IT Executive news

• 5 reasons why the 9.7-inch iPad Pro can't be a PC replacement

  21-03-2016 21:44
  
  Apple is taking a shot at Windows PCs with its new 9.7-inch iPad Pro tablet, calling it the "ultimate PC replacement."The new iPad Pro would be an improvement for about 600 million PCs that are five years or older and need an upgrade, said Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, at an event Monday.The number of old PCs still in use is "really sad," Schiller said. The new iPad Pro has the processing power and features to replace a PC, he added.While there are merits
  
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• 7 enterprise bug fixes in iOS 9.3

  21-03-2016 21:25
  
  Today, just hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook detailed a number of notable new features in its iOS 9.3 software for iPhones and iPads, the company promptly released the update to consumers and enterprise users.I just updated my iPhone 6s Plus to iOS 9.3, and during the upgrade process I noticed a list of enterprise-specific fixes buried at the bottom of the software details page. None of squashed bugs seem like major issues, but they could be troublesome for business users and IT admins who use App
  
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• First Look: The iPhone SE, and the rest of Apple’s big announcements

  21-03-2016 21:00
  A step backwards, or a return to smartphone sanity?Image by AppleThe launch of the iPhone SE, the first new high-end phone in a while that retains the 4-inch form factor of old, will dominate most of the headlines about Apple’s announcement event today, but there was a lot more in there as well, including a new model iPad Pro, an iOS update, and even some wearable news. Here’s a first look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Apple trolls Windows users, touting 9.7-inch iPad Pro as 'ultimate PC replacement'

  21-03-2016 20:46
  
  When Apple announced the original iPad Pro, the Internet erupted with claims that Apple was simply copying the Microsoft Surface Pro. At a press event Monday, Apple struck back with some less-than-subtle trolling itself.
  When Apple’s senior worldwide vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller, announced the smaller 9.7-inch iPad Pro, he also took explicit aim at the legions of Microsoft users who might be considering a second digital device. 
  “There’s a second group
  
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• Cumulus changes CEO

  21-03-2016 20:10
  
  Linux network operating system vendor Cumulus Networks this week named a new CEO while its current CEO and co-founder takes over as CTO.
  Josh Leslie, formerly Cumulus vice president of sales, takes over for founder JR Rivers. Rivers becomes CTO, and says transition was his idea with board approval.
  Current CTO and co-founder Nolan Leake will still be involved in the company’s technical direction, working with Rivers, Rivers said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please c
  
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• Fun infographic depicts evolution of marketing automation tools

  21-03-2016 19:38
  
  The evolution of marketing automation services is similar to that of modern robotics, according to a quirky infographic from Agile CRM, a provider of CRM tools for sales and marketing. More specifically, marketing automation tools are no longer expensive, confusing or difficult to integrate with other services, the company says. Marketing automation platforms improved considerably during the last three years, and they now weave machine learning and predictive analytics into easy-to-use interfac
  
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• Apple vs. FBI: How iOS 8 changed everything

  21-03-2016 19:37
  Apple and the FBI meet in court on Tuesday for the first hearing in the showdown over iPhone encryption, but this fight has been brewing since Apple introduced iOS 8 in June 2014.
  A new Bloomberg report reveals that the FBI and Apple both expected the White House to take their side before the fight went public.It all started with iOS 8According to Bloomberg’s sources, Apple’s top lawyer, Bruce Sewell, met with officials in President Barack Obama’s administration shortly after
  
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• 'Minimalist' JavaScript framework Feathers 2.0 ready to fly

  21-03-2016 19:33
  
  Feathers 2.0, positioned as a “minimalist” JavaScript framework, will be launched as a platform for building real-time apps and APIs. The project is billed as a microservice Web framework for Node.js.
  Leveraging ECMAScript 2015 (aka ES6), Feathers lets developers use the latest JavaScript features and enables writing of “terse, elegant” code, said creator Eric Kryski. While acknowledging that developers have seen an influx of JavaScript frameworks lately, Kryski stresses
  
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• In this online demo, IBM's Watson will tell you what's in your photos

