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Is Google Going After Facebook?
December 12, 2016 by admin
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The word on the information street is that Google wants to buy Facebook. It is entirely speculative, but could have legs.
Information leaked suggests that talks are well advanced between the two companies.
Anecdotal evidence from many Facebook users suggests that talks are well advanced and the companies are already sharing experimental data, between themselves, of user data. Other sources suggest that Microsoft (Vole) is also interested in Facebook and, conversely, that Facebook is interested in buying Microsoft.
None of the companies cared enough to comment to Fudzilla at press time.
Courtesy-Fud
NFC For ATM Transactions Catching On
August 3, 2016 by admin
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Several of the nation’s biggest banks in the U.S. now support the use of a smartphone to withdraw cash from an ATM — many by way of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology — instead of requiring customers to use a bank card.
One of the early adopters, Bank of America, said this week it currently supports cardless technology at 2,800 of its ATMs. That number will reach 8,000 ATMs by year’s end that rely on NFC and other technology. Bank of America, which has about 15,000 ATMs nationwide, created a video to show how a smartphone loaded with the bank’s mobile app can now withdraw cash from some ATMs.
Wells Fargo said it has a “handful” of ATMs that are NFC-ready and working to deliver cash and other transactions and is planning to reach 5,000 by the end of 2016. A total of 12,000 ATMs will be enabled in 2017.
JPMorgan Chase said it also will have many cardless ATMs available this year, but didn’t specify how many or when. Initially at Chase, customers will show up at an ATM and type in a numerical code they acquired wirelessly through use of the Chase smartphone app to get their cash. That numerical code verification process will be an early step in rolling out cardless technology at the bank’s nearly 15,000 ATMs.
In addition to using NFC or a numerical code to authenticate a transaction, some bank ATMs are expected to rely on scanning a QR code displayed on a phone.
The number of ATMs supporting cardless cash remains a small portion of the estimated 500,000 ATMs in the U.S. Crone Consulting, which monitors the mobile payment industry, recently said it expects about 95,000 ATMs in the U.S. to support cardless cash by year’s end.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/nfc-for-atm-transactions-catching-on.html
Was The Omni Hotel Chain Hacked?
Omni Hotels & Resorts has reported that point-of-sale systems at some of its hotel locations were attacked by malware targeting payment card information.
The hacking of the systems of the luxury hotel chain follows similar breaches of point-of-sale systems at various hotels and retailers like Hyatt Hotels, Target, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Hilton Worldwide Holdings.
Omni — in Dallas, Texas — said in a statement Friday that on May 30 this year, it discovered it was hit by malware attacks on its network, affecting specific POS systems on-site at some of its properties. “The malware was designed to collect certain payment card information, including cardholder name, credit/debit card number, security code and expiration date,” Omni said. There isn’t evidence that other customer information, such as contact information, Social Security numbers or PINs, was compromised, it added.
The chain did not disclose how many of its 60 properties were affected and the likely number of cardholders that could have been affected. As there is no indication that reservation or select guest membership systems were affected, users were unlikely to be affected unless they physically presented their payment card at a POS system at one of the affected locations. The malware may have been in operation between Dec. 23 last year and June 14 this year, although most of the systems were affected during a shorter timeframe, according to the hotel.
The hotel chain, which operates hotels and resorts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, could not be immediately reached for comment over the weekend for further details.
Omni said after discovering the malware attack, it had immediately hired IT investigation and security firms and has now contained the intrusion. It did not specify why it had delayed to inform customers.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/omni-hotels-reports-hacking.html
Has The Smartphone Bubble Busted?
June 22, 2016 by admin
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After sliding its slide-rules, flicking its abacus, and counting its toes, the bean counters at Gartner have decided that the smartphone business bubble has burst splattering in the face of those who depend on it.
Big G says the market will shrink from 14.4 per cent growth in 2015 to just 7 per cent in 2016 — with only 1.5 billion smartphone units being shipped globally this year. Compair this with 2010, when Gartner notes the market grew 73 per cent.
However the signs have been obvious for about a year. Mature Western markets saturated, China’s growth engine slowing as demand has topped out and other markets unable to afford the higher margin gear. The smartphone has come to the end of its ability to provide new technology too with companies only able to offer incremental upgrades. Carriers are moving away from subsidizing upgrades which means that them wasting their own profits to prop up the likes of Apple are over.
In emerging markets it says the average lifetime of premium phone is between 2.2 and 2.5 years, while basic mobiles have an average lifetime of three years and up.
Gartner sees the biggest remaining opportunity for smartphone growth in India, noting that sales of feature phones — aka dumbphones — accounted for a majority (61 per cent) of total mobile device sales last year, leaving plenty of scope for upgrades as smartphones continue to become more affordable.
