The top 10 PC technologies and trends to watch in 2017

Though some critics love to knock PCs as dinosaurs, laptops and desktops have gotten sexier, faster and even smarter. For every blue screen of death, there are droves of technological enhancements driving PCs into the era of virtual reality, 4K video and 5G connectivity. Here are the top 10 PC technology and trends to watch next year.VR PCs on your head Intel/IDGNS An Intel employee demonstrates the company's Project Alloy headset on stage during IDF 2016 in San Francisco on August 16, 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

California mandates energy-efficiency standards for computers

California has become the first state in the U.S. to mandate energy-efficiency standards for monitors and a variety of computers, including notebooks, desktops, workstations and servers.The standards, which come into force starting from from Jan. 1, 2018, focus on the performance of computers in idle, sleep and off modes rather than putting limits on when they are in active operation, said the California Energy Commission, which on Wednesday adopted the new standards.California has more than 25 million computer monitors installed in homes and businesses, and the new standards recommend the use of higher efficiency LED backlights and screen technologies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

51% off Apple USB-C to Lightning Cable – Deal Alert

This USB-C cable connects your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with Lightning connector to your computer's USB-C port for syncing and charging.  Currently discounted 51% on Amazon from Apple, taking its typical list price down to just $19. See the discounted cable on Amazon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Arista wins big in latest court patent case go-around over Cisco

In rejecting a $335 million damage award to Cisco, a California jury gave Arista Networks a key verdict in part of the expansive patent infringement lawsuit the two networking companies are fighting over.While the jury found Arista had copied some of Cisco Command Line Interface it declined to award in damages. The jury also found that Arista did not infringe the single patent remaining in the case as well as Cisco’s asserted copyrights in its user manuals.+More on Network World: Cisco Talos: Zeus spawn “Floki bot” malware gaining use, cyber-underworld notoriety+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Arista wins big in latest court patent case go-around over Cisco

In rejecting a $335 million damage award to Cisco, a California jury gave Arista Networks a key verdict in part of the expansive patent infringement lawsuit the two networking companies are fighting over.While the jury found Arista had copied some of Cisco Command Line Interface it declined it declined to award in damages. The jury also found that Arista did not infringe the single patent remaining in the case as well as Cisco’s asserted copyrights in its user manuals.+More on Network World: Cisco Talos: Zeus spawn “Floki bot” malware gaining use, cyber-underworld notoriety+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo breach means hackers had three years to abuse user accounts

Security researchers are disturbed it took Yahoo three years to discover that details of over 1 billion user accounts had been stolen back in 2013.It means that someone -- possibly a state-sponsored actor -- had access to one of the largest email user bases in the world, without anyone knowing. The stolen database may have even included information on email ids of U.S. government and military employees.“It is extremely alarming that Yahoo didn’t know about this,” said Alex Holden, chief information security officer with Hold Security.Yahoo said back in November it first learned about the breach when law enforcement began sharing with the company stolen data  that had been provided by a hacker. At the time, the company was already dealing with a separate data breach, reported in September, involving 500 million user accounts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo breach means hackers had three years to abuse user accounts

Security researchers are disturbed it took Yahoo three years to discover that details of over 1 billion user accounts had been stolen back in 2013.It means that someone -- possibly a state-sponsored actor -- had access to one of the largest email user bases in the world, without anyone knowing. The stolen database may have even included information on email ids of U.S. government and military employees.“It is extremely alarming that Yahoo didn’t know about this,” said Alex Holden, chief information security officer with Hold Security.Yahoo said back in November it first learned about the breach when law enforcement began sharing with the company stolen data  that had been provided by a hacker. At the time, the company was already dealing with a separate data breach, reported in September, involving 500 million user accounts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

17% off Wonder Workshop Dash Robot – Deal Alert

Dash is a real robot that makes learning to code fun for kids. Responding to voice, navigating objects, dancing, and singing, Dash is the robot you always dreamed of having. Use the free iOS, Android and Kindle Fire apps to create new behaviors for Dash – doing more with robotics than ever possible. Dash presents your kids with hundreds of projects, challenges, and puzzles as well as endless possibilities for freeform play. Dash Robot averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 150 customers on Amazon (read reviews), where its typical list price of $150 has been reduced 17% to $125. See it on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s some questions Congress should ask about the election-related hacks

Members of congress are demanding answers over claims that Russia attempted to influence the U.S. presidential election with several high-profile hacks. U.S. intelligence agencies are confident that the Kremlin was involved, but incoming president Donald Trump remains skeptical.  As they prepare to investigate, here’s some questions lawmakers should be asking to help them understand and respond to these hacks.  What evidence do we have proving Russia’s involvement? Attribution in any hack can be incredibly difficult, as Trump noted in a tweet, but cybersecurity experts say they have technical evidence showing that Democratic groups and figures were at the very least hacked with spear phishing emails and hard-to-detect malware from two suspected Russian hacking teams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s some questions Congress should ask about the election-related hacks

Members of congress are demanding answers over claims that Russia attempted to influence the U.S. presidential election with several high-profile hacks. U.S. intelligence agencies are confident that the Kremlin was involved, but incoming president Donald Trump remains skeptical.  As they prepare to investigate, here’s some questions lawmakers should be asking to help them understand and respond to these hacks.  What evidence do we have proving Russia’s involvement? Attribution in any hack can be incredibly difficult, as Trump noted in a tweet, but cybersecurity experts say they have technical evidence showing that Democratic groups and figures were at the very least hacked with spear phishing emails and hard-to-detect malware from two suspected Russian hacking teams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hiding the User List on the Ubuntu Login Screen

In this post, I’m going to share how to hide the user list on the login screen for Ubuntu 16.04. The information here isn’t necessarily new or ground-breaking; however, in searching for the solution myself I found a lot of conflicting information as to how this may or may not be accomplished. I’m publishing this post in the hopes of providing a bit more clarity around this topic.

I’ve verified that this procedure works on the desktop distribution of Ubuntu 16.04. Note also that this is probably not the only way of making this work; it’s likely there are other ways of accomplishing the same thing.

To make configuration changes to the login screen, you’ll want to add configuration files to /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d. I used a single file to hide the user list and disable guest logins; presumably, you could use separate files for each configuration directive.

To disable the user list and disallow guest logins, add this content to a file in the etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d directory (I used the filename 00-hide-user-list.conf):

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-show-manual-login=true
allow-guest=false

Once this file is in place, you’ll need to either restart your Ubuntu system, or restart the LightDM Continue reading

Yahoo reports massive data breach involving 1 billion accounts

In what is likely the largest data breach ever, Yahoo is reporting that data associated with more than 1 billion user accounts was stolen in August 2013.The incident is separate from a breach Yahoo reported in September involving at least 500 million users that originally occurred in late 2014 and shook public trust in the company.Stolen user data from this new breach involves names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and hashed passwords using an aging algorithm known as MD5 that can be cracked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo reports massive data breach involving 1 billion accounts

In what is likely the largest data breach ever, Yahoo is reporting that data associated with more than 1 billion user accounts was stolen in August 2013.The incident is separate from a breach Yahoo reported in September involving at least 500 million users that originally occurred in late 2014 and shook public trust in the company.Stolen user data from this new breach involves names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and hashed passwords using an aging algorithm known as MD5 that can be cracked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here