Google appears to have accidentally revealed its new group videoconferencing service for businesses on Tuesday, a week before a big user conference.
The service, called Meet, appears to be its offering for businesses that want to do group meetings over the Internet. According to a saved iOS App Store listing captured by AppAnnie, it will support high-definition video meetings with up to 30 participants. That’s an upgrade over the company’s existing Hangouts instant messaging and video calling service, which only allows meetings of up to 10 people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By all accounts, Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone, a device that will presumably be called the iPhone 8, is going to be incredible. Echoing previous rumors, a new report from the Wall Street Journal -- which typically has a stellar record when it comes to Apple rumors -- claims that the aforementioned iPhone 8 will ship with a curved OLED display. This jibes with other reports indicating that Apple's next-gen smartphone will feature an edge to edge display with minimal bezels."Apple Inc. has decided to adopt a flexible display for one model of the new iPhone coming out this year," the Journal notes, "and has ordered sufficient components to enable mass production, people familiar with the matter said."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google is pretty strict about its Project Zero rules when it comes to disclosure: a company has 90 days to fix the bug after it is informed by Google, after which it is announced to the public. Google did it last week with the announcement of two unpatched bugs, and now it's doing it again. A security flaw in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer was first reported to Microsoft Nov. 25, 2016. Microsoft was offered the standard 90-day lead to patch the issue before Google announced it to the world. With the cancellation of this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft failed to issue a fix, and now the bug is out there for the whole world to see. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, there are eight huge halls, not to mention the vendor-decked hallways, plus another sub-convention center to visit. Mobile World Domination is a better word for the event. I’m reminded of the old days of CeBIT where 800,000 people made it to Hannover, Germany, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.No more.The GSMA has adroitly herded all things mobile to Barcelona instead. The recognizable big guns are here, minus a large Microsoft presence, and Apple is the invisible 800-pound gorilla.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As containers and microservices become more mainstream, you may wonder how to pave the way to adoption. How can you use containers to automate application deployments? What tools do you need to help your path to adoption? How can you get there faster, with fewer chances for errors and re-work?A new Geek Guide sponsored by Puppet, Containers 101, covers everything you need to know about:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Motorola’s designers are always poised to strike when component prices drop, creating an opportunity to deliver more smartphone for the same money. This time they struck with the Moto G5 Plus with a better camera and faster processor, improving on the G4 Plus. The G5 Plus’ camera and price are the top two reasons to choose it as an alternative to the iPhone 7—or almost any phone.Moto G5 Plus' camera
The Moto G5 Plus predecessor, the Moto G4 Plus, scored an 84 with DxOMark, equivalent to the iPhone 6s that consumers are still buying for $550. The specifications of the G5 Plus’ camera sensor top the iPhone 7’s. The 12 megapixels sensor with 1.4μm-sized pixels exceeds the iPhone 7’s at 12 megapixels with 1.22μm pixels. A subtle difference, but pixel size in most situations matters more than the number of pixels because larger pixels capture more light, producing better photos.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
BARCELONA -- Moscow has rolled out new technologies to make the city safer, including 160,000 outdoor cameras focused on traffic and areas of possible crime.The effort is one of the largest municipal camera installations in Europe. Moscow, with 12 million residents, has installed enough cameras in the last 18 months to rival the number of traffic and public cameras used in London. There, the use of CCTV cameras ignited a public outcry over privacy invasions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While Amazon Web Services hasn't yet issued an apology via its social media channels regarding big problems today with its Simple Storage Service (S3), the company's customers have turned to Twitter and Facebook to apologize to their own customers -- while pointing the finger at AWS.AWS, via its @awscloud Twitter account, did alert customers that "S3 is experiencing high error rates. We are working hard on recovering." That was posted a bit after 2pm EST and Amazon has since posted a few updates, including a note about the status dashboard recovering.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has added a setting to Windows 10 that will let users restrict new software installation to only those apps hosted in the Windows Store.The option debuted in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, the preview program which gives participants an early peek at the next feature upgrade as Microsoft builds it. That version, labeled 15042, was released Friday.[ Related: Fix Windows 10 problems with these free Microsoft tools ]
With the setting at its most stringent, Windows 10 will block the installation of Win32 software -- the traditional legacy applications that continue to make up the vast bulk of the Windows ecosystem -- and allow users to install only apps from the Windows Store, Microsoft's marketplace.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
PORTAL is designed for homes with lots of devices and many neighbors. WiFi devices all share the same airwaves, and just like an old highway with not enough lanes, your internet slows to a crawl whenever there are too many people and devices crowding the same channels. Mesh 2.0 patented technology and 9 dedicated antennas act like a shield to keep your WiFi maxed out at the speed you pay for. The result is consistently fast reliable internet, lag-free gaming and smooth ultraHD video streaming everywhere in your home.
