Developers interested in extending the capabilities of Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant have some more free tools in their arsenal, thanks to a program the company announced Wednesday. Developers with an active Alexa skill —  a service that expands the capabilities of the virtual assistant — can apply for $100 in Amazon Web Services credits every…
An appeals court has barred an Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen from filing a civil suit against the African country, which allegedly infected his computer with spyware and monitored his communications. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that foreign states are immune from suit in a U.S. court unless an…
Wind River, an IoT software division of Intel, wants to help industrial users bring their legacy machine-to-machine systems into the age of open source and cloud computing. On Tuesday, it introduced software to virtualize industrial applications at the edge of the network, letting enterprises gradually migrate from older M2M technology to modern systems that give…
When Google announced plans to make smart clothing back in 2015 with Project Jacquard, I was intrigued but skeptical. I’ve worn sensor-filled clothes before, and they end up being more gimmicky than practical. But after trying on the first Jacquard product, a denim Levi’s jacket, I’m a believer. My biggest issue with wearable technology is…
While Google Hangouts is making a shift to serve enterprise users, it won’t be vanishing for consumers. Last week, the company announced that it would be splitting the chat and videoconferencing service into Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat, which raised questions about what would happen for those people who still use it in their personal…
Customers who have Reserved Instance contracts with Amazon Web Services will be able to subdivide some of their Linux and Unix virtual machine instances while maintaining their capacity discounts, thanks to pricing changes announced Monday. Reserved Instances allow customers to lock themselves into paying AWS for a certain amount of compute capacity with the company’s…
It’s been a year since the U.S. Army began researching the use of a British-built hoverbike as an autonomous delivery drone for battlefields, and it recently showed off its progress. The Army is hoping to develop the drone so that it can fly supplies to troops in combat zones, removing the need for risky ground…
Microsoft today postponed the retirement of the security bulletins that for nearly two decades have described in detail the month’s slate of vulnerabilities and accompanying patches. The bulletins’ last stand was originally scheduled for January, with a replacement process ready to step in Feb. 14. Rather than a set of bulletins, Microsoft was to provide…
Crooks are stealing code from the purveyors of Petya ransomware and using it to extort money from innocent victims, stiffing the creators of the malware out of the cut they are supposed to get. Rather than following the rules of licensing Petya, another criminal group is stealing and modifying the ransomware so they can use…
The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday argued that it should not have to reveal the maker of a tool used last year to crack an alleged terrorist’s iPhone or disclose how much it paid for the hacking job, court documents showed. That tool was used last year by the FBI to access a password-protected iPhone…