Author: Eva Glass

Eva Glass first rose to prominence in The INQUIRER. She continues to work behind the scenes to dig out the best stories.

Microsoft sues Windows scammers

Microsoft campusSoftware giant Microsoft has taken legal action against a company it claims is scamming people by representing itself as a Windows support outfit.

The Indian company, C-Cubed Solutions, is alleged to call people up saying people have had problems with their computers and conning them out of money.

The case claims that representatives from the company claim they represent Microsoft and then attempt to inveigle people into visiting web sites which are infected with malware, according to the Times of India. The caller may also attempt to get remote access to a computer and ask for payment using a credit card under the pretext of providing technical support.

Microsoft says it never cals people cold and advises people who get such calls never to give any information to people who claim to represent it.

The scam doesn’t only affect people in the USA – cold calls have been made to other countries including the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Tech entrepreneur wins gong

Lawrence Jones, UK FastA Manchester man who runs a small to medium sized business (SMB) is recognised  in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list.

Lawrence Jones (pictured) runs hosting and colocation firm UKFast and received an MBE for his services to the UK’s digital economy.

Jones said his company specialises in helping UK SMEs by providing small firms with high end tech that are normally affordable only to enterprises.

He said: “We, the SMEs, are the ones that are paying tax, not the big boys with the clever tax planning.”

Small companies drive the UK economy, he said. His 15-year old company turns over £30 million a year and has 200 employees.

He said: “As an entrepreneur you find yourself carrying on regardless, working your hardest, even when there are not many people who pat you on the back. I am tremendously proud to be British and to get an honour like this makes all of the hard work worthwhile.”

* Inventor Trevor Baylis has received a CBE in the Honours list. He invented the Baygen wind up radio, and received the award for services to intellectual property.

China says Gmail users must lump it

330ogleAccess to Gmail for Chinese users remains restricted but now a state owned newspaper has offered words of advice on the matter.

Global Times, which is controlled by the Chinese authorities, said if the government has indeed blocked access to Gmail, then there must be good reasons – such as “newly emerged security reasons”.

The editorial said it that is the reason for the service not working, users “need to accept the reality of Gmail being suspended in China”.

But the editorial is interlarded with ifs and buts.  It suggests that there may be a technical glitch on Google’s side.  And it said the Western press has accused the government of strengthening cyber censorship.

“The issue at heart is to what extent Google is willing to obey Chinese law, on which China’s attitude is steadfast,” it continued.

Chinese law was the reason that Google decided to quit the mainland in 2010.

Global Times accuses Google of running into conflict with other authorities.

“China welcomes the company to do business on the prerequisite that it obeys Chinese law; however, Google values more its reluctance to be restricted by Chinese law, resulting in conflict.”

LG shows off 4K TV designs

lgscreensThe Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas next week and already vendors are seeking to hog the headlines by pre-announcing what they’ll be showing off.

Korean manufacturer LG said it it will show off a number of LED 4K Ultra HD TVs at the show that it will launch during 2015.

The TVs use different phosphor based LEDs and LG claims that gives better colour depth, more lifelike images, and a 25 percent increase in the colour range.

The TVs have 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution with something called inplane switching 4K panels which have the effect of allowing wider viewing angles.

LG will also show off an ultra thin Slim TV, while five of the products it will launch next year will include an ultra surround system, co-developed with Harmon/Kardon.

The company said it will also show off its smart TV software, webOS 2.0, which reduces boot time by up to 60 percent.

It will also show off an algorithm which renders SD, HD and full HD content into Ultra HD images.

People still fear mobile banking

oldbankA survey of US financial institutions that offer mobile banking show most people are still steering clear of it.

Ratewatch surveyed 10,000 US financial institutions and found that while 82 percent of institutions now offer mobile banking, only two percent of people use their mobile devices to access their bank accounts.

Instead, 62 percent of banking customers are still addicted to their branch as their primary way of managing their money.  While 29 percent use online services, presumably from their PCs, only two percent think their mobile device is their primary banking method.

Of the institutions which offer mobile banking services, 63 percent offered the ability to check account balances, transfer funds, and make loan payments. And 54 percent allow customers to pay their bills using a mobile service.

Ratewatch thinks that despite the convenience of mobile banking, many people still go to a building to perform complicated transactions or to make desposits using multiple cheques.

But despite the low take up, 70 percent of people under 30 and 51 percent of 30 plus people think mobile banking is a “must have” or “nice to have” facility.

Ratewatch believes the introduction of ApplePay may help spur more takeup of mobile banking services.

