John Lister

A popular tech firm plans to offer a smartphone that costs just $25. The offering will initially be aimed at poorer countries, though could spread to more countries if the idea proves to be successful. The $25 phone is from Mozilla, the company best ... known for making the Firefox browser. Mozilla has created its own Linux-based operating system to run on the phone, which supports many commonly used smartphone features. $25 Smartphone Boasts Impressive Hardware By most definitions, the classification of a smartphone is the ability for the user to download and install software programs onto the ... (view more)

Microsoft has released a temporary fix to an important security bug affecting two recent versions of Internet Explorer. The exploit has been linked to attacks that compromised a website for US military veterans. The bug affects Internet Explorer ... versions 9 and 10. It does not affect version 11, nor anything previous to version 9. That said, using an earlier version Internet Explorer less than what is currently available (depending on which version of Windows you're running) is definitely not advised. JavaScript Bug Exploits Drive-by Download Attack The exploit involves JavaScript, a ... (view more)

Google has named 34 cities where it hopes to offer its super-fast broadband service. Google Fiber customers can get speeds as high as 50 times more than that which is currently offered by most cable providers. Typical Broadband Versus Google Fiber ... Typical Internet broadband over an ordinary copper phone line means speeds of a few megabits per second. For services over the same fiber-optic cables as cable TV companies, speeds of 10 to 20 megabits per second are more common. For a numbers comparison, a 10 megabit connection is equal to 1280 kilobytes per second. That said, Google Fiber offers ... (view more)

Most stories regarding privacy on the Internet involve complaints that tech firms go too far when divulging personal details of its users. In a twist of irony, however, advertisers are now complaining that Amazon and Apple are far too protective of ... their customer details. Several major advertising groups have told industry magazine 'Ad Age' that the two firms are missing out on ad revenue because they refuse to share personal customer information to the same extent as the likes of Google and Facebook. (Source: adage.com ) The advertisers say that the more details they have about ... (view more)

If Google's latest acquisition is any indication, sound could be the key to enhanced login security. Set up by former members of the Israeli military, SlickLogin is based around high-frequency tones, virtually inaudible to the human ear. In theory ... the system could be used as the main way to log in to a site, but Google seems more likely to use it for two-factor authentication. The idea of two-factor authentication is to combine two different types of security measure: something you know, and something you have. With the system Google already uses, the 'something you know' is your ... (view more)

Kickstarter, a popular site for raising money for technology and art projects, has been hit by hackers. The site says no credit card information was compromised but warns users to review their passwords. Kickstarter is a popular "crowdfunding" web ... site. It lets members of the public pledge money towards a project, usually as a pre-order for a finished product; the pledgers only have to hand over the cash if the project reaches a set funding target. The most successful such project was Pebble, a wristwatch device that used Kindle-style electronic ink to display information from a ... (view more)