an existing repo: As Szasz-Toth remarks, support for Git LFS is already included in SourceTree , Atlassian graphical Git client. 2016-07-20 21:21 Sergio De
15 New interactive tool to explore the brain -- ScienceDaily A team of researchers from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and CSIC has developed PyramidalExplorer, a software tool that is able to extract data from the micro-organization of the most abundant and traditional neurons of the cerebral cortex, the pyramidal cells. The application has been developed within the Cajal Blue Brain and Human Brain Project projects, its usage will allow us to explore new hypotheses to understand the human brain and seek solutions to fight against diseases such as Alzheimer's, epilepsy and Parkinson's. This study has combined functional models of pyramidal neurons with data of its architecture in order to interactively identify zones within the neurons that present singular characteristics. Specifically, from three-dimensional images obtained through a high resolution confocal microscopy, an expert can assess the organization of dendritic spines (main targets of excitatory connections in the brain) of this type of neurons by combining morphological information with practical information. This study was applied to a human being, specifically to a pyramidal neuron with 9,000 dendritic spines, although this tool can load data of any species. These results will allow researchers to establish new hypotheses about the functioning and the organization of neural connections. For example, by using this tool, researchers were able to immediately observe that the volume and the area of the apical dendrites were different from the regions corresponding to apical and basal dendritic trees. Besides, the usage of this tool allows us to see the role played by diverse spines groups and their morphological characteristics in subcellular electrogenesis. Today, there are not other software tools of similar characteristics to the developed tool in this study, such as its particular nature of data process and its programmed functionality. The main features of PyramidalExplorer go from three-dimensional navigation on digitized neurons to data filtering operations and content-based information retrieval. This tool has been developed with the programming language C ++ using free softwares such as Qt, that was used to develop the graphical interface, and Open Scene Graph for three-dimensional data visualization. This study was published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy and this application can be freely downloaded on the website PyramidalExplorer: http://gmrv.es/pyramidalexplorer/ 2016-07-20 21:11 feeds.sciencedaily
16 Robots get creative to cut through clutter: Algorithm balances 'pick and place' with 'push and shove' -- ScienceDaily The software not only helped a robot deal efficiently with clutter, it surprisingly revealed the robot's creativity in solving problems. "It was exploiting sort of superhuman capabilities," Siddhartha Srinivasa, associate professor of robotics, said of his lab's two-armed mobile robot, the Home Exploring Robot Butler, or HERB. "The robot's wrist has a 270-degree range, which led to behaviors we didn't expect. Sometimes, we're blinded by our own anthropomorphism. " In one case, the robot used the crook of its arm to cradle an object to be moved. "We never taught it that," Srinivasa added. The rearrangement planner software was developed in Srinivasa's lab by Jennifer King, a Ph. D. student in robotics, and Marco Cognetti, a Ph. D. student at Sapienza University of Rome who spent six months in Srinivasa's lab. They will present their findings May 19 at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition to HERB, the software was tested on NASA's KRex robot, which is being designed to traverse the lunar surface. While HERB focused on clutter typical of a home, KRex used the software to find traversable paths across an obstacle-filled landscape while pushing an object. Robots are adept at "pick-and-place" (P&P) processes, picking up an object in a specified place and putting it down at another specified place. Srinivasa said this has great applications in places where clutter isn't a problem, such as factory production lines. But that's not what robots encounter when they land on distant planets or, when "helpmate" robots eventually land in people's homes. P&P simply doesn't scale up in a world full of clutter. When a person reaches for a milk carton in a refrigerator, he doesn't necessarily move every other item out of the way. Rather, a person might move an item or two, while shoving others out of the way as the carton is pulled out. The rearrangement planner automatically finds a balance between the two strategies, Srinivasa said, based on the robot's progress on its task. The robot is programmed to understand the basic physics of its world, so it has some idea of what can be pushed, lifted or stepped on. And it can be taught to pay attention to items that might be valuable or delicate, in case it must extricate a bull from a china shop. One limitation of this system is that once the robot has evaluated a situation and developed a plan to move an object, it effectively closes its eyes to execute the plan. Work is underway to provide tactile and other feedback that can alert the robot to changes and miscalculations and can help it make corrections when necessary. NASA, the National Science Foundation, Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing and the Office of Naval Research supported this research. 2016-07-20 21:11 feeds.sciencedaily
17 DirectX Tool Kit For DirectX 12 Microsoft has announced the extension of the DirectX Tool Kit to DirectX 12. This not only makes DirectX 12 more accessible but highlights the fact that Windows graphics in general has become less accessible. If you are a serious professional games programmer then you have to master DirectX 12. Most of the rest of the Microsoft graphics "dabblers" have had to stay with DirectX 11. The biggest blow was the lost of XNA which provided graphics for the rest of us and the halting of development of 3D graphics within WPF which provided graphics where graphics weren't the main objective. Why were these facilities discontinued and not open sourced? The simple answer is that it all happened in the megalomaniac years of Steven Synofski's push to Windows 8 and the need to kill anything that wasn't WinRT/Metro oriented. There is an unofficial version of Windows XNA called MonoGame, but it only supports DirectX 11 and this seems to be the case with most approaches to graphics on Windows. If you want DirectX 12 then you have little choice but to get to grips with its very ugly API. Even the official Microsoft Tool Kit introduced four years ago has only recently been upgraded to DirectX 12. The original Tool Kit did make it easier for programmers looking to just use some graphics in a project and it replaced the D3DX library and the DirectX SDK itself. The new DirectX 12 version is, to quote the blog entry launching it, ".. the Direct3D 12 API is significantly different than Direct3D 11 so the graphics components ‘feel’ the same but in practice are used very differently. " This suggests that you can expect a steep learning curve. Indeed a litle later we have: "A word of caution: DirectX 12 is an API designed for graphics experts. If you are not already an expert in using Direct3D 11, I’d recommend sticking with the Direct3D 11 API until you find yourself in need of the additional control. Direct3D 12 provides a great deal of control over memory allocation, synchronization, state management which can result in reduced CPU overhead for rendering compared to older versions of Direct3D, but that control means the API is quite unforgiving. If you are new to Direct3D entirely, definitely start with Direct3D 11 first. " If you know Direct3D 11 and have tried to get into DirectX 12 then you will know this for a fact and it is nice of Microsoft to warn us - but I can't think of a similar warning being applied to the latest version of an API. What this is saying is that if you just want some 3D graphics don't use the latest API. The Tool Kit seems to be a very light wrapper for the raw DirectX 12 with some additional resources - DirectXHelpers, GeometricPrimitives, Effects, SpriteBatch and so on. In addition you also get the Tool Kit for Audio, GamePad, Keyboard, Mouse and SimpleMath. This targets Windows 10 and makes use of XAudio 2.9 and WIC2. Of course, you can only make use of all of this if you program in C++. If you want to use C# then look elsewhere. We tend to notice and make a fuss about the big changes as Microsoft moves Windows 10 further and further away from the original technologies towards something that it hopes will be more mobile and touch compatible. We tend not to notice the huge amount of technology that is just buried under the fall out - DirectSound, DirectVideo and so on. Things move on, but Microsoft is still very reluctant to explain what the future of these technologies is on Windows proper and this leaves many a programmer wondering what is safe to use for Win32/. NET desktop apps. Clearly if you are a focused graphics programmer, the "graphics expert" mentioned in the blog, then spend your life learning DirectX 12 and you will probably be very happy. For the rest of us 3D graphics on Windows has become a difficult topic in more ways than one. DirectX 12 The Details - Or Not Microsoft Confirms XNA is Dead but DirectX is OK To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin. 2016-07-20 21:03 Written by
18 EMC shareholders vote in favour of Dell deal PC maker Dell's proposed acquisition of storage hardware vendor EMC is good to go after EMC's shareholders voted, as expected, strongly in favour of the $67bn (£51bn) mega-deal. The early tallies from voting at the special meeting of shareholders indicated that the deal would go through with little opposition, while the final results will be filed with the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, later this week. The deal between the two companies will " create a powerhouse in the technology industry ", said EMC CEO Joe Tucci ( pictured ). However, Dell has struggled to put together the funds to finance the deal, and its sale of a number of assets has been slow, despite the buoyant market for M&A deals over the past few years. It was reported in June that Dell is close to the sale of some of its software assets, including the SonicWALL firewall software, to a consortium of private-equity investors. The New York Post said in February that Dell was having a tough time raising the $50bn or so in finance that it needs to complete the deal , and is also on the hook for a break-up fee of around $4bn if it is unable to do so. Much of EMC's value, meanwhile, is tied up in its controlling stake in virtualisation software provider VMware. The company founded by Diane Greene is estimated to be worth between $25bn and $26bn. Dell founder Michael Dell took the PC maker private in 2013 in a $24bn deal, part-financed by private equity. The aim was to take the company away from the public glare and public scrutiny that quarterly financial reporting schedules bring. However, Dell has remain as affected by the moribund market for laptops and PCs as any other company. 2016-07-20 20:58 Graeme Burton
19 More disappointment for Japanese waiting for 'Pokemon Go' Tech media reports that the augmented-reality game would finally be released in Japan, two weeks after its launch in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, turned out to be incorrect. That left gamers in Akihabara, Tokyo's center for all things tech, still pining to start catching Pokemon in their neighborhoods. "I don't want to miss the wave," said 11th-grader Mayo Uesugi. Souta Horime, 16, expressed impatience. "There are people who have achieved a high score abroad, so I hope it gets released in Japan soon," he said. "Pokemon Go" is available in more than 20 countries, mostly in Europe and North America. It's not clear why it has yet to debut in most of Asia. Serkan Toto, a games industry consultant in Tokyo, said Pokemon itself may be Japanese in origin, but "Pokemon Go" is an American-developed game with a Japanese character or characters layered on it. He also pointed out reports that the release may be delayed because of fears of server outages, which have disrupted the game elsewhere. "Nowhere in the world are the mobile gamers, the end consumers, as critical as in Japan. In the U. S., people are accustomed to slow networks, to server outages," he said. Motomasa Takahashi, 21, said he is fascinated with the game and unhappy that it has been already released in other countries but not Japan, even though it is the birthplace of Pokemon. He added that he would be careful playing the game, after seeing reports of accidents related to "Pokemon Go. " A driver who crashed into another car in Fall City, Washington in U. S., reportedly told authorities he was distracted by the game. Naoki Sakuraba, 21, saw a silver lining in the delay. He is anticipating that Japanese fans will get an improved version of the game as technological glitches reported in other countries are repaired. Explore further: Pokemon Go craze crashes Aussie servers, draws police warnings 2016-07-20 20:58 phys.org
20 US Navy sued for pirating 3D virtual reality software, developer seeking $600 million The US Navy has been alleged to have used 3D virtual reality software developed by German firm Bitmanagement on a large number of devices without having sufficient licenses. The software-maker is now suing the government agency for 600 million dollars. It was revealed by Bitmanagement that the US Navy was excited about its BS Contact Geo software's capabilities, and licensed it for 38 computers back in 2011-12. However, the company later discovered that the software was deployed on nearly 558,466 computers by 2013. In addition to the unlawful usage, the software-maker also noticed that the Navy disabled the utility that tracked duplicate installations of the software. The price of a single license of the software at the time of the agreement was around $1067, which translates to $596,308,103 for the additional installations carried out by the US Navy. The company is expecting the defense agency to compensate this amount for causing damage to its business and violating copyright. It isn't the first time that the US government has been caught using a small set of licenses on a large scale. In fact, a similar allegation seeking $220 million was filed against the government just three years ago, however, the accusing party had to settle for a measly $50 million in the end. It remains to be seen whether Bitmanagement can get a better deal out of this allegation. Source: Torrenfreak | Two skeleton pirates image via Shutterstock 2016-07-20 17:42 Shreyas Gandhe
21 Arrow Launcher for Android Arrow describes itself as a simple and personal launcher for Android. The Microsoft-made app represents years-worth of work and originally took the form of the Next Lock Screen. Arrow offers a radical simplification of the Android experience. It allows you to easily find and keep in touch with the people who matter the most. Arrow will automatically arrange your favourite apps based on your usage. It presents a quick way to get back to your recent photos, downloads, apps and contacts. Arrow learns from your behavior so it becomes better over time at helping you find the information you need. 2016-07-20 17:32 [Product name]
22 Microsoft Bookings aims to make it easier for businesses to manage customer appointments Microsoft is hoping to make it easier for businesses - and particularly smaller businesses with more limited resources - to manage appointments with their customers, through the introduction of a new service in Office 365. Microsoft Bookings is designed "to make appointment scheduling simpler and more efficient for you, your staff and your customers", according to the company. Bookings provides a web-based interface for customers to be able to book an appointment even outside of business hours, or when there's otherwise no-one available to take a customer's call: The automated service also sends email reminders to customers ahead of their scheduled appointment, in addition to an email confirmation after they book, with the option of adding it to their calendar. It's hoped that these simple measures will help businesses to reduce 'no-shows', leading to greater efficiency and savings. The confirmation email also features a unique link which directs users to a page on which they can manage their appointment, including the option to reschedule, cancel or make an additional booking. Businesses are offered flexibility in customizing the amount of notice required for cancellations. Businesses can access a complete overview and management console of all appointments via a dedicated dashboard on Office 365. This interface also offers a basic customer directory to help companies manage their contacts more easily and efficiently. And to further help businesses manage their operations, Bookings automatically adds and updates appointments to staff calendars as well, including Outlook and Google calendar options. With a responsive design, the Bookings dashboard can be accessed via PCs or mobile devices, and a dedicated mobile app will be released "in the coming months". Microsoft says that Bookings is rolling out now "in First Release to customers who subscribe to the Office 365 Business Premium plan", with general availability for all Business Premium customers around the world in the months ahead. You can get a further overview of Microsoft Bookings in the video below: Source: Office Blogs 2016-07-20 17:26 Andy Weir
