Uber ought to be on top of the world. The "ride-sharing" app has already raised more than $5 billion and is worth an estimated $50 billion. Just as important, it has reached the stage of ubiquity where people use its name as a verb: "Forget driving, we'll just Uber over to the event."And yet, a dark cloud is shadowing Uber's future, along with that of many other companies riding the wave of the so-called "sharing economy." Many of those companies' business models are built around workers classified as contractors, not employees, but it seems increasingly clear that no matter how convenient for Uber and its ilk, that classification is unlikely to stand up to judicial scrutiny. At least not without major changes in the law and the way these sharing-economy companies do business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Barracuda Web FilterKey features – Barracuda Web Filter now includes an improved application engine for more advanced accuracy and detection, enabling application visibilities for organizations with legacy Layer 3/Layer 4 firewalls. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fingerprint authentication will become a lot more common on smartphones of all prices as sensors get cheaper—and Google’s integration of the technology in the next version of Android will make it much easier for app developers and service providers to make use of them.Today, fingerprint sensors are mainly available on high-end models from Apple and Samsung Electronics. But that is about to change, according to sensor manufacturers Synaptics and Fingerprint Cards.Fingerprint Cards has seen a growing interest in its technology from smartphone manufacturers in recent months, as well as a strong increase in orders. As a result, the company has raised its revenue estimate for the year from about 1.5 billion Swedish kronor (US$185 million) to 2.2 billion Swedish kronor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Would you believe there are people so interested in Apple and all of its works that they want to know what’s going on with the next generation of the iPhone before it even comes out? My editors assure me that this is the case. So, despite the obvious lunacy of the idea – I mean, surely it’s enough to know that there will probably be another one coming out at some point, right? – I am stepping in to provide you with the latest scuttlebutt on what may or may not be the iPhone 7.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Review: The best password managers for PCs, Macs, and mobile devices + FBI investigates St Louis Cardinals over Houston Astros hacking +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter has long positioned its site as a way to see what’s happening in the world. Now, it wants to tap into our desires as consumers.The company is testing a new way to highlight products and places on its site, bringing relevant tweets to the fore while also providing a way to purchase items. It’s a considerable expansion beyond the company’s previous forays into e-commerce.In an example, it showed a page it built for the book “The Martian,” complete with related images, tweets, and a button that says Buy on Twitter. The new pages will be promoted through people’s Twitter feeds.As well as Twitter building these pages, celebrities and brands will be able to build them too. It offered examples of pages built by Demi Lovato, Reese Witherspoon, Nike and Target, the last of which is filled with tweets promoting summer clothing, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has rolled out a new OneNote feature to the iPhone first before any other platform, showing off the company’s interest in promoting cross-platform use of its note-taking system.OneNote users with Apple’s smartphones will now be able to convert notes with checklists in them into a special list mode that will organize items based on whether they’re checked off or not. A note formatted as a list also includes an “add item” button at the top that will create a new blank to-do.The feature is designed to make it easier for people to quickly interact with their checklists on touch devices without having to deftly pick out a single checkbox in a long column of little boxes. At any time, notes that have been converted to the new checklist format can be converted back without much fuss, and the notes will still be readable by other versions of OneNote as long checklists.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung will update the security software on its Galaxy smartphones to address a flaw that researchers warned could let attackers access people’s devices.Earlier in the week, researchers at NowSecure, a mobile security company, identified the flaw in SwiftKey, a keyboard application that comes preloaded on Galaxy smartphones. The flaw could be exploited even when SwiftKey was not used as the default keyboard, NowSecure said.On Thursday, Samsung said it would issue a fix that would roll out over the coming days to owners of the Galaxy S4, released in 2013, and later models. Those devices have Samsung’s Knox security platform installed by default and can receive over-the-air security policy updates. Users must have automatic updates activated in their phone’s settings, Samsung said on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint says it has stopped throttling its heaviest data users on congested networks, in what appears to be the first tangible benefit of the Federal Communications Commision’s new net neutrality rules.Sprint had added a throttling clause for its top 5 percent of data users last year, saying they might see slower speeds in congested areas. But the carrier has now ended this policy, The Wall Street Journal reports, saying it wanted to steer clear of the FCC’s Open Internet Order.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter is planning some big changes to the way people follow events using its service, with a major new feature that will group together tweets, photos and videos related to whatever’s happening in the moment.The move could make Twitter more useful for tracking current events at a time when its user growth is sagging. It’s dabbled in the area of events before, but the new initiative, dubbed Project Lightning, should make it much easier to find content related to scheduled events like the Grammys or major news events such as an earthquake.There’ll be a new button on Twitter’s mobile app that takes users to a page listing various events happening at that moment. Selecting one will take the user to a page of tweets, videos and photos related to that event. The content will be curated by Twitter staff, and users will be able to swipe through full-screen photos and videos.