It is estimating 139 million smartphones will be sold in India this year, growing 29.5 per cent year-over-year. It notes the average selling price of mobiles in the country remains below $70, and it expects smartphones priced under $120 to continue to contribute around half of overall smartphones sales there this year. Apple’s hope that it can save its flailing business numbers by selling into India show the complete lack of understanding of how that market is working. It is tending to favor small local smartphone makers like Intex.
China is going to offer Apple no help either Gartner is expecting “little growth” in the region in the next five years. IT says it is “saturated yet highly competitive” market. Smartphones represented 95 per cent of total mobile phones sales last year.
Gartner analyst Annette Zimmerman said that “non-traditional” vendors in China could do well and thinks that by 2018 at least one such phone maker will be among the top five smartphone brands in the country.
“Chinese internet companies are increasingly investing in mobile device hardware development, platforms and distribution as they aim to grow their user bases and increase user loyalty and engagement,” she said.
The Sub-Saharan African region is also couched as an attractive region for smartphone vendors, with smartphone sales only overtaking mobile phones sales there for the first time last year. Nokia brand licensee and newly formed smartphone OEM HMD will want to take note, given it has paid for the right to build feature phones (and smartphones) bearing the previously iconic Nokia brand name.
Courtesy-Fud
Microsoft Goes Quantum Computing
Software giant Microsoft is focusing a lot of its R&D money on quantum computing.
Peter Lee, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Research said that Quantum computing is “stupendously exciting right now.”
Apparently it is Microsoft Research’s largest area of investment and Lee is pretty certain it is on the verge of some major scientific achievements.
“There’s just hope and optimism those scientific achievements will lead to practical outcomes. It’s hard to know when and where,” Lee said.
This is the first we have heard about Redmond’s quantum ambitions for a while. In 2014 the company revealed its “Station Q” group located on the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus, which has focused on quantum computing since its establishment a decade ago.
We sort of assumed that Microsoft would not get much work done on Quantum states because faced with a choice most cats would rather die in a box rather than listen to Steve Ballmer. But we guess with a more cat friendly CEO it is moving ahead.
Lee said that he has explained quantum computing research to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella by comparing it with speech processing. In that field, Microsoft researchers worked “so hard for a decade with no practical improvement,” he said. Then deep learning brought about considerable leaps forward in speech recognition and Microsoft was in on the ground floor.
“With quantum, we’ve made just gigantic advancements making semiconductor interfacing, allowing semiconductor materials to operate as though they were superconducting. What that means is the possibility of semiconductors that can operate at extremely high clock rates with very, very little or no heat dissipation. It’s just really spectacular.”
Courtesy-Fud
Yahoo Unveils Livetext Mobile Messaging App
August 11, 2015 by admin
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Yahoo unveiled a mobile messaging app that combines texting with live one-on-one video.
The app, named Livetext, is video calling with a twist: there’s no audio. To communicate, users type texts and emojis that are overlaid onto the screen during the call.
The app’s format might sound restricting, but Yahoo says Livetext will help users to communicate more freely. The lack of audio, the company says, removes inhibitions that people might feel when they otherwise receive video calls in public.
“We wanted to bridge the gap between the simplicity and ease of texting, with the live feeling of calling,” said Adam Cahan, senior vice president of video, design and emerging products at Yahoo, during the app’s unveiling at an event in New York on Wednesday that was webcast.
Livetext was developed from scratch at Yahoo. Its development was aided by Yahoo’s acquisition last year of mobile messaging app MessageMe, the company said Wednesday. It’s yet another messaging app in a sea of competitors like Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Still, Livetext is the latest attempt by Yahoo to provide a messaging app that resonates with users. It became available to download for free on Thursday for iOS and Android, in the U.S., U.K, Canada, Ireland, Germany, France, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Users will be able to text in English, French, German and Chinese using the app.
The app streams video only when two people are connected through the app at the same time. Users can search for friends in the app through their Livetext user name, or through the contacts list on their phone.
There is no time limit on calls placed through the app, and no way to save or archive the sessions. The video quality will depend on the strength of the data connection, although connections at 3G and above should suffice, Yahoo said.
It’s available on Android and the desktop, but not on iOS.
Darkode Hacking Forum Shut Down
Law enforcement agencies from 20 countries collaborated to cripple a major computer hacking forum, and U.S. officials filed criminal charges against a dozen people associated with the website, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Darkode.com on is displaying a message saying the site and domain had been seized by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
Darkode, a password-protected online forum for criminal hackers, represented one of the gravest threats to the integrity of data on computers across the world, according to David Hickton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. “Through this operation, we have dismantled a cyber hornets’ nest of criminal hackers which was believed by many, including the hackers themselves, to be impenetrable.”
Five of the defendants face charges in Hickton’s district.