23 Why 100 million monthly Cortana users on Windows 10 is a big deal During the company's fourth quarter earnings call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella dropped a bomb on us that's arguably bigger than any figure touted since the release of Windows 10. "The Cortana search box [in the Windows 10 task bar] has over 100 million monthly active users, with 8 billion questions asked to date," Nadella stated plainly on the call. Now, the Redmond campus chief didn't specify exactly how many of those users are using Cortana on the desktop with their voice or simply typing into the search box, but how much does that matter? Regardless of their method – granted, 100 million vocal users would go a long way to improve the virtual assistant's voice recognition – a lot of users are tapping into Cortana's cloud-powered knowledge graph and machine learning, which will all improve the more it's used. The figure is big enough to draw specific attention to it in an earnings call, at least. Now, to put that into a bit more perspective, Microsoft has issued 350 million Windows 10 installs as of this May. So, theoretically nearly a third of all Windows 10 users are using Cortana. Can Apple say the same for Siri or Alphabet for Google Now? At the very least, it sure seems that neither of them have bothered to. The most specific Apple seems to have ever gotten about Siri's usage statistics was at its WWDC 2016 keynote , wherein SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said that Siri serves over 2 billion requests a week. That's no doubt an impressive figure, but not as specific and widely recognized a metric as "this many million monthly active users. " Monthly active users, or MAU, is the generally accepted metric for an app or service's success. Alphabet seems to have said even less about how many people are using Google Now, it's Android-based virtual assistant. The firm gave no specific figures during its 2016 Google I/O keynote regarding Google Now usage, though we do know that Google voice searches have doubled over the past year – as of this February. ( An independent Parks Associates study pegs more than half of iOS users regularly using Siri and less than a third of Android users accessing Google Now, figures we should be hesitant to count as they're not from an official source.) Siri will debut on macOS later this year Keep in mind that, while Siri's billions of served requests per week is poised to only grow once macOS Sierra is widely released later this year (and Google Now is accessible virtually from anything that has access to Google.com), Nadella's comment on Cortana usage doesn't include numbers from Android, iOS and Xbox One . So, it's likely that Cortana's usage on the whole is even bigger than Microsoft is letting on, but probably not by an enormous margin. (That could change as more gamers download the latest version of the Xbox One software.) Generally speaking, companies don't release MAU figures unless they're large enough to be worth mentioning. On a related note, it's for similar reasons that Microsoft recently opted to stop releasing Xbox One sales figures. So, is Cortana enjoying more success than its rivals already? That's tough to say without either of its biggest rivals being more specific regarding their offerings. But, what can be said is that Microsoft is enjoying wild success with the assistant within its own ecosystem. Don't forget about Cortana on the Xbox One What else can be said that's even more important is that, with numbers like these, you better believe that Microsoft is poised to double down on not only Cortana, but the core concepts behind the virtual assistant: artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. From expanding Cortana's functionality and breadth to investing in bots, these two corners of the computing space have become central to the company's ethos. Cortana is getting even more tricked out in the forthcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and we should expect the assistant to be even more central to the operating system (OS) come next spring or summer, when the second phase of "Redstone" is expected to land alongside new Surface hardware. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cortana soon take the wheel in Windows 10 as soon as next year, similar to that of the OS in the film Her, albeit on a far more rudimentary scale. Cortana could help Windows 10 Mobile finally stick the landing Sure, everyone's been making projections like this for a while of every major tech firm, but now we have far more concrete evidence of the imminent push. And, with Microsoft seemingly leading the pack in AI and machine learning (despite its stumbles ), you can bet that Apple and Alphabet will respond in kind. Regardless of who is in the lead, what's key to take away from Nadella's awfully specific remarks on Cortana is that A.) it's not going anywhere, and if anything it's only going to grow more central to Windows and B.) the rest of the industry will respond in kind more emphatically than it has already. Whether you like it or not, AI and machine learning are all but the future of computing. Microsoft may have sorely missed out on the mobile revolution, but it's not about to miss out on the next one. Article continues below 2016-07-20 16:59 By Joe
24 Prisma for iOS Prisma allows you to discover the hidden artist inside you. Prisma transforms your photos into artworks using the styles of famous artists: Van Gogh, Picasso, Levitan, as well as world famous ornaments and patterns. A unique combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence helps you turn memorable moments into timeless art. Prisma relies on its users to share their creations via Instagram, so while it shouldn't be seen as direct competition it could leave favourites like Juno and Lark out in the cold. Such has been its popularity on iOS, an Android version is forthcoming and eager Picasso's can sign-up to join the beta. Click here if interested in the Prisma Android beta 2016-07-20 16:58 [Product name]
25 Alleged Honor Note 8 with 6.6-Inch Display Pops Up at TENAA Huawei's next device in the Honor series was recently spotted on TENNA , the Chinese telecommunication authority agency, according to Android Pure. The device carried the model number EDI-AL10 and was powered by a 2.5GHz octa-core CPU and comes with a 6.6-inch display with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. The device also carried 4GB of RAM and came with 64GB of internal memory, with the option to expand to 128GB using a microSD card. It would draw power from a 4,400mAh battery, more than enough for browsing the Internet and performing all sort of operations. The device is believed to be called Honor Note 8 due to its massive display. The device would come with a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front shooter. It would measure 178.8×90.9×7.18mm and weight 219 grams. The phablet would run Android Marshmallow 6.0 out of the box and come with a fingerprint sensor on the back. It's also expected to support 4G LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity. The Honor Note 8 is also expected to come with a full metal body. Huawei recently released two teasers for the upcoming Honor Note 8, in order to promote the device's massive display and quite decent specs. The second teaser seems to mock Xiaomi's Mi Max , which was revealed in May. The phablet came with a 6.44-inch display and a large battery of 4,850mAh. It also ran Snapdragon 652, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Honor Note 8 is rumored to be unveiling in August this year and it will certainly compete against Xiaomi's Mi Max in certain markets. 2016-07-20 16:56 Alexandra Vaidos
26 The clock is ticking for free Windows 10 upgrades and Microsoft is having one last nag When it comes to encouraging people to take advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft has not been shy about pushing things -- some would say a little too much. But now the clock really is ticking. The deadline for free upgrades of July 29 is fast approaching, and Microsoft has one final bit of nagging up its sleeve. With just nine days to go, an update has been pushed out to GWX which drives home the fact that time is running out. To add a bit of an incentive -- you could call it fearmongering -- there's a great big countdown clock to prod Windows 7 and 8.x users into action. In its favor, Microsoft has improved the wording and functionality of the GWX popup. In addition to the prominent 'Upgrade now' button, there is also a clear 'Decline free offer' link. The clock is almost anally precise. There's none of your 'just 9 days to go!' marlarky, oh no. The deadline is timed to the second. But the nag screen also highlights another issue for those who are yet to upgrade. It points out that the upgrade is a 3GB+ download. With Windows 10 Anniversary Update just around the corner on August 2, late-comers have two large downloads to contend with. One can’t help but feel Microsoft could have given people a little leeway and allowed them to jump straight to the Anniversary Update without the interim step. Photo credit: InfoWorld 2016-07-20 16:46 By Mark
27 BBC+ app tailors content to individuals The BBC has released its new BBC+ application, which aims to tailor content to match users’ interests. The app is intended to deliver customisable content with a feed specific to each user, depending on what they want to read. Clare Hudson, executive editor, homepage and BBC+, said the app will make content discovery easier for users, with content grouped into one application. “By making BBC+ customisable, we are able to give users more relevant things to read, watch and listen to from across the BBC,” said Hudson. “This means you can use your spare moments well because once you’ve caught up on the day’s main events, you can browse articles from across the BBC on topics you have chosen yourself.” The launch of the BBC+ app is part of a wider initiative by the broadcaster to develop and deliver more personalised, short-form content to its audience. The BBC+ app is available on iOS and Android, and uses a personal login to distinguish users and ensure the content provided caters to them. Content is pulled from all BBC platforms, including news across various topics, television, or new content from online-only platform BBC Three. The broadcaster hopes to save readers time by only driving custom content that users are interested in. Paul Owen, head of product, homepage and BBC+, said more than seven million people have signed up to use the app. “BBC+ is a key part of the journey towards achieving a much more personal BBC and truly brings topical information from across the whole organisation to your pocket, ready for you to access at your convenience,” he said. “This is just the start for us, and over time, the app will evolve and add new features based on user feedback.” Categories that users can choose to receive content about range from technology and politics, already available on the BBC News platform, to more general subjects, such as ‘mind and body’ or ‘money matters’. Since the BBC launched its myBBC campaign in an effort to change the way people consume content, 7.2 million people have signed in to the BBC, with more than 33% returning each month. The broadcaster found that people who signed in to the service consumed 44% more content than those who browsed without signing in. In recent years, the BBC has been making an effort to streamline and digitise some of its content. Its most recent project saw BBC Three move from television to the digital space. The broadcaster has said it will consolidate its technology teams to help the digital move, including BBC Digital, BBC Engineering and BBC Worldwide. A recent audit of the BBC’s internal projects found that management of its business-critical projects has improved in recent years , and the corporation is continuing to target more modern users who consume content digitally. 2016-07-20 16:30 Business Editor
28 Samsung May Unveil the Galaxy Tab S3 and Gear S3 During IFA 2016 IFA 2016 is set to take place in Berlin from September 4 to 9. During the event, many manufacturers are expected to unveil their latest devices and it seems that new rumors suggest that Samsung might be showcasing its Galaxy Tab S3 and Gear S3 during this major event. It does seem logical for Samsung to do just that, considering that the Galaxy Note 7 will be unveiled on August 2, which leaves only these two devices to be revealed. The information was leaked by Italian technology journalist Antonio Monaco , who indicated that the Gear S3 will look more like a regular wristwatch and will come with built-in GPS. He didn't give out much information on the Galaxy Tab S3, aside from the supposed launch date. Nevertheless, the Galaxy Tab S3 is set to catch the attention of the tablet market, considering that the last tablet that Samsung released in this series was an updated version of the Galaxy Tab S2 back in April this year. The Galaxy Tab S3 recently passed TENAA certification and it seems that Samsung will release two versions of the tablet. One will have a 9.7-inch display, while the other could have an 8 inch screen. Both tablets will have 2048 x 1536 display resolutions and will run Android Marshmallow 6.0.1. They will also have 3 GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, while battery capacity is set to reach 4,000mAh. The Galaxy Tab S3 could come with an 8MP rear camera and a 2MP selfie snapper. It could run Snapdragon 652 CPU and have the option of 150Mbps LTE. 2016-07-20 16:26 Alexandra Vaidos
29 DWP blames policy changes for a further shift in Universal Credit rollout The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) says that a change in scope has led the department to shift the goalposts of Universal Credit. At a Public Accounts Committee hearing today, Neil Couling, director general, Universal Credit, DWP, said: “We have to work with the fact that the scope of the programme has increased. Changes are a mix of policy changes and timetable for Universal Credit.” When asked about costs of the programme, Couling said the department had spent £1.16bn so far, based on £935m of investment plus £228.5m in operating costs. Earlier today, Damien Green, the newly appointed secretary of state for work and pensions, issued a written statement to parliament outlining three major changes to the roll-out. In the statement, Green said: “We will direct new claims from families with more than two children to Tax Credits until November 2018. Thereafter, new claims from families with more than two children will be taken through Universal Credit. Families already on Universal Credit who have a third child after April 2017 will remain on Universal Credit and receive two child elements.” Second, he announced that the policy to remove the higher rate of child element for the first child in Universal Credit will only apply where the first child is born after 6 April 2017. The third change concerns rolling Housing Benefit for pensioners into Pension Credit, which Wells said would be delayed until the completion of the Universal Credit timetable. He said regulations on treatment of surplus earnings and self-employed losses would now be implemented in April 2018. Green also announced that five areas would go live with Universal Credit in January 2017, followed by a further six sites in March 2017. In the statement Green said: “I believe this plan is the best way to ensure secure delivery of the government’s welfare reform priorities, increasing employment outcomes and supporting claimants at an affordable cost for the taxpayer.” Universal Credits promises to save the government more than £20bn. But when asked about why the roll-out could not be done quicker, to enable the government to see the benefits sooner, Couling said: “I don’t think there is a safer way to do this.” Earlier in the hearing, questions were raised by the committee on how the continuous rollout of software affected staff. Functionality is being added every two weeks and some staff have complained that they are not getting adequate training. As Computer Weekly has previously reported , Universal Credit has been rolled out to new job seekers nationally. But the IT system being used will mostly be thrown away before the scheme is fully implemented. A recent Freedom of Information request showed that the programme has been beset with problems since 2012, but senior figures continued to publicly state that the project was on time and on budget. 2016-07-20 16:07 Managing Editor
