German news publishers suing Google for copyright dues under a 2013 law may get more than they bargained for, with implications for readers and newspapers throughout the EU. Rather than rule in their favor, the Berlin court hearing their case has raised doubts about the validity of the very law they sought to enforce: It…
Amazon’s Echo is getting a touchscreen. The online retailer introduced the Echo Show on Tuesday, and it looks exactly like the images that popped up online last week. [ Related: Amazon shames Apple with Echo Show ] The $230 Echo Show features a 7-inch touchscreen and dual 2-inch stereo speakers. It can do everything that…
Microsoft has released an update for the malware scanning engine bundled with most of its Windows security products in order to fix a highly critical vulnerability that could allow attackers to hack computers. The vulnerability was discovered by Google Project Zero researchers Tavis Ormandy and Natalie Silvanovich on Saturday and was serious enough for Microsoft…
Low-cost smartphones like the Moto G5 introduced a few months ago are shipping with soon-to-be-outdated chips from Qualcomm, which has announced successor chips. Qualcomm on Monday introduced the Snapdragon 630 and 660, which are massive upgrades to chips used in low-cost smartphones introduced over the last six months or so. And in a few months,…
Several German firms are taking a stab at a single login process for accessing different online services — an approach that could compete with U.S. offerings. The companies, which include automaker Daimler, insurance provider Allianz and Deutsche Bank, among others, announced the joint effort on Monday. Their goal: to create a platform that revolves around…
Everyone has a preference when it comes to travel wear, but one company is hoping someday passengers will sport spacesuits on its craft. That company is SolarStratos, and it has built what it calls the world’s first solar stratospheric plane. A two-seat prototype with 22 square meters of solar cells had its maiden flight on…
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s website slowed to a crawl after comic and political commentator John Oliver urged viewers to flood the agency with comments in support of net neutrality, in what appeared to be a repeat of a 2014 incident. With the FCC headed toward a repeal of net neutrality rules it passed in early 2015,…
For the umpteenth time, Dell Technologies has reiterated that PCs are important to the company, and it won’t quit the market. But PCs occupied only a few minutes of CEO Michael Dell’s opening keynote at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas on Monday. PCs are the engine that keep enterprises chugging, he said. Instead, Dell…
Sony has developed a CCD image sensor that can help autonomous cars make sense of electronic road signs and see better when transitioning between dark tunnels and daylight. The IMX390 sensor has an anti-flicker function that means images of LED road signs come out clear. As LED signs are often used to indicate temporary road conditions…
The Linux Foundation announced a new software project under its Hyperledger open consortium aimed at creating a collaboration tool for building blockchain business networks — or smart contracts — and their deployment across a distributed ledger. The new project, called Hyperleder Composer, is a modeling language based on JavaScript and with REST API support, that…