Here is the latest Personal Tech News from ZdNet.
How to find a lost cat or dog with a smartphone No, it doesn’t involve strapping an iPhone to your pet.
Over 135 million routers vulnerable to denial-of-service flaw The flaw lets an attacker cut off an entire network from the internet until the owner calls their provider to restore it.
Microsoft Office gets its own Patch Tuesday Microsoft is now releasing Office updates for non-security issues on the first Tuesday of the month, starting this week. Slowly but surely, it seems Patch Day is turning into Patch Month.
Apple won’t sue FBI to reveal hack used to unlock seized iPhone Apple attorneys said that they believe the hack used will be “short lived.”
Zappos CEO Hsieh talks holacracy, opening up its dynamic org chart to public Speaking at the Wharton People Analytics Conference, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talked about his hierarchy free management approach and how org chart transparency could be instructional.
Facebook Brazil hires new head Former Unilever executive will have to fight the various legal battles the company faces in the country
‘Do I need to run antivirus on my Mac?’ If you want a different answer, ask me a different question.
Microsoft anoints Windows 10 November update as new Current Branch for Business release Attention IT Pros overseeing Microsoft Windows 10 deployments: Here comes the new Current Branch for Business release.
How to purge your Mac of Adobe Flash With a new zero-day Flash Player vulnerability also affecting Mac users, it’s a good time to purge your system of this software.
How Project Fi killed my Google Voice setup Get a Nexus 5X they said. Sign up for Project Fi for month to get a discount, they said. Now I’m hosed
Twitter shakes up board members in push for diversity Twitter revealed board members Peter Chernin and Peter Currie were not considered for re-election, and instead were set to be replaced by Hugh Johnston and Martha Lane Fox.
US still wants Apple’s help to unlock iPhone in Brooklyn case The government’s push for an appeal comes in spite of successfully breaking into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Microsoft debuts ‘Centennial’ tool for moving legacy apps to the Windows Store Microsoft’s Desktop App Converter tool for porting legacy Windows applications to the Windows 10 Store is available to testers in preview form.
US publishers fire shot at ad-blocking Brave browser Is Brave’s business model the enemy for publishers struggling against ad-blockers, or the saviour?
3D Printers: From $179 to $4,000, the price is right to buy one now Are you interested in getting into 3D printing? Here’s how to start prototyping and modelling without breaking the bank. The following is a selection of quality 3D printers, ranging from $179, all the way up to $4,000.
The non-volatile memory revolution The Wintel band is getting back together. NAND flash SSDs have revolutionized the storage world in the last 10 years. But non-volatile memory (NVM) is a much bigger deal than SSDs could ever be. Here’s why Intel and Microsoft are behind it.
Three important lessons crooked world leaders should learn from the Panama Papers For your entertainment and edification, David Gewirtz offers some wicked-but-wise advice to presidents and plutocrats — especially crooked ones who want to hide the billions they’ve stolen from their people. Cunningly, these lessons apply to enterprising IT professionals as well.
Microsoft’s Hub Keyboard for iOS could be a must-have for Office 365 users Microsoft has released a third-party keyboard for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and if you’re an Office 365 user, it’s definitely worth a look at.
Senate bill will impose fines on tech companies that refuse to unlock smartphones The bipartisan bill will force tech firms to help law enforcement and federal agencies bypass encryption — or face fines.
Is the Party Over? New rules cause turmoil in Indian e-commerce Foreign-owned outfits such as Amazon who pose as marketplaces but who actually have strong links to their dominant sellers in a de-facto inventory model will now have to figure out new ways to do business
Adobe deploys emergency patch for Flash zero-day vulnerability The vulnerability has recently been discovered in the Magnitude exploit kit.
Amazon creates cloud and retail CEO positions Amazon has promoted two its leaders, giving the tech giant a Worldwide Consumer CEO as well as a CEO for its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services.
Not all Microsoft developers’ heads are in the cloud — yet Recent survey of 1,000 .NET developers finds close to one-third continue to focus their work on-prem. The major challenge looming is being able to run apps across differing devices.
Haiku L Series: A Big Ass Fan for small-ass money A lower-cost version of the Wi-Fi connected and sensor-enabled fan has now hit the market.
Tesla says it’s received 325,000 Model 3 pre-orders “The week that electric vehicles went mainstream,” claims Tesla.
