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BetaNews.Com (22 non lus)

Facebook uses Irish headquarters to skirt privacy laws

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 11:59pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Facebook has won an appeal against a court ruling that said the social network could not store data about people who did not have an account. It had been ruled that Facebook could not gather data about non-users in Belgium; Facebook responded by blocking access to those without an account. Back in 2015, Facebook was told to stop this blocking or face hefty daily fines. Facebook felt that the ruling was unfair and appealed. In a new ruling today, the Brussels Court of Appeal said: "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is… [Continue Reading]
Facebook opens up about how it controls your newsfeed

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 8:39pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Earlier today, Facebook announced the latest tweak to newsfeeds. Having denied being politically bias towards Brexit, or having a liberal leaning, Facebook continues to face question and criticism about how its news feeds and trending topics are formulated. As well as updating the way newsfeeds are populated, Facebook today revealed just how it choses what appears in your newsfeeds. This isn’t a case of full transparency, but it is an interesting insight nonetheless. At a press briefing, the company revealed a little of the inner workings of the newsfeed, reiterating that the most recent change is all about ensuring that… [Continue Reading]
HPE will lose its CTO and COO by 2017

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 8:39pm CEST par Anthony Spadafora

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) will be losing its CTO Martin Fink and its COO John Hinshaw at the end of 2016. Fink, who was the head of HP Labs, is set to retire after spending over 30 years at the company. In a corporate blog post, Meg Whitman, the CEO of HPE wrote: "Martin has had a remarkable career, driving some of our most important initiatives including our cloud, open source and Linux strategies and leading the Business Critical Systems division". HPE Labs will shift to the firm’s Enterprise Group where it will now fall under executive vice president Antonio… [Continue Reading]
Amazon subsidizing unlocked smartphones with ads -- a big win for Prime members

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 7:12pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

When Amazon launched its Kindle 'with offers', some folks likely groaned at the prospect of getting a discount on the device in exchange for advertisements. Me? I loved it. Seeing advertisements doesn't bother me, and I find a lower cost for the hardware to be a reasonable trade-off. Today, Amazon announces that it is expanding the program beyond its own hardware. Prime members exclusively can now buy unlocked Android phones with ads on the lock screen. If you are OK with this, you can score some extreme discounts -- up to 50 percent off! Initially, there are just two devices being offered,… [Continue Reading]
IT pros training CEOs to spot phishing attacks

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 7:09pm CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

Out of 300 IT professionals attending the Infosecurity Europe conference, almost half (49 percent) believe their CEO has fallen victim to a targeted phishing attack. The results have been published in a new paper by unified security management and crowd-sourced threat intelligence company, AlienVault. More than three quarters (82 percent) still worry their CEO might be vulnerable to such attacks, but many fail to educate their CEOs and help them spot them. Less than half (45 percent) are training everyone in their organization, including the CEO, to spot phishing attempts, 35 percent offer such training to "most employees", while 20… [Continue Reading]
Facebook tweaks its newsfeed, yet again, so you'll see more posts from people you actually know

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 5:48pm CEST par Mark Wilson

When it's not messing around with privacy settings and manipulating trending topics, there's nothing Facebook seems to like more than to tinker with timelines. Today the social network announces the latest changes to your newsfeed -- now you should see more posts from your friends and family. The problem we currently face, Facebook says, is that there is "far too much information for any one person to consume". This is where algorithms come into play, meddling with timelines and newsfeeds in ways that never please everyone. The latest change promises that content from "the friends you care about" will appear… [Continue Reading]
72 percent of companies plan to ditch passwords by 2025

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 5:00pm CEST par Ian Barker

Security professionals increasingly believe that usernames and passwords provide insufficient security, and 72 percent think they will be phased out within nine years. This is among the findings from mobile identity company TeleSign which also shows that security professionals are increasingly turning to effective, easy to implement technologies such as behavioral biometrics and two-factor authentication to secure user accounts. "The vast majority of security professionals no longer trust the password to do its job," says Ryan Disraeli, co-founder of TeleSign. "Thankfully, most companies aren't resigning themselves or their users to password-only account security. They are implementing two-factor authentication in droves and… [Continue Reading]
Public Wi-Fi is unsecure

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 4:51pm CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