30 More Universal apps show up on the Xbox One including Netflix, Hulu and Cast More Universal Windows Applications have shown up on the Xbox One in the last couple of day, continuing Microsoft’s plans of offering Windows 10 apps on the console. After the first Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app showed up at the beginning of the month in the form of an update to the Blu- ray player, now more and more apps from the Windows Store are jumping on board. On that list, users can now find Netflix, Hulu, MSN Weather and the podcasting app Cast. Those apps are currently showing up for those on the Xbox preview program running the newest pre-release version of Windows 10 Anniversary Update , or rather the “Latest Xbox One Update” as the OS is known on the console. Note that the new version of Windows 10 will not launch on the console at the same as it will on PC , where Windows 10 Anniversary Update is scheduled for a general release on August 2nd. Those interested can find the new apps under “Ready to Install” in the “My games and apps” section, though you might need to download the apps in question on your PC first, so they show up as owned in the Store. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to get excited about just yet. Most of these apps can’t be downloaded right now with the Store throwing up an error whenever you try. One app that can be downloaded now is Cast, which allows you to manage, download and listen to podcasts. Cast comes with a bunch of cool features including background audio – you can play a game and listen to podcasts at the same time – and a synchronized library between devices. That being said users should be warned that Cast is still in preview, much like the entire OS, so it does suffer from unexpected crashes and weird interactions with the rest of the system. Still, it’s clear that Microsoft is moving ahead with its plan to bring Windows 10 apps to the Xbox One , and users will likely see even more UWP apps show up as we get closer to the Xbox’s upcoming major update. 2016-07-20 16:00 Vlad Dudau
31 UK falls behind most European countries in safe data storage rankings The UK is ranked 23 rd on the list of “safest” nations for data storage, behind most major European countries, a report has revealed. These include Luxembourg, ranked 4 th , Austria (7 th) , Portugal (9 th ), Denmark (10 th ), Finland (11 th ), Norway (13 th ) and Sweden (14 th ). The UK also falls behind Estonia, Qatar and South Korea, according to the Data Danger Zones report by Swiss data hosting firm Artmotion , which ranks more than 170 countries on their ability to keep digital information safe, private and secure. The ranking, which takes into consideration a range of security factors, including the quality of digital infrastructure and political stability, is based on a combination of independent data from the United Nations , World Economic Forum , Transparency International , Global IntAKE and Control Risks . The ranking also examines more than 3.5 trillion IP addresses to assess the relative data safety of each of the 170 countries. Although the UK lags behind most of Europe in the list of 170 countries benchmarked, it came in 15 places above the US, which at 38 th , falls behind countries such as Slovakia, Bahrain and Latvia for overall data security. The report said it is “no secret” that the US no longer holds the best reputation for data privacy, yet four out of five businesses still claim to be happy to host their data there. More than 35% of the world’s public computing is also conducted in the US, with data giants such as Google, Microsoft and Dropbox locating many of their servers around the country. Unsurprisingly, Switzerland is ranked as the least risky nation for data storage, receiving a “potential risk score” of only 1.6%, followed by Singapore (1.9%) and Iceland (2.3%). The riskiest nation for data storage is Somalia, with a risk score of 92.9%, followed by Afghanistan (88.3%), Burundi (80,4%), Yemen (79%), Iraq and Syria (77.7%). The 50 safest nations account for only 3% of those assessed, while 15% are considered to be danger zones. “More than ever, it is important for businesses and individuals to understand the impact that location can have on the privacy and security of their data,” said Mateo Meier, CEO of Artmotion. “In the age of cloud computing , it’s easy to forget that every piece of information stored still requires a physical home, and that the geographic location of that home can have a serious impact on data privacy.” Meier said the report is aimed at enabling businesses to make a more informed decision of how and where to store their data, and to have a better understanding whether or not it is truly safe. “As our risk map shows, keeping data ‘at home’ does not necessarily provide the most secure solution. Instead, businesses need to find the solutions best-suited to their individual needs,” he said. Meier said those businesses with the strictest privacy concerns may require a stronger approach than is available in their home nations. “Similarly, those seeking cloud and data storage products have every right to demand information on how, and where, their data is being stored. If the location does not match the promised levels of protection, then perhaps it’s time to make a switch,” he said. 2016-07-20 16:00 Security Editor
32 Aster Group to implement ServiceNow Housing developer Aster Group is moving its HR, facilities and finance to ServiceNow after a successful project to put its IT service desk on the supplier’s cloud-based platform. Aster wanted to replace its IT service desk platform because, according to operations director Richard Strange, the in-house hosted system was “cumbersome and very difficult to report from”. The system, which supported 1,300 staff, had also become difficult to maintain and upgrade. “It had lots of limitations and we decided we needed something different,” said Strange. “After looking at lots of different options, we decided that ServiceNow ticked all the boxes.” Strange had worked with ServiceNow for a number of years in previous jobs and was sure it could do what was needed, particularly as it is cloud- based. “We want to be more flexible in the way we work, with people being able to work from any location, so the cloud fits nicely,” he added. Aster had already used the cloud in small doses, he said, but most of its systems were “behind its four walls”. Working with IT services consultancy Fruition Partners UK – part of CSC – Aster began the project to move its IT service desk to ServiceNow in January and completed it by the end of March. Visibility was an instant benefit of the new system, said Strange. “We could now see the type of request going to the team which we couldn’t see before.” The IT department can now measure its performance through this visibility, he added. Strange said that although the initial driver was the need to upgrade the group’s IT support, there was an appetite for change across other service functions, particularly facilities, HR and finance. “Our goal as an organisation is to move from being dependent on traditional communications, such as email, phone and spreadsheets, to a self-service world where the delivery of key internal services is automated where appropriate,” he said. In addition to IT, the facilities team is on board with a request management module, said Strange. “We hope to go live with HR in early September and then we will go into the finance department,” he added. These departments have never used this type of service delivery platform before, being used to managing things in email and spreadsheets, he said, adding: “They like what they see.” Aster Group, with its small IT team, used Fruition Partners UK , an expert ServiceNow supplier , for advice. “They guide us and make sure we don’t ask for anything silly,” said Strange. “Otherwise we end up spending hours on developing something that doesn’t bring any value.” Separately, Aster is looking at moving to Office 365 and Exchange online...... 2016-07-20 16:00 Services Editor
33 Get Windows 10 app now shows a countdown to July 29; icon shows an alert Most Windows users are familiar with a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside of it. It means "alert" or "warning", and that the next thing you should do is click on it to fix it. Now, the Windows logo that represents Get Windows 10 (GWX) shows that alert icon in the system tray. The move is clearly an attempt to create a sense of urgency, to get a few more people to accept the free upgrade before it ends forever. So what happens if you click on it? You guessed it. It's a countdown to July 29 at midnight. The time zone appears to be local. If you're still a Windows 7 or 8.1 user, you've likely been fighting off these prompts for most of the past year. You may have even been force-upgraded once or twice and had to roll back. Microsoft recently made it a bit easier for users to say no to Windows 10, but it wasn't always so easy. In December, GWX began only providing the options to "Upgrade Now" or "Upgrade Tonight" without an obvious way to entirely opt out. Some users modified the registry, but in January, Microsoft pushed an update that rewrote those modifications. The company made Windows 10 a recommended update in February, which then led to GWX offering the date that a user would be automatically updated. At this point, Windows 10 became something that the user must opt out of, rather than opt into. Now, all we can hope for is that the new countdown is a self-destruct for GWX, as many users will be very happy to see the app's demise. 2016-07-20 15:38 Rich Woods
34 ICO wants 'cookie law' amended The European Commission (EC) should amend the so- called 'cookie law' that requires website owners to obtain users' consent before placing cookies on their devices, according to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO made the case in a submission to the EC's consultation (PDF) on changes to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, also known as the E-Privacy Directive. "Requiring consent for the processing of personal data has not delivered the expected protection for individuals because some personal data must be processed in order for the consent mechanism to operate," said the ICO. "In our view, the rules should also seek to achieve a proportionate balance between the legitimate interests of information society services and the privacy rights of individuals. "There is a case for an exemption or an alternative basis for processing other than consent, particularly in cases where the privacy impact on the individual is minimal. " The consultation over the E-Privacy Directive, which is now more than a decade old but was amended in 2009, is intended to further update it to better complement the General Data Protection Regulation, which will become law across the EU in 2018. Both are part of the Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe designed to provide a level playing field for online services across the EU. The consultation appears to indicate that the EC is planning to tighten e- privacy laws with mandates requiring "privacy by default" settings on "terminal equipment". The ICO warned that this may have unintended consequences by hampering the development of internet services that the Digital Single Market is supposed to aid. "The definition of terminal equipment would need to be carefully defined as it could include connected cars, IoT devices and legacy equipment. Consideration also needs to be given as to whether all these devices are capable of delivering privacy choices," said the ICO. "The impact on small startup companies would need to be carefully considered to avoid a disproportionate detrimental impact on innovation. "Again, in our view, any rules in this area should seek to achieve a proportionate balance between the legitimate interests of businesses and the privacy rights of individuals, and not impose onerous and disruptive requirements in cases where privacy impact is minimal. " The consultation also indicated that the EC is considering compelling website operators to make their content available, even if users reject cookies, a measure that the ICO also opposes. The UK is set to leave the EU after the Brexit vote, but companies in the UK will almost certainly have to adhere to EU data protection laws to trade with, or collect data on, EU citizens. 2016-07-20 15:19 www.v3
35 OnePlus Teases the Soft Gold Color Variant of OnePlus 3 After its unveiling, there were some rumors saying that OnePlus 3 will be available in multiple color variants, including Soft Gold, Green and even Red. An image with a Red OnePlus 3 was briefly featured on the manufacturer's website, thus fueling rumors. Moreover, a render of a Green OnePlus 3 surfaced online and got fans quite excited for the new color variant. OnePlus representatives later announced that only a Soft Gold variant would be released, OnePlus 3 won't come in Red and Green color variants, which might have disappointed some fans. However, the company has yet to release the Soft Gold variant. Today, OnePlus posted a picture of a Soft Gold OnePlus 3 on Weibo. The image shows the back of the OnePlus 3, but doesn't showcase the front panel. Nevertheless, the color is quite elegant, without being shiny. Rumors say that the Soft Gold variant could be released in the latter part of July. OnePlus 3 recently received an update to OxygenOS, in order to fix some issues that the smartphone had with RAM management. It seems that the device didn't make proper use of its 6GB of RAM, as the company preferred to adjust RAM management in favor of battery life. The update to OxygenOS is said to have fixed the issue and added sRGB color mode. OnePlus 3 carries a price tag of about $399 and comes with Snapdragon 820 processor, Adreno 530 graphics processing unit and 6GB of RAM. It also has a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 pixel PenTile AMOLED screen and a 16MP rear camera and 3000mAh battery. 2016-07-20 15:13 Alexandra Vaidos
36 Wikileaks gets blocked in Turkey following AKP email leak Yesterday, Wikileaks published a database full of emails belonging to the ruling party of Turkey – AKP (Justice and Development Party). In response to the publishing of the emails, Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordered the blocking of Wikileaks. The searchable email directory was published by Wikileaks at 11pm Ankara time yesterday. The announcement reads: The leak comes less than a week after the attempted coup d'état against the elected President Erdogan and his party – AKP. Wikileaks claims that its source has no links to the “elements” behind the attempted coup, rival political parties, or the state. This is not the first time a website has been blocked in Turkey. Thousands of websites have been blocked in the country over the years, including Twitter and the video sharing website, Youtube. Source: Al-Masdar News | Image via HD Wallpapers 2016-07-20 15:08 Paul Hill
37 LogMeOnce adds features to track and wipe mobile devices The increasing use of mobile devices and spread of BYOD means that there’s a risk of data falling into the wrong hands if a device is lost or stolen. Mobile identity and password management company LogMeOnce is adding new features to its app making it simpler to manage, track and wipe personal and business data from devices. LogMeOnce's Kill-Pill and Mobile Device Management (MDM) features enable individuals, businesses and IT administrators to easily enroll and manage devices, verify compliance and wipe data stored in LogMeOnce if necessary. Additionally, LogMeOnce BYOD enhances office productivity and security of sensitive data by giving employees the ability to use their personal devices at work while keeping LogMeOnce data for personal and business use in separate vaults. "70 million smartphones are lost each year according to a study from Kensington, so it's important you’re protected in case it happens to you," says Kevin Shahbazi, CEO of LogMeOnce. "Losing your phone gives hackers free range to any data you store on the phone, from banking information to sensitive company documents. This not only has implications on you personally, but it puts your company at risk for a hack too. LogMeOnce PhotoLogin already provides several options for secure login and by adding the new Kill-Pill feature, we are making it easy to protect LogMeOnce data on a lost or stolen device". The Kill-Pill feature allows users to log into their LogMeOnce account on a desktop and send a Kill-Pill to the lost device to wipe the vault and access to the LogMeOnce app itself. Initiating Kill-Pill on a lost device ensures that a hacker or thief who may have your device is unable to login and access your data. MDM lets users see the device name, the last time it was accessed, geolocation information, and comprehensive status about its operation, update status, CPU and device identifiers. They can also initiate remote commands including sounding a ring tone to hear if the device is nearby. Individuals and businesses can add or retire devices, for other users or for themselves. Users can remotely locate lost or stolen devices from their LogMeOnce account. Using the BYOD feature employees can keep LogMeOnce personal and business data separate by creating two different 'vaults'. The personal vault holds the employee’s personal data, and business administrators can accept an outside device on the company network and create a separate business vault to store company-related data only. For greater privacy employers have no knowledge of what an employee does on their personal device or in their personal vault. You can find more information about the latest features on the LogMeOnce website . Image Credit: Anan Chincho / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 15:07 By Ian
