"Take cover," the French government warned people in Nice via its official terror alert app.But the alert came almost three hours after police shot the driver of a truck as he plowed through crowds gathered on the waterfront late Thursday to watch a firework display celebrating France's national holiday.The System to Alert and Inform Populations (SAIP) app, introduced last month, is supposed to provide more timely and informative warnings than the existing nationwide network of sirens and radio messages. The ministry began working on the app after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, finally putting it into service on June 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
"Take cover," the French government warned people in Nice via its official terror alert app.But the alert came almost three hours after police shot the driver of a truck as he plowed through crowds gathered on the waterfront late Thursday to watch a firework display celebrating France's national holiday.The System to Alert and Inform Populations (SAIP) app, introduced last month, is supposed to provide more timely and informative warnings than the existing nationwide network of sirens and radio messages. The ministry began working on the app after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, finally putting it into service on June 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IBM is cranking up the security on its cloud-based blockchain service.
On Thursday it began beta-testing a new high-security service plan for IBM Blockchain, with dedicated infrastructure for each customer.
Until now, it has offered only a starter cloud service for developers who wish to experiment with blockchain technology. That service runs in a multitenant cloud, with infrastructure shared among hundreds of blockchains.
The new service plan is still cloud-based, but "you get your own resources dedicated to you," said IBM Vice President for Blockchain Technologies Jerry Cuomo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IBM is cranking up the security on its cloud-based blockchain service.
On Thursday it began beta-testing a new high-security service plan for IBM Blockchain, with dedicated infrastructure for each customer.
Until now, it has offered only a starter cloud service for developers who wish to experiment with blockchain technology. That service runs in a multitenant cloud, with infrastructure shared among hundreds of blockchains.
The new service plan is still cloud-based, but "you get your own resources dedicated to you," said IBM Vice President for Blockchain Technologies Jerry Cuomo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After months of uncertainty, businesses will once again have a simple, legal way to export the personal information of European Union citizens to the U.S. for processing from Aug. 1.Privacy Shield, the replacement for the defunct Safe Harbor Agreement, ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to self-certified organisations in the U.S., the European Commission ruled Tuesday morning. It plans to notify the governments of the EU's 28 member states of its adequacy decision later in the day, at which point Privacy Shield will enter effect, although it will still be a few more weeks before companies can register their compliance with it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After months of uncertainty, businesses will once again have a simple, legal way to export the personal information of European Union citizens to the U.S. for processing from Aug. 1.Privacy Shield, the replacement for the defunct Safe Harbor Agreement, ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to self-certified organisations in the U.S., the European Commission ruled Tuesday morning. It plans to notify the governments of the EU's 28 member states of its adequacy decision later in the day, at which point Privacy Shield will enter effect, although it will still be a few more weeks before companies can register their compliance with it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SWIFT is bringing in additional security support after a series of high-profile bank heists and attempted bank heists conducted via its financial transaction network.The company has hired two security firms, UK-based BAE Systems and Fox-IT Security of the Netherlands, to help its customers strengthen their security, it said Monday.SWIFT's network itself has not been breached in the recent attacks, but bank systems connected to it have been hacked in a number of high-profile incidents over the last year, the most spectacular of which almost led to the loss of US$1 billion from Bangladesh Bank.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SWIFT is bringing in additional security support after a series of high-profile bank heists and attempted bank heists conducted via its financial transaction network.The company has hired two security firms, UK-based BAE Systems and Fox-IT Security of the Netherlands, to help its customers strengthen their security, it said Monday.SWIFT's network itself has not been breached in the recent attacks, but bank systems connected to it have been hacked in a number of high-profile incidents over the last year, the most spectacular of which almost led to the loss of US$1 billion from Bangladesh Bank.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the launch of Pokemon Go last week, it's not just players but police that "gotta catch 'em all."Police in O'Fallon, Missouri, believe muggers may have tracked or lured victims through the Pokemon Go mobile game, in which players follow their phones' directions to real-world places to "catch" Pokemon characters."The way we believe it was used is you can add a beacon to a Pokestop to lure more players. Apparently they were using the app to locate people standing around in the middle of a parking lot or whatever other location they were in," O'Fallon Police Department explained on its official Facebook page.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the launch of Pokemon Go last week, it's not just players but police that "gotta catch 'em all."Police in O'Fallon, Missouri, believe muggers may have tracked or lured victims through the Pokemon Go mobile game, in which players follow their phones' directions to real-world places to "catch" Pokemon characters."The way we believe it was used is you can add a beacon to a Pokestop to lure more players. Apparently they were using the app to locate people standing around in the middle of a parking lot or whatever other location they were in," O'Fallon Police Department explained on its official Facebook page.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has published the source code for its Project Malmo, allowing anyone to conduct artificial intelligence experiments in the world of Minecraft with a little programming.It unveiled the project, then known as AIX, back in March, but at the time only a few academics had access to the code. On Thursday the company made good on its promise to open up the source code by publishing it on Github.Minecraft, the blocky world-building game that Microsoft paid US$2.5 billion for two years ago, is an ideal place to test how artificial intelligences will interact with one another and with humans.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
