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BetaNews.Com (21 non lus)

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14931 for PC arrives on the Slow ring

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 8:25pm CEST par Wayne Williams

Two weeks ago, Microsoft released Insider Preview Build 14931 to the Fast ring. It wasn’t the most exciting of new builds, as it didn’t offer any new features as such, but focused instead on improvements and fixes. Today, that build makes its way to the Slow ring. Improvements for PC include: Fixed the issue causing people to experience a black screen when signing out and switching to another user account and unable to log in to that account. Fixed the issue causing the built-in Windows 10 apps such as Calculator, Alarms & Clock, and Voice Recorder to not work after… [Continue Reading]
Why Britain's unicorns don't live up to Silicon Valley hype

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 8:24pm CEST par Phil Borge

The United States may well be starting to lose its dominance on the global stage, but it’s hard to deny that its native Silicon Valley has been the envy of global governments for decades. Even China, which generally looks upon American culture with disdain, has been stealthily building clusters of Silicon somethings, if not valleys. Here, research and development funding has swelled by an average of 64 percent year on year for the past half-decade – all with the hope of creating the same west-coast sweet spot somewhere to the east. Yet, so far, no country can claim to have… [Continue Reading]
Is Microsoft planning to resurrect its dreaded Get Windows 10 nagware? [Update: no, it isn't]

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 7:17pm CEST par Wayne Williams

Two weeks ago, Microsoft finally removed its scummy Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7 and 8.1 systems. This came as a major relief to everyone who didn’t want to upgrade to the latest operating system, but who had been forced to weather a storm of increasingly sneaky tactics as the software giant pulled every trick possible to get as many users to upgrade before the free period expired. With the nagware removed, users were no doubt hoping that would be the end of the matter, but it turns out that might not be the case after all. As spotted by… [Continue Reading]
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition now available with Ubuntu Linux and Intel Kaby Lake CPU

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 7:01pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

When you want a laptop running Ubuntu, you can always purchase a Windows machine and replace the operating system. Why bother with that hassle, though? Instead, it is smart to buy a machine pre-loaded with a Linux-based operating from a company like System76. While System76 sells brilliant Ubuntu-powered laptops and desktops, it is not the only game in town. Actually, believe it or not, Dell has long been a proponent of Linux, even before 'Project Sputnik'. Its Ubuntu-powered XPS 13 Developer Edition laptops have been quite popular, and for good reason -- they are built well and are very beautiful. Today, Dell… [Continue Reading]
Paper use in the office is declining

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 6:56pm CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

Our offices are still not entirely paper-free, but we're slowly getting there. This optimistic prediction has been published in a new report by AIIM, entitled Paper-Free in 2016, Are we there yet?. According to it, the amount of paper going into offices is declining, while digital inbound documents are increasing, for two thirds of business executives. The report launches as part of the run up to World Paper Free Day (WPFD) 2016, AIIM says, taking place on November 4. "The once elusive concept of paper-free business operations is today a real possibility and real progress has been made over the… [Continue Reading]
Some UK businesses don't know what ransomware is

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 6:20pm CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

More than one in ten (11 percent) of all UK organizations have never even heard of ransomware, Trend Micro claims. Another 20 percent don't know how the malware works. Yet, more than four fifths, or 82 percent to be exact, consider malware a threat. This general lack of knowledge about ransomware best reflects in how the organizations in question think ransomware originates. A third (33 percent) of them know it comes from malicious email attachments. However, a quarter (24 percent) believe ransomware infections come from clicking a link in an email, and 14 percent think it happens if you simply… [Continue Reading]
TalkTalk fined £400,000 for security breach

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 5:45pm CEST par Ian Barker

UK ISP TalkTalk hit the headlines last year for a data breach that resulted in the theft of personal data relating to over 150,000 customers. Today the Information Commissioner's Office announced that it has issued the company with a record £400,000 (around $510,000) fine for what it called a failure to implement basic security measures. "In spite of its expertise and resources, when it came to the basic principles of cyber-security, TalkTalk was found wanting," says Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. "Today's record fine acts as a warning to others that cyber security is not an IT issue, it is a… [Continue Reading]
Everyone now has access to Facebook's Secret Conversations, so take control of your privacy