Connected cars pose security threat

googlecarThe UK’s Automobile Association (AA) has warned that cars connected to the internet are vulnerable to hackers.

Different systems installed in the latest automobiles offer clear opportunities for abuse, according to the head of the AA, Edmund King.

He told Electronics Weekly that as more cars get connected to the internet the more vulnerable they’ll be to hack attacks.

Most car manufacturers have already installed systems using IP addresses and the number of those are going to increase over time.

King thinks that terrorists could threaten transportation systems, and interfere with acceleration and braking systems, with crooks demanding money from owners to release their cars.

He also thinks hackers could breach controller area networks, switch on internal microphones and cameras and track peoples’ movements.

King told EW that there are so many sensors installed in cars these days that vehicles are becoming vulnerable to security breaches.

Apple ruled Christmas

two-applesA report from Flurry indicated that Apple seriously outdid its competitors over the Christmas period.

The metrics company said that of all the devices activated in the week up to Christmas Day, Apple ruled the roost with 51 percent of device activations.

Samsung devices took second place with 17.7 percent of activations, Nokia took 5.8 percent, Sony took 1.6 percent and LG managed a measly 1.4 percent.

Microsoft owns Nokia now so it could be said to be third in the pecking order.

Flurry Analytics said the figures indicated that the introduction of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus had a “blockbuster” holiday season, beating the somewhat dismal gizmo trend.

Flurry also said that the largest number of app installs on Christmas Day, with 2.5 times the installs compared to any day in the previous three weeks.

The company also managed to track the type of device, with full size tablets taking 16 percent, small tablets 17 percent, “phablets” three percent, medium phones 58 percent and smalll phones seven percent.

Microsoft readies streamlined browser

windows10Even though Windows 10 will not now be ready until the second half of next year, Microsoft is going to show off its latest version in mid January.

And it’s bowing to the inevitable by throwing out much of the clunky code that makes up Internet Explorer and introducing a streamlined browser called Spartan, according to reports.

Microsoft was late to the internet game in the 1990s and has had trouble catching up with competitors ever since.

Microsoft wants its browser to be a lot more like more popular browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome, and to try to shake off perceptions that its behind the times.  It will allow extensions to the browser and it will be backwards compatible with previous versions.

According to Mary Jo Foley at ZD Net, Windows 10 will ship with both Spartan and Internet Explorer 11 – something of a kludge in itself.

The version of Windows 10 that Microsoft will show off is called the Windows 10 Technical Preview and will include a number of additional features in the long build up to its release in the second half of next year.

Microsoft is also likely to port the Spartan browser to other operating systems, such as Android.

Worm found at nuclear control system

Shin Kori nuclear power plant, South Korea: Wikimedia CommonsA South Korean company was hit by what authorities described as a low risk computer worm.

The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co was hit by a hack earlier this month and data stolen from its system.

But the South Korea energy ministry said today that the control systems for three nuclear reactors were unaffected by the hack, according to a Reuters report.

The energy minister told the South Korean parliament that the worm was most likely transmitted to the computer systems by an infected USB device – a claim that some have their doubts about.

The CEO of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power told the parliament that all of the country’s reactors were invulnerable to viruses and worms.  But nevertheless he said that the firm was hiring more IT security staff to be on the safe side.

Some people believe that North Korea is behind attacks on South Korea computer installations.  The two countries are still technically at war with each other.

Top word of 2014 is an icon

smiliesEvery year the Global Language Monitor (GLM) scans the internet to see which are the top words used.

But this year, the top word isn’t a word at all – it’s an emoticon of a heart, the symbol of love.

GLM believes that English is going through a huge sea change because of the number of emoticons now used – its says the Unicode Consortium now recognises a thousand emoticons as part of the language.

The next nine most popular words are hashtag – that’s # and used by the twitterati and Defacebook aficionados; to vape – that’s smoking an electronic cigarette; blood moon – four total eclipses of the moon in 18 months; nano; photo bomb – when people burst into others’ photographs; caliphate; privilege – the supposed advantages of having light coloured skin; bae – that’s your bosom buddy; bash tag – using a hashtag as an offensive word weapon; transparency; sustainable; and lastly, clickbait.

Big Data, says GLM, is number on the tech buzzword list.

The top word in 2000 was Chad and the top phrase dot com.

Analysts tip tablet sales

new-ipadDespite evidence that sales of tablets showed signs of decline in 2014, one market intelligence is bucking the trend by predicting healthy sales in 2015.

