John Lister

Thu
17
Mar
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New Crowdsourced GPS App Tells You When to Leave

A Google-owned app aims to tell you the right time to leave on a car journey based on current traffic. It's something of a chicken and egg situation though, as the more people who use Waze, the more accurate it gets. Waze was developed by an Israeli ... company and bought out by Google in 2013. Unlike most GPS navigation tools, it doesn't work solely by databases of roads. Instead, it gathers anonymized information from users about their journeys, measuring exactly how long they take to cover a particular route and where they are being held up. The idea is to use this crowdsourced ... (view more)

Wed
16
Mar
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Google Email Automatic Reply Tool Expanded

Google is expanding a feature that automatically suggests quick email replies that you can send with one click. It's moving it from mobile only to the desktop, though won't yet be part of the main Gmail tool. The feature, called Smart Reply, debuted ... on the Inbox by Gmail mobile app. That's a separate tool to Gmail, though lets you access the same email accounts. The difference is that the app contains several tools designed to make it easier to deal with large numbers of messages, particularly for people who work on the move. Smart Reply works by scanning the content of an ... (view more)

Tue
15
Mar
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Windows 10 Install Surprising Users

Microsoft's push to get Windows 10 onto computers seems to be going a step further than anticipated. Even tech-savvy users are complaining their machines updated to the new system without their express consent. The last big change to the Windows 10 ... upgrade process took place last month, but seems to be working more aggressively than expected. The change involved Windows 10 being reclassified as a "Recommended" update in the automatic update program. That was hugely significant as the default setting for most Windows PCs is to install all recommended updates automatically. It ... (view more)

Thu
10
Mar
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Google Loses Court Case Over Fake Online Reviews

A court has ordered Google to hand over details that could identify the people behind four accounts used for bogus online reviews. One of the accounts had assumed the identity of a dead woman. The reviews were made on the social networking site ... Google+. While the site has arguably struggled to compete with the likes of Facebook, posts there are particularly likely to show up in search results for a relevant term. In this case the reviews were of an Amsterdam daycare center, and would appear next to a map of the center's location before the rest of the "ranked" search results. ... (view more)

Wed
09
Mar
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Lifeline Low Income Phone Subsidy to Include Broadband

The US government plans to offer a subsidy to help people on low incomes get cheaper access to broadband Internet. Recipients would get a choice of using it on fixed-line or mobile services. The plan is an extension to an existing program called ... Lifeline, which has been running for around thirty years. Its funded by a levy on phone companies and allows people who meet low income eligibility requirements to get a monthly discount of $9.25 on phone line rental. Since 2005, the plan has allowed recipients to opt to use the discount of a pre-paid cellular phone plan instead of a landline. Now the ... (view more)

Tue
08
Mar
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Verizon Fined for Secretive Use of 'Super Cookies'

Verizon has agreed to pay a fine of $1.35 million for its use of controversial "super cookies." The files, which are solely used to track its own users, were set up in a way that made them difficult if not impossible to delete. Cookies are small ... text files placed on a user's computer by a website. In many cases, cookies have a perfectly legitimate use of identifying a visitor, even if the site doesn't have a login or registration system. Examples of such user might include a weather site automatically delivering a forecast for the user's preferred location, or a sports ... (view more)

Thu
03
Mar
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New 'Drown' Bug: Millions of Secure Sites Could be at Risk

An estimated 11 million secure websites could be vulnerable to hackers exploiting a security bug. Amazingly, the bug has to do with technology that is over 20 years old. There's little, if anything website visitors can do as the bug needs fixing by ... site operators. However, it is possible to check if a site appears to be vulnerable. The bug has been dubbed Drown, a name rather tenuously derived from "Decrypting the RSA algorithm with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption." Researchers who uncovered the bug aren't publishing the precise details. At the moment it's not known if ... (view more)

Wed
02
Mar
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Critics Say Kids Search Engine Too Judgmental

A search engine designed specifically for children has caused controversy, thanks to its filters. Critics say the creators are wrong in their choice of "bad words" to block. The site, named "Kiddle," takes several steps to make itself suitable for ... children. For example, it deletes its entire logs of user searches once every 24 hours and doesn't store any personal details. Of course, this also means it can't refine results like Google does. For example, the search engine won't automatically learn if a user searching for "football results" wants to know ... (view more)

Tue
01
Mar
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Google Self-Driving Car at Partial Fault for Crash

Google has confirmed that one of its self-driving cars was partially responsible for a minor crash with a bus. It's the first time the company has taken a share of the blame for a prang. The cars operate through a range of technologies including ... sensors, cameras, lasers, GPS and map data. The theory is that these allow them to track the activity of other vehicles on the road and more reliably avoid crashes than cars which are subject to human driver error. California allows companies such as Google which meet set criteria to operate self-driving or "autonomous" vehicles on ... (view more)

Thu
25
Feb
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FTC Cracks Down on Poor Router Security

ASUS has agreed to government supervision for 20 years after exaggerating the security of its routers. Officials say the company put hundreds of thousands of computers at risk. The company has agreed to a settlement in response to Federal Trade ... Commission (FTC) charges. The alleged breach of rules wasn't in the security flaws themselves, but rather that ASUS continuing to market the routers as "safe" was misleading to customers. Among ASUS's bold claims was that its routers could "protect computers from any unauthorized access, hacking, and virus attacks." This ... (view more)

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