John Lister

Google has revealed it paid $10 million in bounties to people who spotted security bugs in its products last year. More people earned rewards than in an equivalent Microsoft program, though Google paid out less per person. Such programs are designed ... not only to boost security but to encourage security researchers to work for good, rather than exploit bugs. However, critics say tech companies should put more of their resources into making software as bug-free as possible to start with. Google paid out a total of $10 million in 2023, split between 632 researchers in 68 countries. The highest ... (view more)

A "3D" processor could make wireless communication more efficient according to scientists at the University of Florida. It could benefit both WiFi and cellular data services. One of the limitations of current WiFi tech is that it uses a "planar ... processor" to handle the wireless signal. Because these processors are (in practical terms) two-dimensional, they can only work with a limited range of wireless frequencies. Expanding the range of frequencies planar processors can handle is only possible by making them wider, a little like increasing capacity on roads. But making the ... (view more)

35 years after conceiving the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee has shared his predictions for its future. The boldest is the possibility of a major tech company being broken up. Berners-Lee also believes artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual ... reality could be harnessed for positive changes to our daily lives. Although the Internet dates back in some ways to the US military in the late 1960's and in others to the adoption of a common inter-network communication standard in 1983, it had some major use limitations. That changed with Berners-Lee coming up with the idea of the World Wide Web, a ... (view more)

A former cyber security chief says governments should ban organizations from paying money to ransomware gangs. Ciaran Martin likened such payment to bans on paying terrorist kidnappers. The call has had a mixed response, with critics calling it an ... unfair constraint on business freedoms. Martin was the first head of the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre. That's an organization overseen by the country's intelligence services that advises businesses and the public on cyber security threats. Ransomware has become a business worth an estimated $20 billion a year to criminals who gain ... (view more)

Google says its next search algorithm update will dramatically reduce the number of low quality results people see. It's particularly targeting sites that prioritize getting high search rankings over providing useful content for readers. The company ... says tests of the new algorithm showed that, when combined with a similar update in 2022, it reduced "low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%." Of course, that measurement involves a subjective measure of what content qualifies as low-quality. (Source: gizmodo.com )) Quality Over Quantity According to Google, the algorithm update ... (view more)

A Windows bug patched last month had been exploited for six months by hackers linked to North Korea. Microsoft reportedly knew about it and the delay in fixing it may have been down to internal bureaucracy. Security company Avast found the bug last ... August and reported it to Microsoft. At the time it was already a zero-day bug , meaning there was evidence hackers not only knew about the bug but where taking advantage of it. That meant Microsoft had "zero days" head start in coming up with a fix and rolling it out before hackers exploited it. Microsoft released a fix in the February "Patch ... (view more)

Two state laws governing the way social media companies moderate content could be under threat. Questioning by Justices in a Supreme Court cases suggested they may not be convinced the laws are constitutional. The case, examining laws in Florida and ... Texas, covers one of the most longstanding dilemmas of the Internet age: whether website owners are publishers or a platform. This affects questions such as whether the site owner is responsible for defamation or other breaches of the law involving content, plus the extent to which the First Amendment applies. In this case, both states brought in ... (view more)

A new approach to computer processing could double speeds while halving power consumption, according to researchers. The approach could work on existing hardware without needing physical modifications. The research builds on the existing technique ... of multithreading. That's an attempt to overcome the major limitation of computer processors (CPUs). They are broken down into cores (often 2, 4 or 8 cores) but each core can only carry out one task at any specific split-second. Workload Optimized Threading means breaking bigger tasks down into a list of individual steps known as a thread. The ... (view more)

Lenovo has designed a laptop with a see-through display. But it's pretty transparently a gimmick. The company demonstrated the screen at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, an annual trade show where tech companies often unveil their latest ... ideas for portable gadgets. The technology behind a transparent display isn't particularly new. Generally they work by blocking or reflecting light to create an image, rather than emitting light as happens with traditional displays that are black when not in use or showing a "blank" image. The main use of the Lenovo "Project Crystal" display is for ... (view more)

Apple has warned users not to dry an iPhone in a bag of rice. It says the popular "tip" won't repair water damage and could cause even more problems. Numerous online guides have suggested the fix in cases where a phone is dropped into water and ... stops working. They usually suggest putting the phone in a zip-lock bag with uncooked rice, the logic being that the rice will absorb moisture, eventually drying out even the inside of a phone. Apple has now updated its official advice to include examples of what not to do: Don't dry your iPhone using an external heat source or compressed air. Don't ... (view more)