People are aware of the risks that come with using Wi-Fi, but generally believe public hotspots, like those on airports, are secure. Those are the results published in Norton’s latest Wi-Fi Risk Report 2016, which said 64 percent of UK’s adults assume public Wi-Fi is safe enough to use. However, Norton says this couldn’t be further from the truth. "We know many consumers believe that using a password to access public Wi-Fi means their information is safe, but that’s not necessarily the case", said Nick Shaw, vice president and general manager at Norton EMEA. By using these networks, people often… [Continue Reading]
Windows 10 is now on 350 million devices

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 3:47pm CEST par Wayne Williams

Just under two months ago, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 was on 300 million devices. That’s a sizeable number, achieved in around nine months. Today, in officially announcing the launch date of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft says the number of devices running the OS has jumped to over 350 million. That doesn’t mean there are 350 million users out there, of course. As we’ve seen with Microsoft’s own market share figures, the company counts all devices running Windows 10, including those on computers and tablets in shops and warehouses around the world that have yet to be sold.… [Continue Reading]
Transform pictures into LEGO mosaics with Legoaizer

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 3:44pm CEST par Mike Williams

Legoaizer is a mosaic builder with a twist. Point the program at a JPG and instead of just pixelating it, Legoaizer creates the mosaic from LEGO bricks. Getting started is easy: open a picture, click "Create Mosaic", and within a few seconds the LEGO-ized version appears. Spin your mouse wheel over the picture to zoom in and see the individual bricks, then save the image as a JPG, BMP or PNG file. The results you’ll get can vary, depending on the colors in the source image. If your mosaic doesn’t look much like the picture, you’re able to play around… [Continue Reading]
Microsoft's back to school deal helps students save $300 on Surface and Xbox One bundle

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 3:29pm CEST par Mihăiță Bamburic

Microsoft today introduces a pretty sweet back to school deal, giving students the option to save $300 with the purchase of a Surface device and an Xbox One console. Part of the bundle are three free extras, one of which is a wireless controller. The promo is valid for all configurations of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, and starts at just $878. For the money, students get the base Surface Pro 4 and a 500GB Xbox One game bundle. The two devices are normally available to students for $809.10 and $279, respectively, when purchased separately. The Surface +… [Continue Reading]
VLC 2.0 app now publicly available for Windows 10 devices

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 3:29pm CEST par Mihăiță Bamburic

VideoLAN today releases the first public beta build of VLC for Windows 10. Now a universal app, it comes with the same core feature set as the Android and iOS apps but also a few platform-specific extras. VLC 2.0.0 is compatible with all the common Windows 10 devices, including smartphones. The main features that VLC 2.0.0 brings to the table are the vast audio and video format support, the ability to view and download subtitles and synchronize audio and video, and a network sharing browser. Additionally for Windows 10 users, it also plays well with key features like Cortana and… [Continue Reading]
Microsoft confirms Windows 10 Anniversary Update is coming August 2 -- here's what’s new

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 2:45pm CEST par Wayne Williams

Yesterday, Microsoft accidentally leaked the news that the eagerly awaited Windows 10 Anniversary Update is now set to arrive on August 2, and today the software giant confirms the news, along with details of what to expect from the update. If you’re a Windows Insider, or have been following news of the various Insider Preview builds, you’ll know there’s a lot of new features and improvements in the update. Here are some of the headline changes: Revamped Start menu -- The All Apps list is now permanently on display, and a small sidebar provides links to Power, File Explorer and… [Continue Reading]
Google's creepy My Activity page reveals the terrifying amount of data collected about you

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 1:29pm CEST par Mark Wilson

That Google gathers data about you is not news. If you use Google products, it's something you've decided to put up with -- either that, or you live in blissful ignorance of. Whether you're using Gmail and YouTube online, Google keyboard on your Android smartphone, Chrome across platforms, or whatever, being a Google user means handing over an awful lot of personal information. But just how much does Google know about you? If you use the voice-activated "OK, Google" feature of your phone, there are probably lots of recordings of you stored online; what about everything else? Google has now… [Continue Reading]
Use of encryption in enterprises is at all time high

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 1:19pm CEST par Ian Barker

The use of encryption in global organizations is now at an all-time high, with 41 percent using it extensively today -- a seven percent rise over last year. This is among the findings of a Global Encryption report from Thales e-Security and the Ponemon Institute which shows that businesses are taking action to guard their sensitive data. Database encryption has risen from 42 percent to 61 percent in the past year among companies with a mature encryption strategy in place. Following Heartbleed and other SSL vulnerabilities, internet communications (SSL/TLS) have also seen a huge increase in the use of encryption,… [Continue Reading]
Ad personalization from Google -- giving power to the people, or a privacy nightmare?

