Tech

A ‘stalkerware’ app leaked phone data from thousands of victims

A spyware app designed to “monitor everything” on a victim’s phone has been secretly installed on thousands of phones. The app, KidsGuard, claims it can “access all the information” on a target device, including its real-time location, text messages, browser history, access to its photos, videos and app activities, and recordings of phone calls. But a misconfigured server meant the app was also spilling out the secretly uploaded contents of victims’ devices to the internet. These consumer-grade ...
Tags: Apple, Google, Security, Social Media, Tech, Facebook Messenger, Computing, Alibaba, Signal, Operating Systems, Federal Trade Commission, Mobile App, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Deception, Quintin, App Maker

MacBook Pro to get 10th-generation Intel chips, according to leak

Leaked benchmarks hint at a big performance boost for the MacBook Pro from the latest batch of Intel CPUs.
Tags: Apple, Trends, Intel, Computing, Macbook Pro, Intel Ice Lake, Intel 10th Generation

Where to buy the 2015 MacBook Pro

If you want to buy a second-hand Mac and grab yourself a bargain, these tips will help you get a great deal.
Tags: Apple, Mac, Trends, Other, Computing, Macbook Pro, Tier 4, 2015 Macbook Pro

A group of ex-NSA and Amazon engineers are building a ‘GitHub for data’

Six months ago or thereabouts, a group of engineers and developers with backgrounds from the National Security Agency, Google and Amazon Web Services had an idea. Data is valuable for helping developers and engineers to build new features and better innovate. But that data is often highly sensitive and out of reach, kept under lock and key by red tape and compliance, which can take weeks to get approval. So, the engineers started Gretel, an early-stage startup that aims to help developers safely...
Tags: Google, Amazon, Security, Startups, Developer, Nsa, Cloud Computing, Tech, Computing, Machine Learning, Watson, Amazon Web Services, Greylock Partners, Executive, Gretel, Sridhar Ramaswamy

Farewell to Cut, Copy, and Paste Inventor Larry Tesler

An Apple, Xerox, Amazon, Yahoo, and 23AndMe alum—and an early researcher in the field of artificial intelligence—Larry Tesler may not be as well-known as early computing icons like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Steve Wozniak, but his impact on the industry remains important today. Tesler popularized the tools cut, copy, and paste while working on Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven user interface—specifically an app within it called …
Tags: Apple, Design, Tech, Computers, Obituaries, Xerox, Computing, Rip, Paste, Linkaboutit, Cut, Steve Jobs Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Copy, Tesler, Larry Tesler

Google launches the first developer preview of Android 11

With the days of desert-themed releases officially behind it, Google today announced the first developer preview of Android 11, which is now available as system images for Google’s own Pixel devices, starting with the Pixel 2. As of now, there is no way to install the updates over the air. That’s usually something the company makes available at a later stage. These first releases aren’t meant for regular users anyway. Instead, they are a way for developers to test their applications and ge...
Tags: Google, Android, Google Play, TC, Mobile, Apps, Tech, Smartphones, Software, Computing, Machine Learning, Api, Operating System, Operating Systems, Pixel, Blackberry Priv

Google Cloud opens its Seoul region

Google Cloud today announced that its new Seoul region, its first in Korea, is now open for business. The region, which it first talked about last April, will feature three availability zones and support for virtually all of Google Cloud’s standard service, ranging from Compute Engine to BigQuery, Bigtable and Cloud Spanner. With this, Google Cloud now has a presence in 16 countries and offers 21 regions with a total of 64 zones. The Seoul region (with the memorable name of asia-northeast3) w...
Tags: Google, TC, Cloud, Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Enterprise, Indonesia, Cloud Computing, Tech, Taiwan, Computing, Korea, Web Services, Las Vegas

Microsoft’s new Office app hints at the Surface Duo’s potential

Available today, the new Office app adds features that will be handy on the dual-screen device.
Tags: Iphone, Ios, Android, Mobile, News, Microsoft, Office, Office 365, Trends, Excel, Computing, Word, Powerpoint

How Spotify ran the largest Google Dataflow job ever for Wrapped 2019

In early December, Spotify launched its annual personalized Wrapped playlist with its users’ most-streamed sounds of 2019. That has become a bit of a tradition and isn’t necessarily anything new, but for 2019, it also gave users a look back at how they used Spotify over the last decade. Because this was quite a large job, Spotify gave us a bit of a look under the covers of how it generated these lists for its ever-growing number of free and paid subscribers. It’s no secret that Spotify is a b...
Tags: Google, TC, Spotify, Media, Cloud Storage, Cloud Computing, Tech, Computing, Operating Systems, Google Cloud Platform, Streaming Media, Playlist, Google Cloud, Dataflow, Google Cloud Dataflow, Dataproc