  21-03-2016 19:05
  
  Image recognition is a hot area of research using artificial intelligence, and now IBM offers an online demo to let anyone test out the capabilities offered by its Watson cognitive computing system.Six sample photos are provided for illustration, or you can upload your own and ask Watson to analyze them. Either way, the cognitive system will produce a series of "classifiers" offering descriptions of the image's contents along with confidence scores for each of them. You can also create custom cl
  
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• Siri will soon let you dictate your passwords on Apple TV

  21-03-2016 19:02
  
  One of the biggest problems with Apple TV is that in order to log into applications, users have to enter usernames and passwords into their set-top box one letter at a time using a remote control.Apple is aiming to fix that with a forthcoming update to tvOS, the operating system powering the Apple TV. Users will soon be able to dictate text to Siri, including usernames and passwords, so they don't have to hunt and peck out long strings of text.What's not clear is how Apple will secure users' spo
  
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• Apple’s Liam is a robot that takes apart your iPhone for recycling

  21-03-2016 18:50
  
  Apple has developed a new tool that deconstructs iPhones after they are returned. The robotic cutting tool, called Liam, removes the valuable materials from iPhone parts so they can be repurposed into other products. Apple shared some details about the tool during a press event Monday.Some of the materials removed include cobalt, gold, silver, platinum and tungsten. For example, Tungsten is repurposed in precision cutting tools."There's no other machine in the world that can do what Li
  
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• 5 things to remember during Tuesday's hearing pitting Apple against the FBI

  21-03-2016 18:44
  Apple and the U.S. Department of Justice will argue in court Tuesday about whether a judge should require the tech giant help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by the San Bernardino, California, mass shooter.
  The hearing, before Magistrate Judge Sher Pym of U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is the end result of weeks of court filings, media coverage, and often contentious debate. The case has pitted advocates of encryption and other security measures on electronic dev
  
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• Tim Cook: Apple 'will not shrink' from responsibility to protect customer privacy

  21-03-2016 18:33
  
  On Monday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook positioned his company’s stance on protecting privacy as a patriotic duty.
  Cook addressed the ongoing iPhone privacy issue briefly as part of a presentation where Apple is expected to announce an new iPad Pro mini as well as a smaller iPhone.
  “We built the iPhone for you, our customers,” Cook said. “We know that it is a deeply personal device,” Cook said. “For many of us, the iPhone is an extension of ourselves.
  
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• Tim Cook: Apple won't shrink in fight for data privacy

  21-03-2016 18:30
  
  Apple won't shrink from its responsibility to safeguard the privacy of its users, CEO Tim Cook said Monday, a day before Apple lawyers are due to face off with the Department of Justice in a California courtroom.Cook's comments confirm the company's continued defiance against a request from the FBI to develop software that will allow it to make multiple guesses of an iPhone passcode without triggering the phone's self-destruct feature."I've been humbled and deeply grateful for the outp
  
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• What to expect from Windows 10 migrations

  21-03-2016 18:25
  
  Enterprise adoption of Windows 10 is moving at a faster clip than previous operating-system updates as companies shrink the typical time frame allotted for planning, budgeting, testing and deployment of a new OS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others publish new email security standard

  21-03-2016 18:18
  Engineers from some of the world's largest email service providers have banded together to improve the security of email traffic traversing the Internet.Devised by engineers from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Comcast, LinkedIn and 1&1 Mail & Media Development & Technology, the SMTP Strict Transport Security is a new mechanism that allows email providers to define policies and rules for establishing encrypted email communications.The new mechanism is defined in a draft that was published
  
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• Shapeshifting robots using a new material could be on horizon

  21-03-2016 17:57
  
  A new material being researched could make shape-shifting robots real, but let's hope they aren't as violent as the Transformers from the movies.
  Researchers have developed a flexible material that can stretch when heated and will allow robots to change shapes. The material, which can also be rigid, is a mix of elastomer foam with a soft metal alloy.
  With the material, robots could become more versatile. Most robots are rigid, much like human skeletons, but by morphing into new shapes, they cou
  
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• Johns Hopkins team cracks iMessage photo, video encryption

  21-03-2016 17:16
  
  A Johns Hopkins team has decrypted iMessage photos by guessing character-by-character the key used to encrypt it, and Apple plans to release a new iOS version today that will fix the flaw.
  Upgrading to iOS 9.3 should fix the problem for users of the operating system and iMessage, says Matthew Green, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins who led a team of grad students that broke the encryption, according to a story in the Washington Post.
  The story says he discovered a flaw in the encry
  
