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An international team of cybersecurity experts hacked into an iPhone loaned to a U.S. congressman who sits on a key technology committee, in a 60 Minutes demonstration of how easy it is for a criminal to spy on callers by exploiting an international mobile phone network vulnerability. The segment aired Sunday The hackers were able to listen in on a...

The HTC Vive drew accolades from a hyped-up base of gamers and virtual reality enthusiasts when it launched earlier this month -- just days after the release of the Oculus Rift. However, the Vive is proving to be an experience that is not for the faint of heart, the light of wallet, or the short of patience.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a petition to review a lower court decision allowing Google to scan and publish excerpts of copyright-protected books without asking for permission from the authors or paying them The petition, filed at the end of last year, was the latest move in the Guild's decade-long war with Google, wh...

LXLE is an ideal distro for out-of-the-box functionality to handle your everyday computing needs....

Amazon on Monday began offering Prime Video as a standalone service with a monthly subscription option Prime Video previously was offered only as part of a bundle with Amazon Prime, which is available for US$99 a year....

Google last week rolled out Goals in Google Calendar, a feature designed to help users achieve their personal goals Users set a goal, such as working out more often, and answer relevant questions, such as how often they want to work out and the best time for them to do so. Calendar then will sift through their schedules and select the best time to ...

The U.S. government's objectives for improving cybersecurity are taking shape in updated contracting procedures, contracts and projected increases in spending. Several recent developments have underscored the federal commitment to bolstering the protection of IT resources On the contracting front, the General Services Administration has asked vendo...

Two interesting events took place this month. Tesla announced its Model 3, a relatively affordable electric car, and it attracted around 180K preorders on the same day. That was before the company actually revealed the car. There were more than 250K preorders in the first 36 hours. Oh, and the run rate is about 1,500 per hour of preorders for this car right now. ...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday issued a warning to remove Apple's QuickTime for Windows. The alert came in response to Trend Micro's report of two security flaws in the software, which will never be patched because Apple has ended support for QuickTime for Windows. Computers running QuickTime are open to increased risk of mal...

An army of 39,000 workers this week went on strike against Verizon in one of the biggest labor actions in the U.S. in several years. Fast food workers have joined in a show of support, and both Democratic candidates for president have entered the fray. Thousands of wireline workers from Massachusetts to Virginia walked off the job at 6 a.m. Wednes...

Facebook on Wednesday demonstrated at its F8 developer conference how socializing could take place in a virtual world Two employees some 30 miles apart -- Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer in San Francisco and Product Manager Michael Booth in Menlo Park, California -- showed how they could share the same virtual space....

Shopify on Wednesday announced that it has agreed to purchaseKit CRM, whose Kit chatbot automatically sends out marketing text messages for online stores It also lets businesses run targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram, make recommendations based on store activities, post on social media and use functionality provided by other social media apps, ...

Microsoft on Thursday filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the gag orders that accompany requests to access customers' private emails and other data. The orders prevent the company from notifying affected customers about the government's demands The case is the fourth public lawsuit it has filed against the Justice Departme...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service's cybersecurity measures are woefully inadequate, according to testimony presented this week to the Senate Finance Committee The hearing was convened to examine how the IRS is safeguarding private taxpayer information this filing season and to determine what improvements may be necessary, said Sen. Orrin Hatch, the...

Facebook's WhatsApp last week announced it would roll out end-to-end encryption for its users to better protect their privacy, but the move could make the service more attractive to spammers, too While encryption can safeguard information from data thieves, it also can block data protectors from detecting malicious activity on their networks....

HTC this week unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the HTC 10 The phone's camera is outfitted with new, larger sensors and 12 million new-generation UltraPixels. Both the front and rear cameras sport the world's first optically stabilized, larger-aperture f/1.8 lenses on, the company said....

The FBI paid hackers to break onto the iPhone of the San Bernardino, California, shooter, according to a news report published Tuesday in The Washington Post The bureau obtained the services of gray hats, the Post said, citing unnamed sources. It apparently did not get help fromCellebrite, as earlier reports had suggested....

Hortonworks this week announced a series of enterprise security efforts to bolster performance and data safety with its Hortonworks Data Platform The company announced Tuesday thatPivotal Software will standardize on Hortonworks' Hadoop distribution. Hortonworks also will resell extract, transform and load tools developed bySyncsort....

Brave Software is a startup that has ratcheted the ad-blocking game to a new level, and it is raising a lot of stink in the online community. For many people, Web-based ads have become an intolerable, costly distraction. That has led to a variety of ad-blocking approaches. The use of ad-blocking software is growing, because users feel they are be...

TheInternational Drone Racing Association and ESPN on Wednesday announced a multiyear international media distribution deal Under the partnership, the network will showcase the 2016 U.S. National Drone Racing Championships, which will be held on Governors Island in New York City this summer....