Microsoft’s hardware partners will flood the market with Windows Mixed Reality headsets by the holiday season this year, offering up a new way to enjoy Windows 10. A Windows Mixed Reality headset from Acer is already being seeded to select developers by Microsoft, but isn’t available to consumers yet. So far three PC makers —…
It could put an end to end-to-end encryption in services such as WhatsApp: The U.K. government wants telecommunications providers to help it tap their customers’ communications, removing any encryption the provider applied. The government’s desires are set out in a draft of the regulations obtained by Open Rights Group (ORG), which campaigns for digital civil…
Over the past year, a group of attackers has managed to infect hundreds of computers belonging to government agencies with a malware framework stitched together from JavaScript code and publicly available tools. The attack, analyzed by researchers from antivirus firm Bitdefender, shows that cyberespionage groups don’t necessarily need to invest a lot of money in…
In America, landlines aren’t the norm anymore. A recently released survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF) estimates that during the second half of 2016 50.8 percent of U.S. households were wireless only. That’s up from 48.3 percent during the same time period in 2015—a rise of 2.5 percentage points. The story…
Facebook is on track to surpass 2 billion monthly active users (MAU) before the end of this summer. The company ended the first quarter of 2017 with 1.94 billion MAUs and 1.28 billion people using the social network every day. While the monthly user base grew 17 percent year-over-year, daily usage jumped at a slightly…
Microsoft said Thursday night that it will host another mysterious event for reporters, to “show the world what’s next” in Shanghai, China. So far, the invitation has come somewhat out of left field. Microsoft representatives were unavailable for comment at press time, and Microsoft executives haven’t previously indicated that such an event was planned. It likely involves…
Uber Technologies is reportedly under a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in the U.S. over its use of secret software, which helped the company avoid officials seeking rides to investigate the ride-hailing service, according to news reports Thursday. Their accounts appear to tally with a report last month by the Portland Bureau of Transportation, which…
Google has stopped Wednesday’s clever email phishing scheme, but the attack may very well make a comeback. One security researcher has already managed to replicate it, even as Google is trying to protect users from such attacks. “It looks exactly like the original spoof,” said Matt Austin, director of security research at Contrast Security. The…
A sophisticated Russian cyberespionage group is readying attacks against Mac users and has recently ported its Windows backdoor program to macOS. The group, known in the security industry as Snake, Turla or Uroburos, has been active since at least 2007 and has been responsible for some of the most complex cyberespionage attacks. It targets government…
After about half a decade, Intel is wiping the confusing E5 and E7 monikers off its Xeon chips and rebranding them to bring more clarity about the performance and features that come with the processors. Xeon chips are used in servers and workstations like Mac Pro. Xeon chips being released mid-year will be broken down…