IDG Contributor Network: How your car will help control your home

AT&T is one company that is planning on consumers being able to control elements of their home from the dashboard of connected cars.AT&T says that it is planning to link its connected car and smart home products via a voice recognition-enabled dashboard control. Home security will be the principal driver of the new tech in that case. But others are also in a race to bring functioning products to market and obtain consumer acceptance.Two existing AT&T products – AT&T Digital Life, a home management system, and AT&T Drive, its connected car platform – will be merged together to create its platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ideovitra seeks to slay PC power vampires with SensyBee smart switch

There’s a vampire-slayer stalking the halls at Cebit.With SensyBee, a curvy little box that plugs into the back of a PC between the power supply and the wall outlet, turning the PC off when it is unused, Ideovitra hopes to eliminate PCs’ vampire power consumption.A typical desktop PC consumes around 200 watts when running—but still as much as 50W when in Windows 8’s “sleep” mode. Even when “turned off,” it can consume up to 20W, as the power supply and some other components remain powered up to perform functions such as wake-on-LAN, said Ideovitra’s sales manager David Chedotal.In the 6,500 hours a year that the average office PC lies unused, that vampire power consumption can add between 130 and 325 kilowatt-hours to the energy bill. At German electricity prices, that’s anywhere from €30 (US$32) to €90 wasted each year, according to Ideovitra.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple Watch and its wireless tech

Apple hasn't called its upcoming Apple Watch "magical" as it did with the iPad in 2010, but its wireless components have some spellbinding features.Whether the embedded NFC (near field communication), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi elements contribute to the success of the Apple Watch sales is still an open question. Fashion and an array of apps could definitely trump the device's wireless tech.Why might the wireless tech not matter?So far, there aren't many NFC-ready point-of-sale terminals installed in the U.S. Likewise, there are relatively few hotel rooms that can be unlocked with a Bluetooth connection to the Apple Watch.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 12 most powerful Internet of Things companies Wi-Fi access points and hotspots seem to be everywhere, but there is disagreement over how important Wi-Fi will be on the Apple Watch.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Feds fine Verizon $3.4 million over 911 service outage issues

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has fined Verizon US$3.4 million over its failure to notify police and fire departments during a 911 service outage last year.Under the commission’s rules, Verizon and other carriers were required to notify emergency call centers of a six-hour outage that occurred in April. The outage involved multiple carriers and affected over 11 million people in seven states.Verizon’s portion affected 750,000 California residents who were unable to call 911 to reach an emergency operator at 13 call centers in northern California. The outage was the result of a coding error at a large 911 routing center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Feds fine Verizon $3.4 million over 911 service outage issues

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has fined Verizon US$3.4 million over its failure to notify police and fire departments during a 911 service outage last year.Under the commission’s rules, Verizon and other carriers were required to notify emergency call centers of a six-hour outage that occurred in April. The outage involved multiple carriers and affected over 11 million people in seven states.Verizon’s portion affected 750,000 California residents who were unable to call 911 to reach an emergency operator at 13 call centers in northern California. The outage was the result of a coding error at a large 911 routing center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pixometer app offers a smarter way to read dumb meters

So you want to track your water, electricity or gas consumption, but you still don’t have a smart meter on your supply? Pixolus has a mobile app that makes it easier to keep track of meter readings, even with dumb meters. Just tell the Pixometer app which meter you’re going to read, point the phone’s camera at it, and let the optical character recognition software do the work. Once the app gets a lock on the numbers, it speaks the reading out loud and stores it, and the date, in that meter’s file. You can even enter the price per kilowatt-hour, for electricity, or per cubic meter, for water, and the app will show you the expenditure since the last meter reading, and what that works out to per month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pixometer app offers a smarter way to read dumb meters

