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Banks and businesses toiled over the weekend to crush a bug in a widely used open source operating system The flaw has been in Unix for some 25 years, but it was revealed just last week. If exploited by an attacker, the vulnerability in BASH (Bourne-Again SHell) could be used to inject malicious code or take command of a system or device....

Apple's iOS 8 is a free upgrade for iPhone owners who have an iPhone 4s up to the new behemoth iPhone 6 Plus. On the surface, iOS 8 looks a lot like iOS 7, but when you begin tapping down into it, there are dozens of new features and tweaks. Most everyone can find a few new features they can put to work to make their iPhones better than ever. Some...

Sales people love leads. They want lots of them, and they want them now. The more leads, the more money -- because sales is a numbers game, right? Well, yes and no. Some believe in an equation that says X number of leads will produce Y number of closed deals. If you make X greater, Y will be greater, too, right? ...

"There's a sucker born every minute." What's kind of funny about that famous quote is that there is no record of P.T. Barnum ever saying it, and there's a lot of evidence he was too smart to have done so. Whether Barnum made the observation or whether those words were uttered by any number of con men instead, the fact remains we are often excessive...

Welcome to Gadget Dreams And Nightmares, a peek at the latest products to sneak out of consumer electronics labs In this week's installment: a flip-style smartphone, a fashionable soundbar, a light bulb full of bright ideas, and a pair of gizmos that just received their U.S. debut dates....

Linux -- the free, open-source operating system for enterprise, small business, and home computing use -- is not used everywhere yet. However, its user base crosses nearly every industry Linux is in many places today. It's in consumer products like TVs and computer networking gear. Linux drives services that users do not even know run Linux. Think ...

FBI Director James Comey on Thursday strongly criticized Apple and Google for hardening information stored in smartphones by encrypting data, making it inaccessible to law enforcement even with a court order The FBI has had conversations with both Apple and Google over the encryption features, Comey told reporters at a media session in Washington, ...

With the launch on Friday of its latest original series, Transparent, Amazon may be signaling its intention to challenge Netflix in the streaming video market. Amazon already has earned praise for its original programming, but it hasn't reached the critical or audience success of Netflix offerings such as House of Cards or Orange Is the New Black.

Apple has been plagued by two iPhone 6 issues in recent days: 1) an update to its iOS 8 operating system wound up disrupting cellular connectivity and disabling the Touch ID fingerprint reader to unlock it; and 2) numerous reports surfaced in mainstream and social media that the new iPhone 6 bends. About the iOS 8 issue, Apple has been most apolog...

Desktop computer users are more satisfied with their devices than laptop and tablet owners, according to a recent American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. However, the category of personal computer satisfaction in general appears to be somewhat in the dumps. The annual measure of satisfaction fell 1.3 points to a score of 78 out of a possible 100.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday gave the green light for six aerial photo and video production companies to begin using unmanned aircraft systems, also known as "drones." To incorporate the devices in film and TV production, the companies will be required to hold private pilot certificates, keep their drones within line of sight at ...

The Pale Moon Web browser project solves a problem that many Mozilla Firefox users would like to solve. It is a fork of Mozilla's official browser developed by Moonchild Productions that provides users with access to all of their favorite Firefox extensions but eliminates the Australis interface, which some dislike Firefox debuted the new user inte...

CRM system users are a versatile bunch. Some 29 percent of participants in a recent survey accessed CRM through four devices: laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphones. Twenty percent said they used a combination of three of the aforementioned form factors, and about 81 percent said they used multiple devices to access CRM, according to Software Advice's report.

Apple on Thursday announced it's preparing iOS 8.0.2 -- which will include a fix for problems triggered by iOS 8.0.1 -- and plans to release it in the next few days In a rare move, Apple on Wednesday suspended downloads of iOS 8.0.1, which aimed to fix problems uncovered after the launch of iOS 8.

Researchers on Thursday discovered proof-of-concept code that could take advantage of unpatched computer systems, and found evidence of attacks exploiting the BASH Shellshock bug in the wild. Shellshock, which came to light on Wednesday, could become a major threat to Linux/Unix and Apple operating systems if published patches to BASH are not appl...

The United States Postal Service recently filed a request with the Postal Regulatory Commission for approval of a two-year test that would expand its collaboration with AmazonFresh, a service that offers same-day delivery of perishable groceries and other items. The postal service said the expanded test could bring in revenue of more than US$10 million a year.

Walk into any store that sells software and you will find antivirus software from companies like Norton, ESET, McAfee and Kaspersky. Over the last few years, the risk has spread from our computers to our smartphones and our tablets. The next thing we will have to protect may be our cars -- and our lives could depend on it. We used to think the com...

When Apple -- which is clearly one of the world's best companies at design -- makes a misstep, it's amplified by a wild combination of user dismay and hater glee. Because there are millions of users and many haters, a design flaw can turn into an instant public relations tornado Enter Bendgate, featuring the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus....

Comcast on Tuesday lashed out at critics of its US$45.2 billion bid for Time Warner Cable, including accusing Discovery Communications of making "extortionate demands." The proposed merger would result in increased investment, innovation and competition and so is pro-consumer and in the public interest, Comcast maintained.

One of the essential draws to open-source software should be superior product documentation. Well-written user guidelines are a key strategy that software developers should use to increase an open-source project's growth and user adoption All too often, programmers finish their last line of code and shove the open source software out the door -- or...