38 SAP Q2 2016: cloud revenue edges forward, 3,700 S/4 Hana customers SAP’s second-quarter 2016 results show 3% growth in cloud revenue as a proportion of its overall revenue of €5.237bn. Operating profit jumped from 14% to 24%, compared with Q2 2015, with the company employing 5,465 fewer people. The results show cloud revenue to be 14% of the €5.2bn total, compared with 11% of the total in the second quarter of 2015 . New cloud bookings increased from €199m to €255m in Q2 2016 compared with a year ago – an increase of 29%. In the EMEA region, the company increased its cloud and software revenue by 7%. It reported double-digit growth in software licence revenue in France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, southern Europe and Germany, and that it had “successfully navigated through the post-UK referendum uncertainty”. In its quarterly results in recent years, the supplier has pointed first to sales of its in-memory columnar database Hana , and the full ERP [enterprise resource planning] system that runs on it, S/4 Hana , which was launched in February 2015. In the latest quarter, it said it had added more than 500 SAP S/4 Hana customers, of which about 40% are new SAP customers. It reported that the Hershey Company in the US, the Targin Group in Russia, Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong and Roy Hill Holdings in Australia had selected SAP S/4Hana in the second quarter. And it confirmed 3,700 customers for the suite, compared with 900 a year ago. In the Americas, SAP increased its cloud and software revenue by 8%, and cloud subscriptions and support revenue by 26%. It reported double-digit growth in software licence revenue in Brazil and Mexico, despite what it called “political and macroeconomic instability”. In the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, SAP’s cloud and software revenue was up 7%, with cloud subscriptions and support revenue leaping by 44%. Bill McDermott, SAP CEO, said: “SAP delivered a unique trifecta of double-digit growth in software, cloud and operating income. Our S/4 Hana pipeline has never been stronger.” In a press and analyst call, McDermott said 10% of the company’s ERP customer base had “signed on to S/4 Hana”, and that its adoption rate was four times that of R3 in the 1990s. With respect to one of SAP’s acquired cloud businesses, Success Factors, McDermott highlighted the fact that Accenture had adopted the software. The earnings release also noted that the customer count for SuccessFactors Employee Central exceeded 1,250 at the end of the second quarter. McDermott said the company had seen “no effect from Brexit” on its revenue. Luka Mucic, chief financial officer at SAP, reiterated this, adding: “Our financial liquidity was not impacted either. We increased the hedge ratio of our balance sheet exposure to almost 100% for the British pound ahead of the vote.” 2016-07-20 15:00 Business Applications
39 Google uses AI to cool down its servers, save energy Data centers power most of our day-to-day life, because they’re the backbone for many of the services, apps and systems we rely on. Everything from your e-mail, to YouTube, to Google searches, to this article goes through a data center where the information is stored and processed. But there’s one aspect at which data centers aren’t so great: energy efficiency. Running thousands of processors, hard drives, magnetic tapes and networking equipment takes a real toll on the grid. What’s worse is all of that equipment also needs a powerful cooling system to keep it running. The BBC reports that by some estimates, up to 2% of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions are due to data centers. It’s no surprise then that many companies are desperate to improve the efficiency of their data centers. Some try to create more efficient systems; others simply build data centers in colder climates; still others drop their servers to the bottom of the ocean. Even a decrease of a few percentage points of energy use can mean huge savings for companies, so it’s very impressive to see Google announce that it managed to decrease the energy spent on cooling one of its data centers by up to 40%. The secret behind this success? Machine learning. Google’s AI division, DeepMind , has been developing a machine learning system that used historical sensor data from Google’s data centers. After crunching that data, DeepMind developed a general purpose algorithm that learned how to control cooling in real-time inside of a data center to make it as efficient as possible. The results speak for themselves, with DeepMind’s program being able to keep cooling energy use 40% below normal levels. The results were so impressive that the system will be deployed inside all of Google’s data centers by the end of the year. But according to Rich Evans, Research Engineer at DeepMind, the real beauty of the system is it can be deployed in other data centers and environments with no changes – hence the general purpose moniker. It can even be applied to other domains like optimizing water usage, or the national energy grid. DeepMind’s co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, explained that the team is already talking to interested parties outside of Google, with its algorithm being a perfect fit for many industrial facilities. The team announced it would be releasing a white paper detailing its results and how the system was developed and implemented in the near future. Source: DeepMind , BBC | Original data center image via Shutterstock 2016-07-20 14:52 Vlad Dudau
40 Is your Skype experience terrible? It should get better with its move to the cloud In a blog post today , Microsoft took the time to talk about Skype's transition from peer-to-peer to its Azure cloud solution. The transition "has been ongoing for a while and isn’t complete quite yet", says the firm, but it should be done relatively soon. The company notes that "unforeseen issues have cropped up" on its communication service, which for many Skype users would be an understatement. According to Microsoft, problems like messages not syncing and delayed notifications were all side effects of the transition to Azure. In case you're thinking that Skype issues have been happening for too long for that to be the case, the switch to Azure began all the way back in 2013. Gurdeep Pall, Corporate Vice President for Skype, said, "We were rebuilding the plane while we were flying it. " Switching over to the cloud has allowed Microsoft to improve certain features on Skype, such as file sharing and video messaging. It's also allowed for new features that wouldn't be possible on peer-to-peer, such as Skype Translator and Skype Bots. The company also announced today that it will be ending support for its older Skype applications. These would include Windows Phone 8/8.1 and earlier versions of Android. Windows 10 Mobile is still supported through the new UWP Skype Preview app. 2016-07-20 14:36 Rich Woods
41 Benelux CIO interview: Paul Elich, CIO at KLM KLM CIO Paul Elich faces two pressing challenges: establishing the role of IT in the organisation and keeping abreast of technology. Of the first, Elich says “IT makes the difference”, but the driver for the second is more personal: “It’s an extension of my own development,” he says. The 27-year veteran of the Dutch airline likes to broaden his horizons. Elich, who became CIO in December 2014, says it’s stimulating to get to know different kinds of people, and his career has reflected this. KLM’s top IT manager does not have a background in IT, either in development or on the admin side. Originally, he was an architect. Not an IT architect: the kind that designs buildings. So Elich is a relative outsider. Doesn’t that mean he lacks the experience needed to be a CIO? “What I don’t have is hardcore IT knowledge”, he admits frankly. “What I do have is business perspective: what IT can do for the business and vice versa.” He acknowledges “you do need basic knowledge about IT,” but that can be learned. “I did have an opinion about IT,” he smiles, “and that opinion did not match the image that the IT organisation had of itself.” 2016-07-20 14:29 Jasper Bakker
42 Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Leaks in Short and Blurry Video Mobile Fun has posted the video on YouTube, supposedly depicting the Galaxy Note 7. The phone that's featured in the video seems to resemble the upcoming Samsung device, but since everything looks quite blurry, you should take it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the image shows a representative from Mobile Fun testing some accessories on the new smartphone. Mobile Fun is an online retailer from the UK, the same who, earlier this month, posted accessories and cases for the Note 7 and launched pre- orders for the products. It's safe to assume that the company was testing screen protectors for the Note 7 in order to see the touchscreen responsiveness. The video does show a device very similar to the Note 7, with a curved display and openings at the top of the front panel for the iris scanner. The smartphone appears to sport a 5.7-inch curved display, in line with previous rumors about the upcoming Galaxy Note 7. Word is that pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 7 will go live right after the event, but that remains to be confirmed. Some say the handset will feature a price tag of €849 in Europe. 2016-07-20 14:16 Alexandra Vaidos
43 Snapchat Now Allows Users to Send Personalized Bitmojis Snapchat has announced a partnership with Bitmoji, which is the company behind the personalized emojis. Bitmoji helps create personalized packs of stickers designed to resemble the user, thus making them more appealing than regular ones. Users will be able to send snaps with Bitmojis or use them inside conversations. But before they can send Bitmoji, users would have to actually create them. They must download the Bitmoji app and create an account by signing up. Afterward, users can start creating Bitmojis that they can later link to Snapchat and start sending them in snaps and messages. Friendmojis are also available, which are special emojis that can be used only if a friend also has Bitmoji linked to their Snapchat account. Friendmojis display two Bitmojis in the same image. Bitmojis show up in the keyboard area when typing, right next to the sticker area. Bitmojis come with multiple customization options so that users can make emojis resemble themselves. Snapchat has already introduced the feature in its app. Earlier this month, Snapchat updated the application with Memories feature for searching and sharing snaps. Users are able to create archives of their snaps, which they can later share with friends. 2016-07-20 13:52 Alexandra Vaidos
44 New solution delivers compliance for business Instagram users Businesses are increasingly adopting Instagram within the enterprise as a tool for building brand awareness and connecting with prospects and customers. But as with any form of business communication it's subject to regulatory control. Regulators may classify Instagram posts as advertisements and exchanged comments as business records. To address this, compliance specialist Actiance is adding Instagram support to its Actiance Socialite platform, which enables companies to capture social media posts in context and retain data, including the images, for instant search and retrieval. "Forward-thinking companies are increasingly using Instagram and other social channels to connect with digital audiences. Yet as they do so, they must remain compliant with data preservation and social media endorsement regulations," says Joanna Belbey, social media and compliance specialist at Actiance. "Actiance Socialite makes it easy for companies to support new channels, such as Instagram, as they enter the enterprise and make the most of their communications data for both regulatory and business purposes". As with more traditional communication channels like email, failure to follow compliance regulations -- such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 17a4 which dictates how information must be preserved on electronic media -- on social media can lead to injunctions, fines, and costly lawsuits. Actiance Socialite downloads Instagram images and comments for preservation so that companies can provide proof of supervision in the event of audits, monitor their Instagram activity for governance and policy enforcement, and create analytics using captured Instagram activities. You can find out more about Socialite and how it works on the Actiance website . Image Credit : donskarpo / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 13:51 By Ian
45 Insurance firm frees itself from legacy shackles Insurance intermediary Towergate will be free of the shackles of out-of-date technology by the end of the year when it completes its move to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. The 12-month project includes a refresh of end-user technologies. The acquisition of more than 300 individual insurance broker businesses over the last 17 years left Towergate with highly fragmented IT and outdated end-user computing hardware and software. CIO Gordon Walters said this was because the company did not have a blueprint for how to integrate acquisitions, so they were “sort of bolted on the side”. “We had multiple datacentres, multiple suppliers and everything ranging from Windows XP to Windows 2007,” said Walters. “We had a whole estate of outdated and under-invested IT that was not giving us the performance and reliance we were looking for.” The company had suffered costly server outages and was unable to use modern digital productivity tools. The company had tried Citrix to address the problems and had used its software for four years, but Walters said network issues made this a struggle. When a refinancing round came up the company decided to look at transforming the core infrastructure. “The infrastructure was holding us back and preventing application rationalisation that we needed to do because we had inherited so many applications through acquisitions,” Walters said. Towergate had about 1,400 servers, a substantial number for a company that only employs 4,500 people. In July 2015 the company decided to recruit the support of Accenture and its Avanade joint venture with Microsoft to outline the options available. By October, Walters was going to Towergate’s business leaders with a proposition to move everything into the cloud and a plan to refresh end-user computing. The IT leaders believed by moving everything into the cloud the business could gain competitive advantage and senior business leaders agreed when the business plan was presented in October 2015. “Most of the insurance industry was doing parts of IT in the cloud, but we wanted to leapfrog this and go all in,” Walters added. “We wanted to get rid of physical datacentres and PBXs and move into things like Skype for business where costs are likely to come down, not go up.” He said there was an immediate benefit to moving to the cloud because the company had run out of rack space in its two main datacentres and would have had to buy more. It was then a choice between Amazon Web Services cloud and Microsoft Azure and a mix of the two seemed likely. “Amazon looked quite easy, but Microsoft came and put something different on the table, which included the use of not only Azure, but things like Microsoft Dynamics, Windows 10, Office 365 and Skype for business.” Microsoft was chosen and a 12-month migration began, of which Towergate is currently in the middle. The project involves not just datacentre renewal, but includes the implementation of a new network from BT and a refresh of all the company’s end-user computing equipment. “We are replacing generations of old kit and moving away from Citrix back to traditional clients.” The company is readying the applications to be taken out of physical datacentres to be put in the cloud. Accenture is leading the migration for the company, which has 100 IT staff, with Avanade focused on the end-user computing build. “We plan to have everything in Azure by the end of this year, which will make it an 11-12 month project,” said Walters. In terms of cost savings, Towergate has invested over £14m to upgrade its IT infrastructure. As well as improving the experience of staff and customers, the company expects annual savings of about £4m. Future acquisitions will also be easier to complete with a blueprint now in place, added Walters. 2016-07-20 13:50 Services Editor
