Items tagged with Misc
It’s great that there are folks out there who look for exploits and vulnerabilities and then let companies know about them before ne’er-do-wells have a chance to perform malicious actions, but one hacker made himself something of a nuisance early this week by doing just that. According to CNN Money...
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Warner Bros. is bringing back “Gauntlet”, and the classic title will be arriving on Steam for PC this summer with full support for SteamOS and Steam Machines. Developer Arrowhead Game Studios Studios is collaborating on the project that will be a modern overhaul of the 1980s game. “With...
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Pandora has just won the current round in the ongoing struggle over royalty fees with ASCAP (one of the agencies that collects and distributes royalty payments for musicians), and ASCAP is deeply unhappy with the ruling. Judge Denise Cote presided over the case and ruled that Pandora did not have to pay ASCAP any more...
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Microsoft appears close to releasing the cloud-based Office 365 version of its ever-popular suite of Office applications for Mac and iOS devices, according to several reports. For Office 365 subscribers, this news is a huge boon, as it would allow them to use the software on a greater variety of devices. A Microsoft...
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Valve has been tinkering with a new design for its Steam Controller for some time, and there’s finally a prototype upon which to gaze. Valve posted some images of the new controller and noted that they’re currently building 10 of the units by hand that they’ll bring with them to GDC. “These...
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Ownership of the Internet is about to undergo a massive change, as the U.S. is planning to cede sole control of Internet governance to the global private sector. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it will fulfill the mandate outlined back in the late 1990s...
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The video ads that Facebook began testing back in December are coming. The social network announced that starting today, a “select group of advertisers” will be able to post video ads that will appear in your Newsfeed and last up to 15 seconds. Like the other videos that you see in your Newsfeed, these video ads will autoplay silently...
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The good news for Target and its customers is that the retailer’s robust IT system detected the massive holiday season hack that affected tens of millions of accounts before it ever happened. The bad news is that Target failed to act on that detection, and the rest is history. According to Bloomberg, Target’s security tools detected...
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The advent of gigabit Internet continues its slow-but-steady growth with the news that Bright House Networks is working with the Metro Development Group to bring gigabit Internet to new communities in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. The groups are building new housing developments and will construct them with fiber...
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Google has had enough of government surveillance. The search giant has been encrypting web searches in China to more effectively circumvent the government’s sensors, and that encrypting is rolling out globally, too. Within months, all Google searches made over a modern browser will be encrypted. Make no mistake...
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Spoiler alert: Yes, Amazon Prime is still totally worth it for $99 a year, if you actually take advantage of what the service offers. The company announced today that it’s jacking up the annual cost of Amazon Prime from $79 to $99 (and up to $49 for students). Amazon cites rising fuel and transportation costs as the need to bump up the...
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Makerbot’s making them both big and small these days. Just weeks after beginning orders for the Replicator Mini Compact 3D printer, Makerbot announced that the big brother of its new line of 3D printers, the Z18, is available for purchase. Whereas the Mini Compact offers a petite build volume of 10x10x12.5 inches, the Z18 can handle...
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If your company has any sort of web presence, you’re on Facebook, and the company is rolling out changes to its official Pages that are designed to simultaneously make it easier for consumers to find the info they’re looking for and make Page management easier for businesses. The new look features all your Page’s posts just...
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Apple has released an update to its latest mobile OS with iOS 7.1, and among the bug fixes and miscellaneous tweaks, there’s a big new feature with CarPlay. CarPlay allows you to connect your iPhone to your vehicle in a powerful way, most notably by bringing up a variety of apps and tools from your iPhone to the...
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The numbers from Pinterest’s data request transparency report are either impressive or laughable, depending on your point of view. Although the tech industry is rising up in force in reaction against the NSA’s spying tactics and forceful and shadowy means of “requesting” data from major...
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Google is looking to gain a huge chunk of the wearables market with an SDK--no not, the Google Glass GDK, which is still in the offing as a Developer Preview, but a more general SDK that could be used for just about anything that you can wear as a garment or accessory and has some sort of “smart”...
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Plenty of manufacturers and consumers alike are intrigued by the potential of Android/Windows dual-boot devices, but it would seem that you can count Google in the camp of those not too keen on the idea. ASUS’ plans for a dual-boot devices called the ASUS Transformer Book Duet TD300 are rumored to have been...
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Alright Google Glass haters, I’m actually kind of with you on this one. A new app for Google Glass (aka “glassware”) is designed to read people’s emotions and respond accordingly, and if there’s anything people dislike more than being stared at by a Google Glass wearer, it’s...
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In an embarrassing revelation, NASA admitted that it has been selling jet fuel at a steep discount to a company called H2-11, which is owned by Google’s top brass--Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin--and has hangar space at Moffett Field. According to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Team, NASA allowed...
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Facebook’s blockbuster $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp has raised a lot of questions--such as “Why?”--but among those unanswered queries is a concern that Facebook will collect user data for advertising purposes, which some privacy groups argue cuts against expectations that WhatsApp users...
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There’s a much-anticipated update to Windows 8.1 coming, and it seems that it leaked early to the web. The culprit? Microsoft itself. According to ZDNet, by using a direct link or making an adjustment to the registry to allow the update to come up in Windows Update, users could snag the new version of Windows 8.1 for themselves early....
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Oddly, it seems like it’s been a while since the Ouya Android gaming console felt truly compelling after a whirlwind Kickstarter honeymoon, fundraising explosion, and emergence of the device as a Real Thing, but the company is trying to change that with its “Ouya Everywhere” initiative. Basically...
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