Showing Archived Posts

In the Parallel War of Ad Blockers, Privacy Is Lost

Posted June 17th, 2016 at 10:49 am (UTC-4)
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The war surrounding ad blocking software has cost advertisers and online publishers nearly $22 billion in blocked ad revenues in 2015. Caught in the middle are 198 million-plus users blocking ads for a slew of reasons, not the least of which is to escape online tracking. It is a war of parallels. As online advertising revenue […]

Ransomware Bosses Earn Big Bucks; N. Korea Hacks 140,000 PCs

Posted June 14th, 2016 at 12:02 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: Ransomware Bosses Make $90K Annually A recent study found that Russian ransomware bosses “earn” US$90,000 a year. That’s 13 times the average income of people who were taught that crime doesn’t pay. The availability of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) business model is saving hackers a lot of money and accelerating the […]

Without Legislation, Your Health Care Data Is Up for Grabs

Posted June 10th, 2016 at 10:38 am (UTC-4)
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Health care providers – repositories of critical patient data – have relinquished millions of sensitive records and billions of dollars to hackers in the past few years. And there is no end in sight as the industry expands to largely-unsecured mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. Your personal information is the main reason why […]

Passenger Drone Tests Begin This Year; Apps Put Wildlife at Risk

Posted June 8th, 2016 at 1:08 pm (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: China’s Ehang Will Test World’s First Passenger Drone This Year Ehang – the Chinese company that unveiled an electric passenger drone in January – now has clearance to begin testing it in Nevada sometime this year. The permissions were secured through a partnership with the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems and the […]

Cash-for-Grades App Pays Students to Learn, but Should It?

Posted June 2nd, 2016 at 2:05 pm (UTC-4)
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A new app currently in development aims to motivate children to study and excel. But some critics say the controversial cash-for-grades model is ineffective. Launching first in the U.S. in December, the cash-for-grades e-learning app Incentify is based on the premise that children will be willing to study or do homework chores they don’t want […]

Selfies for Security? Just Don’t Blink on Facebook

Posted May 27th, 2016 at 10:30 am (UTC-4)
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Selfies – those digital expressions of self-infatuation and keepers of memories – are slowly emerging as a potential replacement for passwords. But cybersecurity experts caution that they can only be an effective deterrent as part of a multi-layered security defense. Some companies are already experimenting with selfies to authenticate credit card users for financial transactions, […]

Online Gamers Tackle DNA, Exoplanets Next

Posted May 20th, 2016 at 11:05 am (UTC-4)
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A Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS) partnership that recently recruited EVE Online gamers to identify protein distribution patterns in human cells, has teamed up with the University of Geneva for new research that could be added to the game’s Project Discovery, a joint venture with CCP Games and the Human Protein Atlas. It is possible […]

Chinese Proposals Tighten Internet Control; Law Firm Hires AI Robot

Posted May 17th, 2016 at 11:26 am (UTC-4)
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Today’s Tech Sightings: US: Proposed Chinese Regulations Could Fragment the Internet China is planning to push forward with new proposals requiring domain names to be registered through government-licensed providers. If the new rules are approved, they would also prevent some websites whose content is broadly defined as prohibited from registering. In a statement, U.S. officials […]

In the Right Hands, This Game Teaches Kids About Cybersecurity

Posted May 13th, 2016 at 10:52 am (UTC-4)
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When Matt Trobbiani created Hacknet, it was intended as a game, no more, no less — until he discovered it was being used to train cyber warfare teams. Now, he is testing educational versions of the game to teach school kids and would-be sleuths about cybersecurity. It started out at a game-jam competition as a […]

Mobile Technology Is Changing Clinical Studies Landscape

Posted May 6th, 2016 at 10:53 am (UTC-4)
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Mobile technology is giving experts the tools they need to expand clinical studies and collect a wealth of data for medical research. But this approach faces challenges and is unlikely to supplant traditional clinical research. “Consumer technologies, apps, wearables – all of those things basically are entering into and [are] being accepted into the biomedical […]