46 Free Decrypter Available for Bart Ransomware In the crowded space of today's ransomware landscape, Bart stands apart from the competition for two reasons. First, the ransomware is distributed via one of the largest malware-spreading botnets in the world, the same network that spreads the Dridex banking trojan and the Locky ransomware. Secondly, Bart does not use encryption to lock your data, but merely takes all your files and places them inside a password-protected ZIP archive, deleting the originals. Kroustek discovered that Bart does not use different passwords for all files, but one and the same. The researcher was able to put together a free decrypter, which victims can use to recover their locked files. This should be pretty easy since Bart does not rename files, but only appends the bart.zip file extension at the end. To find an original file, either use one from your Dropbox account, a file you received via email, or you stored on another computer or portable flash drives. 2016-07-20 13:44 Catalin Cimpanu
47 Microsoft changes how it reports Windows 10 numbers, no longer chasing a billion devices We know that Windows 10 is on upwards of 350 million systems now, because Microsoft told us three weeks ago. The last time Microsoft released any numbers before that, was two months previous when the new OS was on 300 million devices. The problem with how Microsoft announces these new milestones, isn’t just that it’s infrequent, but also that it refers to devices, not users -- and includes PCs, tablets, and mobile phones not yet sold. That’s useful when you’re aiming for a particular target -- 1 billion devices -- but not so useful when that target becomes unrealistic and it looks like you’re failing. On Tuesday, during the software giant’s quarterly earnings call, CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft has changed how it will assess the progress of the OS. By that, he means Microsoft will now track monthly active users, and report those figures on a "regular" basis. There’s no indication of just how regular that will be, but I’d expect it to be similar to the way Microsoft reports Windows trends. Those numbers break down the percentage of users on the various flavors of Windows, and get updated anywhere between once a month, and once every couple of months (the current figures show April, and will likely be updated to May at the end of this month). SEE ALSO: Windows 10 has 30 percent of the market and is catching up on Windows 7 -- according to Microsoft It is equally possible the company will announce the number of users during future quarterly earnings reports. Either way, it will be interesting to see how much the number of users differs from the number of devices when Microsoft reveals the first set of new figures. It probably won’t be a huge drop -- in fact it might even be higher -- because there will be multiple users on single devices to inflate it. This is an interesting move, because it changes the numbers Microsoft will be announcing going forward. Microsoft’s big aim was for Windows 10 to be on a billion devices by mid-2018, but because of the dismal sales of Windows 10 Mobile devices , it had to revise that intention. Now, by reporting users, not devices, it seems as if Microsoft is trying to distance itself from the original 1 billion devices target. No doubt, as and when the software giant hits that milestone, we’ll be told about it, but it seems as if, for now, it’s no longer a priority. Photo credit: Ikon_Grafix / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 13:34 By Wayne
48 New identity platform delivers passwordless authentication We regularly hear stories about the imminent death of the password. Add in thousands of Internet of Things devices needing to authenticate and it’s clear that the time has come for a better system. Identity management company ForgeRock is launching the latest edition of its ForgeRock Identity Platform, with advanced new capabilities that will enable organizations to employ passwordless login. ForgeRock Identity Platform is an end-to-end open source identity management solution that supports passwordless login as well as frictionless second factor authentication capabilities to provide continuous security. It can invoke two factor authentication if an anomaly occurs, for example if a laptop switches to an unsecured network. The platform can then request a response to a push notification sent to a phone -- through a biometric TouchID, a swipe or other action -- in order to maintain access. "User frustration is a real concern with two-factor authentication, and a significant barrier for organizations working to create the kind of secure, seamless online user experiences that we've all come to expect online," says ForgeRock CEO Mike Ellis. "With passwordless authentication now available through the ForgeRock Identity Platform, our customers can create highly secure, frictionless user experiences that will delight and engage end users, while keeping the growing number of IoT devices and data out of the wrong hands". The platform is compatible with industry standards including OAuth2 and OpenID, and enables real-time monitoring of security activity in order to provide better insights. The management console gives a visual display of account relationships and all database entries are encrypted to guard against accidental exposure. Additional information on the latest release can be found on the ForgeRock blog . Image Credit : bloomua / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 13:32 By Ian
49 Researchers discover software flaw that puts ALL our communications at risk A software flaw was recently discovered by security researchers, who are warning that a large part of the world’s telecommunications equipment may be vulnerable to attack. The flaw is found in software used by cell towers, radios, mobile phones and other infrastructure. The vulnerability was discovered to be part of a compiler that’s used to “generate high-level-language from ASN.1 syntax”. As Ars Technica reports , ASN.1, short for abstract syntax notation one, is a widely used software standard, embedded in numerous telecommunications devices including our personal phones. The researchers note: There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that this flaw is currently being exploited “in the wild”, nor would it be easy for an attacker to do so. However, governmental agencies or malicious agents with vast technological capabilities could use this exploit, especially if they’re combining it with a malicious cell network. The researchers warn that the vulnerable software is the “backbone” of many of today’s telecom networks, including those based on GSM, LTE, VoIP, and even those used in aviation, aerospace, data security and others. An attacker who successfully uses this flaw could compromise any device using the ASN.1 standard, potentially gaining full access to it, regardless of local encryption or security measures. So far the flaw has been confirmed to be present in Qualcomm-powered devices. However, the company that developed the affected compiler, Objective Systems, has a much bigger customer list including HP Enterprise, Honeywell, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, BT, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom and others. Between them, these companies power a huge part of the telecom infrastructure, and there’s a reasonable fear that many of those systems may feature the same flaw. The real problem is that while some mobile phones and important devices may get updates and patches to fix the vulnerability, the large majority of affected devices aren’t designed to be patched. As such, the researchers warn, this vulnerability may remain unpatched forever and offer an attractive target for malicious actors. Source: CERT , GitHub Via: Ars Technica | Cell tower image via Shutterstock 2016-07-20 13:28 Vlad Dudau
50 Anonymous Launches DDoS Attack Against Rio Court That Blocked WhatsApp in Brazil The attack, meant as a warning shot, took place yesterday and only lasted a few hours. The court website was back to normal by 15:00, local time. The hacker group took credit for the attack via a post on their Facebook page, where they also explained their reasons. Yesterday, the same Rio court ordered ISPs to block WhatsApp across Brazil. The country's five major operators, Claro, Nextel, Oi, TIM, and Vivo, all complied. Facebook started having Whatsapp-related problems in Brazil in February 2015 , when a judge wanted the company to help in a criminal investigation by revealing messages exchanged in encrypted WhatsApp conversations. In March 2016 , the same court went one step further by arresting Facebook's Vice President for Latin America, Diego Dzodan. He was later released when Facebook told the judge that WhatsApp was not under Dzodan's supervision, being a company runs separately from Facebook. The situation escalated once more in May , when a Brazil judge banned WhatsApp but was forced to reinstate access to the social network following an appeal. Yesterday , judges banned WhatsApp once again, and this time, the company faces a fine of $15,300 per day until it decides to comply with the judicial order to decrypt the messages involved in the criminal investigation. A few hours after the attack took place, the same court, TJRJ (Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Rio de Janeiro), decided to lift WhatsApp's ban. The social network is now once again accessible in the country. 2016-07-20 13:09 Catalin Cimpanu
51 Businesses can minimize software costs by 30 percent Businesses can cut software costs by 30 percent if they stick to software management best practices, Gartner has announced -- research director Hank Marquis says potential savings are just "too large to ignore". Companies will spend $332 billion on it in 2016, so yes, it is a pretty big deal. There are three best practices organizations can use to achieve these savings: optimizing software configurations, recycling licenses and using software asset management (SAM) tools. "Automated software license optimization is a relatively new discipline and most organizations are at lower levels of maturity", says Marquis. "The variety of license entitlements also makes it tough for IT leaders to spot savings, especially in environments with many software publishers and titles. But it’s worth pursuing, as spending reductions contribute directly to the bottom line as gross profit". The default software configuration, the one most organizations usually use, is also the most expensive, Gartner says. This is also where organizations have the best chances of cutting costs. "Such changes appear simple in hindsight, but they are not obvious, and your savings could be in the millions of dollars", says Marquis. By recycling software licenses, organizations avoid having to buy new licenses, which is a cheaper alternative. Finally, by using SAM tools, organizations can automate, accelerate and improve manual processes of optimizing complex licenses. The full report, titled "Cut Software Spending Safely With SAM", can be found on this link . Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved. Photo Credit: tomertu / Shutterstock 2016-07-20 13:03 By Sead
52 Save 96% off a MCSE Data Platform Certification Exam Prep Today's highlighted deal comes from our ELearning section of Neowin Deals, where you can save 96% off a MCSE Data Platform Certification Exam Prep. Build Enterprise-scale data solutions like an expert & study to earn an industry- leading certification. MCSE-certified professionals earn an average of $16k more than their peers and 60% of IT professionals say MCSE certification helped them get a new job. Pretty convincing numbers, right? If you've ever considered, or are considering, a career in SQL Server Administration, this bundle of courses will assess your ability to build enterprise-scale data solutions both on-premises and in cloud environments, and prepare you for the MCSE SQL Server Certification exam. SQL Server administrators are well paid, and always in demand, so the time to start studying is now! Certification of completion is included. For terms, compatibility and instructor info click here. This MCSE Data Platform Certification Exam Prep normally costs $1,299, but you can pick it up for just $49 for a limited time , a saving of $1,250. You can even get $10 credit if you share the deal with friends. Get this deal or find out more about it | View more in ELearning That's OK., If this offer doesn't interest you, why not check out other giveaways on the Neowin Deals web site? There's also a bunch of freebies you can check out here . You could also try your luck on our The Playstation 4 and Uncharted 4 Giveaway , or The Mega Macbook Giveaway all you have to do is sign up here to enter for this giveaway. How can I disable these posts? Click here . Disclosure : This is a StackCommerce deal or giveaway in partnership with Neowin; an account at StackCommerce is required to participate in any deals or giveaways. For a full description of StackCommerce's privacy guidelines, go here. 2016-07-20 13:02 News Staff
53 Investigate suspect EXEs with Professional PE Explorer Professional PE Explorer is a portable tool which allows investigating Windows executables including EXE files, SYS, DLL and more. The download is so tiny you’ll wonder if it’s broken -- 78.1KB, really? -- but no, this is all you get. Unzip it and run PPEE.exe to get started. Drag and drop a suspect file onto the program and a left-hand tree lists some of its structures: DOS Header, NT Header, Section Headers, assorted directory entries and more. If you’re happy with this low-level detail, you’ll also appreciate the program’s "anomaly detection", where unusual elements of the section are highlighted in orange for Warning and red for Error. Other expert-level features include entropy and MD5 calculations, section editing, the ability to dump elements of the file, even browse it in depth with a built-in hex editor. This can get complicated, but fortunately there are also elements here which could be useful to anyone. Click NT Header > File Header and the summary tells you whether this is a 32 or 64-bit EXE. NT Header > Optional Header has an item indicating whether it’s a GUI or console program. If the EXE has a digital signature, a DIRECTORY_ENTRY_SECURITY section gives you details on its name, date and more. This relies on the Windows API but should still work just fine in most situations. Sometimes there’s a DIRECTORY_ENTRY_DEBUG section which shows you when the EXE was compiled, and its location on the developer’s hard drive. A "Strings in file" section locates strings of characters in the file and organizes them into four categories: ASCII, Unicode, URL and Registry. If the EXE contacts a URL or accesses a Registry key, you might find it listed here. Beware, though, malware usually tries to obscure this kind of detail, preventing it being displayed. If you see an interesting item -- the name attached to a digital signature, an unusual string -- then right-clicking it displays options to search at Google or MSDN. Professional PE Explorer lacks the VirusTotal integration of PEStudio , but it’s still a likeable static analysis tool, comfortable to use and with a strong set of features. One to watch. Professional PE Explorer is a free application for Windows 7 and later. 2016-07-20 13:01 By Mike
54 Google Photos for Android Gets Updated with Improved Album Sorting Google has recently updated Photos to version 1.24 and added some neat features, including improved cropping tool and sorting options for albums, according to Android Police. The cropping tool in Google Photos worked decently, and users were given the option to crop off an edge of a picture or rotate the image in any way. The cropping tool has now gotten improvements, in the sense that buttons have been moved to the bottom, and a better rotation slider has been implemented. Google has added a new button that allows users to keep the aspect ratio while resizing the box in order to include more elements. The app comes with a feature that enables users to sort albums in multiple ways. The sorting option is found in the overflow menu, and it allows users to change the album's sorting mode. Before the update rolled out, users could only switch between “recently added” and the “default mode.” 2016-07-20 13:01 Alexandra Vaidos
55 Microsoft Delays Minecraft Update Because the Team Was Playing Pokemon Go In a message posted on the company’s blog (via WinBeta ), Microsoft’s Mojang says that the reason the team was distracted in the last couple of weeks was Pokemon Go, Nintendo’s new smashing hit that’s being played pretty much by everyone with an Android device or iPhone in the majority of countries around the world. Here’s the message that the Mojang team has posted earlier today, but note that they are the ones who actually used caps for the full announcement, so blame them, not us for hurting your eyes (also consider that there’s a small chance that the message might not refer to Pokemon Go, but we’re pretty sure that the monsters they are mentioning are actually Pokemons they’ve been trying to catch): “DUE TO A TECHNICAL FAULT CAUSED BY SMALL MONSTERS INFILTRATING MOJANG OFFICE AND DISTRACTING THE WORKFORCE: THIS UPDATE IS CURRENTLY ONLY ROLLING OUT FOR GOOGLE PLAY USERS. IT’LL BE WITH EVERYONE ELSE IN A FUTURE UPDATE.” Although it’s a little bit surprising to see the team postponing the release of a Minecraft update because of playing Pokemon Go, it’s very clear that no engineer at Mojang is using Windows phones on a daily basis. Pokemon Go is only available on Android and iOS, and for the moment, there’s no plan to release it on Windows Phone, no matter how hard users insisted for such a version. On the other hand, the most optimistic users think that Mojang engineers are playing Pokemon Go because the team is working with Nintendo on bringing the game to Windows Phone, and this is the reason they need to conduct thorough testing. Unfortunately, this is very unlikely to be the case, and Nintendo still doesn’t seem to be planning a Windows Phone version of Pokemon Go , but hopefully, Microsoft will find a way to convince them to at least consider such a version. 2016-07-20 12:16 Bogdan Popa
