Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

What happened to the iPhone 9?

September 13, 2017 Staff Writer

The long-awaited and extensively leaked special edition iPhone is finally upon us, and it’s called the iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone 10”). While the iPhone 8 is an iPhone 7S in all but name, the number jump across all the new iPhone models means we’re now officially missing an iPhone 9. Apple’s typical S naming is gone for this year at least, which isn’t entirely surprising. Samsung launched its Galaxy S8 earlier this year, and the company’s Note 8 will be available on September 15th (the same day iPhone 8 preorders…

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New Bluetooth vulnerability can hack a phone in 10 seconds

September 13, 2017 Staff Writer

More than 5 billion devices are vulnerable to a “highly infectious” malware attack. Go ahead, blame the internet of things. More than 5.3 billion devices with Bluetooth signals are at risk of a malware attack newly identified by an internet of things security company. If you’re not keeping count, that’s most of the estimated 8.2 billion devices that use Bluetooth, which allows for our gadgets to connect and communicate in wireless. Nearly every connected device out there has Bluetooth capability. Your phones, laptops, speakers, car entertainment systems — the list goes…

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How to spot a phishing email

September 13, 2017 Staff Writer

Phishing emails flow into inboxes year-round, especially during the holidays. Here are some clues to help your users spot “fishy” emails. Every day these countless phishing emails are sent to unsuspecting victims all over the world. While some of these messages are so outlandish that they are obvious frauds, others can be a bit more convincing. So how do you tell the difference between a phishing message and a legitimate message? Unfortunately, there is no one single technique that works in every situation, but there are a number of things…

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Making the digital economy more inclusive

September 4, 2017 Staff Writer

Across the world, there is a strong belief that machines are quickly approaching and they will take over human jobs. This fear is not new. From the cotton gin, to the tractor, to the assembly line and beyond, jobs have faced and will continue to face threats from technological advances. But throughout these disruptions, large-scale unemployment has typically been avoided: either machines could not do many of the innately human things people could do, or technology so drastically brought down costs that new markets were unlocked, in turn requiring more…

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Nigerian Start up innovates Recycling; Q&A with Bilikiss Abiola, Founder WeCyclers

August 31, 2017September 1, 2017 Staff Writer

Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola , Founder and CEO of Wecyclers The Nigerian tech startup space is developing at speed, and stands a good chance of being the Africa’s leader. ITBusinessDirect spoke with Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola , Founder and CEO of Wecyclers, a company that offers household recycling service using a fleet of low-cost cargo bikes. They are powering social change using the environment by allowing people in low-income communities in Nigeria to capture value from their waste. Question: How can you define the technology sector in Nigeria? Bilikiss: I believe it’s…

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With iPod discontinuation, what are the alternatives?

August 24, 2017September 1, 2017 Staff Writer

Smartphones have largely replaced portable media players for most people. It’s been a few years since Apple bothered to update its iPod touch, and it’s been even longer since any other company try to offer a good Android-powered alternative to Apple’s touchscreen media player. Apple is now abandoning its traditional iPod because most people with smartphones now use them for everything. However, many current smartphones – including Apple’s – don’t have FM, and none has a DAB radio. Worse, smartphones need regular app updates and sometimes annual operating system upgrades. You…

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Riding the digital storm

August 24, 2017 Staff Writer

The digital disruption storm is past the horizon and in the business backyard. Business leaders are now sensing the digital heat and are hurriedly getting equiped to survive the ‘storm-winds of digital disruption’. Across all industries, digital disruption is no longer a hypothetical—it’s reality. Digitization is changing the way products are made, marketed, and delivered, altering consumers’ behavior and expectations in turn. These changes are unlike anything the world has seen since the Industrial Revolution. Those who don’t adapt will be left behind. Organisations are under immense pressure to keep…

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Google secretly recording users through mobile devices

August 23, 2017 Staff Writer

Did you know that Google has been recording you without your knowledge? Some of your most intimate conversations might be sitting in a Google data centre somewhere. Just talking is enough to activate the recordings – but thankfully there’s an easy way of hearing and deleting them. The technology giant has effectively turned millions of its users’ smartphones into listening devices that can capture intimate conversations — even when they aren’t in the room. The company quietly records many of the conversations that people have around its products. The feature…

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Opera shuts down its Opera Max Service

August 16, 2017September 1, 2017 Staff Writer

Opera Max has been the rising star in Opera’s portfolio. The service offered a system-wide data-saving proxy that funnelled all app data through Opera’s servers to compress images and videos. Initially, opening a web page required users to calculate the amount of data that they would spend. Smartphones have been always data hungry and people tried all sorts of ways to save the smallest KiloBytes of data. It is this where Opera’s data saving app came to the rescue. Opera developed some clever algorithms and used in their Opera Max…

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