Uber snags top Ford engineer for self-driving cars Uber has built a self-driving car division in Pittsburgh and is bringing in top talent for the project.
Microsoft to change how Windows 10’s Edge browser handles Flash content Microsoft will give users more control over Flash content in its Edge browser for Windows 10 when it delivers the Anniversary update this summer.
Verizon reportedly planning to place bid for Yahoo next week Under a Verizon deal current Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may be replaced. Google is said to be considering a bid as well, following Starboard’s pressure for the company to sell.
Facebook Messenger rolls out Codes, Links and Usernames The whole idea is that businesses can rely on the Messenger platform for at least some of their customer service efforts.
Meet the new ransomware that knows where you live The carefully-crafted and user-specific emails contains a link that tries to trick the user into installing a new kind of malware.
IBM talks about progress on Watson, OpenPower Five years after Watson won Jeopardy, IBM says cognitive computing is catching on. At the GPU Technology Conference, the company talked about the evolution of Watson services accelerated on Power servers and GPUs.
FBI says it can hack ‘narrow slice’ of iPhones The FBI director said the hack it used to bypass the passcode on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone does not work on an iPhone 5s or later.
IBM, Pfizer form research pact to tackle Parkinson’s Disease The end goal of the research project is to advance the way neurological diseases are diagnosed and treated while also speeding up clinical trials to bring new drugs to market.
iFixit teardown: LG G5 modular design earns it a high smartphone repairability score It looks like a removable battery and microSD cards aren’t the only things easy to take apart on the LG G5. This new Android smartphone earned a very high 8/10 repairability rating.
Build a Windows 10 PC for $400 Looking to build a cheap Windows 10 PC? Here are the components you need to build a system that comes in at $400, including Windows 10! As always, shop around for the best deal on components, and remember that component prices change regularly.
Microsoft integrates Facebook, Evernote, Wunderlist with iOS, Android calendar apps Microsoft’s Outlook apps for iOS and Android will now include the ability to integrate with to-do lists, tasks and events from other apps like Facebook, Evernote and Wunderlist.
DocuSign targets financial services, bolsters ecosystem DocuSign is bringing “transaction rooms” to financial services customers as it inks partnerships with Cisco, IBM and Deloitte.
Building robots out of liquid may streamline manufacturing Add this to the list of feats 3D printers can perform: Fully functioning robots made out of liquid.
Desktop 3D printer sales surge Over a quarter of a million desktop 3D printers were sold worldwide last year.
How to get started with Ubuntu and Bash on Windows 10 The newest Windows 10 Fast Ring release, 14316, includes Ubuntu and Bash. It may not have a Linux foundation, but this is close as a Windows PC has ever come to also being a Linux computer.
The coolest desk toys for tech people The Newton’s Cradle is fine. Really. It is. Unless you consider these …
Obama administration finally takes position on encryption, one that nobody will like But the position won’t break the political deadlock on unbreakable encryption.
Data in the emerging world of stream processing Streaming data is hot, and open source stream processing platform Apache Kafka is growing in popularity, significantly. In this guest post, Neha Narkede, CTO and co-founder of Confluent (the company behind Kafka), discusses why streaming data and real-time analytics are so important.
How cloud drives Continuous Delivery We investigate how Continuous Delivery has been powered by cloud management software
Researchers release PoC exploit code to bypass broken IBM security patch Broken patches for security issues are simply not enough.
Steam censors pirate chats, message links The online gaming platform appears to be censoring links stemming from The Pirate Bay.
Google boosts network Safe Browsing with malware, social engineering alerts Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators is being upgraded with useful information for IT specialists.
China’s Apex seeks Lexmark acquisition The deal could boost the Chinese ink cartridge chip maker’s reach in the United States.
The limits of data science in building diversity in the workplace There is a lot of data science on relationships that can predict a person’s job satisfaction… but it cannot be used to build diversity in the workplace
Microsoft to ease app-handoff with Windows 10 and beyond with ‘Project Rome’ Microsoft is building on top of its Xbox SmartGlass technology to develop a more advanced app-handoff capability across platforms.
Microsoft delivers lots of new features in Windows 10 test build 14316 The latest Windows 10 test build for PCs, No. 14316, includes support for Bash, new Continuum and Cortana features and more.