So you want to track your water, electricity or gas consumption, but you still don’t have a smart meter on your supply? Pixolus has a mobile app that makes it easier to keep track of meter readings, even with dumb meters. Just tell the Pixometer app which meter you’re going to read, point the phone’s camera at it, and let the optical character recognition software do the work. Once the app gets a lock on the numbers, it speaks the reading out loud and stores it, and the date, in that meter’s file. You can even enter the price per kilowatt-hour, for electricity, or per cubic meter, for water, and the app will show you the expenditure since the last meter reading, and what that works out to per month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Proposed data breach notification bill criticized as too weak

Proposed legislation that would require U.S. businesses to notify affected customers after data breaches is too weak because it would preempt stronger breach notification laws in several states and it wouldn’t cover several classes of data, including geolocation and health information, critics told lawmakers.The proposed Data Security and Breach Notification Act covers only data linked to identity theft or financial fraud, including Social Security numbers, but would not require businesses and nonprofit groups to notify users if other information is stolen, said critics, including Democratic members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee’s trade subcommittee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT manager gets certificate for Microsoft domain, tries to report it but gets in trouble

After a security enthusiast discovered a loophole that allowed him to register a valid SSL certificate for Microsoft’s live.fi domain, he tried to responsibly disclose the issue. But instead of thanks he got locked out of his email, phone, Xbox and online storage accounts.The issue was discovered by a Finnish man who works as an IT manager for a company in the industrial sector. He talked to the IDG News Service, but requested anonymity.Microsoft’s Outlook.com email service allows users to have multiple email addresses called aliases under a single account. At the moment, the service only allows aliases to be created on the @outlook.com domain, but several months ago more domains were available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hailing 50 spectacular years of spacewalking

Space walkImage by REUTERS/NASA/Handout via ReutersIt had to be quite the rush. The first spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA) happened March 18, 1965, when cosmonaut Alexei Leonov first departed the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 spacecraft to test the idea – he stayed out about 10 minutes.   American Edward White II took the US’ first spacewalk that year in June stepping out of the Gemini IV spacecraft. Since that time many have taken the plunge outside the their spacecraft to fix problems, make adjustments and even hit a golf ball, as one NASA astronaut did in 2006 – he shanked it. Take a look at some of the milestones of spacewalking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tim Cook on Steve Jobs and why Apple Watch will be the first smartwatch that matters

It's too soon to tell if Apple Watch will be a smash hit, but CEO Tim Cook said in a new interview that the new device “will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.”Cook told Fast Company that the company hasn’t put any sales expectations on the watch because the need for an iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, or 6 Plus to work “creates a ceiling.”But the watch will be an important step forward for the industry, just as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were, because it will create a new computing experience.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch “The inputs that work for a phone, a tablet, or a Mac don’t work as well on a smaller screen,” Cook said. “Most of the companies who have done smartwatches haven’t thought that through, so they’re still using pinch-to-zoom and other gestures that we created for the iPhone.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple iOS 8 really catching on now

Apple revealed Wednesday that iOS 8, released to the public in September, can now be found on 77% of iOS devices accessing the Apple Store. That's up from 68% in January.The iOS 7 edition of Apple's software for iPhones and iPads now accounts for just 20% of devices. Some have balked at moving to iOS 8 because of the space required to download it, while others have been spooked by buggy releases (I'm aware of at least one iOS 8 holdout in the office who says he doesn't have the space on his iPhone to download the new operating system).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UberPop banned by German court

The Frankfurt Regional Court has issued a nationwide ban against Uber ride-hailing service UberPop, declaring its business model illegal.UberPop is a service operated by Uber that connects users of its smartphone app with private drivers who offer rides in their own cars for fees that are substantially lower than regular taxi fares. Mediating rides with private drivers who don’t have the required licenses is illegal, though, the court ruled on Wednesday.Uber should in principle put a halt to the service immediately, a court spokesman said, adding that if it does not, it can be fined up to €250,000 (about US$265,000) for every violation.Uber can appeal the ruling and meanwhile, the complainant in the case, Taxi Deutschland, needs to post a €400,000 security deposit. The money is meant to compensate Uber for lost business in case it wins an appeal. Taxi Deutschland will post the deposit as soon as possible, a spokeswoman said in an email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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