56 Breitbart's tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos permanently banned from Twitter Milo Yiannopoulos , Breitbart’s tech editor and self-described “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” has been permanently banned from Twitter. The microblogging site’s decision follows accusations that Yiannopoulos incited his followers to send abusive tweets to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. On Monday, the actress publicized some of the racist and misogynistic abuse she had received on the platform, which included being compared to an ape. Yiannopoulos responded with “If at first you don’t succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim. EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL FFS.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asked Jones to contact him on Monday night, but she ultimately quit Twitter “with tears and a very sad heart.” @Lesdoggg Hi Leslie, following, please DM me when you have a moment Yiannopoulos’ Twitter account was suspended the next day. And while the company didn’t specifically address the incident, it put out the following statement. People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Over the past 48 hours in particular, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension. We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it's happening and prevent repeat offenders. We have been in the process of reviewing our hateful conduct policy to prohibit additional types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting, with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted. We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks. Yiannopoulos has called the suspension “cowardly,” saying it would "blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. " In a post on Breitbart, he said: " With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives. Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left. Where are the Twitter police when Justin Bieber's fans cut themselves on his behalf? " Like other social media sites, Twitter has come under fire for not being quick enough when it comes to removing hateful content, but knows that doing so often leaves it open to accusations of censorship. The company emphasizes, however, that it suspended Yiannopoulos for harassing and abusing other users - a violation of its TOS - and not for expressing his opinions. 2016-07-20 12:15 Rob Thubron
57 SmartBear brings Ready API testing power to millions of Visual Studio developers SmartBear Software, the leader in software quality tools for the connected world, is bringing the power of its Ready! API testing framework to API developers using the most popular coding languages in the world. Now developers using Visual Studio to build software leveraging the open source. NET Framework can ensure API quality directly from within their primary workspace. Launched in March 2016 with similar support for Java developers using tools like Eclipse, IntelliJ and others, the latest TestServer. NET capabilities are introduced as part of the broader update to the Ready! API testing framework. By delivering these open source TestServer SDKs for Java and. NET framework languages, SmartBear ensures that developers can express their API functional tests in their preferred coding language. “As testing obligations continue to spread throughout API development and test organizations, a phenomenon many refer to as ‘Shifting Left,’ application providers must become smarter about their user expectations,” said John Purcell, Vice President of Products, API Readiness at SmartBear. “It is simply not reasonable to assume development and test professionals will automatically adjust their workflows to adopt a tool. In fact, the opposite must happen.” With this Ready! API 1.8 release, SmartBear is delivering key improvements to both desktop and server components of the framework. Organizations seriously committed to API quality can: • Enable users to move to more comprehensive, multi-component, real- world API testing by importing simple tests built using Postman into SoapUI NG Pro • Eliminate inter-organizational dependencies by putting API virtualization in the hands of every developer and intuitively manage more granular routing rules across ever-larger numbers of Virts in ServiceV Pro • Acknowledge that everyone is accountable for API security and make it easy for them to quickly find and diagnose security vulnerabilities at a deeper level using Secure Pro The 2016 survey conducted by SmartBear on API usage and development revealed that almost 40 percent of all respondents wanted to see easier integration between tools in the near future. As testing obligations continue to shift left in software organizations, this integration challenge grows in importance. 2016-07-20 12:08 SD Times
58 Imperson Chatbot Platform For Enterprises Released Much of the fascination with artificial intelligence and machine learning follows from a desire to engage with customers through software rather than costly human interaction. Behind messages like "Your call is very important to us" is the inescapable conclusion that containing payroll costs is even more important. Please continue to hold. This -- in conjunction with industry interest in connecting with a generation of people who prefer text messaging or voice interaction to better established marketing channels like email -- offers some explanation for the current chatbot craze. It's not quite as visible as the sudden swarm of Pokémon Go players who have warmed to augmented reality, but it's probably more meaningful to businesses. When Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all show interest in chatbots, chances are this isn't simply a passing fad. On Wednesday, Imperson , a startup based in Israel, plans to introduce its enterprise platform, imperson.ai, for creating and managing chatbots designed for popular social platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Skype , Kik, Slack, Twitter, Amazon Echo, SMS, and other channels. Chatbots can be thought of as a command line for non-technical people. Through natural language processing, chatbot software aims to decipher conversational input, whether it comes in as text or speech, and then identify appropriate responses and business opportunities. Imperson.ai enables companies to track bot conversation metrics and to adjust settings to optimize results. Chatbots, like websites, work better with analytics behind them. And companies hosting chatbots want them to integrate with their backend systems. Imperson didn't have any beta customers available to speak about their experience with the service, but a spokesperson said the company built and deployed the Judy Hopps Zootopia bot for Disney, which led to the exchange of millions of unique messages between individuals and the bot over a 16-day period. "Collectively, Imperson's campaigns with Universal and Disney have successfully engaged millions of fans in personal one-on-one conversations that span an average of nine minutes, with 20% returning to re-engage with the brand or character," a company spokesperson said in an email. Erez Baum, cofounder and CEO of Imperson, contends his company's technology can help brands and digital agencies develop more engaging bot experiences for customers. "Chatbots have become the new way for brands to engage directly with their consumers through a medium that's become a preferred method of communication: messaging apps," he said in an email. "We've seen companies like Kayak, NBA, Fandango, Sephora, Barclay, and CNN introduce bots through popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger , Slack, Kik and more. " Companies, Baum says, can use bots to engage with customers and build loyalty in a way that traditional marketing cannot. "This engagement creates deeper, one-on-one dialogues between brand and consumer," he said. [See The Rise of the Bots: 11 Ways Your Business Can Prepare .] Imperson.ai provides companies with access to the tools Imperson developed to create bots for clients. The technology enables the creation of bots with intent, relationship memory, personality, and natural learning capabilities, according to Baum. "Our AI combines advanced natural language processing capabilities with algorithms that can learn and remember each user to deliver a natural and fluid conversation, similar to chatting with an actual person," said Baum. "Where the AI can really help to differentiate the messaging experience for each client is in the content and storyline. Ultimately, it comes down to the client's unique brand voice and their campaign goals. " To define their brand voice, companies provide keywords and phrases that evoke their desired brand messaging. The value of imperson.ai, Baum says, comes from ensuring that the conversations seem natural rather than scripted. Imperson's ambitions are shared by a growing number of other bot-oriented companies, such as Agentbot, Howdy, Init.ai, Meya, Smooch.io, and X.ai, to name a few. More enterprise-oriented offerings include Kore and Reply.ai. Since Facebook launched its bot platform for Messenger, more than 200 Messenger bots have been released. 2016-07-20 12:06 Thomas Claburn
59 GSM and LTE Mobile Networks Around the World Affected by Serious Security Flaw The vulnerability ( CVE- 2016-5080 ) was discovered following a security audit at Objective Systems, a US- based company that ships the ASN1C code compiler, one of the many tools used to create the above- mentioned software applications. ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One) is an international standard that describes data structures and transfer protocols used in the telecommunications field. ASN1C is an application created by Objective Systems that takes ASN.1 data structures, operations, and instructions, and converts them to C, C++, C#, or Java code, which can be embedded into applications or software that runs on mobile equipment deployed with classic GSM or more modern LTE networks. Objective Systems says that ASN1C compiles ASN.1 code to C and C++ in a way that introduces a vulnerability in all applications. This vulnerability is a heap-based buffer overflow that allows attackers to execute code on the affected systems, from a remote location and without needing to authentication on the device. As of now, Objective Systems says that only ASN1C's ASN.1-to-C and ASN.1-to C++ functions are affected, but it is still investigating its ASN.1-to- C# and ASN.1-to-Java compilation routines. The company has released a quick fix for the issue in the latest 7.0.1.x branch of ASN1C, with a permanent fix scheduled for 7.0.2 in the coming weeks. Via US-CERT, the company has also reached out to 34 mobile operators and equipment vendors to inform them of the issue. Until now, only Qualcomm has confirmed it is affected by the problem while Honeywell and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise have said they're not impacted by it. 2016-07-20 11:50 Catalin Cimpanu
60 Hackers supposedly plan to knock Pokémon Go offline on August 1 Hackers, who go by the moniker PoodleCorp, have announced that Pokémon Go will be knocked offline on Monday, August 1st. The threat issued by the PoodleCorp group is credible because they have already managed to hit the game's servers and crash it in the past week. The PoodleCorp group claims it will take Pokémon Go offline for about 20 or so hours, essentially the whole day, using a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. DDoS attacks are made possible by devices flooding servers with requests, causing the server to crash. PoodleCorp allegedly has access to a botnet which consists of 600,000 devices which include DVRs and dedicated servers. These types of botnets can easily be bought or rented on the dark web so there's no real hacking going on. The reasons for the attacks which will supposedly take place on August 1 are as petty as ever. Xotehpoodle, the group's supposed leader, is quoted as saying: PoodleCorp's Twitter account first posted a status update on June 23, a day after their first attack against WatchMojo. Other targets hit by PoodleCorp include RedMercy (Youtube channel), iiSuperWomanii (Youtube channel), League of Legends , LinusTechTips, Battle.net, 21savage, LeafyIsHere (Youtube channel), StreamMe, h3h3 (Youtube channel), and finally Pokémon Go (July 16). Source: Twitter via The Next Web 2016-07-20 11:46 Paul Hill
61 20 Year Celebration Edition of Rise Of The Tomb Raider lands on the PS4 this winter It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since Lara Croft first captured our imaginations in the original Tomb Raider. The latest iteration in the popular action-adventure game, Rise of the Tomb Raider , dropped late last year for Xbox One and Xbox 360 followed by the PC this January. Now, it has been revealed that Tomb Raider will finally come home to roost on the PlayStation 4 in time for the holidays. Rise of the Tomb Raider will arrive on the PS4 as more than just a simple port. Instead, gamers will be offered a new 20 Year Celebration Edition which includes the full game and all DLC content from the Rise of the Tomb Raider season pass, an art book, a brand new chapter, virtual reality support and more. Those on the Internet are already comparing the box art to that of Uncharted which, as you can see, does bear an uncanny resemblance. The new chapter will be called Blood Ties and takes place inside the iconic Croft Manor. It’s here that gamers will be able to play in first-person through Lara’s eyes via VR. Crystal Dynamics has also added a new extreme survivor difficulty setting for hardcore fans. This option strips out all of the game’s checkpoints and increases the overall level of difficulty. Rise of the Tomb Raider lands on the PlayStation 4 on October 11. 2016-07-20 11:15 Shawn Knight
62 Yelp releases API developer preview, Dell reveals digital transformation problems, AT&T and Orange team up on open source—SD Times news digest: July 20, 2016 Yelp is currently revamping its API based on developer feedback, and today it is giving developers a preview as to what it has been working on. According to the company, the API will feature two new capabilities: autocomplete and transaction search. Both are designed to help improve its user experience. In addition, the company is adding more business data, and updating the authentication of the API with OAuth 2.0. “Our goal was to make building functionality easier for developers. We’ve rebuilt the API from the ground up, enabling us to take it out of the monolith, so we could make use of our platform as a service and distributed tracing systems. The result is faster deployment, iterations, and automatic scaling,” wrote Tomer Elmalem, software engineer for Yelp, in a blog post. Report: Security is a problem in businesses digital transformation Dell has released the results from its global Digital Transformation Security Survey , which revealed that a majority of businesses are want to go digital but are worried about security. According to the report, while 97% of respondents revealed they are investing in digital technologies, only 18% said security has been involved in all their initiatives. In addition, 85% believed that if they include security teams earlier in their initiatives, they believe they can make security better. “Organizing for digital transformation is not merely picking ‘the structure du jour,’ but instead matching structures to digital transformation goals and the characteristics of the existing organization,” said John Milburn, vice president and general manager of Dell’s One Identity products. AT&T and Orange team up on open source and SDN AT&T and Orange are collaborating on initiatives that encourage the standardization of software-defined networking and network function virtualization technologies. The companies want to move intelligence from customer hardware to the network, which will reduce cost and complexity, according to a company announcement. The goal is to make the industry and customers more attuned to working with agile. The two companies are also committed to making the SDN and NFV vision more accessible to the industry. They will focus on making customer equipment and services universal, streamlining the onboarding process for virtual network functions, and developing standardized APIs for SDN architecture. “Everyone benefits when network services and functions are designed around a common ecosystem that is delivered on open platforms,” said Didier Duriez, senior vice president of global solutions at Orange Business Services. “Innovation can happen faster and more easily, and this model will also help improve reliability and security.” 2016-07-20 11:04 Madison Moore
