A U.S. banking regulator says an employee downloaded a large amount of data from its computer system a week before he retired and is now unable to locate the thumb drives he stored it on.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is a part of the Department of the Treasury, said the loss represented "a major information security incident" as it reported the case to Congress on Friday.The data was taken in November 2015, but its loss was only discovered in September this year as the agency reviewed downloads to removable media devices in the last two years.The employee in question used two thumb drives to store the information, both of which he is unable to locate, the agency said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung's smartphone division struggled to breakeven between July and September as sales plunged due to the recall of its high-end Note 7.The smartphone giant said quarterly sales in its IT and Mobile Communications division were down 15 percent on the same period last year to 22.5 trillion Korean won (US$19.8 billion) while operating profit crashed 95 percent to 100 billion won.Problems with the Note 7 starting hitting sales shortly after it went on sale in mid-August. By early September, reports that several units had caught on fire prompted Samsung to begin a costly recall and replacement program. When it became clear that the replacements had the same problem, Samsung pulled the phone for good.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple recorded its third consecutive quarter of lower revenue as it fought lower demand for the iPhone and tough competition from lower-priced competitors.Revenue in the quarter, between July and September, was US $46.9 billion, down 9 percent on the same period last year and exactly in line with analyst estimates. Net income came in at $9 billion, down 19 percent, the company said Tuesday.Apple CEO Tim Cook called the results "strong" and said he was "thrilled with the customer response to iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and Apple Watch Series 2, as well as the incredible momentum of our Services business."+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Why is Apple letting Macs rot on the tree? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates were both on a list of potential vice presidential candidates for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to a leaked email published on Tuesday by Wikileaks.The email, apparently sent by campaign chairman John Podesta on March 17, named the two tech titans alongside 37 other people as "a first cut of people to consider for VP."Also on the list, published by WikiLeaks, was Gates' wife Melinda. She co-founded the charitable foundation that bears both their names.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords
Other business leaders that made the cut were General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Bloomberg News founder and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates were both on a list of potential vice presidential candidates for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to a leaked email published on Tuesday by Wikileaks.The email, apparently sent by campaign chairman John Podesta on March 17, named the two tech titans alongside 37 other people as "a first cut of people to consider for VP."Also on the list, published by WikiLeaks, was Gates' wife Melinda. She co-founded the charitable foundation that bears both their names.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords
Other business leaders that made the cut were General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Bloomberg News founder and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Omron's table tennis robot is getting smarter. At this week's Ceatec electronics show in Japan, the company has unveiled a new version that uses machine learning to assess the strength of an opponent and ramp up its game accordingly.The robot, named Forpheus, was first shown at the event in 2014 to impressive reviews. A series of robotic arms manipulate a table tennis bat, guided by cameras that watch the ball and predict where it's going to land.Omron developed the robot to promote the company's sensor technology and this latest version is showing off some of what can be done when sensing combines with machine learning and artificial intelligence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Driving can sometimes be a solitary affair, heading from place to place with only the road and the radio for company, but that could change with Kirobo Mini.It's a small robot developed by Toyota that's designed to act as a virtual companion, listening to and responding to chat from people in a car or just about anywhere. At 10 centimeters tall, its small size means it can easily be carried around.The technology behind it is quite simple. Audio is sent from Kirobo's microphone to a smartphone running a companion app. The phone passes the audio on to a Toyota cloud service that runs voice recognition and helps to determine the appropriate response. That is then sent back to Kirobo via the smartphone app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Yahoo said on Thursday that data from at least 500 million user accounts had been hacked, it wasn't just admitting to a huge failing in data security -- it was admitting to the biggest hack the world has ever seen.Until Thursday, the previous largest known hack was the 2008 breach that hit almost 360 million MySpace accounts, according to a ranking by the "Have I been pwned" website. Like the Yahoo breach, the hack was only publicly disclosed this year after data was offered on a hacker forum.And only three breaches had ranked above the 100 million level:LinkedIn reported a loss of 167 million email addresses and passwords. They were originally stolen in 2012 but not publicly disclosed until 2016, again after the data was offered on an underground "dark market" site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Yahoo said on Thursday that data from at least 500 million user accounts had been hacked, it wasn't just admitting to a huge failing in data security -- it was admitting to the biggest hack the world has ever seen.Until Thursday, the previous largest known hack was the 2008 breach that hit almost 360 million MySpace accounts, according to a ranking by the "Have I been pwned" website. Like the Yahoo breach, the hack was only publicly disclosed this year after data was offered on a hacker forum.And only three breaches had ranked above the 100 million level:LinkedIn reported a loss of 167 million email addresses and passwords. They were originally stolen in 2012 but not publicly disclosed until 2016, again after the data was offered on an underground "dark market" site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sony is looking at taking the Xperia brand beyond smartphones and is showing off some prototype gadgets at the IFA trade show in Berlin.