Apple warns of coronavirus causing iPhone shortages

Company hit by shutdown in China and says it will fail to meet quarterly revenue targetApple has warned of global “iPhone supply shortages” resulting from its Chinese factories being shut because of the coronavirus outbreak.The Californian company told investors on Monday night it would fail to meet its quarterly revenue target of $63-67bn (£48-52bn) because of the “temporarily constrained” supply of iPhones and a dramatic drop in Chinese shoppers during the virus crisis. Apple did not provide a...
Tags: Iphone, Apple, Technology, China, World news, Smartphones, Asia Pacific, Infectious Diseases, Telecoms, Computing, Coronavirus outbreak

How to share your Apple Music library on Mac, iOS, and more

You can share an Apple Music library with all your other devices, or with guests too — here’s how to do it.
Tags: Apple, Music, Trends, How-to, Itunes, Computing, Apple Music, Macos Catalina

AI systems claiming to 'read' emotions pose discrimination risks

Expert says technology deployed is based on outdated science and therefore is unreliableArtificial Intelligence (AI) systems that companies claim can “read” facial expressions is based on outdated science and risks being unreliable and discriminatory, one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of emotion has warned.Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor of psychology at Northeastern University, said that such technologies appear to disregard a growing body of evidence undermining the notion t...
Tags: Psychology, Science, Technology, UK News, Computing, Consciousness, Northeastern University, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Artificial intelligence (AI

How to pair Apple AirPods with a Windows PC

A guide for all the brand anarchists out there
Tags: Apple, Bluetooth, Windows, Trends, Pc, How-to, Computing, Home Theater, AirPods

Better know a CSO: Dropbox head of security Justin Berman

Justin Berman has one of the most important jobs at Dropbox . As head of security, he oversees the company’s cybersecurity strategy, its defenses and works daily to keep its more than 600 million users’ data private and secure. No pressure, then. Berman joined the file storage and workspace giant a year ago during a period of transition for the company. During its early years, Dropbox was hit by a data breach that saw more than 60 million user passwords stolen during a time where tech giants w...
Tags: Security, Tech, Data Breach, Cryptography, Cybercrime, Computing, Dropbox, Silicon Valley, Data Security, Computer Security, Berman, CSO, Justin Berman, Cloud Applications, Zenefits Flatiron Health

What is Project Catalyst? Here’s everything you need to know

If you follow Apple news, you may be wondering, "What is Project Catalyst anyway?" Here's what we know.
Tags: Apple, Trends, Computing, What Is, Project Catalyst, macOS, Project Marzipan, WWDC 2019, Macos Catalina, Tier 4

The best VR headset for the iPhone and five alternatives

To ease you gently into the world of virtual reality, these are the best VR headsets for the iPhone out there.
Tags: Apple, Mobile, Trends, Computing, Virtual Reality, Best Of, Merge VR, best VR iPhone, iPhone app headset, iPhone VR goggles, VR headset for iPhone, Tier 4

Google recently kicked out 500 dodgy extensions from Chrome Store

The discovery of yet more malicious browser extensions is a good reminder to take some time to check your own.
Tags: Chrome, Google, Chrome Extension, News, Trends, Web, Computing, Chrome Browser

The best laptop deals for February 2020: Dell XPS 13, HP Spectre X360, and more

Whether you need a new laptop for school or work, we put together a list of the best laptop deals right now.
Tags: Deals, Trends, Computing, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Chromebooks, Macbooks

How to sync your Outlook calendar with an iPhone

Here's how to sync an Outlook calendar with your iPhone, so you can get your appointments on the same page.
Tags: Apple, Mobile, Trends, How-to, Computing, connect Outlook to iPhone, iPhone calendar, Microsoft Outlook and iPhone, Outlook sync, Tier 4

How can I speed up a Windows 10 laptop?

