AN issue that took centerstage at last month’s RightsCon Southeast Asia summit was digital security, an increasingly important consideration in these times of massive online surveillance—whether carried out by states, companies or hackers. One of the conference sponsors, Access (accessnow.org), operates a Digital Security Helpline that offers direct technical assistance and ...
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THREE months ago, I shopped around for an Android smart phone to replace my aging Samsung handset. Drawn by the good reviews and the phone’s sleek design, I settled on the Xperia Z1 Compact. In my case, one “feature” that tipped the scales in favor of buying this brand and ...
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UPGRADING to Yosemite (Mac OS X 10.10) on my MacBook Air was an easy and painless trek from Mavericks (10.9). Apple’s latest operating system for its desktop and laptop computers is available as a free download from the App Store. Because the file is rather large—about 5 gigabytes—I simply let it ...
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TEN years ago this month, a new Linux distribution with an unusual name made its unassuming debut. Bankrolled by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who had earned about half a billion dollars in 1999 from selling his Internet security company to VeriSign, Ubuntu was named after an African term for ...
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SOMETIMES, simple is just better. For me, this is certainly the case for note taking applications, where I value three features most of all: 1) The ability to take and save text-based notes easily; 2) The ability to instantaneously locate and recall the ones I need from hundreds of saved notes; ...
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THE warning from the US Department of Homeland Security last month was grim. More than 1,000 US retailers could be infected with Backoff, malicious software that attacks their Windows-based point-of-sales systems and allows hackers to steal financial information about their customers. Among the most recent high-profile victims was United Parcel Service, which ...
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MOST Android users are quick to install their favorite games but more likely than not to stick to the stock applications that came with their smart phone. For example, text messaging is usually seen as an integral feature of a phone, and not as a separate application that can be ...
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WHAT is the state of the Internet? It’s not very good in this neck of the woods, if we compare ourselves with the rest of the world in terms of Internet penetration, access costs and speed of connection. The first quarter State of the Internet report from Akamai, a major US-based provider ...
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