survey

Nearly 47 million Americans have a 'smart speaker' device in their home according to a new survey. If true, the devices' user base has gone from almost nothing to one-in-five people in just two years. While models vary, smart speakers are small ... devices that perform two main functions: playing music (often from online streaming services) and answering spoken questions as a quicker alternative to typing something into a smartphone or computer. In some cases they are also used to control home devices such as lights and heating. The study says 19.7 percent of people have access to a smart speaker ... (view more)

Facebook has made a survey in which it asked if adult users should be allowed to ask children for 'explicit' pictures. The survey question appears to be a horrific mistake, albeit one that's hard to explain. The survey was seen by a journalist at ... the UK's Guardian newspaper, who posted screenshots of the questions. One of the questions read "There are a wide range of topics and behaviors that appear on Facebook. In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook's policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for ... (view more)

A new report suggests that consumers are concerned about digital security threats -- like the rapidly spreading 'Backoff' malware -- but very few make any changes in an effort to better protect their most sensitive information. The report comes from ... Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, which recently carried out an online survey of 11,000 people based in 23 countries. (Source: kaspersky.com ) Kaspersky's survey revealed that over three-quarters of all respondents use several devices to connect to the Internet. About one in four respondents said they do most of their Internet ... (view more)

A new survey suggests that the majority of hackers carry out their work simply because they find it fun and thrilling. The survey also found that only a small portion of hackers do their work in pursuit of financial gain. The survey was carried out ... by Washington-based security firm Thycotic, which asked hackers attending last week's Black Hat conference (held in Las Vegas, Nevada) what motivated them. More than half of the respondents, or 51 per cent, said they hack for the "fun" and "thrill" of it. Just 19 per cent, or about one in five of the hackers surveyed, said ... (view more)

A newly-published study shows fifteen percent of online Americans believe the Internet is a bad thing for society. The study also found most users generally think the Internet is a good thing in terms of benefitting themselves. The study comes from ... the Pew Research Center, which regularly surveys the public about the use of and attitudes to online services. Its latest survey came to mark the fact that the World Wide Web was created 25 years ago, in March 1989. (Source: pewinternet.org ) Although the Internet itself (I.E.: the physical connections between computers) has been in existence for ... (view more)