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Microsoft's objections to a court order requiring it to turn over a customer's emails held on a server in Ireland have been rejected Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week issued an oral ruling in the case, reportedly saying the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1996 (ECPA) authorizes ...

When the "Guns of August" began firing 100 years ago, few expected it to be a long war, and fewer still expected it to be a "World War." However, the "Great War," as it was known to contemporaries, in fact, was destined to become the First World War -- and it truly was the first modern war Today it is easy to look back at the Second World War for p...

The U.S. government's foray into cloud computing could hardly be called "mature," but it appears to be moving from infancy to something akin to pre-teen status. Agencies increasingly are embracing the cloud, and the pace of acquisition reflects more comfort with the solution. Several recently launched initiatives affect federal agencies and technology vendors in the cloud acquisition process, for example...

There are a lot of things going on at the moment. Israel is tactically defending itself against Hamas -- winning the battles but losing the war, because the Israeli government can't see the big picture. The U.S. is still blaming Snowden for leaks, even though Russia clearly is able to pull damaging information pretty much anytime it wants without Snowden's help -- and this is nothing new. ...

News that two Carnegie-Mellon CERT researchers have developed an inexpensive way to breach the Tor network has the project, privacy advocates, and probably criminals who use the network equally concerned The Tor Project posted has advised relays to upgrade to Tor 0.2.r.23e or 0.2.5.6-alpha to close the protocol vulnerability used by the researchers...

Facebook is set for another legal battle over privacy, with a fresh class-action lawsuit fired up against the company The legal action is the brainchild of Austrian law student Max Schrems, a noted campaigner against Facebook's treatment of user privacy. Schrems called on adult Facebook users around the world to join his suit after he filed a compl...

Google on Wednesday unveiled a handful of new features for Google Apps for Business designed to attract more enterprise customers Google Hangouts, its video chat service, will be further integrated into Google's enterprise suite, entitling Google Apps for Business customers to the same level of support they get with services like Google Drive and b...

USB flash drives could be at risk of a pernicious attack on their firmware Over the past two decades, USB devices, aka "thumb drives," have proliferated all over the world, because USB has proven to be a versatile standard. That versatility, though, also makes USB devices vulnerable to what could be a very nasty firmware attack by hackers, noted Ka...

I try hard to ignore the really dumb things people say when they talkout their backsides about tech, and I personally know how hard it isto come up with excellent tech focused opinions -- as opposedto rehashing the day's latest news with an ironic or humorous spin.And here's the "but"... I was absolutely floored by John C.Dvorak's post, "TheApple iTime Is Destined to Fail," published this week by PCmag.com.

Oracle is taking flak over the in-memory database (IMDB) option in Oracle Database 12c, released publicly on Wednesday The trouble began when Kevin Closson, formerly the performance architect in Oracle's Exadata development group, pointed out that the option is turned on by default....

Note-taking applications in Linux are a dime a dozen. It can be difficult to sort through the feature sets to find the best solution. MyNotex has a near-perfect combination of features and uniqueness to put it into a class of its own.MyNotex is a multipurpose tool to take notes, file documents, and manage information or research. It is available i...

Sony's PlayStation Now on Thursday entered open beta, making it available for the first time to all PlayStation 4 owners in the U.S. and Canada. The game-streaming service had been in a private beta period since January. PS4 users now can choose from a library of more than 100 titles for rental periods from four hours to 90 days. Pricing ranges fr...

Russia reportedly wants Apple and SAP to turn over their source code in yet another instance of fallout resulting from leaks about NSA surveillance activities The suggestion came last week, Reuters reported, when Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov met with executives of the two companies: Peter Nielsen, Apple's general manager in Russia; and...

The Internet.org collective's mission of bringing the entire planet online took a step forward Thursday with the release of an app affording limited free mobile Internet access to users in Zambia While around 85 percent of the world's people are located in areas with cellular network connectivity, only 30 percent access the Internet. In Zambia, jus...

LittleBits, the maker of what might best be thought of as electronic Lego kits, last week launched cloudBit, a module that provides users with access to the Internet The company also announced RadioShack as its first retail partner....

Target last week introduced In a Snap, a new image-recognition app that lets users buy products from the pages of select magazine and printed ads. It is unlike earlier variations of such apps in that consumers don't have to scan codes or follow a link to buy a product. It works like this: You select an ad and take a picture with your mobile device...

If you have been following business and personal technology in recent years, you've seen a quantum leap forward. Unfortunately, education is not moving ahead as quickly. Technology can help, though, and C Spire is setting a good example, propelling Mississippi schools forward C Spire is helping schools and entire cities create a quantum leap of the...

Microsoft is preparing to debut an update to its Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, which includes expansion of its Cortana personal assistant availability to more regions The update introduces Cortana to China and the UK in beta form, and Canada, India and Australia in alpha mode....

I was impressed by the announcement by Salesforce.com last week of a new product combination it calls "Sales Reach." It's supposed to be a mashup of sorts between Sales Cloud, Pardot and Communities functionality that helps reps run micro-campaigns, perform nurturing and develop communities. As someone who once carried a bag for a living, my reac...

Old tricks that have helped hackers penetrate computers for months or longer worked again last week at Goodwill and Stubhub Taking a page from the gang that pillaged payment card and personal information from Target last year, hackers clipped payment card information from an undisclosed number of Goodwill Industries International customers....