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Your Apple device is full of sensors. The main five consist of a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, an accelerometer, a magnetometer and a gyroscopic sensor. Also included in these devices are radios, which aren't strictly sensors but which include the GPS for location services In this week's All Things Appy, we take a look at the five best...

This story was originally published on Aug. 29, 2013, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series In examining airplane crashes, investigators often discover that it's not one thing that causes the disaster. It's a chain of interrelated things that go wrong: A mechanical failure or weather event can elicit the wrong reaction...

This story was originally published on Sept. 30, 2013, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series Scientists from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology have demonstrated that light can behave in a way previously observed only in works of science fiction -- th...

As we approach the end of the year, it is time to look back on 2013 and consider what we've learned about technology and human nature. Both Apple and Dell were massively changed; HP, Yahoo and other companies were in various stages of being turned around; and Google went from a company that wanted our private information to one that wanted our jobs...

As most security and compliance pros already know, PCI 3.0 is now officially out The specific changes it includes have already been covered in quite a bit of detail elsewhere in the industry press, so I won't cover them all again here. However, one area that is often less discussed is how to use these changes to your advantage -- specifically, stra...

Nintendo's Wii U hasn't exactly been the smash hit that the company had surely hoped, and a year after the console's debut Nintendo is reportedly exploring a future that could include mobile apps With Angry Birds, Temple Run and other casual games dominating tablets and mobile phones, Nintendo faces increased competition in the mobile gaming space ...

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington and the Securities and Exchange Commission have lodged criminal and civil enforcement actions against a former senior portfolio manager at Microsoft and his friend, alleging insider trading. They also accuse the two of planning to use their illegal gains to launch a hedge fund.

The Federal Communications Commission this week released a proposal to kill the sports blackout rules that can prevent local TV broadcasts of games when a stadium doesn't sell out The rules regarding blackouts were adopted in 1975 when the majority of National Football League teams' revenue came from ticket sales, the proposal notes. The laws were ...

BlackBerry has announced dismal quarterly results, but its new chief executive officer, John Chen, still believes there's cause for optimism as the company strides into a new future The firm posted a loss of US$4.4 billion, compared with a profit of $9 million in the same quarter ending Nov. 30 last year, on revenue of $1.19 billion. Excluding one-...

Isopropyl alcohol is widely used as a solvent and a cleaning fluid, as well as in rubbing alcohol products, but researchers at two universities in Canada and the UK recently managed to use it to transmit a text message Nariman Farsad, a doctoral candidate at York University, led the experiment, working with Andrew Eckford, a professor at York, and ...

Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are selling close to 70 million shares of Class A common stock, which carries one vote per share, in advance of the company's being listed on the S&P 500 index this month Facebook will use its proceeds from the sale of 27 million shares for working capital and other general corporate purposes, but it does not yet ha...

Verizon on Thursday said it will release a semiannual report about the data requests it receives from the government. It is the first major telecom to make such a move Verizon and other tech industry giants have come under fire for cooperating with government surveillance programs. Verizon and AT&T in particular were named in documents leaked by fo...

A humanoid robot named "Kirobo" has had a chat with a Japanese astronaut on the International Space Station ...

As the 2013 International CES approached a year ago, it was clear that a showdown between OLED and 4K -- or UltraHD -- was brewing in the TV display market. A year later, that showdown is fully under way, but with a notable twist Specifically, Panasonic's announcement in late October that it would exit the plasma displaypanel market in the coming m...

Companies that sell direct have it easy. They have control over hiring their salespeople, control over marketing messages, and control over service and support. There's only one entity to blame if the buyer's unhappy, and that's the seller. When you mix in an indirect channel, however, things get a little more difficult. Now a third party has an i...

Accelerometers, GPS receivers and other sensors in your smartphone let you track your outdoor activities in ways that go beyond just the common map In this week's All Things Appy, we take a look at the top five free apps for exploring, including options for fine-tuning your GPS, measuring headings and bearings, logging your tracks and reckoning dis...

Delta Air Lines this week announced that it will ban in-flight cellphone calls amid growing opposition to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's proposal to allow them Delta employees, particularly flight crews, are opposed to on-board cellphone calls, CEO Richard Anderson said in a memo to the company's 80,000 employees worldwide.

Amazon is charting a new course as it prepares to expand its Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform to China. The company will start inviting select businesses there to take advantage of the platform as part of a limited preview. Amazon will extend invitations to both China-based and multinational companies with customers in the region in ea...

For the third time in three years, computers at The Washington Post came under attack by hackers, but this time it seems the paper of record in the U.S. capital was ready for them The intrusion targeting the usernames and passwords of Post employees was relatively short in duration -- a few days, at most -- although the magnitude of the breach has ...

A task force set up by President Obama to review the United States National Security Agency's surveillance activities has suggested a list of what it calls "significant" reforms, including restrictions on spying Among the recommendations:...