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• How to turn off Twitter's algorithmic feed and see tweets in chronological order

  21-03-2016 16:53
  More than a month after it first rolled out as an opt-in program, Twitter’s algorithmic timeline is now supposed to be live for all, as recently reported by Marketing Land. What this means is that some tweets will appear in your timeline out of chronological order.
  This is not like Facebook’s algorithmic approach, however, where the social network only shows you content it believes you’re more likely to find engaging. The live tweet stream based on people you follow is still t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How Core OS aims to make containers more secure

  21-03-2016 16:45
  
  As container technologies grow in popularity, security is becoming a critical issue. In February, Docker addressed one of the major security concerns by adding support for user namespace the Docker 1.10 release.
  Now the Core OS team has launched an open source project called Clair, an API-driven analysis service that inspects container images for known security flaws.  Developers can use it to build services that scan containers for security threats and vulnerabilities.
  
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• Supreme Court to hear Samsung's appeal in Apple design patents case

  21-03-2016 15:25
  
  The U.S. Supreme Court has given Samsung a last chance to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple for allegedly infringing its iPhone design patents.The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear part of Samsung's appeal of an award of US$399 million in damages for infringement of three design patents, which cover the face and rounded bezel design of the Apple iPhone and the grid of icons on the phone's home screen.Samsung, with support from Google, Facebook and other tech co
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 6 great animation apps for the Mac

  21-03-2016 15:12
  Macs have been a favorite of artists for many years, and have long been used to create all kinds of animated content. Everything from cartoons, to movies, to animated illustrations have been done in OS X on all kinds of different Mac computers.But finding the right animation app can be a chore if you don't know where to start. In this roundup I've included six of the best animation apps that you can get in the Mac App Store.While this is by no means an exhaustive list of what's available in term
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How companies can counter bad H-1B visa program press

  21-03-2016 15:05
  
  Well, it has happened again. The H1-B visa issue found its way back into the public discourse on the stage of the recent Republican debate in Miami, Florida. Each of the four remaining candidates was put in quite a corner, forced to stake out a position that would offend neither his corporate contributors nor free-market globalists nor American workers. Of course, it is not my job to analyze politics (send me a note if you would like to get into that debate!), but suffice it to say that eac
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What do we mean when we say 'business-IT alignment'?

  21-03-2016 14:32
  
  In prior columns I've written about the challenge of business-IT alignment.  However there are many that believe the work "alignment" should be replaced with the work "convergence." What does convergence mean? According to Webster’s definition, convergence is “the act of converging and especially moving toward union or uniformity.”  When you use the word alignment, it  implies that there are two separate entities trying to work together but still remaining separa
  
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• 13 ecommerce spring cleaning tips

  21-03-2016 14:14
  
  Ah spring, a time of renewal. A time to take stock and get rid of the things that you no longer need or use and replace them with things that you now do. This applies not just to your home but to your business. And if you own or manage a Web or ecommerce site, doing a bit of spring cleaning is critical – for search-engine optimization (SEO) and to attract new customers. So here are 13 tips for getting rid of the clutter and freshening up your Web pages.[ Related: 8 ecommerce categories tha
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How partnerships between IT and the business breed success

  21-03-2016 13:57
  
  The stakes are high in the world of analytics and reporting.  According to Gartner: through 2016, only 10 percent of self-service business intelligence initiatives will be sufficiently well governed to prevent inconsistencies that adversely affect the business.  Without appropriate processes and governance, self-service capabilities can introduce multiple versions of the truth, increase errors in reporting, and leave companies exposed to inconsistent information.  So how can an or
  
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• Should you outsource vendor management?

  21-03-2016 13:33
  
  Vendor management is nothing new for most IT organizations. Progressive IT functions have built up their vendor governance capabilities for years. But the vendor management function today is being asked to oversee a host of new IT services, wrangle niche and nascent suppliers, and meet increasing performance expectations, with little increase — or worse, a decline — in funding. As a result, many are struggling to keep up.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please clic
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Tight project budget: Do you hire a project manager or business analyst?

