Say it ain’t so: FBI probes alleged Cardinals-Astros hackEven America’s pastime isn’t safe from cybercrime: the FBI is investigating allegations that the St. Louis Cardinals hacked into computer systems belonging to rival baseball team the Houston Astros. The investigation centers on the baseball operations database, which is said to contain statistics, video and other vital information about players.Airbus joins the Internet satellite crowdCount European consortium Airbus in on the business of delivering Internet service via satellites, the Verge reports. It’s going to design and build 900 orbiters for Richard Branson’s OneWeb, which aims to provide LTE, 3G, and Wi-Fi to rural communities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Civil liberties faction walks out on facial recognition talksU.S. talks aimed at crafting rules on responsible use of facial recognition technology have fallen apart after a united front of civil rights and consumer groups walked out, saying the bare minimum of their demands on behalf of consumers aren’t being met. That position, accord to a statement issued by the coalition, is that “people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they’ve never heard of are tracking their every movement—and identifying them by name—using facial recognition technology.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Civil liberties faction walks out on facial recognition talksU.S. talks aimed at crafting rules on responsible use of facial recognition technology have fallen apart after a united front of civil rights and consumer groups walked out, saying the bare minimum of their demands on behalf of consumers aren’t being met. That position, accord to a statement issued by the coalition, is that “people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they’ve never heard of are tracking their every movement—and identifying them by name—using facial recognition technology.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As Spark faithful gather this week, IBM puts down its betThe hugely popular Hadoop framework for processing big data sets is getting some serious competition from alternative platform Spark, the Wall Street Journal reports, and thousands of the upstart’s acolytes are expected at the Spark Summit in San Francisco this week. IBM is getting behind the Apache open-source project with an investment worth hundreds of millions of dollars in software developers and technology, the New York Times says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As Spark faithful gather this week, IBM puts down its betThe hugely popular Hadoop framework for processing big data sets is getting some serious competition from alternative platform Spark, the Wall Street Journal reports, and thousands of the upstart’s acolytes are expected at the Spark Summit in San Francisco this week. IBM is getting behind the Apache open-source project with an investment worth hundreds of millions of dollars in software developers and technology, the New York Times says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter CEO Costolo steps downEmbattled Twitter CEO Dick Costolo will leave his post atop the micro-blogging company on July 1, bowing to intense pressure from investors disappointed with slow revenue growth and the failure to turn a profit. Co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey will serve as interim CEO while the company looks for a new boss; Costolo will remain on Twitter’s board of directors.Oculus launches a consumer Rift headset, Xbox controllerIn advance of the E3 gaming expo next week, virtual reality headset maker Oculus on Thursday took the wraps off a consumer version of its Rift headset, which will ship next March with a wireless Xbox controller. The company also showed prototypes of two ring-shaped controllers that will let players interact with objects in games like they might in real life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter CEO Costolo steps downEmbattled Twitter CEO Dick Costolo will leave his post atop the micro-blogging company on July 1, bowing to intense pressure from investors disappointed with slow revenue growth and the failure to turn a profit. Co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey will serve as interim CEO while the company looks for a new boss; Costolo will remain on Twitter’s board of directors.Oculus launches a consumer Rift headset, Xbox controllerIn advance of the E3 gaming expo next week, virtual reality headset maker Oculus on Thursday took the wraps off a consumer version of its Rift headset, which will ship next March with a wireless Xbox controller. The company also showed prototypes of two ring-shaped controllers that will let players interact with objects in games like they might in real life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google wants in on this “smart cities” thing tooGoogle has launched Sidewalk Labs, a New York-based company that will develop technology to make urban transportation and government more efficient, as well as lower the cost of living and cut energy use. The search giant is a little late to the party: Cisco, IBM and Microsoft are already heavily invested in this space, and the European Union has a major Smart Cities initiative as part of its Digital Agenda.Ebay, PayPal scrutinized for claiming robocall rights in user agreementsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google wants in on this “smart cities” thing tooGoogle has launched Sidewalk Labs, a New York-based company that will develop technology to make urban transportation and government more efficient, as well as lower the cost of living and cut energy use. The search giant is a little late to the party: Cisco, IBM and Microsoft are already heavily invested in this space, and the European Union has a major Smart Cities initiative as part of its Digital Agenda.Ebay, PayPal scrutinized for claiming robocall rights in user agreementsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SpaceX working on satellite network to provide InternetSpaceX is working on a network of micro-satellites to provide Internet access, the company’s founder and CEO Elon Musk confirmed via Twitter. The project is in the early stages and will be announced in two to three months, and its aim is to provide Internet access at a low cost, he said.Do Apple’s deals with music labels break antitrust laws?There were murmurs in advance of the Apple Music debut this week that Apple was using the industry power it wields via iTunes to pressure music labels not to permit any free tier streaming through rivals like Spotify. Now it’s been confirmed that the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are looking into just that issue, and whether Apple may have run afoul of antitrust law in hammering out its deals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Do Apple’s deals with music labels break antitrust laws?