Currently receiving 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) and is discount by 26%, down to $279.23, Check out purchasing options on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HTC is giving users of its Vive virtual reality headset access to a Netflix-like subscription service. Everyone who currently owns a Vive will get a free trial for a month, and the service will cost US $6.99 a month thereafter.For that price, users will be able to pick out five virtual reality apps at the start of each month, including games and other interactive experiences. The service will be available in a "couple weeks," Rickard Steiber, the company’s senior vice president for virtual reality said during an interview at the Game Developers Conference Monday.One benefit to consumers is that the subscription will give users an affordable way to try out titles every month, without requiring them to commit to a full retail purchase. The company had 14,000 people say they were interested in such a subscription after HTC announced it at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Steiber said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon Web Services today acknowledged that its Simple Storage Service (S3), one of the company's most popular cloud-based products, is experiencing increased error rates, causing some sites across the Internet to stop working.AWS posted an alert on its Service Health Dashboard noting: “We've identified the issue as high error rates with S3 in US-EAST-1, which is also impacting applications and services dependent on S3. We are actively working on remediating the issue.”+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Battle of the clouds AWS vs. Azure vs. Google +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips.Rather than tying chip upgrades directly to the manufacturing process involved, Intel will look at delivering a sustained set of performance upgrades with each new chip architecture."We're going to be focused more on the generation by the amount of performance increment it will give us," said Venkata Renduchintala, president of Intel's Client and Internet of Things businesses and its Systems Architecture Group. "I don't think generations will be tagged to node transitions."The performance benefits will matter more, and the process technology that lives underneath is going to be less conspicuous, Renduchintala said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one.Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Unfilled tech jobs that are costing the U.S. billionsImage by Thinkstock With IT industry unemployment hovering at around 2.8 percent (as of Q3 2016) and organizations struggling to land talent, many companies find themselves with unfilled jobs. That's a problem not just for individual companies, but for the U.S. economy as a whole, says Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor.
"Filling open jobs doesn't just help workers. It also helps companies and the broader economy. Every job that's open is money left on the table, in the form of lost productivity for employers and earnings in consumers' pockets. When more open jobs are filled with the right people, economic gains include greater business productivity and consumer spending, thanks to more people earning wages, then saving, investing and spending those wages," Chamberlain says.
In IT, a combination of rapidly changing markets, incredible demand for and short supply of talent means thousands of open, unfilled roles are costing companies -- and the economy -- money every day. In fact, the value of the approximately 263,586 unfilled IT jobs posted by employers in the U.S. adds up to $20.1 billion, according to the Glassdoor research.
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BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Update: LG's UltraFine 5K Display is now available to order again after Apple removed it from store shelves on Feb. 13. Apple is offering delivery as soon as March 8 for orders placed today. In-store pick-up isn't currently available.Last October, Apple announced the LG collaboration has as the go-to external Retina display for the new MacBook Pro after the company discontinued its Thunderbolt Display.But the UltraFine 5K Display was plagued by connection issues. Placing the display within six feet of a Wi-Fi router caused interference, resulting in continued disconnections and even the MacBook Pro freezing up. LG confirmed that these issues stem from “poor shielding.” According to 9to5Mac, future builds of the LG display will resolve this, but existing displays will require “retrofitting with additional shielding.” With new inventory in stock, it appears that LG has fixed its shielding issues—at least in hardware it's selling from this point on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco is playing down a security issue with its Smart Install switch management software that could allow unauthenticated access to customer configuration details.Cisco defines Smart Install as a legacy feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches, typically access layer switches.+More on Network World: Cisco Jasper grows Internet of Things reach, breadth+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers.Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families last year, up from 29 in 2015.Add to this the rise of ransomware as a service (RaaS) and payments made to anonymous bitcoin accounts, and the result is a booming criminal enterprise worth $1 billion last year, according to TrendLabs 2016 Security Roundup. Neophyte crooks are being drawn in because it’s so easy to set up a ransomware operation, the report says. “Since RaaS is available in the underground, the service provides fledgling cybercriminals the necessary tools to run their own extortion campaigns,” it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Setting up meetings can be a pain, since they often require folks to send emails back and forth figuring out a time before finally sending off a calendar invitation to block everyone’s schedule. A New York startup called x.ai wants to simplify that with a helpful bot, and they just launched a product aimed at serving businesses.The service provides users with access to x.ai’s assistant, which can go by Andrew or Amy Ingram, to automatically set up meetings with people inside a company and help schedule time with folks who work elsewhere. It’s an extension of the company’s existing service, which is built for individuals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here