  21-03-2016 13:25
  
  You have projects to manage and implement internally and for outside project clients. Maybe your a small organization or just one facing a tight budget in 2016. Often project managers and business analysts hire out at the highest rates of any project tram members and not every project is going to be able to afford both.So here's the big question...if you can only go with one, which do you choose? And why? And what qualities and skills do you look for - assuming its IT projects that the organizat
  
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• The future looks bright for IT workers

  21-03-2016 13:11
  
  The IT skills gap and talent shortage remains an ongoing business challenge as technology becomes the cornerstone of nearly every industry.That shift means there is a bigger demand for tech pros with specific skill sets; and companies are hiring qualified individuals faster than schools can graduate candidates with the right skills.
  A recent survey from Brilliant, a staffing firm that specializes in temporary staffing, permanent search, and management resources for accounting, finance and inform
  
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• Box CIO says IT needs to loosen its grip

  21-03-2016 13:00
  
  The modern workforce demands a new style of IT, according to Paul Chapman, CIO of cloud storage provider Box. Today's IT professionals must take the "friction out of how we get things done," he says, to enable workplace productivity and empower employees. This concept may sound simple, but the necessary changes often don't come easy for IT, Chapman says. "Smart people are figuring out pretty quickly what they need to do and why they need to do it, but they really struggle with 'How do we get the
  
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• 27% of U.S. office workers would sell their passwords

  21-03-2016 13:00
  
  In a survey released today, 27 percent of of U.S. office workers at large companies would sell their work password to an outsider, compared to a global average of 20 percent.
  And despite all the recent media attention on data breaches, password hygiene is actually deteriorating, said Juliette Rizkallah, CMO at SailPoint Technologies, which sponsored the survey.
  The study itself was conducted by Vanson Bourne, an independent research firm. The same survey was conducted last year as well, but the
  
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• Telco’s investeerden ruim 4 miljard in 2015

  21-03-2016 12:59
  De investeringen van Nederlandse telecommunicatiebedrijven voor uitbreiding en vernieuwing van de vaste en mobiele infrastructuur bedroegen vorig jaar ruim 4 miljard euro, iets minder dan het jaar ervoor. Toch investeren ze daarmee aanzienlijk meer per inwoner dan telecommunicatiebedrijven in onze buurlanden. Daarop... lees meer
  
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• 5 things you need to know about 5G

  21-03-2016 12:48
  
  Most of us in the tech sector are drawn to the “speed and feeds” – the technical specs that reveal what is better than the last dot release. We want faster processors, more solid state memory capacity and networks with lower latency. Yet, there are often Herculean jumps forward in technology that do more than just add a bit more capacity or speed. That’s the case with 5G wireless. Both AT&T and Verizon have announced limited trials for the faster cellular data co
  
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• How FBI vs. Apple could cripple corporate and government security

  21-03-2016 12:30
  As the rhetoric and legal wranglings of the FBI and Department of Justice fight against Apple’s encryption continue to escalate, it’s only natural that much of the debate centers on personal privacy and the symbiotic role our phones now play in our lives.. Even President Obama himself, siding with the FBI at the South by Southwest conference, stated, “You can’t take an absolutist stance on this. It’s fetishizing our phones above every other value, and that can&rsqu
  
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• Why your business can't afford toxic employees

  21-03-2016 12:27
  
  Everyone's known a "toxic" colleague. Maybe someone who's bullied them, undercut their achievements, or committed fraud or theft. Worse still is when that person seems to get away with it -- maybe they're also smart, motivated, highly productive -- but at what is it costing your business? According to Harvard Business School's visiting assistant professor Dylan Minor and Cornerstone's Michael Housman, the cost to your organization's overall well-being is too high to tolerate a toxic worker.While
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How to do critical behavior interviewing right

  21-03-2016 12:00
  
  I have written previously on the interview questions you should be asking as a senior IT person. Much of it focused around getting to how the person had behaved previously when faced with the situations he/she likely would face.At the time, I stopped short of describing how to determine if the person merely was telling you what you would like to hear or truly was describing his/her tendencies, and, therefore, his/her likely future behaviors. Let me pick up the thread from there.It is likely that
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain gives music lessons to healthcare