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 5:08pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Facebook has been testing its privacy-focused Secret Conversations feature with a select, and then wider, group of users for a little while now. Today the end-to-end encrypted messaging system rolls out to everyone. If you're concerned about your privacy (firstly, why are you using Facebook?), it's your duty to use it. Secret Conversations remains an opt-in feature, and once enabled it means that only the sender and recipient are able to see messages -- there is no scope for interception by Facebook or any other third party. There's also an important self-destructing messaging option, but there's one glaring problem. While… [Continue Reading]
Google's new Pixel phones spell the end of the Nexus line

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 4:26pm CEST par Mihăiță Bamburic

Now that Google has its own line of smartphones developed completely in-house, you may be wondering what sort of impact will it have on the beloved Nexus brand? The Pixel and Pixel XL are not direct replacements for the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, targeting shoppers in the premium segment. Could there be something just around the corner to fill in the gaps? Traditionally speaking, the Nexus brand has featured at least one affordable smartphone in the line -- last year, it was the Nexus 5X -- so it would make sense for Google to launch something similar. However, if we are to… [Continue Reading]
Amazon Prime subscribers now have free ebooks, magazines and more with Prime Reading

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 4:24pm CEST par Mark Wilson

If you have been looking for one more reason to become an Amazon Prime subscriber, the newly launched Prime Reading feature could just be the clincher. Prime Reading gives US subscribers access to a library of free Kindle ebooks, magazines, comics and other publications completely free of charge. At the moment Amazon is proclaiming there are "over a thousand popular books", but there is also the promise of exclusive content. In addition to books, Prime Reading provides access to "a rotating selection of fresh, full issues of top magazines". Amazon is quick to point out that a Kindle device is… [Continue Reading]
SaaS makes our jobs more difficult say IT pros

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 3:30pm CEST par Ian Barker

There is a perception in the IT business that adopting software-as-a-service models will make life easier for tech teams and end users alike. But a new study by cloud specialist BetterCloud suggests that in fact SaaS is making IT jobs harder. According to the survey of over 900 IT professionals, 56 percent of Google Apps and 62 percent of Office 365 IT pros believe their jobs are becoming more difficult due to rising SaaS adoption. For these respondents, adopting SaaS means dealing with more vendors, more dashboards, more data, and having less control over cloud IT systems. "Many IT professionals… [Continue Reading]
How to extract images from just about any file type

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 3:27pm CEST par Mike Williams

Extracting images from documents makes it much easier to reuse them elsewhere, and there’s a lot of freeware around to get the job done. Which is best for you? That depends on the file formats you want to use. Weeny Free PDF Extractor provides a simple way to extract the contents of one or multiple PDF files. And not just images: it gives you embedded fonts and TXT files of any text content, too. The Office Image Extraction Wizard can’t handle PDFs, but does support a pile of other document types: Office 97-2003 (.doc, .ppt etc), Office 2007+ (docx, pptx… [Continue Reading]
New study by Kaspersky shows computer risks to those over 55

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 3:23pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

It's probably no great secret that today's older generation has a flock of followers online that they largely do not want, who are trying to con them out of their money. Trying to take advantage of this generation is nothing new. In the past it was done door to door with scams such as "roofers" and "driveway repairmen". Security company Kaspersky has done a study of internet users aged 55 and older and the results, while unsurprising, aren't particularly good. The survey involved 12,546 older internet users from around the globe. These users tended to be no different than others… [Continue Reading]
Open Whisper Systems defeats government subpoena of Signal data with encryption

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 12:54pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

If you think you and your data are safe on the internet, think again. As we increasingly entrust companies with our data and information, many of these entities end up letting us down. For instance, in a bombshell reveal, we recently learned that Yahoo was scanning user email for the US government. Yes, the company violated the trust that users gave it. Earlier this year, Open Whisper Systems was served with a subpoena from the Eastern District of Virginia asking it to turn over Signal messaging user information for a federal grand jury investigation. While this sounds like the beginning of… [Continue Reading]
Intel Security launches new McAfee lineup harnessing the power of the cloud