Matt is resurrecting a 10-year-old laptop with only 4GB of memory. How can he make it run faster?I am trying to resurrect an old but good-in-its-day laptop for my son to use for his A-levels. I have bought a cheap 256GB SSD to improve the read/write speeds, but it seems I am stuck with the current 4GB of memory. Its two memory slots could support 8GB but 4GB DDR2 memory modules are prohibitively expensive at roughly £65 each. It doesn’t seem to make sense spending that sort of money on outdated ...
Tags: Technology, Microsoft, Windows, Computing, Microsoft Office, Windows 10, Laptops, Matt

How Microsoft plans to solve the Surface Neo and Surface Duo’s app problem

Microsoft is putting the app gap problem to rest and highlighted the app solution for both the Surface Neo and Duo.
Tags: Android, Mobile, Microsoft, Windows, Trends, Computing, Surface, Surface Duo, Windows 10X, Surface Neo

According to these patents, the future of the Mac could be very strange

Not every idea can be a winner, even for a company like Apple. Sometimes, its Mac patents are just plain mad.
Tags: Apple, Mac, Trends, Macbook, Computing, Patents, iMac

The best iTunes alternatives for Mac

Apple has said that the next version of MacOS will no longer feature iTunes. There are the best alternatives.
Tags: Apple, Music, Trends, MP3, Itunes, Computing, Best Of, Tier 4, Itunes Alternatives

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 review: still sleek, just no longer unique

USB-C, faster processors and new design options continue to keep Microsoft’s Windows 10 laptop near the top of the pileMicrosoft’s top-quality laptop is now in its third generation, with new ports, new processors and a slight redesign, with the option to ditch the unique Alcantara for plain old aluminium.The £999 and up Surface Laptop 3 is Microsoft’s vision of what a traditional laptop should be. For the most part that’s the same as everyone else, with traditional aluminium body, glass-covered ...
Tags: Technology, Microsoft, Computing, Microsoft Surface, Windows 10, Laptops, Alcantara

Oscar winner Taika Waititi calls Apple’s Butterfly keyboards ‘horrendous’

Moments after accepting his first Oscar for Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi lashed out at Apple’s flawed keyboards.
Tags: Apple, News, Trends, Computing, Taika Waititi, Butterfly Keyboard, Oscars 2020, Jojo Rabbit Taika Waititi

Future Apple Macs could come with AMD Navi 21 GPUs, leak suggests

Powerful AMD GPUs and Ryzen 4000-series CPUs could come to future Macs, according to leaked MacOS beta code.
Tags: Apple, Trends, Computing, Amd, ARM, NAVI, macOS, RYZEN, AMD Navi, Ryzen 4000, Navi 21, Ryzen 4

How can I copy 1,400 DVDs to a new hard drive?

Harry has data backed up to DVDs, but wants to copy the files to a hard drive. Is there a quick way to do it?Over the years, I have been backing up files to writeable DVDs. I probably have around 1,400 of them. Now I want to transfer their contents onto a single 10TB USB hard drive. Can you and your erudite readers recommend the quickest solution?Is there a DVD recorder that can load 10 to 20 DVDs at a time and automatically copy them onto said 10TB hard drive? Also, are there any issues with th...
Tags: Technology, Computing, Harry

Need a new tablet? Here are the best Apple iPad deals for February 2020

In the wide world of tablets, Apple is the king. We curated an up-to-date list of all of the best iPad deals.
Tags: Apple, Deals, Trends, Ipads, Computing, Ipad Mini, Ipad Pro, Apple deals, iPad deals

Welfare surveillance system violates human rights, Dutch court rules

Government told to halt use of AI to detect fraud in decision hailed by privacy campaignersA Dutch court has ordered the immediate halt of an automated surveillance system for detecting welfare fraud because it violates human rights, in a judgment likely to resonate well beyond the Netherlands.The case was seen as an important legal challenge to the controversial but growing use by governments around the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and risk modelling in administering welfare benefits a...
Tags: Europe, Technology, Benefits, Society, World news, Netherlands, Computing, Inequality, Artificial intelligence (AI

Couchbase launches a fully managed database service

Couchbase, the popular NoSQL database, today announced the launch of Couchbase Cloud, a fully managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) offering for enterprises. Once the service is generally available later this summer, users will be able to spin it up on AWS and Microsoft Azure, with support for Google Cloud coming a bit later this year. This, the company claims, makes it the first “SQL-on-NoSQL DBaaS that supports multiple cloud providers.” What’s probably more important for its customers, though...
Tags: Google, Startups, TC, Microsoft, Cloud Computing, Tech, Computing, Aws, Nosql, Prometheus, Data Management, Microsoft-azure, Cloud Infrastructure, Couchbase, Google Cloud, Grafana