Darkode allowed hackers and other cybercriminals to sell, trade and share information and tools related to illegal computer hacking, the law enforcement agencies alleged.
Before becoming a member of Darkode, prospective participants were allegedly vetted through a process that included an invitation by a member, the DOJ said in a press release. The prospective member then pitched the skill or products he or she could bring to the forum.
Darkode members allegedly used each other’s skills and products to infect computers and electronic devices of victims around the world with malware, the DOJ said.
The takedown of the forum and the charges announced Wednesday came after the FBI’s infiltration of Darkode’s membership.
U.S. And Britain Ramping Up Cyber Defense
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The U.S. and Britain are increasing their collaboration to thwart digital threats. They are planning to launch more attacks against each other to test their defenses and scare away possible enemies.
The U.S. and the U.K. have been working together to prevent cyber attacks for some time, but are going to increase the collaboration. They will combine their expertise to set up “cyber cells” on both sides of the Atlantic to increase sharing information about threats and to work out how to best protect themselves and create a system that lets hostile states and organization know they shouldn’t attack, said U.K. prime minister David Cameron in an interview published by the BBC.
Cyber attacks “are one of the biggest modern threats that we face,” according to Cameron who is visiting Washington for talks with U.S. president Barack Obama. One of the topics high on the agenda is digital security.
The countries will increase the “war games” launched at each other to test defenses. “It is happening already but it needs to be stepped up,” Cameron said, adding that British intelligence service GCHQ and the U.S. equivalent NSA have know-how that should be shared more.
“It is not just about protecting companies, it is also about protecting people’s data, about protecting people’s finances. These attacks can have real consequences to people’s prosperity,” he said.
However, in order to protect companies and citizens better, increased snooping powers to track terrorists on social networks are necessary, said Cameron. He is planning to discuss this issue with Obama and U.S. companies including Google and Facebook.
The increased cooperation between the countries comes in the wake of the Sony hack and the apparent hacking of the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), which posted tweets threatening families of U.S. soldiers and claiming to have hacked into military PCs.
China Using Home Servers Admidst Cyber Concerns
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A Chinese firm has developed the country’s first homegrown servers, built entirely out of domestic technologies including a processor from local chip maker Loongson Technology.
China’s Dawning Information Industry, also known as Sugon, has developed a series of four servers using the Loongson 3B processor, the country’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.
“Servers are crucial applications in a country’s politics, economy, and information security. We must fully master all these technologies,” Dawning’s vice president Sha Chaoqun was quoted as saying.
The servers, including their operating systems, have all been developed from Chinese technology. The Loongson 3B processor inside them has eight cores made with a total of 1.1 billion transistors built using a 28-nanometer production process.
The Xinhua report quoted Li Guojie, a top computing researcher in the country, as saying the new servers would ensure that the security around China’s military, financial and energy sectors would no longer be in foreign control.
Dawning was contacted on Friday, but an employee declined to offer more specifics about the servers. “We don’t want to promote this product in the U.S. media,” she said. “It involves propriety intellectual property rights, and Chinese government organizations.”
News of the servers has just been among the ongoing developments in China for the country to build up its own homegrown technology. Work is being done on local mobile operating systems, supercomputing, and in chip making, with much of it government-backed. Earlier this year, China outlined a plan to make the country into a major player in the semiconductor space.
But it also comes at a time when cybersecurity has become a major concern for the Chinese government, following revelations about the U.S. government’s own secret surveillance programs. “Without cybersecurity there is no national security,” declared China’s Xi Jinping in March, as he announced plans to turn the country into an “Internet power.”
Two months later, China threatened to block companiesfrom selling IT products to the country if they failed to pass a new vetting system meant to comb out secret spying programs.
Dawning, which was founded using local government-supported research, is perhaps best known for developing some of China’s supercomputers. But it also sells server products built with Intel chips. In this year’s first quarter, it had an 8.7 percent share of China’s server market, putting it in 7th place, according to research firm IDC.
The FCC Extends Deadline
August 25, 2014 by admin
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U.S. Federal Communications Commission has said it would accept public comments on its proposed new “net neutrality” rules through Sept. 15, giving the American public extra time to voice their opinions and concerns on how they think Internet traffic should be regulated.
The FCC has received more than 1 million comments already on new rules for how Internet services providers should be allowed to manage web traffic on their networks.
The FCC had set a deadline of July 15 for the initial comments and then September 10 for replies to those initial comments. However, the surge in submissions overwhelmed the FCC’s website and the agency had delayed the first deadline by three business days.
“To ensure that members of the public have as much time as was initially anticipated to reply to initial comments in these proceedings, the Bureau today is extending the reply comment deadline by three business days,” the FCC said on Friday, delaying the final deadline for comments to September 15.