With so many kid-friendly games, apps, and programs these days, it can be hard for parents to pry their kids away from the screen—but not all screen time has to be passive. SwapBots is a new line of physical toys that spring to life when paired with a smartphone or tablet, thanks to augmented reality.…
Companies that use security products to inspect HTTPS traffic might inadvertently make their users’ encrypted connections less secure and expose them to man-in-the-middle attacks, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warns. US-CERT, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, published an advisory after a recent survey showed that HTTPS inspection products don’t mirror the…
Sony isn’t exactly the coolest name in technology, which is why we were surprised to see the company set up shop directly across the street from the Austin Convention Center at South by Southwest. Stepping inside Sony’s makeshift Wow Factory was like seeing into a future where virtual and augmented reality are full-body experiences not…
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has taken the wraps off a new battery energy storage project that will store up to 2 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 1,000 homes for four hours. The new vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery substation was installed by Osaka, Japan-based Sumitomo Electric and will store renewable energy…
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has come up with some crazy ideas in the past, and its latest idea is to create computers that are always learning and adapting, much like humans. However, this isn’t a far-fetched idea. Mobile devices, computers, and gadgets already have artificial intelligence features, with notable examples being Apple’s…
Local police in Minnesota are trying to solve a bank fraud scheme by demanding Google give up data on people who looked up key search terms that may be related to crime. The warrant, issued to police in the city of Edina last month, is raising eyebrows among privacy advocates. It’s a rare instance of…
Several attacks observed over the past few months that rely heavily on PowerShell, open-source tools, and fileless malware techniques might be the work of a single group of hackers. An investigation started by security researchers from Morphisec into a recent email phishing attack against high-profile enterprises pointed to a group that uses techniques documented by…
An experiment by scholars at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has demonstrated a wireless network based on infrared rays that can move data at speeds of 42.8Gbps. The system, which is the work of new Ph.D recipient Joanne Oh, uses light “antennas,” which don’t have any moving parts, translating signals from a…
Slack’s international customers are now able to set channel names in their native tongue, thanks to an update the group chat service rolled out Thursday. According to an in-app bulletin, users will be able to set up rooms to discuss work and other topics using a wider variety of characters. As a result, users can…
Facebook, Twitter and Google have been given a month to make changes to their user agreements in the European Union or face “enforcement action.” European consumer authorities put the social media services on notice last November that their terms of service did not comply with EU law, asked them to make changes and to address…