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 11:49am CEST par Mark Wilson

Online ads aren’t going away anytime soon, and that'll keep the likes of Adblock Plus in business for the foreseeable future. But if you choose not to use an ad blocker and are therefore going to be bombarded with ads, they might as well be ads that are relevant to you, right? Google is rolling out a new feature that enables users to choose the topics they are interested in so the ads they see will be more appropriate to them. But as well as improving the ad experience for users, the new scheme means that advertisers are handed even… [Continue Reading]
75 percent of IT pros lack visibility into their hybrid clouds

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 11:42am CEST par Ian Barker

A majority of organizations lack visibility into their cloud infrastructure, file shares, user activity and mobile devices, according to a new survey. The study from cloud governance specialist Netwrix reveals that almost 65 percent of organizations do not have complete visibility into user, IT and third-party activity in their IT infrastructure. In addition 75 percent of respondents have partial or no visibility into their cloud and hybrid IT environments. The survey of over 800 people across 30 industries worldwide shows a large majority of respondents (78 percent) saying they are unaware or only partly aware of what is happening across their unstructured… [Continue Reading]
Workers find meetings productive

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 11:01am CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

You’ve probably heard it a million times, how meetings are actually a waste of time and do little good. You’ve also heard how people usually browse social media and look at the ceiling during these meetings, and that it would be more productive watching paint dry. Turns out, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Unified communications solutions company ShoreTel conducted a research into what the current workforce thinks about meetings, and the overall opinion is vastly positive. "Only 11 per cent of global respondents found meetings 'a waste of time'", it says. Almost half (40 percent) believe meetings were… [Continue Reading]
What's the deal with online journalism?

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 10:05am CEST par Robert X. Cringely

Not very long ago I started answering questions on Quora, the question-and-answer site. My answers are mainly about aviation because that’s my great hobby and one of the few things besides high tech that I really know a lot about. But there was a question last week about Internet news coverage that I felt deserved better answers than it was getting. So I contributed an answer that has been read, so far, only 388 times. I don’t like making a real effort that is so sparsely read. So here, with a little mild editing, is my answer to "What are the… [Continue Reading]
SanDisk Extreme 256GB microSDXC UHS-I Card is 'world’s fastest'

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 4:09am CEST par Brian Fagioli

Micro SD cards are small enough -- any smaller and it would be downright ridiculous. Think about it, folks, they are already too easy to lose. A better way to push the envelope with these miniature storage cards is speed and capacity. Today, Western Digital announces the SanDisk Extreme 256GB microSDXC UHS-I, which it claims to be the world's fastest such card. Whether you are recording 4K video on a GoPro, or accessing files on your smartphone, the storage media can never be too fast, am I right? In addition to the aforementioned card, the company also announces the less-expensive and slightly slower 256GB… [Continue Reading]
Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14376 for PC and Mobile arrives on the Fast ring

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 1:39am CEST par Wayne Williams

The much awaited Windows 10 Anniversary Update might not now be arriving until the start of August, but the Windows Insider previews continue to roll out at an impressive pace. Today, Microsoft releases Build 14376 for both PC and Mobile to the Fast ring, and also pushes out Build 14372 to the Slow ring. Build 14376 contains over 1,800 fixes compared to the previous build released last week, which is quite some going. SEE ALSO: Microsoft finally lets users say no to Windows 10 Microsoft lists the following improvements and fixes for PC: We’re rolling out an Store update (11606.1001.25)… [Continue Reading]
Apple pays just £12.9 million in UK taxes

Publié: juin 29, 2016, 1:24am CEST par Anthony Spadafora

By booking sales through its international headquarters in Ireland, Apple was able to only pay £12.9 million in UK corporate tax during 2015. This is a nine percent increase from the previous year, in which it paid £11.8 million. The European Commission has been investigating Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland for two years now and the results of the probe are set to be released as early as next month. If the company’s tax arrangements are found to be unlawful, it could end up repaying billions to the Irish state. The company is currently under pressure from its critics who… [Continue Reading]