  21-03-2016 12:00
  
  Music shapes culture, entertainment and technology. The passion for music spans industries refreshes ideas and introduces new concepts previously invisible. The music industries maturation into digital contexts and exploration of blockchain technology have uncovered lessons we can apply to healthcare.Intersecting music and health
  The world is growing, and the music industry is shrinking. Economies of scale exist, yet annually miss impacting healthcare for the better. The music and healthcare ind
  
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• Efficiency hacks for IT: 6 tips for getting things done

  21-03-2016 11:30
  
  Everyone is busy these days, sure, but research shows that most people are wasting chunks of time throughout their day, whether it's fiddling with the latest tech toy or responding to every email that lands in their inbox.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Apple's small iPhone strategy aims to reclaim stuck customers

  21-03-2016 11:24
  
  Apple later today will take a step back in time and unveil a smaller iPhone in an effort to boost sales by expanding its portfolio, according to several analysts.
  The new iPhone expected to be introduced by CEO Tim Cook and other executives will likely be a smaller device with a 4-in. display, a size Apple discarded in September 2014 when it rolled out the larger 4.7-in. iPhone 6 and the even bigger, 5.5-in. iPhone 6 Plus.
  Although Apple continues to sell a 4-in. smartphone -- 2013's iPhone 5S
  
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• Why Cuba could be the next Silicon Valley (eventually)

  21-03-2016 11:15
  
  The president of the United States is in Cuba!
  President Obama's trip is a big deal. It's the first time a U.S. president has visited Cuba since 1928.
  Here in Cuba (where I'm living for a month), Obama's trip is the biggest and most historic of events. Everywhere in Havana, workers are frantically painting and fixing and cleaning.
  We lounged until midnight Wednesday on the veranda of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba slurping mojitos, smoking Cohibas and listening to amazing live Cuban music. All the
  
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• 5 reasons to move to an SD-WAN

  21-03-2016 11:03
  
  The enterprise WAN has transitioned from dedicated TDM circuits with Frame Relay and ATM, to Packet-over-SONET and MPLS, and now to Ethernet-access services. However, two things have remained constant, WAN bandwidth is still expensive and provisioning WAN services can take a long time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Top 25 free tools for Windows 7 and 8.1

  21-03-2016 11:00
  
  Top 25 free apps for Windows 7 and 8.1It’s been nearly two years since we surveyed the best free programs for Windows desktops. Much has happened since then -- most notably the advent of Windows 10 and the explosion of tremendously useful applications and services in the cloud.With Windows 7 and 8.1 usage still dwarfing Win10 usage, it’s clear that many of you have begged off Microsoft’s Win10 siren call, feeling fine with what you have.To read this article in full or to leave
  
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• How to fight off a zombie app-ocalypse

  21-03-2016 11:00
  
  Is your company suffering from application bloat? Do you have expensive, overlapping legacy apps that need to be decommissioned as you move to modern, lightweight apps, or to the cloud. Do you have zombie apps lurking in your IT infrastructure, applications that nobody uses anymore but that are still live and contain sensitive data?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Startschot voor dataclassificatie klinkt luid en duidelijk

  21-03-2016 10:59
  Door Andreas van Wingerden – Volledige dataclassificatie is een tijdrovende aangelegenheid waarin relatief weinig organisaties durven te investeren. Maar de opkomst van het IoT moet zelfs de grootste twijfelaars over de streep trekken. Deze miljarden met het internet verbonden apparaten gaan aantonen dat wat we... lees meer
  
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• Researchers find flaw in Apple's iMessage, decrypt iCloud photo

  21-03-2016 06:26
  
  Apple's iMessage system has a cryptography flaw that allowed researchers to decrypt a photo stored in iCloud, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.The researchers, led by cryptography expert Matthew D. Green of Johns Hopkins University, wrote software that mimicked an Apple server and then targeted an encrypted photo stored on iCloud, the publication reported.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Near miss between drone and Lufthansa plane fuels demand for regulation

  21-03-2016 04:09
  
  A near miss between a drone and a Lufthansa aircraft landing at Los Angeles International Airport may give impetus to moves to regulate consumer drones more closely, including by using technologies like geofencing.“This is one more incident that could have brought down an airliner, and it’s completely unacceptable. A near-miss of 200 feet should serve as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by reckless drone use,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California,
  
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