There were murmurs in advance of the Apple Music debut this week that Apple was using the industry power it wields via iTunes to pressure music labels not to permit any free tier streaming through rivals like Spotify. Now it’s been confirmed that the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are looking into just that issue, and whether Apple may have run afoul of antitrust law in hammering out its deals.
North Korea threatens U.S. with cyberattacksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Do Apple’s deals with music labels break antitrust laws?
There were murmurs in advance of the Apple Music debut this week that Apple was using the industry power it wields via iTunes to pressure music labels not to permit any free tier streaming through rivals like Spotify. Now it’s been confirmed that the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are looking into just that issue, and whether Apple may have run afoul of antitrust law in hammering out its deals.
North Korea threatens U.S. with cyberattacksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple shares a wealth of news on its big day, but few surprisesOnce a year, Apple holds its Worldwide Developers Conference, and the tech world gets a boatload of updates from the company. The ship’s not quite as leak-proof as it used to be, though, so there were few surprises in the mix. Tim Cook and company unveiled:— Apple Music, a streaming service, and an Internet radio station called Beats One;— an update to iOS 9 that features multitasking, a new, improved Siri and an actual “news” app;To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple shares a wealth of news on its big day, but few surprisesOnce a year, Apple holds its Worldwide Developers Conference, and the tech world gets a boatload of updates from the company. The ship’s not quite as leak-proof as it used to be, though, so there were few surprises in the mix. Tim Cook and company unveiled:— Apple Music, a streaming service, and an Internet radio station called Beats One;— an update to iOS 9 that features multitasking, a new, improved Siri and an actual “news” app;To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
South Korean team wins DARPA bot battleSouth Korea’s Team Kaist took the top honors in the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals on Saturday after a two-and-a-half-year battle. The group won a $2 million prize in the competition among 24 teams of roboticists from around the world, Computerworld reports. Their nearly six-foot-tall, 176-pound humanoid robot finished all eight tasks in the course in just 44 minutes and 28 seconds.Apple Pay for UK, streaming music to debut at WWDCApple is expanding the reach of its mobile payments system, with Apple Pay slated for launch in the U.K. in a couple of months, the Telegraph reports. The newspaper cited sources saying that the news will break at the World Wide Developers Conference on Monday, one of a number of announcements planned for the event. The CEO of Sony Music shocked no one this past weekend by confirming that Apple will unveil a streaming music service at WWDC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Records on 4 million people stolen in huge government data breachIn what may be one of the biggest data breaches ever affecting the U.S. government, hackers broke into the systems of the Office of Personnel Management and the records of approximately four million people have been stolen. Investigators suspect hackers based in China and have linked this latest intrusion to earlier hacks into health insurers Anthem and Wellspring, the New York Times reports. An executive of security firm iSight told the Times that researchers believe the hacking group is creating a huge database of personally identifiable information “that they can reach back to for further activity.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Prototype of HP’s Machine due next yearHewlett-Packard will have a prototype of its futuristic Machine computer ready for partners to develop software on by next year, though the finished product is still half a decade away. The single-rack prototype will have 2,500 CPU cores and an impressive 320TB of main memory. It will use current DRAM memory chips, not the advanced memristor technology that HP is still developing—one of the big reasons The Machine remains several years away.Samsung Pay coming to U.S., South Korea, then China and EuropeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Senate finally reforms NSA surveillanceNearly two years after former NSA contracter Edward Snowden went public with revelations that the agency was collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk so that it could trawl through them at leisure, the U.S. Senate has finally acted to rein in what at least one court ruled was illegal surveillance. The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act will allow a limited telephone records program at the NSA, and give it six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New Apple music streaming service expected at WWDCLook for Apple to finally come out with a rival to the Spotify streaming music service at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week, the Wall Street Journal says. Apple will likely offer unlimited on-demand streaming for $10 a month. And in an acknowledgement that the algorithm isn’t always king of finding you what you didn’t know you wanted, it’s expected to add Internet radio channels that are programmed by human DJs.Intel shows first Skylake tablet at ComputexTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Once again, reports have Intel near a deal with AlteraIntel may announce a deal to acquire FPGA maker Altera on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports, after the two companies returned to the bargaining table following a failure to come to terms earlier this year. The buy would strengthen Intel’s already dominant hand in the server market at a cost of about $17 billion.NSA surveillance powers expire as Senate delays voteA controversial program allowing the U.S. National Security Agency to collect millions of domestic telephone records expired Sunday night after the Senate failed to vote on a bill to extend the authority for the surveillance. But senators moved closer to bringing the USA Freedom Act to a vote; that bill gives the agency limited power to obtain data on American residents under investigation. Some are still calling for more reform and better oversight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IDG News Service staff