ABI Research said that although 2014 was “lacklustre”, it predicted that there will be solid growth during the next five years with shipments of tablets close to 290 million units in 2019.

But the growth is not for every vendor – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google will show year on year falls in shipments.

On the other hand, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft and Samsung are predicted to show higher volumes in 2014.

Senior analyst Jeff Orr doesn’t have good news for Apple.  He said: “Historically, Apple has counted approximately 35 percent of its iPad sales in the last calendar quarter of the year.  Unless Apple can pull off a 32+ million unit quarter, sales for 2014 will be down for the first year since the iPad launched.”

He said that Apple probably shipped 68 million iPads in 2014, but managed to sell 74 million in 2013.

On the operating systems front, Android has 54 percent of branded tablets, Apple iOS has fallen to 41 percent, and Windows 8 has a meagre five percent of shipments.

Intel set to cancel notebook subsidies

intel_log_reversedMoney that Intel has diverted to notebook manufacturers to stimulate demand for the machines is set to dry up next year.

That’s according to Taiwanese government quango Market Intelligence and Consulting (MIC), which also predicts the PC industry will flatline or even fall during the year.

Analyst Charles Chou told the Taipei Times that firms that got subsidies from Intel in an attempt to push notebook sales will find themselves out of pocket when Intel cancels the subsidies.  He said that the only growth areas were likely to be Chromebooks and sales of machines to educational markets.

But in brighter news he said that we’ll all see more affordable 4K LCD TVs in 2015. He expects that the market wordwide will hit close to 30,000 units.

But if you don’t want a 40-inch or above LCD TV, the news is not too bright.  32-inch panels don’t have big margins and the manufacturers are concentrating their efforts on making ever bigger LCD TVs, in a pursuit of healthier profits.

However, the manufacturers can’t pull the plug on 32-inch or smaller LCD TVs because people in many countries don’t have the money to spend on mega TVs.

It’s also likely they don’t have the space, either.

Twitter becomes urban planning tool

  Layout of businesses, nightlife and leisure areas in Madrid using Twitter are illustrated here. The uncolored part corresponds to residential areas.Computer scientists believe that Twitter is a good way to aid urban planning and land use.

Brother and sister scientists Enrique and Vanessa Frias-Martinez have ussyed a report suggesting that geolocalised tweets can be used for urban planning. Vanessa is a scientist at the University of Maryland while her brother works for Spanish telco Telefonica.

According to Enrique Frias-Martinez, geolocalised tweets are useful for planning because of the number of people tweeting on where they are and what they’re up to.

He said: “Thanks to the increased use of smartphones, social networks like Twitter and Facebook have made it possible to access and produce information ubiquitously.”

He said that Twitter can include latitude and longitude and information can be captured more efficiently than by using questionnaires.  It’s also far cheaper and more accurate than using traditional methods, he said.

The pair have mapped land use in New York, Madrid and London. The pair have published their paper in the journal Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence.

Hacker clones fingerprints

Ursula von der Leyen - Wikimedia CommonsA German hacker said he cloned the thumb print of defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using little more than an ordinary digital camera.

The BBC said Jan Krissler grabbed several photographs of von der Leyen’s thumb at different angles during a press conference last October.

Although fingerprint recognition is not considered particularly secure, some vendors use them to access devices.

Back in the 2000s, some Japanese banks adopted fingerprints as a chief biometric to access ATMs, but abandoned them after gangsters demonstrated that one way to circumvent security was to chop off peoples’ index fingers and use them to get money from the hole in the wall.

Companies are experimenting with other biometrics such as vein recognition and iris recognition.

Cheap Chromebook wave approaches

chromebookA number of vendors plan to release large screen Chromebooks in the first half of 2015 with prices set to challenge Wintel based notebooks.

Google has laid out a reference framework for Chromebooks which means they will cost less than $300 per unit, according to a report from market intelligence firm Digitimes Research.

Dell and Acer will take the lead in cutting prices, with the former introducing a 15.6-inch Chromebook and Acer will introduce a model with the same size screen early next year.

Both are set to use Intel’s Broadwell-U microprocessor and the prices will mean stiff competition as Microsoft wants its hardware partners to produce notebooks costing less than $250.

However, Microsoft cannot hope to get hardware vendors to make Windows 8.1 with Bing machines for the same price point and with similar performance. Although Microsoft has cut licensing fees for Windows in an attempt to beat off competition from Chromebooks, the bill of materials to make notebooks precludes screens 15 inches and above.