The group that sets standards for 4K on high-definition TVs has established specifications for 4K and HDR (high-dynamic range) video on mobile devices including smartphones, tablets and laptops. The devices will be eligible for a “Mobile HDR Premium” certification if they meet minimum specifications tied to screen resolution, bit depth and a handful of other…
Amazon Web Services, a major cloud hosting service, is having a system failure that has been affecting web sites and apps. AWS reported on its Service Health Dashboard at 2:35 p.m. ET that its engineers were working on the problem that has affected websites including Netflix, Reddit and Adobe. Those sites seem to be up…
Robotics company Boston Dynamics has built a two-legged, wheeled robot that can roll down a flight of stairs and jump on and off a table, all while maintaining its balance and speed. Handle, a 6-foot, 5-inch tall robot, can travel at 9 mph and jump four feet, according to Boston Dynamics, a Alphabet-owned company, which…
Microsoft has added a setting to Windows 10 that will let users restrict new software installation to only those apps hosted in the Windows Store. The option debuted in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, the preview program which gives participants an early peek at the next feature upgrade as Microsoft builds it. That…
Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips. Rather than tying chip upgrades directly to the manufacturing process involved, Intel will look at delivering a sustained set of performance upgrades with each new chip architecture. “We’re going to be focused more on the generation by the amount of performance increment it will give…
BARCELONA — Moscow has rolled out new technologies to make the city safer, including 160,000 outdoor cameras focused on traffic and areas of possible crime. The effort is one of the largest municipal camera installations in Europe. Moscow, with 12 million residents, has installed enough cameras in the last 18 months to rival the number…
The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers. Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families…
Setting up meetings can be a pain, since they often require folks to send emails back and forth figuring out a time before finally sending off a calendar invitation to block everyone’s schedule. A New York startup called x.ai wants to simplify that with a helpful bot, and they just launched a product aimed at…
Despite a turbulent past, Windows PCs with ARM are making a grand return later this year, but only with Qualcomm chips. Another big ARM chipmaker, MediaTek, is sitting out the opportunity to put its ARM-based chips in Windows PCs because the company sees it as a limited opportunity. MediaTek’s chips are already used in Chromebooks, but…
It’s rare that software engineers are lauded as the heroes of anything, but Roborace CEO Denis Sverdlov wants to change that. Sverdlov, formerly CEO of Russian mobile operator Yota, set up Roborace last year with the goal of organizing street races that will pit self-driving cars against one another. “In the racing environment engineers are…