Articles by

Google on Wednesday announced Fi, a program that combines the wireless networks of Google carrier partners Sprint and T-Mobile with more than 1 million free, open WiFi hotspots Google has verified as fast and reliable. ...

Illumio, a 2-year-old cybersecurity startup, last week announced it had raised US$100 million in a Series C round of financing, bringing its total funding over the past 27 months to more than $142 million New investors Accel Partners and BlackRock Funds joined Investors Formation 8, Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst in the round. Other inves...

The dynamic world of information technology calls for a future-oriented approach to IT management. However, government agencies too often may be looking backward rather than forward with respect to how they operate IT systems, especially when it comes to investing huge sums of taxpayer money into those resources Two recent assessments of government...

As data breaches make headlines around the world, more companies are turning to encryption to protect their information jewels. That is one of the findings in a study released Monday, conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Thales E-Security "Mega breaches and cyber attacks have increased companies' urgency to improve their security pos...

You can tell when the economy is doing well, because instead of worrying about how you're going to make the next mortgage payment, you worry about the next disruption in business. It looks like the big worry on the horizon now is the digital disruption, a nice piece of alliteration designed to make you question your worth The "DD," as I'll call it,...

Google on Tuesday initiated changes to its search algorithm to address increased use of mobile devices, and there is about a week left before the full impact of its new metric is felt in full Mobile traffic overtook desktop traffic for the first time last year, and that dynamic is not expected to revert to the way things were -- ever. By some estim...

Canonical on Tuesday announced the release of Ubuntu 15.04, aka "Vivid Vervet," as in East African monkey. It will be available for download on Thursday The new OS offers tools for cloud, device, client and Internet of Things development. The Ubuntu desktop release includes mostly maintenance and bug fixes, along with new integrated menus and dashb...

The CIA has been trying to hack into iOS for years. British and American agencies reportedly have collaborated to create a map of the Internet and Web users. The United States National Security Agency has, together with the UK's GCHQ, reportedly stolen SIM card encryption keys from Gemalto. The FBI is frothing at the mouth over Google's and Apple's encryption of their mobile OSes. Vulnerabilities in Signaling System 7 telephony protocols let third parties eavesdrop on cellphone calls and intercept text messages, despite encryption...

Consumers have gotten on board with the concept of buying apparel online. Especially in this era of free returns and nifty sizing tools, buying clothing and shoes off the Web has become mainstream. However, some advertisers have been slow to respond. While most of us have at some point been served ads displaying the pair of boots or running tights...

In an earlier chapter in my career, I had the seemingly lofty title of "software and intelligence editor" at Telephony magazine. That gave me a lot of insight into the telecommunications industry. Even back in 1996, telecom was experiencing a "big data" problem. It wasn't a problem of collection -- no, telephone companies collect more data than almost any other industry, recording call times and durations, as well as the numbers their customers dialed.

Google on Monday released an update to Android Wear -- just the second significant feature refresh for its wearable device software since its introduction more than a year ago "This update is overdue," said Ian Fogg, senior director and head of the mobile and telecoms team at IHS Technology....

Nokia will release a new smartphone by the end of 2016, a pair of unnamed sources told Re/code. The company neither confirmed nor denied the report....

The U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, part of the U.S. 10th Fleet, is developing a strategy for modernizing its cyberoperations and transforming the Navy's network into a cyberwarfare platform, C4ISRNetworks reported earlier this month The strategy will seek to advance five key goals:...

Lawyers help their clients as they negotiate confidential business transactions, hold intellectual property, manage funds and litigate disputes, among many other business activities. In the ordinary course of business, lawyers also maintain numerous confidential documents and data of and about their clients As a result, lawyers have a big bull's-ey...

Virtual and augmented reality and holographic image technologies are coming at us with the speed of a freight train, and it won't be long until we'll no longer be able to distinguish between what is real and what isn't. How we are getting there is kind of interesting. There are some initiatives going on behind the scenes, as well as some breakthroughs, that shortly will make our experience of the world we are living in very different from what it is now. ...

Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that holds your hand to guide you past the abyss of dreadful new gadgets to the cavern of newly announced wonders On our journey this week, you'll find a fitness tracker with an impressive battery life, a wearable that's got game, a classic beverage maker with a new spin, and possibly the most clu...

Microsoft and Yahoo on Thursday announced they were altering a search partnership that has been in place since 2009 Under the amended agreement, Yahoo no longer will exclusively serve Bing ads and search results for its desktop traffic. That means Yahoo can sell some of that desktop traffic to another party....

Self-driving vehicles could increase the likelihood of motion sickness in some riders, suggests a University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study released last week. Motion sickness, also known as "kinetosis," is a condition marked by symptoms of nausea, dizziness and other physical discomfort.

Jawbone on Wednesday announced its new UP2 and UP4 fitness bands, based on designs that were reworked "ounce for ounce," according to the company. The US$99 UP2, which launched Wednesday, tracks activities and monitors the quality of sleep, doing so for up to seven days on a single charge. All of the essentials are covered, from steps taken and ca...

China, which censors the Internet with its Great Firewall aka the "Golden Shield," has a new censorship tool that is causing alarm. It's known as the "Great Cannon." The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab identified the tool in a report released last week....