African countries that fail to make the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting beginning in June will not get an extension and will lose international protection rights, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies. While the deadlines were reached consensually in 2006 and some African […]
ITU: No Deadline Extension for Africa on Digital Switch
Ramnit Botnet Busted; Lenovo Hacked; Beijing Drops Apple; Vivec Wadhwa
Today’s Tech Sightings: ‘State of Connectivity’ Says Most World Population Not Online A new report from Facebook Newsroom said Internet adoption is slowing down, with only 6.6 percent of the population getting connected in 2014, compared to the 2010 record of 14.7 percent. The report estimated that up to 3 billion people will go online […]
Mobile in 2015; Bionic Arms; Printed Leaves; Rise of China’s Brands
Today’s Tech Sightings: Mind-Controlled Bionic Hands Are Medical First No, it’s not science fiction. There are already three men in the world today outfitted with bionic arms that they control with their minds. The patients, who suffered nerve damage in climbing and motorcycle accidents, had their hands amputated and replaced with robotic hands in a […]
3D-Scanning Ethiopia’s History; Lenovo’s Superfish; Indonesia Smartphones
Today’s Tech Sightings: 3D Laser Scanner Makes Haunting Works of Art Historians Charles Matz and Jonathan Michael Dillon use 3D Lidar scanning — a technology that uses pulses of light to map 3D structures — to help preserve Ethiopia’s historic sites. Inadvertently, they turned their scanning device into a tool for creating works of art. […]
New Tools Heat Up Censorship Arms Race
Online censorship may be as old as the Internet, but in today’s high-tech world, it is increasingly a perpetual arms race between censors looking for better ways to probe and muzzle, and a circumvention community looking to help the censored get and send information while protecting their digital identity. Circumvention Aids Flashproxy makes it easier […]
Red Envelopes From China; Superfishy Lenovo; Sony; Bitcoin Auction
Chinese Usher in Lunar New Year on WeChat With a Billion Virtual Red Envelopes The annual tradition of gifting red envelopes with token money went online yesterday as the Chinese celebrated the new lunar year on the popular messaging app WeChat, also known as Weixin in China. Weixin users, said to number more than 400 million, […]
Biohacking; Bionic Hands; CLAMs; Million-Year Storage
Today’s Tech Sightings: Scientists Create Million-Year Data Storage With DNA Floppy disks may be dead and hard drives may not be far behind. In an effort to save digital human knowledge from eventual extinction, researchers at ETH Zurich have found a way to use DNA as a storage medium to hold data possibly for more […]
Apple’s Car Buzz; Robot Ethics; Impossible Malware?
Google Exec: Digital Media Could Vanish Remember the LP and the cassette player? Or the Floppy Disk? Looking back, it seems as if these gadgets became obsolete a very long time ago. With the stunning speed of technological progress, though, even newer gadgets are at risk of becoming passé just as quickly. Google’s Vice President, […]
UNDP Eyes Ukraine’s Damaged Buildings With Crowdsourcing, Mobile App
The crisis that plunged east Ukraine into war in November 2013 has damaged or destroyed critical infrastructure and limited access to areas caught up in fighting between Ukraine’s government forces and pro-Russian rebels. In order to assess damage, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) turned to crowdsourcing to help restore social infrastructure as part of […]
WoW for Ebola; Samsung’s TV Saga; Apple’s Labor Woes
WoW Players Raise Nearly $2 Million to Fight Ebola Blizzard’s World of Warcraft’s latest charity campaign has netted more than $1.9 million to help fight Ebola in Africa. The donations were raised through in-game purchases; and all proceeds were donated to the Red Cross. Microsoft Researchers Say Their Newest Deep Learning System Beats Humans An […]