How would you feel about an artificial intelligence system handling your taxes this year? H&R Block, the tax services company, is betting that customers will be willing to have A.I. assist their human tax preparers in getting them the biggest refunds possible or at least reduce how much they owe. The company, which has about…
The Node.js Foundation this week has released Node.js 7.6.0, an experimental version of the server-side JavaScript platform that moves forward with async/await capabilities for handling asynchronous operations. But the Foundation advises enterprise users to skip using the new release in production and instead wait for Node.js 8 to arrive in April. With Node’s release strategy,…
The global partnership announced Wednesday between Telefonica and IoT specialist Sigfox could ensure the latter’s long-term success while accelerating the overall growth of LPWANs (low-power, wide-area networks). Telefonica said it will integrate Sigfox’s energy-sipping, low-data-rate radios into millions of devices used for things like smart metering and asset tracking. The Spain-based mobile carrier operates in…
Years from now, your first autonomous car may have a lot of help from 5G wireless networks to navigate the streets safely. 5G will be as important to autonomous cars as 4G has been to mobile phones. The technology will help cars change lanes, recognize signals and draw up accurate maps. 5G will also help…
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to roll back some net neutrality regulations that require broadband providers to inform customers about their network management practices. The Republican-controlled FCC on Thursday suspended the net neutrality transparency requirements for broadband providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers. Critics called the decision anticonsumer. The transparency rule, waived for…
Linux system administrators should be on the watch for kernel updates because they fix a local privilege escalation flaw that could lead to a full system compromise. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-6074, is over 11 years old and was likely introduced in 2005 when the Linux kernel gained support for the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol…
Last year, someone turned a German internet service provider into a million-router botnet. German police think they will soon have the culprit. The U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) made an arrest on Wednesday in connection with the November 2016 hack on Deutsche Telekom. The agency said it arrested a 29-year-old man at Luton airport, acting…
If your computer’s been hacked, Dale Drew might actually know something about that. He’s CSO (chief security officer) at Level 3 Communications, a major internet backbone provider that’s routinely on the lookout for cyberattacks on the network level. The company has linked more than 150 million IP addresses to malicious activity worldwide. That means all…
After several high-profile breaches over the past couple of years, the healthcare industry plans to increase its spending on IT security more than other sectors. According to a survey released this Tuesday, 81 percent of U.S. healthcare companies plan to increase security spending this year, compared to an overall industry average of 73 percent. The…
What is Android’s next destination? Thanks to Qualcomm, it’s going to be used in untethered VR headsets. Google’s plan for VR headsets currently revolves around Daydream, in which smartphones are slotted into headsets like DayDream View. But VR’s future appears to be in untethered head-mounted displays, which are self-contained computers. These headsets don’t need to…