AOC P2779VC 27-inch 1080p display has integrated Qi wireless charging

1080p monitors are a dime a dozen nowadays -- the market is saturated with them. Heck, many people are opting for displays with much better resolution too. In other words, it is virtually impossible to have a 1080p monitor stand out from the crowd. And yet, AOC has managed to do so. How? The company has integrated a Qi charger into the base of its newest 27-inch monitor -- the P2779VC. If you own a compatible smartphone, you can charge it wirelessly by placing it on the monitor. That unique feature aside, this PLS display has other cool aspects too, such as… [Continue Reading]

BMW will invest €500 million in automotive startups

BMW Group has announced that its i Ventures division will be investing €500 million over the next 10 years on new car technologies in an effort to bolster its progress in developing autonomous vehicles. The company's i Ventures division will use the money to invest in startups working on technologies such as autonomous driving and mapping that will allow BMW to improve its cars by making them both more intelligent and efficient. BMW made the announcement via its website this week and its decision to invest in new technologies comes at a time when the company has begun to lose… [Continue Reading]

Mesh Networking: An alternative internet?

Currently, in order to exchange information on a computer or smartphone, we transfer it over the internet. This may take many different forms -- a web browser, email client, app or cloud storage -- but at the end of the day, you’re sending packets of information to another computer via the now-ubiquitous internet. Since we interact with this system all of the time, we no longer think about "going online". For many people, it’s just a natural state. If you step back a little bit, you’ll remember that the internet isn’t the only way to transfer computer information. Disks, CDs… [Continue Reading]

The 'age of automation' can benefit the security landscape

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation are technology trends dominating discussions in many different industries at the moment and cyber security is no exception. As cyber criminals become more advanced and the threat landscape continues to develop, businesses are looking to new technologies that can help secure their organization in a more proactive way. According to Dave Palmer, director of technology at Darktrace, this move to the so-called "age of automation" is an inevitable and much needed one: "When you think about networks getting faster and big data, it’s been just as useful for the bad guys as it… [Continue Reading]

The UK government's latest deluded idea: 'banning' underage sexting on social media

When the UK government is not busy looking for ways to invade internet users' privacy, it's looking for ways to restrict what they are able to do online -- particularly when it comes to things of a sexual nature. The health secretary Jeremy Hunt has made calls for technology companies and social media to do more to tackle the problems of cyberbullying, online intimidation and -- rather specifically -- under-18-year-olds texting sexually explicit images. Of course, he doesn't have the slightest idea about how to go about tackling these problems, but he has expressed his concern so that, in conjunction… [Continue Reading]

Google brings 4K video live streaming to YouTube

While 1080p may look "good enough" to you, once you move to a higher resolution display, it is hard to go back. Prices for both 4K monitors and televisions continue to drop, meaning more and more consumers are buying them. During this past Black Friday, there were many such TVs being offered with big discounts. Now that there are a healthy amount of these displays in the wild, content creators will be more motivated to release content in that resolution -- movies, TV, and video games. While Google added 4K playback to YouTube years ago, it did not offer live… [Continue Reading]

PC market shows signs of recovery

PC shipments will continue to decline in 2016, according to a new IDC forecast, but the drop will be slightly lower than previously expected. What's more, things will improve even more in 2017. IDC expects PC vendors to ship a total of 258.2 million units this year, a figure which would be 6.4 percent lower than last year. The previous estimate was a 7.2 percent fall, which IDC announced in August. Growth will still be negative in 2017, but shipments are expected to decrease by just 2.6 percent compared to this year. IDC believes that commercial shipments of notebooks will… [Continue Reading]

Symbol-to-accept strengthens multi-factor authentication

One of the more popular ways of securing logins in recent times has been the use of push-to-accept technology, sending a verification message to a user's mobile device. However, this runs the risk of users inadvertently approving login requests that they didn't initiate. Adaptive access company SecureAuth is launching its new Symbol-to-accept technology to boost security without sacrificing convenience. The way it works is that a push message is still sent to the user's mobile, but using Symbol-to-accept, the user is presented with several 'accept' buttons displaying single, randomly-selected symbols. To successfully log in, the user selects the symbol that matches one… [Continue Reading]

Netflix now lets you watch your favorite movies and TV shows offline

Many people stream their favorite movies and TV shows today through Netflix. The service, which boasts around 86 million subscribers, is available on all the major platforms, making it easy for users to enjoy it pretty much everywhere and on every PC, smartphone and tablet. That is, as long as there is a working Internet connection. That changes today, as Netflix announces that it is also making its content available offline. Users are now able to download movies and TV shows and watch them while, for instance, traveling on an airplane or in a remote area. Here is what you… [Continue Reading]