MarketShare’s big data do-over: Hadoop deployment overhaul Marketshare takes another shot at its Hadoop deployment and illuminates important lessons for companies exploring the possibilities of big data in their enterprises.
FBI crack could hit iPhone sales According to a poll carried out by Fortune, the FBI’s cracking of the San Bernardino attacker’s iPhone could have a knock-on effect on sales at a critical time for Apple.
Does Google’s RankBrain machine learning improve search results for users? Googles AI technology RankBrain uses guesswork to return better search results to user queries according to a recent study
Capgemini invests in Brazil datacenter The new site will provide private cloud services to clients in Latin America
Nvidia goes all in on AI The company is making a big bet on deep learning with its Tesla P100 GPU and DGX-1 server.
FBI’s strategy in Apple case caught in distortion field FBI doing little to build trust as it pushes iPhone matter, encryption debate deeper into shadows
#DisrupTV: Talking shop with three CIOs This week, we talk shop with three CIOs: Mike Kail, Chief Innovation Officer at Cybric, Miguel Gamino, the CIO of San Francisco, and Tim Crawford, the CIO of AVOA.
Disconnect between Americans’ online attitudes and actions in a post-Snowden world A nationwide study reveals a deep disconnect between our attitudes and actions in protecting our online security and privacy
Microsoft makes Cloud App Security service generally available Microsoft’s new cloud-app security service, which costs $5 per user per month, is based on Microsoft’s Adallom acquisition.
Five iPhone battery-saving tips that really work (and several that are useless) If you’re in a position where there’s more day than iPhone’s battery left, here are a selection of tips to help you squeeze as much power out of your battery as possible.
When was the last time you built a tower PC? Sure, you may have set up laptops or tablets or server platters. But how long ago was it that you last bought a tower case? When was the last time you set up a free-standing PC?
Quality calls still matter: T-Mobile introduces Enhanced Voice Services T-Mobile continues to innovate in the wireless space, this time focusing on improving call quality and reliability.
Google, Rackspace will co-design Power9 servers for Open Compute The announcement is among more than 50 initiatives announced by IBM this week during the OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose.
Amazon releases Smart Home API for Alexa: Developers, get ready to add ‘skills’ Amazon’s Alexa line of products will soon get new home automation skills thanks to the release of an API by the company.
How much does it cost to charge an iPhone for a year? Ever thought how much your iPhone (or Android smartphone) is costing you in power a year to charge? What about your tablet or laptop? Or your ebook reader? And do wall warts consume power when there’s nothing connected to them?
Contactless payments coming to a flight near you Panasonic is working with airlines to bring NFC technology to fliers interested in Wi-Fi or entertainment as they travel.
Windows 10 tip: Defrag secrets for hard disks and SSDs Should you defrag your solid-state drive? Absolutely not! Here’s how to keep conventional hard disks, SSDs, and even virtual disks running at peak efficiency.
Oracle updates HCM Cloud with help desk app, offline mobile support The Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud falls under the company’s general (and quite formidable) Oracle Cloud.
Tio turns inanimate objects into connected moving inventions in minutes Tios are motorised magnetic blocks that create fully wireless app-controlled inventions in minutes, from a moving lego robot and a water bottle race car to a craft UFO, turning your surroundings into a living playground.
Nokia to slash thousands of jobs worldwide Nokia says the reduced headcount is necessary in the aftermath of acquiring Alcatel-Lucent.
How cloud drives ‘bi-modal’ IT We take a look at how cloud computing is driving efficiency
Forget Linux or Raspberry Pi: Here are a couple of cheap Windows 10 computer For some, a $20 Linux computer, or a Raspberry Pi just won’t do. They need a cheap computer capable of running Windows 10. Sorry, no $20 for you.
Apple goes server-side to fix Siri lock screen bypass security flaw The bug allowed attackers to bypass the lock screen to access a user’s media, contacts and settings.
World’s brightest X-ray laser boosted with $1 billion upgrade The laser, critical for atomic research, will be boosted by a second laser which is up to 10,000 times brighter.
IBM, SAP partner to couple HANA, cloud, cognitive computing The two companies are teaming up to land more digital transformation deals. Here’s how they plan to co-mingle their wares.
Adobe readies emergency patch for Flash zero-day bug exploited in the wild The zero-day vulnerability allows attackers to take complete control of a victim’s system.
