Sky TV’s move to make all its channels and content available online means customers will no longer need a satellite dish on their property. The pay TV company already offers some programming online on its Sky Go and Now TV services and through Sky boxes. Sky termed the move a “major development” that would reduce costs and allow it to enter new markets. It hopes that making its hundreds of channels more widely available will increase both revenue and profits. Italy will be its first market to get all Sky…
Read MoreYear: 2018
Two New Separate Self Drive Car Accidents Reported
Two self drive cars, namely a Tesla Model S and a General Motors Chevy Bolt, have been involved in separate road accidents in California. Culver City’s fire service said the Tesla had “ploughed into the rear” of one of its fire engines parked at the scene of an accident on Monday. On his part, the car owner claimed it had been in Autopilot mode at the time. The GM incident resulted in a collision with a motorbike in San Francisco. The rider says the car – which was using GM’s…
Read MoreHackers New access to Tinder photos and figure out your matches
Tinder isn’t using encryption to keep your photos safe from strangers who are sharing the same coffee shop Wi-Fi as you, security researchers have found out. Researchers from the Tel Aviv-based firm Checkmarx found that Tinder’s iOS and Android mobile apps still lack basic HTTPS encryption, meaning that anyone sharing the same Wi-Fi as you can see your Tinder photos or add their own into the photostream. The firm built a proof-of-concept app called TinderDrift, demoed on YouTube, that can reconstruct a user’s session on Tinder if that person is…
Read MoreMicrosoft boss: New World needs more computing power
The world is rapidly “running out of computing capacity”, the head of tech giant Microsoft has warned. Satya Nadella said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that superfast quantum computers were needed to solve some of the most difficult problems. Mr Nadella cited the quest to create a catalyst that can absorb carbon, in order to help tackle climate change. This, he cautioned, would likely not be achieved without an increase in computer processing power. “Moore’s Law is kinda running out of steam,” Mr Nadella told assembled delegates, referring…
Read MoreFacebook invents new unit of time called a flick
A Facebook engineer has invented a new unit of time called a flick. The flick has been designed to help developers keep video effects in sync, according to a description on the code-sharing site GitHub. A flick, derived from “frame-tick”, is 1/705,600,000 of a second – the next unit of time after a nanosecond. A researcher at Oxford University said the flick wouldn’t have much general impact but may help create better virtual reality experiences. Flicks are defined in the programming language C++, which is used to generate visual effects…
Read MoreStripe’s New Ditch of Bitcoin Calls for Rethink of what the Cryptocurrency is good for!
Stripe has announced that it’s dropping support for Bitcoin-based transactions on its payments platform, citing high transaction confirmation times and numerous failures, as well as fees that are now as expensive as bank wires. That’s a huge blow to the cryptocurrency, not just because it’ll see fewer transactions, but also because it’s a sign that companies and consumers are growing disinterested in using Bitcoin to pay for things. Valued at $9 billion, Stripe is a major payments service provider in 25 countries, and the company claims to process billions of…
Read MoreCryptocurrency New boom prompts graphics card rationing
Booming interest in crypto-currencies has been blamed for pushing up the prices of graphics cards. The cards are popular because they speed up the process of minting or “mining” crypto-coins. Keen miners are buying graphics cards in large quantities and running them in parallel to boost their coin-producing efforts. Their actions have led some makers and sellers of graphics cards to limit how many people can buy at any time. Writing on PC Gamer, Jarred Walton said: “Right now is the worst time in the history of graphics cards to…
Read MoreNew: Intel tells users to stop installing chip patches
Software patches issued to fix serious security flaws on Intel chips should no longer be applied, the company has said. The patches tried to tackle flaws called Meltdown and Spectre that, if exploited, could expose important data. Many reported that their machines slowed down or stopped working when they applied Intel’s updates. Intel said it now knew what caused these problems and was developing fresh patches that would work better. In a statement, Intel spokesman Navin Shenoy said it had been investigating why the earlier patches caused “higher-than-expected reboots and…
Read MoreNational Bank systems New Breached by hackers.
Hackers have breached the National Bank of Kenya systems making away with Ksh 29 million. Confirming the incident through a statement on their twitter handle, @National_Bank, National Bank confirmed the incident stating that indeed there was an attempt fraud in normal course of business on 17th January but the bank’s monitoring and security resources frustrated the attempt “The amount of attempted fraud is about Ksh 29 million and we are confident we will recover most of that money,” read the statement. The bank also confirmed that security are in pursuit…
Read MoreData-stealing spyware new traced to Lebanon
A data security bug that has infected thousands of smartphones has been uncovered by campaign group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Working with mobile security firm Lookout, researchers discovered that malware in fake messaging designed to look like WhatsApp and Signal had stolen gigabytes of data. Targets included military personnel, activists, journalists and lawyers. Researchers say they traced the malware to a Lebanese government building. The threat, dubbed Dark Caracal by the researchers, looks as if it could come from a nation state and appears to use shared infrastructure linked…
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