63 Williams F1 teams up with Thales cyber security The Williams Formula One motor racing team has announced a technical partnership with critical information systems, cyber security and data protection firm Thales. Under the agreement, Thales will provide cyber security systems for real-time global telemetry transmission to both the Williams Martini Racing and the Williams Advanced Engineering teams. Cyber security, especially data protection, is of the utmost importance in the competitive world of Formula One, and Thales will help Williams to protect its confidential, high-value data. Thales designs, develops and operates resilient and high-performance critical information systems in the aerospace, defence, finance, technology and transport sectors, supported by its 2,000 cyber security experts, 22,000 researchers and engineers, and its data protection and digital trust management systems. With security operations centres in the UK, France and the Netherlands, Thales’s cryptographic capabilities are used to secure governments, cities, state and military critical infrastructure and cyberspace across Europe. The Thales Datacryptor 5000 network security appliance is designed to deliver high-speed data protection with throughput enhancement and low latency to ensure high-assurance, real-time global telemetry transmission from the pit lane back to Williams’ headquarters. Data protection and security has become a priority across the Williams Group, with more and more projects being undertaken for external customers through the Williams Advanced Engineering team, the engineering services and technology division of Williams. Williams Advanced Engineering is tasked with harnessing F1-derived technology to deliver innovative products and services to the motorsport, automotive, aerospace, defence and energy sectors. Marc Darmon, Thales executive vice-president, secure communication and information systems, said the agreement builds on a strong relationship with Williams. “The agreement clearly illustrates Thales’ commitment to accompany its clients in their digital transformation where cyber security is a vital requirement,” he said. Claire Williams, deputy team principal and commercial director at Williams, said the F1 team has undergone a significant digital transformation in the past two years. “We are revolutionising our IT infrastructure to make sure we are well placed to continue innovating,” she said. “With the help of Thales, we will be introducing cyber security systems that keep our business-critical data secure wherever we are in the world.” 2016-07-20 10:50 Security Editor
64 Some Galaxy S7 Actives fail more submersion tests; Samsung promises replacements for water damage It was reported earlier this month that the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active, the rugged version of the award-winning S7 handset, didn’t fair too well when submerged in water. Tests by Consumer Report showed two of the devices malfunctioning when left in a water tank pressurized at 2.12 pounds-per- square-inch (equal to five feet of water) for 30 minutes. Surprisingly, the regular versions of the S7/S7 Edge, which share the same IP68 rating as the Active, were found to function much better underwater – they both passed Consumer Report’s water test and top the publication's smartphone ratings. In response, Samsung suggested the possibility that both the devices tested were faulty units, and therefore not as watertight as they should be. However, CNET decided to perform some water tests of its own on the Active, and the results were similar. The publication dunked an Active in a vase full of water for 20 minutes, which it survived with no problems. It then did more tests using deeper buckets; this time, one handset came out okay, but water seeped inside another unit. Samsung says the Active can withstand submersion at a depth of up to almost 5 feet for 30 minutes. To test this claim, CNET left one of the smartphones at the bottom of a five-foot deep pool for 28 minutes. Once retrieved, it was discovered that the Active would no longer turn on and some water had made its way inside. CNET did point out that it tried other Active units using the pool test, and some of them did actually pass. Samsung has promised that if an Active does suffer water damage, it will replace the handset with a new one. The company gave the following statement in response to the tests. "The Galaxy S7 Active passed rigorous tests to ensure IP68 certification for water resistance. Samsung stands behind this water resistance certification, and will replace any Galaxy S7 Active under its standard limited warranty, should water damage occur. " Its waterproof features may sometimes be questionable, but the Active can stand to be dropped from quite a height. Remarkably, it survives a 400-foot fall from a drone in this video. 2016-07-20 10:36 Rob Thubron
65 Mobile data freebies spark controversy in Sweden Attracting customers with free products and services is one of the most common tricks in marketing. But now Sweden’s largest mobile operators are focusing on a new trend: ‘ zero rating’ offerings. This is where the use of certain data services or apps do not count towards a user’s data cap, and is proving as controversial as it is popular. Telia is Sweden’s dominant operator and in April it announced that customers can surf popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, without it eating into data plans. The operator believes the offer, which applies to all post-paid subscriptions, will help it stay relevant after its research found two out of three Swedes use social media on a daily basis. “We think this is a differentiator. We are delivering something others are not and it enables us to stand out in a very competitive market,” Jonas Hasselberg, head of consumer business at Telia, tells Computer Weekly. “The primary driver [for the offering] is that we continue to adapt and follow how people in Sweden use social media.” Telia is not the first operator to tap into free social media surfing. In emerging markets, social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook have collaborated with mobile operators to offer their own zero-rated services (stripped down versions of their full mobile services), which users can access without data fees. However, Telia offers full services and claims its offering is the world’s most comprehensive package. But Telia isn’t alone. A notable zero-rating rival is mobile operator Tre (part of the international 3 Group), which has taken a slightly different approach to free data. Last year it launched unlimited music streaming on selected services to all its private and business customers. Like Telia, Tre justifies its decision with customer demand and brand building. “We saw through research done in relevant categories that music and, specifically, music streaming in mobile context were heavily used services,” says Per Schelin, vice-president of products and business development. “It was also the most appreciated service.” 2016-07-20 10:00 www.computerweekly
66 Tech is trendy now but hasn’t always been, says Techmums founder It’s no secret that there has been a lack of women in the technology industry over the past 20 years. There are many theories as to why this is, one of which is the negative stereotype surrounding the tech industry, with people thinking it is populated by “geeky” men with few social skills. But Dr Sue Black, computer scientist and founder of Techmums , believes this perception is now being broken down, and the industry is slowly improving. “It’s trendy to be in tech now, but it wasn’t always,” says Black. Black says she has heard anecdotally that the tech industry had a more equal split of women and men in the 1960s, especially in development roles. But when she was studying for her computer science degree in 1989, only about 10% of the students were women. By the time she set up BCSWomen in 1998, Black says the proportion of women in the industry had reached 20%. Now women make up about 16% of the workforce in the IT sector. “I feel like all of us have put so much effort in and then the numbers are still the same,” says Black. “But I do feel quite positive about it, because 20 years ago, being in tech was not the trendy thing at all, but now I think more and more people are starting to understand the amazing opportunities if offers.” 2016-07-20 10:00 Business Editor
67 Home Office merges IT units The Home Office is merging its Digital (HOD) and Technology (HOT) units to broaden skills, create a standardised design approach, and integrate data across its activities. According to a letter sent to staff earlier this month, the new unit became Home Office Digital, Data and Technology (HO DDaT) this week (18 July). The Home Office commissioned a review into the proposed merger, which was carried out by EY. “The outcome of this is that we have decided that now is the right time to bring the two organisations together,” the Home Office said. Home Office CTO Sarah Wilkinson has taken the helm of the new organisation, with a new joib title of chief digital, data and technology officer. Before joining the Home Office, Wilkinson worked in senior technology roles at Credit Suisse, HSBC, UBS and Deutsche Bank. The new team combines 250 staff from the HOD unit with about a thousand employees and contractors in HOT. Chief digital officer Norm Driskell has left the organisation. A letter emailed to staff from Wilkinson listed some of the successes of HOD and HOT. It said HOD had overseen huge growth in digital capability and skills, and its staff were recognised as experts in areas such as service design and DevOps. According to the email, HOT’s successes included delivery of the Schengen Information System (SISii) and Immigration Health Surcharge systems. It also rolled out biometric residence permits and biometric travel documents. Wilkinson said in the email: “The two organisations were initially set up as separate entities in line with the approach being taken across government and encouraged by the Government Digital Service. It also served to recognise that the skills and capabilities across HOD were new to the Home Office and would benefit from having space to develop into a series of highly professional teams.” She added: "This is a great opportunity to create a stronger, more capable team, which is better placed to respond to the needs of the businesses we service. It will bring an injection of new skills and approaches to all areas of our work, will allow a front-to-back digital design approach, and enable us to integrate data more fully into everything we do. Our objectives remain the same, to deliver transformational change for the department and build exceptional services for everyone" 2016-07-20 09:30 Services Editor
68 French man aimlessly wanders onto military base during Pok�mon hunt A 27-year-old in Indonesia was recently arrested for trespassing after wandering onto a military base while aimlessly playing Pokémon Go. A spokesperson said Pierre was released a few hours later once it became apparent that he unintentionally entered the complex while jogging and hunting for Pokémon nearby. I’m not sure if the story speaks more to the guy's lack of situational awareness or the military complex for allowing someone to breach its perimeter by sheer accident but I digress. As you’ve no doubt noticed, behavior like this isn’t uncommon with some Pokémon Go players. Since its debut earlier this month, we’ve heard reports of people being robbed , crashing vehicles and even falling off cliffs while traversing with their mobile device glued to their face. Readers of a certain age will no doubt remember the launch of Windows 95, Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmo as being massive retail launches but even then, I don’t think they permeated multiple demographics the way Pokémon Go has. And with the global rollout still underway, I suspect stories related to the game will only grow more unimaginable over the coming weeks. Image courtesy Alexander Tihonov, Shutterstock 2016-07-20 09:30 Shawn Knight
69 Flaws Found In 'Right To Be Forgotten' Data Privacy Laws The "right to be forgotten" appears to be unable to overcome the persistence of memory. According to a research paper due to be presented this week at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in Darmstadt, Germany, search results removed from search indexes may still be discoverable. The " right to be forgotten " follows from a 2014 ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), based on Europe's data protection laws. It provides support for those who wish to remove personal data from search engines under EU jurisdiction when that information is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to those purposes and in the light of the time that has elapsed," as the ECJ put it. The case originated in 2009 when Mario Costeja González, a Spanish lawyer, sought to have Google Spain remove a link to the online version of a 1998 article in a local newspaper about his need to sell property due to debt. The sale and debt had been resolved since the original article was published, so Costeja argued it was no longer relevant. In response to the ECJ ruling, Google, Bing , and other search engines have implemented processes to request the removal of links from their respective search indexes, subject to approval. Delisting search results links in this manner does not remove the "irrelevant" web pages from the internet; rather delisting makes the source material more difficult to find through a search engine. The "right to be forgotten" has been criticized as a form of censorship and a violation of free speech rights. Yet it also appears to be justified in some circumstances, such as to address revenge porn. Implementing "the right to be forgotten" in a way that's fair and resistant to abuse continues to challenge search engines. The major flaw in the "right to be forgotten" is that it does not apply to Google.com in the US, where free speech presently enjoys strong legal protection, or in other countries outside of European jurisdiction. France's data protection authority wants Google to close that loophole. While Google recently agreed to prevent searchers in the EU from discovering delisted material, such data remains accessible to anyone possessing the technical wherewithal to conceal or spoof his or her location. It's available too on websites that maintain records of delisted links. Using a data set of 283 articles, researchers led by professor Keith Ross of NYU's Tandon School of Engineering, along with colleagues from NYU Shanghai and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, have found another flaw. A third party can potentially identify as many as 30% to 40% of delisted URLs and the name of the individual who requested the removal, the researchers claim. Google does not show an article when the person who successfully requested its removal is named in the article, but it does show the article in response to search terms unrelated to that person's name. That discrepancy allowed researchers to construct an attack designed to identify delisted URLs without comparing search results for queries submitted to both Google.com and Google.co.uk. [Read EU Data Protection Law May End the Unknowable Algorithm .] As a demonstration of the attack, the researchers wrote a script that crawled and downloaded all the articles in El Mundo, a Spanish news website. Using that database of articles, the researchers ran a script that searched for a variety of topics commonly associated with removal requests, such as financial fraud and sexual abuse. The script collected the names mentioned in the articles and then submitted those names to Google's site in Spain, google.es. When links to the known articles were not among the top 10 search results returned, the researchers were able to conclude that the named individual sought to have the article delisted. The technique does not work in cases where the individual requester is not named in the article, but it turns out to be effective enough to call the feasibility of the "right to be forgotten" into question. The researchers argue that Google should not notify webmasters when it delists links to their sites in order to avoid calling attention to delisted search results. They also see challenges for online forgetfulness. They note that trying to suppress information may call more attention to it, causing the so-called Streisand effect. "Moreover, we do not see any effective defenses to these attacks, except for delisting the articles no matter what the query -- a defense many people would consider to be a strong form of censorship," they conclude. When asked about the researchers' findings, Google declined to comment. (Cover Image: Ivan Bliznetsov/iStockphoto) 2016-07-20 09:06 Thomas Claburn