60 percent of enterprises have fallen victim to social engineering in 2016

A new study from cyber security company Agari reveals the scale of social engineering attacks on industrial organizations across the US. Of over 200 security leaders surveyed 60 percent say their organizations were, or may have been, victim of at least one targeted social engineering attack in the past year, and 65 percent of those who were attacked say that employees' credentials were compromised as a result. In addition, financial accounts were breached in 17 percent of attacks. Among other findings are that 89 percent of respondents have seen either a steady pace or an increase in spear phishing and… [Continue Reading]

Free online test can tell if you're 'pre-disposed' to negative or bad behavior

In the 2002 movie Minority Report, a law enforcement squad called "Precrime" arrests future criminals before they commit their act. Imagine if businesses could predict the future behavior of potential employees before hiring (or not hiring) them? That’s what Veris Benchmarks’ products aim to achieve. The company also offers Veris Prime, is a free online test that you can take for yourself, and which measures your personal trustworthiness and shows how your results compare to white collar criminals. The test consists of 40 multiple choice questions, and requires around ten minutes to complete. You need to enter an email address,… [Continue Reading]

C programming language showing signs of weakening in 2016

Created in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie, C is a dinosaur among computing languages. It’s large, powerful, and has dominated the programming ecosystem for over three decades. Technology changes every few years, and today there are hundreds of programming languages. It’s remarkable that one language has been able to remain so popular over the years, and there’s a reason for that. Software developer Daniel Angel Munoz Trejo sums up C’s benefits well when he writes, "its closeness to the hardware, great portability and deterministic usage of resources make it ideal for low-level development for such things as operating systems kernels and… [Continue Reading]

Get regular 'take a break' reminders with stretchly

Stretchly is an open-source tool which displays regular "take a break" reminders when you’re working on your PC, Linux system or Mac. There are plenty of similar tools around, but stretchly has some unusual touches which help it stand out from the crowd. Application size isn’t a strong point: 134MB, really?! But that’s what you get with Electron apps, and at least there’s no need to install anything: just unzip and go. The program immediately minimizes to your system tray and leaves you to work as usual. No bulky scheduling or setup dialog here. After 10 minutes (by default) an… [Continue Reading]

New Android malware breaches over a million Google accounts

Researchers at cyber security company Check Point have uncovered a new malware variant that has breached more than a million accounts and is infecting over 13,000 Android devices a day. Called Gooligan, the malware roots Android devices and steals email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them. With this information, attackers are able to access users' sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, and G Suite. It also generates revenue for the criminals by fraudulently installing apps from Google Play and rating them on behalf of the victim. Gooligan is installing 30,000 apps daily on breached devices,… [Continue Reading]

AWS could become Amazon's biggest business

Holiday sales from Black Friday and Cyber Monday could very well help Amazon hit its target of $134 billion in annual sales, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could make up for $12 billion of it The company began offering web services to its customers over 10 years ago and in recent years this division has grown from a small to significant portion of the online retailer's business. AWS currently operates in 38 availability zones within 14 geographic locations and large companies such as Netflix, Adobe and Spotify have turned to the company for hosting and operating their websites and services. Andy… [Continue Reading]

Turn your Raspberry Pi into a 3D Christmas tree with this new board

If you need help to get into the festive spirit, and an Eggnog Latte from Starbucks isn’t quite cutting it, perhaps transforming a Raspberry Pi into an illuminated 3D Christmas tree will do the trick. The Pi Hut has created a Christmas tree board kit that you simply assemble and plug into your Pi. Once done, sit back and feel the joys of the holiday season as they come rushing towards you. Ho, ho, and indeed ho. The tree offers 25 individually controlled LEDs -- 24 red and one white (for the star on top), and hidden "stars" cut at… [Continue Reading]

Sentiment analysis helps sales teams measure customer reaction

One of the problems sales teams face is knowing how their pitches, presentations and marketing materials are perceived by the customer. Cloud-based sales and content management platform Pitcher is hoping to offer teams better insight with its newly patented Sentiment Analysis Module (SAM). SAM allows sales representatives working in the field to seamlessly gauge and analyze customer reactions to sales and marketing materials, presentations and pitches in real-time. It gives front-line teams the ability to engage their customers and collect sentiment reactions to pitch materials, which are expressed either verbally or through gestures. While sharing content that highlights product offerings,… [Continue Reading]