European Union officials are set to give final approval to a new EU-U.S. data transfer agreement early next week, after member states gave their approval to an updated text on Friday.Privacy Shield is intended to replace the Safe Harbor Agreement as a means to legalize the transfer of EU citizens' personal information to the U.S. while still respecting EU privacy laws.A new deal is needed because the Court of Justice of the EU invalidated the Safe Harbor Agreement last October, concerned that it provided Europeans with insufficient protection from state surveillance when companies exported their personal data to the U.S. for processing.The first draft of Privacy Shield agreement presented by the European Commission in January lacked key assurances from U.S. officials on the same matters that had concerned the CJEU about Safe Harbor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft COO Kevin Turner is leaving after 11 years in the role. He won't be replaced.Employees learned of the move Thursday in an email message from CEO Satya Nadella, in which he outlined his plans for reorganizing the company's senior leadership team.Nadella highlighted the importance of having "one feedback loop" across the company to reinforce customer value and satisfaction. To achieve this, he said, he will more deeply integrate the sales, marketing and services group with the rest of the company, under a single senior leadership team.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Antivirus vendor Avast Software has agreed to buy rival AVG Technologies for US$1.3 billion in cash.The deal will give Avast access to over 400 million "endpoints," or devices running its and AVG's software, 160 million of them phones or tablets, the company said Tuesday.Avast hopes the deal will make the combined company more efficient, as well as allowing it to take advantage of new growth opportunities such as securing the internet of things."This combination is great for our users. We will have over 250 million PC/Mac users enabling us to gather even more threat data to improve the protection to our users," Avast CEO Vincent Stickler wrote on the company blog.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Antivirus vendor Avast Software has agreed to buy rival AVG Technologies for US$1.3 billion in cash.The deal will give Avast access to over 400 million "endpoints," or devices running its and AVG's software, 160 million of them phones or tablets, the company said Tuesday.Avast hopes the deal will make the combined company more efficient, as well as allowing it to take advantage of new growth opportunities such as securing the internet of things."This combination is great for our users. We will have over 250 million PC/Mac users enabling us to gather even more threat data to improve the protection to our users," Avast CEO Vincent Stickler wrote on the company blog.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Someone at Google really likes sneakers: The company has just bought a French machine learning startup that taught a computer how to recognize 15,000 different types of them.Paris-based Moodstocks builds image and object recognition software using deep learning techniques, and offered an Android app and visual search API that could recognize certain kinds of object. By analyzing video from a smartphone camera, and correlating it with accelerometer readings to determine how the camera is moving around, the software is able to infer information about the three-dimensional shape of objects in the video, facilitating their recognition.In February 2015 the company demonstrated its ability to identify sneakers through its app. Three months later, after training the software using 15,000 photos of shoes from an online retailer's website, Moodstocks claimed to be able to shop online for all the sneakers on sale in a Macy's store.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google's DeepMind AI business unit is hoping to teach computers to diagnose eye disease, using patient data from a U.K. hospital.Using deep learning techniques, DeepMind hopes to improve diagnosis of two eye conditions: age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, both of which can lead to sight loss. If these conditions are detected early enough, patients' sight can be saved.One way doctors look for signs of these diseases is by examining the interior of the eye, opposite the lens, an area called the fundus. They can do this either directly, with an ophthalmoscope, or by taking a digital fundus scan. Another diagnostic technique is to take a non-invasive three-dimensional scan of the retina using process called optical coherence tomography (OCT).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The European Union is stumping up €450 million ($500 million) to fund research into cybersecurity -- and wants industry to contribute three times that.The EU's executive body, the European Commission, is concerned about the vulnerability of the EU economy to cyberattacks, warning in a report Tuesday that they "could undermine the digital single market and economic and social life as a whole."The $2 billion cybersecurity public-private partnership (cPPP) is intended boost cross-border research into cybersecurity, and to aid development of security products and services for the energy, health, transport and finance industries, the European Commission said Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Spain has joined the scrum of tax authorities examining Google's accounts to see if the company has paid all that it should.A team of 35 inspectors from Agencia Tributaria, the Spanish tax authority, raided Google offices on two sites in Madrid on Thursday, according to Spanish newspaper El País. The authority requested court approval for the raid on Tuesday, the report said.They were investigating the tax liabilities of Google's subsidiaries in Spain and Ireland, through which the company channels much of its European revenue.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Is Google pushing the cloud envelope too far? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A key specification for exchanging sensor data between vehicles has found a new sponsor, in a move that may help future drivers avoid dangers before they see them.New vehicles are increasingly laden with sensors -- accelerometers, thermometers, radar and lidar (light detection and range) -- and the best of them can use the streams of incoming data to warn of or even avoid hazards such as ice or obstacles.But what if they could share information about changes to a road since the map was last updated or even warn one another of a stopped vehicle hidden by a blind curve? Vehicles might then be able to choose more efficient routes or avoid the need for sudden braking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Peter Sayer