70 WhatsApp temporarily banned in Brazil for a third time WhatsApp was shut down in Brazil yesterday, marking the third time the messaging app has been banned in the country since last December. As was the case in the other two incidents, it wasn’t too long before the Facebook- owned service was up and running again. Again, the ban revolved around Facebook’s refusal to hand over WhatsApp chat logs related to a criminal investigation. The company continues to argue that as the messages are end-to-encrypted, it simply cannot comply with the courts’ requests. Judge Daniela Barbosa Assunção de Souza in the state of Rio de Janeiro said the most recent blackout "will only be lifted once Facebook surrenders data.” She added that the company was treating Brazil like a “banana republic,” and criticized its decision to respond to the court in English, “as if this was the official language of this country,” according to Globo . But Brazil’s top court overturned the decision just a few hours later. Federal Supreme Court President Ricardo Lewandowski called it"scarcely reasonable or proportional. " WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum posted his opinion on the app’s seemingly never-ending issues in the South American nation. "It's shocking that less than two months after Brazilian people and lawmakers loudly rejected blocks of services like Whatsapp, history is repeating itself," he wrote in a Facebook post. Brazil’s 100 million WhatsApp users were shut out of the service for 24 hours in December after it failed to respond to a court order to hand over messages linked to a criminal organization. The ban was due to last 48 hours, but the intervention of another Judge saw it return after about 24 hours. The Brazilian authorities weren’t finished with the company. In March, police in Sao Paulo detained Facebook’s regional vice president, Diego Dzodan, for failing to provide information related to a WhatsApp account. Another ban arrived in May, this one set to last 72 hours. Again, it was quickly overturned after an injunction by a higher court. A Whatsapp spokesperson said: "As we've said in the past we cannot share information we don't have access to. Indiscriminate steps like these threaten people's ability to communicate, to run their businesses, and to live their lives. " 2016-07-20 07:30 Rob Thubron
71 Latest leap second plan poses a dilemma for conscientious sysadmins Conscientious sysadmins face a dilemma on Dec. 31, when a new leap second will threaten the stability of computer systems and networks. Scientists occasionally add a leap second to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the time reference most clocks are set by, so as to keep it in step with the earth's gradually slowing rotation. If they didn't, then clocks would be off by about a minute at midday by 2100. Computer systems don't like leap seconds as they are programmed to expect the same number of seconds in every minute of every hour of every day. The various ways of tricking them into accepting the extra second -- stretching out all the other seconds in the preceding minute, hour or day, repeating the same second twice, or creating a 61st second in a minute, can cause chaos as they affect different computers in different ways. A leap second added in 2012 caused trouble for LinkedIn, Reddit, and Qantas, while the last one, on June 30, 2015, caused around 2,000 computer networks around the world to crash . In November that year, government representatives at the United Nations' World Radio Conference 2015 on international space and radio regulations were invited to consider abolishing leap seconds and the troubles they cause. Delegates at WRC-15 postponed the decision until 2023 while they gather more evidence, meaning computer systems must deal with the consequences of leap seconds for eight more years. Meanwhile, on recent evidence, it's likely that about one year in two will require a leap second. The next one is scheduled for midnight on Dec. 31, 2016 . The dilemma for sysadmins next New Year's Eve, then, is whether to stay on duty when everyone else is partying in order to minimize the effects of the coming leap second. Or whether to turn off their pagers, tell themselves that whatever will be, will be -- and let the ensuing chaos stand as testimony to WRC-23 delegates that the leap second's time is up. 2016-07-20 07:12 Peter Sayer
72 Skype sets a course for the cloud, ditching some apps on the way Skype is leaving behind its peer-to-peer roots and going all in on the cloud. While the popular messaging app made it this far by facilitating connections between computers for video calls and other communications, it's moving to a cloud architecture that is supposed to improve performance and expand the service's capabilities. According to Skype Corporate Vice President Amritansh Raghav, the architecture shift has taken three years of work. It is supposed to provide a number of benefits, including improved message syncing across devices. Certain Skype features are already built on top of the new cloud infrastructure, including the mobile group video calling and live translation features that the service introduced recently. It's an important move, considering that Skype is facing competition from the likes of Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, and WeChat. It's not clear what the privacy and security implications of this change to a centralized infrastructure are. A Guardian report from 2013 claimed that it was possible for Microsoft to hand over information sent through its Skype servers in response to government data requests. Skype was not available to comment on any privacy issues by press time. With that transition comes the end of support for some legacy platforms. Skype is going to be shutting down its apps for televisions and the PlayStation Vita handheld gaming console. In addition, the service won't support iPads and iPhones running anything older than iOS 8 or Android devices running anything older than version 4.0.3 of Google's mobile operating system. Mac users will still be able to communicate with one another going all the way back to OS X Snow Leopard. Windows users will get the longest tail of support, however. Windows XP, a 15-year-old operating system that Microsoft hasn't supported for a year, will get a Skype client that supports the new, cloud-based infrastructure. (Windows Vista, 7, and 8 will all be supported, too.) The news comes as Skype recently released a set of updates for its Windows 10 app beta on both desktop and mobile, along with new alpha clients for Linux and Chrome OS. 2016-07-20 07:10 Blair Hanley
73 Oracle issues largest patch bundle ever, fixing 276 security flaws Oracle has released a new quarterly batch of security updates for more than 80 products from its software portfolio, fixing 276 vulnerabilities. This is the largest Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) to date. The average number of flaws fixed per Oracle update last year was 161, according to security vendor Qualys. Furthermore, out of the 276 security flaws fixed in this update, 159 can be exploited remotely without authentication. At the top of the priority list should be the Java patches, which address 13 new vulnerabilities. That's because Java is used in a lot of applications and is installed on a large number of systems. "Customers really do need to apply these Java CPU patches as soon as possible," said John Matthew Holt, the CTO of application security firm Waratek, via email. Among the patches that require urgent attention are those for the HotSpot Java virtual machine for desktops and servers, which received high CVSS (Common Vulnerabilities Scoring System) scores, Holt noted. The Oracle Database Server received patches for nine vulnerabilities, one of which is rated critical with a score of nine out of 10 in the CVSS. Meanwhile, the Oracle MySQL database received fixes for 22 new security issues, four of them with a high severity rating. While databases are not typically exposed to the internet, they often hold a company's most important data, so these fixes should be given a high priority. According to Qualys , companies should also turn their attention to assets that can be directly attacked from the internet. These include web and application servers like Oracle HTTP Server, WebLogic Server and GlassFish Server, which are part of Oracle's Fusion Middleware suite. Fusion Middleware products and components received fixes for a total of thirty-five flaws, five of them rated critical with a CVSS score of 9.8. The Oracle Sun Systems Products Suite also received a large number of patches: 34. This includes fixes for the Solaris OS and networking switches that can be targeted by attackers remotely. Depending on their industry vertical, companies should also look at the fixes for industry-specific products such as Oracle Supply Chain, Oracle Communications, Oracle Banking Platform, Oracle Financial Services Applications, Health Sciences, Oracle Insurance Applications, Oracle Utilities Applications and the Oracle products for the retail sector. Issues were identified and patched in application components like Integration Bus, Order Broker, Service Backbone, and Inventory management. The components "play a vital role in Retail infrastructure and provide integration between other Oracle retail components and the rest of a company infrastructure including other mission-critical applications," said analysts from security firm ERPScan via email. "Attacks on those applications can disrupt business processes (such as payment or supply chain) in a retail company. Also, an attacker can exploit those issues to control all data transferring between components and, thus, commit fraud by changing some data during transfer. " Oracle advises users to install patches without delay, warning that attackers constantly try to exploit flaws for which the company has already released fixes. Sometimes attackers are successful because customers didn't apply the existing patches, the company said. 2016-07-20 07:05 Lucian Constantin
74 Feds shut down tech support scammers, freeze assets Federal authorities have shut down several alleged tech support scammers working out of Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Canada, freezing their assets and seizing control of their businesses. The action was one of the largest in the U. S. against scammers, who bilk consumers out of an estimated $1.5 billion annually with bogus tales of infected Windows PCs and Apple Macs, high- pressure sales tactics, and grossly overpriced services and software. After the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed complaints against six companies and six individuals in late June, courts shuttered alleged scammers doing business under names like Big Dog Solutions, Help Desk National, Help Desk Global, PC Help Desk, Inbound Call Specialist, BlackOptek CE, 9138242 Canada and Digital Growth Properties. Five of the six operated as a single enterprise, muddying the waters with multiple names. The firms' websites were closed, their assets were frozen, and court- appointed receivers were put in charge of the companies. The FTC announced the shutdowns on July 8. Unlike scammers who dun consumers with cold calls, claiming that they're Microsoft, Symantec or other well-known vendors, and that they've somehow detected "problems" on the computer, in this case the accused relied on pop-ups that appeared in users' browsers. The pop-ups were generated by websites that consumers had been lured to, often with ads displayed in search results. The tactic has become common among scammers as a replacement or adjunct to cold calling. The messages claimed that the consumer's personal computer was compromised and told them to call a toll-free number. "The pop-ups are designed to appear as if they originated from a computer's operating system and often mislead consumers into believing that they are receiving a message from Microsoft or Apple," the FTC's complaint stated. Once the consumer dialed the number, the scam ran through its usual paces: "Technicians" claimed that the system was at risk, infected with malware, adware, spyware any-kind-of-ware, and said that they could clean it remotely. "Once in control of consumers' computers, Defendants run a series of purported diagnostic tests, which, in reality, are nothing more than a high- pressured sales pitch designed to scare consumers into believing that their computers are corrupted, hacked, otherwise compromised, or generally performing badly," the complaint read. Both Windows PCs and Macs running OS X were targeted by the self- proclaimed support techs, who "proved" that the machine was infected by pointing out system information which was actually innocuous. Fees ranged from $200 to $300 to "clean" the PC or Mac, often accompanied by pitches to pay between $10 and $20 monthly to subscribe to ongoing "technical support" or purchase security software at inflated prices of up to $500. Undercover agents for the FTC reported a wealth of lies and preposterous claims, ranging from assertions that the technician was "part of Microsoft" to pretending to be fending off hackers at that very moment. "I'm still fighting these guys. Give me a second. I'm going to stick in some coding to try to block them off. We have multi-million-dollar software we use," one alleged technician told an FTC agent. "Consumers who balk at purchasing Defendants' repair services or security software are deceived, scared, shamed, and even berated into doing so," the complaint continued. The results have been lucrative, the FTC alleged. For example, Big Dog Solutions received $5.5 million in proceeds from the Canadian arm of the scam during the stretch from Jan. 28, 2015, to May 31, 2016. During the same period, BlackOptek CE received $2.7 million. 2016-07-20 05:44 Gregg Keizer
75 European shares get tech boost as SAP and ASML surge on results (ADVISORY- Follow European and UK stock markets in real time on the Reuters Live Markets blog on Eikon - see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets) * FTSEurofirst 300 and Stoxx 600 both up 0.7 pct * Technology index hits highest since early Jan * SAP, ASML among top gainers; Anglo American down LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - European shares advanced on Wednesday, with the technology sector leading the market higher after SAP and ASML Holding reported forecast-beating quarterly results. Shares in SAP, Europe's largest software company, rose 4.7 percent as unexpectedly strong growth in high-margin packaged software licenses fueled its quarterly earnings. Its second-quarter operating profit rose 9 percent. ASML Holding, a key supplier to major semiconductor makers, was up 3.5 percent after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit as customers started taking shipments of its newest tool. "So far, European earnings have been better than expected, with investors focusing on company guidance to form a view on the market's likely direction," Christian Stocker, equity strategist at UniCredit in Munich, said. "The market is definitely getting some boost, at least today, from some strong results from companies like SAP, with the technology sector leading the market higher. " The STOXX Europe 600 Technology index was up 2.6 percent, the top sectoral gainer. It has surged nearly 10 percent since the start of last week and is heading for its best 2-week gain in more than seven years, mainly on the back of a sharp rally in ARM Holdings this week. ARM spiked 41 percent on Monday after Japan's SoftBank agreed to buy Britain's most valuable technology company for $32 billion in cash. The sector also got some support after Microsoft reported on Tuesday a 2.1 percent rise in quarterly adjusted revenue as growth in its cloud business helped to offset weakness in the personal computer market. The pan-European STOXX Europe 600 and the FTSEurofirst 300 index were both up 0.7 percent by 0855 GMT. They have gained around 10 percent since a post-Brexit low hit in late June. Some other firms also rose on positive updates. Lonza shares rose 5.4 percent, the top gainer in the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300, as the Swiss speciality chemicals and life sciences group raised its guidance for 2016 after reporting the strongest earnings growth in its history during the first six months. Orpea, which runs clinics and homes for the elderly, rose 5.1 percent after lifting its full-year target. It also said sales in the second quarter to June 30 had risen 20 percent, boosted by acquisitions and solid demand for its services. However, gains were capped by weaker miners, with the European Basic Resources index falling 1.2 percent, the worst sectoral performer, as prices of metals dropped. Anglo American fell 6.1 percent after lowering its full-year guidance, while BHP Billiton was down 2.1 percent after it fell 3 million tonnes short of its iron ore production guidance for fiscal 2016. Finnish ship engine and power plant maker Wartsila fell 5 percent after reporting weaker-than-expected quarterly profit and order intake, citing tight competition in the energy markets and overcapacity of ships. 2016-07-20 05:12 Atul Prakash
Total 75 articles. Created at 2016-07-21 00:01