Touching robot privates turns people on It’s a weird, uncomfortable subject, but here’s why companion robots may be on the way.
ZTE dumps execs allegedly involved in trade with Iran ZTE has overhauled its management team and board of directors just weeks after the United States Department of Commerce decided to restrict US equipment exports to ZTE.
LinkedIn opens first international data centre in Singapore Spanning 23,500 square feet, the Singapore site costs S$80 million so far and supports LinkedIn’s Asia-Pacific traffic as well as one-third of its global connection.
Twitter nabs streaming rights to Thursday night NFL games In its first big streaming deal, Twitter reportedly beat out Amazon and Verizon for the streaming rights.
Nest killed its smart home hub: What do they owe customers? Revolv promised “lifetime subscriptions” for buyers of its home automation hub. Then Google’s Nest Labs bought the company and killed the product. What rights do customers have?
Amazon’s new Kindle will feature rechargable protective case: Report The case will allow the new Kindle to be thinner than before, and Amazon is working on a solar-charged Kindle case, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Teardown of new iPad Pro 9.7-inch shows Apple makes it even harder to repair than original The smaller sibling loses the pull tabs that make the battery easier to remove from the iPad Pro 12.9″, according to teardown specialists iFixit.
Intel buys Yogitech, aims to bolster IoT safety efforts For Intel, Yogitech’s knowhow will allow it to create systems for autonomous vehicles and other areas of the Internet of things (IoT).
WhatsApp opens up end-to-end encryption for everyone Facebook-owned WhatsApp spent a year-and-a-half rolling out end-to-end encryption to its more than one billion users.
Nvidia steps up artificial intelligence push, launches new Tesla GPU, turnkey supercomputer Nvidia wants more data center wallet share as it launches new Tesla GPUs and pitches a turnkey supercomputer.
Splunk updates enterprise, cloud products with enhanced visualization tools Both Splunk Cloud and Splunk Enterprise include new interactive visualizations and an open library on Splunkbase where customers and partners can develop and share their custom visualizations.
What’s next for Microsoft’s ‘other’ three ERP suites Microsoft is readying new releases of its Dynamics NAV, GP and SL ERP offerings in the coming months. Integration with the company’s cloud services is a top priority, especially for Dynamics NAV.
PayPal cancels North Carolina expansion plans after passing of HB2 Just two weeks ago, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman stood next to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory to announce plans for a new $3.6 million global operations center in Charlotte.
How to get years of service from your rechargeable batteries Whether it’s a rechargeable battery inside a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, here are a set of tips to help you get the most from it.
Here’s how Apple made the iPhone SE so cheap Thank falling component costs, not Apple’s generosity, for the iPhone SE’s cut-down price tag.
VMware launches Boxer, a mobile mail app for AirWatch and Workspace ONE customers Boxer is a mail, calendar, and contacts app touted to have enterprise-level security features packaged in a consumer-grade user experience.
iPhone 6S, 6S Plus vulnerable to new lock screen bypass flaw Another reason to turn off Siri on the lock screen…
ServiceNow acquires cloud management startup ITapp Based in San Jose, ITapp is known for its cloud management software for the enterprise, which by all accounts appears to line right up with ServiceNow’s core offering.
How to quickly and easily find any setting on your iPhone or iPad For a lot of iPhone and iPad users, the Settings app in iOS can be a source of mystery and, when they’re trying to find a setting, frustration. Here’s a trick that will let you become an instant iOS expert, and find any setting quickly and easily.
Open source initiative taps analytics to solve Asia’s traffic jams Joint agreement between Grab, World Bank, and Philippines Department of Transportation and Communications aims to analyse real-time traffic data including speeds and intersection delays.
Dell updates hyperconverged lineup, to resell EMC’s VCE systems Dell lays some groundwork for its approach to hyperconverged infrastructure as its plan to buy EMC moves ahead.
Who’s in charge during a cyberattack? Pentagon doesn’t know A new government report criticizes the Defense Dept. for not clearly defining lead roles in the event of a cyberattack on the US.
Waterfield Designs celebrates 18 years with a Cargo bag facelift 10 years ago I took the Cargo Mambo Combo for a test drive. Today we see a legendary bag improved for today’s newest technology.
Be the first to comment on "Personal Tech: What Geeks are talking about from ZDNet Magazine"