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft updated its Outlook apps for iOS and Android Thursday to let system administrators have greater control over how employees use corporate email accounts.The update brings support for the company’s Intune mobile application management solution and a Conditional Access feature that requires users enroll in mobile device management before getting their Office 365 email through Outlook. Administrators can deploy the Outlook app to devices that are enrolled in a company’s Intune system, and then manage them under a custom policy.That policy can include a variety of limitations, like preventing users from copying corporate email content to applications or other email accounts that aren’t managed by the company and encrypting data from the Outlook app. At the same time, the profile can be set up so that personal email accounts added to the Outlook app aren’t managed under corporate policy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chromebook productivity tipsImage by Koman90 via WikimediaChromebooks are more than toy computers for running the Chrome Web browser. Google’s rapid development of Chrome OS has given the cloud-based operating system a significant set of power-user tools to help make you more productive and to ensure your data is secured.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung Electronics has asked that a full bench of an appeals court should review a damages award in a long-standing patent infringement dispute with arch-rival Apple.Apple sued Samsung in 2011 alleging that Samsung phones infringed on several iPhone patents. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California awarded Apple damages of US$930 million after a jury found that Samsung infringed Apple’s design and utility patents and diluted its trade dresses, which relate to the overall look and packaging of a product.A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed last month with the jury’s verdict on the design patent infringements, the validity of two utility patent claims, and the damages awarded for the design and utility patent infringements appealed by Samsung. But the appeals court reversed the jury’s findings that the asserted trade dresses are protectable, and vacated the damages relating to trade dress dilution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AT&T Mobility, in common with many other service providers of all kinds, uses the word “unlimited” to describe their consumer wireless data offerings. Unfortunately, for consumers, AT&T is using a totally different definition of the word because to the company, “unlimited” has meant “until you reach a threshold of service usage after which we’ll throttle back your performance.”The FCC, in their usual slow and lumbering way, has finally got around to doing something about this blatant and devious redefinition of “unlimited” (it’s taken them four, count ‘em, four years) and proposes to fine AT&T … wait for it … a record $100 million for misleading customers on the grounds that the company violated the 2010 Open Internet Transparency Rule that required ISPs to clearly and transparently inform their customers about their network management practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Communications Commission said it plans to fine AT&T Mobility $100M – the agency’s largest fine ever -- for severely slowing down data speeds for customers with unlimited data plans.
The FCC’s investigation revealed that millions of AT&T customers were slowed for an average of 12 days per billing cycle, significantly impeding their ability to use common data applications such as GPS mapping or streaming video. And the company failed to adequately notify its customers that they could receive speeds slower than the normal network speeds AT&T advertised, the FCC stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine AT&T $100 million for misleading customers by throttling speeds on the lines of millions of customers who had "unlimited" data plans.The FCC alleges that AT&T did not adequately disclose to its customers on "unlimited" data plans that their speed would slow drastically after they had reached a monthly data allowance of 5GBs. The policy began in 2011.Data speeds were significantly slowed to 512kbps from the advertised 5Gbps to 12Gbps under something AT&T called its maximum bit rate policy. That very name is clearly at odds with an unlimited plan, a senior FCC official told reporters on a conference call.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s enough to keep you on your phone’s data connection – the annoying guest wireless network. Maybe it’s got a clunky, slow-loading web portal to navigate. Maybe the password is hard to find. Or maybe it’s entirely open, but you noticed that a seedy-looking guy over there has Wireshark open on his laptop.Wireless hardware vendor Xirrus, however, is rolling out what it’s hoping is a way to simplify Wi-Fi management and make the experience less annoying – the company this week has announced an mobile data management (MDM) suite called EasyPass.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Office 365 vs. Google for Work: A cloud comparison for small businesses + The LastPass security breach: What you need to know, do, and watch out for +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It seems like I was only just writing about the new, up-to-3.2 Gbps Wi-Fi routers, such as the drone look-alike D-Link DIR-890L.In fact, it was all of six-months ago, in my post, "Is it time to move to beamforming 802.11ac?"Well, that generation of wireless networking gear using beamforming and combining multiple bands, is about to be superseded. Microprocessor-maker Broadcom has launched new 5.4 Gbps-capable chips that will appear in routers later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As HTC faces shrinking revenue, the smartphone vendor is testing ads over its BlinkFeed media aggregation app, and some users aren’t happy.On Tuesday, HTC said it had begun rolling out an update to its BlinkFeed app that would include advertisements for users in the U.S., the U.K., China and a few other markets.The ads, for now, will be in a limited number, and promote sponsored apps, in addition to HTC accessories and devices, the company said in a blog post.“Because these are native ads, they will appear like a typical BlinkFeed post rather than as a pop-up or banner ad,” HTC added. However, users will be given an option to opt out from seeing the ads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
What happens if you combine the best of Wi-Fi and cellular networks? In South Korea, consumers get gigabit-speed service to their phones.Samsung Electronics and mobile operator KT have developed a hybrid technology called GiGA LTE that can bring LTE and Wi-Fi signals together for download speeds as high as 1.17Gbps (bits per second), according to The Korea Herald. GiGA LTE is available now with a firmware upgrade to Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge handsets.Wi-Fi and LTE are becoming wary neighbors as cellular operators look for more spectrum and all types of wireless networks face growing user demands. Carriers are looking into LTE-Unlicensed, which can transmit LTE signals in the same band with Wi-Fi, and Qualcomm is now exploring a technology that would let more types of operators set up those networks. Some Wi-Fi backers say LTE-Unlicensed could squeeze out wireless LAN users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here