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Can a hacker take over a passenger jet by sneaking in through its WiFi or in-flight entertainment system? The possibility of that occurring, as suggested by cybersecurity firm IOActive, has security experts hot under the collar....

I keep wondering when Apple is going to hear the alarm and respond tothe real iPad keyboard wakeup call. Apple can point to touch-basedapps all it wants -- even going so far as to partner with IBM to helpthe company deliver better enterprise mobile apps -- but the factremains: Some people just want to type on their damn iPad, and Apple'stouchscreen solutions suck...

Softbank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son on Tuesday announced sweeping changes for subsidiary Sprint Effective Aug. 11, President and CEO Dan Hesse is being replaced by Marcelo Claure, founder and CEO of Softbank subsidiary Brightstar. Also, Sprint has dropped plans to purchase T-Mobile....

The OpenStack project continues to be something of a lightning rod and also something of a dichotomy in the industry On one hand, it has drawn the involvement of hundreds of supporting vendors and more than 17,000 individual members. It ranks highly among priorities, particularly for private clouds, among 451 Research survey respondents....

Take a look at almost any sales software on the market, and you'll find the vendor's claim that the product accelerates the sales process. It's a given. For years, we've been trying to achieve this acceleration, and we've been succeeding. The only problem with this approach is that it can't go on forever. It's a form of expecting infinite growth based on limited resources...

The Wikimedia Foundation on Wednesday released its first-ever transparency report -- and along with it a protest against Europe's "right to be forgotten" law. Wikimedia is the nonprofit owner of Wikipedia and other sites "Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation began receiving notices that certain links to Wikipedia content would no longer appear in se...

NPR last week launched a mobile app that gives modern listeners a new way to access personalized radio content NPR One provides mobile device users a stream of news stories based on their preferences. They can curate a playlist of their favorite NPR podcasts -- such as Fresh Air, for instance -- as well as stories aired on their local public radio ...

BlackBerry -- the "sick man of mobile" -- is poised for better times That was the sentiment expressed by CEO John Chen in an internal memo distributed to BlackBerry employees last week....

Researchers from MIT, Microsoft and Adobe have developed an algorithm to extract audio information from video footage They recovered intelligible speech from a video of a potato chip bag that was shot at a distance of 15 feet behind soundproof glass. The team also obtained useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass o...

The U.S. Department of Transportation is drafting a notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM, that could restrict consumers' ability to talk on their cellphones during airplane flights Following last year's Federal Communications Commissionproposal to overturn decades-old rules barring in-flight cellphone use, the DoT earlier this year issued an invi...

Navdy has announced an aftermarket car heads-up display (HUD) console that lets drivers access their iOS or Android smartphone's apps without taking their eyes off the road Navdy's concept, Google Glass for cars, may be cool -- but the execution leaves something to be desired. If it were as unobtrusive as the above product image suggests, it might...

The Age of the Connected Car is dawning. The Linux Foundation is positioning an open source Linux OS to take the front seat in steering carmakers to adopting Automotive Grade Linux, or AGL, as the engine driving all in-car electronics Today's automobile has from 60 to 100 sensors to control everything from climate to airbags and dozens of vehicle c...

Qstream, a company that has developed a gamification-based app to help sales reps learn complex sales-related content, has broadened and deepened its functionality so the platform can be used in a number of scenarios. "We have expanded types of situations in which a company can use its Qstream license," Qstream cofounder and CEO Duncan Lennox told...

Apple reportedly is gearing up to do what it does best -- introduce a new gadget or two. Word is the company will hold a spellbinding iPhone event come Sept. 9 With the dust not quite settled over Apple's recently announced liaison with IBM, it will be interesting to see whether there are any new corporate nuances in the upcoming presentation. Will...

Smartphone maker Xiaomi has been on a tear. It has risen from a lowly device maker to king of the Chinese market in just a year, according to a new report from Canalys A year ago, Xiaomi held a 5 percent of China's second-quarter smartphone shipment rankings. By the first quarter of this year, the company had achieved a 10.7 percent market share, b...

Tesla and Panasonic last week signed what is effectively a memorandum of understanding regarding their collaboration on Tesla's Gigafactory -- a large-scale battery manufacturing facility The agreement sets out the responsibilities of both partners, but there will be further discussions over the details....

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last week sounded an alarm warning retailers of a family of malicious programs aimed at compromising point-of-sale systems. Attackers used such software last year in massive data breaches that nicked millions of consumer records at Target and Nieman Marcus Variants of the Backoff family -- capable of scrapin...

Online reviews are a modern-day fact of life for any company operating in the hospitality industry, but an Internet maelstrom erupted on Monday when one hotel's surprising response to that reality was brought to light Namely, the Union Street Guest House in upstate New York threatened to charge those who booked wedding parties at the venue US$500 f...

A routine scan of a Texas man's Gmail by Google has led to his arrest on child pornography possession and promotion charges John Henry Skillern, 41, of Houston was arrested by police July 30 following a tip by Google to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He has been charged with one count each of child pornography possession an...

The "free Windows 9" rumor once again is making the rounds. The buzz over Microsoft's supposed plan to offer users of Windows XP, Win 7, Win Vista and Win 8 a free upgrade to Windows 9 began in June, sparked by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, who just amplified it with more hints from her sources The second Windows 8.1 update will be delivered Aug. 12, whi...