It was keen to underline that not all of them might make it to manufacturing, but those on display were fully working prototypes with hardware and software stable enough that the company let a reporter test them out.Xperia Projector
Magdalena Petrova
Sony's Xperia Projector on show at IFA in Berlin on September 1, 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
DJI says smartphone users will be able to shoot smoother, more cinematic video with a new handheld gadget that packs video stabilization technology used on the company's drones.The Osmo Mobile, which was announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Thursday, combines a three-axis camera gimbal with a larger handle and smartphone mount.In a demonstration, the device indeed produced much smoother shots than when shooting smartphone video handheld. And I could tell it was working to keep the smartphone steady because I could feel a low-level vibration in the handle while using it. It was the gimbal continuously readjusting to compensate for shakes and small movements of my hand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Russian cybercriminals have infiltrated systems at Micros, an Oracle division that is one of the world's biggest vendors of point of sale payment systems for shops and restaurants, according to an influential security blogger.The hack has affected 700 computer systems at Micros and is thought to have begun with infiltration on a single machine at the company, said Brian Krebs on his Krebs on Security blog on Monday.The incident is worrying for the potential size of the hack and the systems affected. Oracle acquired Micros in 2014, when it said Micros systems are used in more than 330,000 sites in 180 countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Russian cybercriminals have infiltrated systems at Micros, an Oracle division that is one of the world's biggest vendors of point of sale payment systems for shops and restaurants, according to an influential security blogger.The hack has affected 700 computer systems at Micros and is thought to have begun with infiltration on a single machine at the company, said Brian Krebs on his Krebs on Security blog on Monday.The incident is worrying for the potential size of the hack and the systems affected. Oracle acquired Micros in 2014, when it said Micros systems are used in more than 330,000 sites in 180 countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook's Silicon Valley headquartersImage by Martyn WilliamsFacebook used to design its servers and other hardware at labs scattered across the company, but they've now been consolidated in a state of the art facility at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. The new lab is called Area 404, a play on the 404 error message seen on the web and, presumably, the U.S. military's Area 51 research base. It covers 22,000 square feet and has 50 workbenches where engineers design, build and test their protptype hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook's Silicon Valley headquartersImage by Martyn WilliamsFacebook used to design its servers and other hardware at labs scattered across the company, but they've now been consolidated in a state of the art facility at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. The new lab is called Area 404, a play on the 404 error message seen on the web and, presumably, the U.S. military's Area 51 research base. It covers 22,000 square feet and has 50 workbenches where engineers design, build and test their protptype hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Kimpton Hotels, operator of boutique hotels across the U.S., is investigating reports of a possible payment card data breach. If confirmed, it would become the latest in a string of successful attacks on hotel chain operators in the last year.The San Francisco-based company said it was "recently made aware of a report of unauthorized charges occurring on cards that were previously used legitimately at Kimpton properties."As a result, it has hired a computer security firm to investigate whether its systems were compromised and guest data stolen. In the meantime, it advised guests to monitor their card statements for unauthorized charges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Kimpton Hotels, operator of boutique hotels across the U.S., is investigating reports of a possible payment card data breach. If confirmed, it would become the latest in a string of successful attacks on hotel chain operators in the last year.The San Francisco-based company said it was "recently made aware of a report of unauthorized charges occurring on cards that were previously used legitimately at Kimpton properties."As a result, it has hired a computer security firm to investigate whether its systems were compromised and guest data stolen. In the meantime, it advised guests to monitor their card statements for unauthorized charges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Martyn Williams