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 12:49pm CEST par Ian Barker

As we use more devices to access the internet protecting all of them from the latest threats becomes something of a chore. Intel Security is addressing this with the launch of a new 2017 range of McAfee security products at the heart of which is a next-generation anti-malware engine that offers more efficient and effective threat detection by offloading analysis to the cloud. McAfee AntiVirus Plus, McAfee Internet Security, McAfee Total Protection and McAfee LiveSafe offer cross-device protection for PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets. Features include Real Protect, a next generation anti-malware engine that combines proven detection methods with an… [Continue Reading]
ungoogled-chromium is a completely Google-free browser

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 12:04pm CEST par Mike Williams

If you’re a Chrome user concerned about web privacy then you might have tried turning off telemetry settings, maybe switching to Chromium to lose all that Google code. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Even Chromium uses pre-built Google binaries and communicates with Google servers to provide various features. ungoogled-chromium is an open-source Chromium variant which disables or removes these remaining Google-related functions, replaces Google’s pre-built binaries by recreating them from source, and throws in some smaller tweaks and enhancements of its own. This de-Googling is quite extreme, and has some far-reaching consequences. Losing Google’s Webstore plugin means you can’t easily… [Continue Reading]
How ransomware threatens government agencies [Q&A]

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 11:10am CEST par Ian Barker

Ransomware is an increasingly severe threat to all organizations and government agencies are not exempt. The Federal Trade Commission recently labeled ransomware as "among the most troubling cyberthreats". But why are government agencies such an attractive target and what can they do to combat the threat? We spoke to Andrew Hay, chief information security officer of data security specialist DataGravity to find out. BN: Ransomware isn't a new danger, but it seems to be on the rise. Why is the FTC just now recognizing it as a cybersecurity threat? AH: Although the threat isn't new, people are aware of ransomware… [Continue Reading]
Yahoo secretly scanned emails for the NSA and FBI -- Apple, Google and Microsoft did not

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 10:54am CEST par Mark Wilson

Yahoo has been having something of a rough time of late, and things are not getting any easier. It has emerged that the company created a custom tool to search customers' emails for specific terms as directed by the NSA and FBI. Reuters shares the story of two former Yahoo employees who say the company complied with a government directive to search through all incoming emails. In response to the revelations, Apple, Google and Microsoft have all denied engaging in similar activity. The explosive news is being described as the first instance of a US company agreeing to scan and… [Continue Reading]
Salesforce integrates Quip in its core products

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 10:28am CEST par Anthony Spadafora

Salesforce has released new updates for its core products that allow users to use the work collaboration app Quip right from within its own service. The company purchased Quip for $750 million in August for its collaborative word processing and spreadsheet apps that also include messaging features similar to those offered by Slack. After the latest updates, Salesforce users are now able to create and edit Quip documents directly from within the company's products. They are also able to link data from Salesforce to Quip spreadsheets. In a press briefing last week, Quip CEO Bret Taylor said: "All this free-form,… [Continue Reading]
Watch Tim Kaine and Mike Pence VP debate live on YouTube in English or Spanish here

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 1:30am CEST par Brian Fagioli

While the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton presidential debate broke a YouTube record, tonight's vice presidential debate isn't likely to garner the same audience. That's not to say that Senator Tim Kaine (Democrat) and Governor Mike Pence (Republican) aren't formidable debaters, its just that VP is a less exciting position than president. With that said, fans of politics and unsure voters will likely tune in to learn more about both men. If you want to watch the debate but do not have a television, do not panic. Networks are live-streaming the debate on Google's YouTube, meaning if you have a computer… [Continue Reading]
Watch the Vice Presidential debate tonight on Roku

Publié: octobre 5, 2016, 12:19am CEST par Alan Buckingham

Tonight at 9pm ET the two vice presidential candidates square off in their one and only debate. Unlike the top of the ticket, this pair doesn't get three tries at it. Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, perhaps the most two ordinary candidates in an extraordinary year, will get the chance to give their views and defend their tickets. If you have cable or satellite then you should have no problem catching the action, depending on your package. But if you no longer have that option it doesn't mean you're out of luck. There are other ways to catch the big… [Continue Reading]