John Lister

A Russian company is selling a smartphone that features both front- and rear-facing screens. The manufacturer, Yota, says the layout is no gimmick and will help increase the device's battery life. The company first unveiled the 'YotaPhone', which ... runs the Android operating system, last year. Although some analysts questioned whether it would ever see the light of day, Yota says the phone is already available to customers in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and Russia. It plans to expand sales to another 20 countries next year. The front of the phone features a traditional LCD color screen, ... (view more)

An online posting has exposed more than two million passwords, most of which were stolen from Google and Facebook users. The theft appears to have been made using a malicious keylogger program. The posting, which was made in Russian, was discovered ... by security firm Trustwave Spider Labs. It informed the sites that issued the passwords before publicizing the discovery. It's not yet clear how many of the passwords were still in use when the list was first published, or how many are still in use today. Just over 1.5 million of the details listed on the site were for website logins. The rest were ... (view more)

A leaked document shows the National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to use adult websites to discredit people suspected of participating in terrorism campaigns targeting Americans. However, critics suggest it's a flawed approach that could hurt ... innocent civilians. The document was leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. It refers to agents gathering together evidence on "radicalizers" whose "private and public behaviors are not consistent". In other words, in private these radicalizers do things they would not want other people to know about. The suggestion is that releasing this ... (view more)

A fitness trainer says she was banned from Facebook after criticizing a plus-sized lingerie firm's marketing campaign. The news has reawakened the debate about Facebook's attempt to regulate what it deems offensive content. Maria Kang is no stranger ... to controversy. In October she published a photograph of herself in a sports-style bikini, showing off a lean and toned body. The picture also showed her three young children, the oldest of whom is just three. Kang captioned the picture with the line "What's your excuse?" It was meant to be a dig at mothers who aren't in such athletic shape. ... (view more)

The United States government has agreed to pay $50 million in compensation after effectively committing large-scale piracy. The problem? The US Army installed software on 9,000 military computers without a proper license. The software, which was ... produced by Texas-based firm Apptricity, was used to track the movement of troops and supplies in real time. The system allows staff to get a complete picture of everything they are tracking on a single screen, yet have the ability to drill down to fine detail -- such as finding which particular compartment in a vehicle or plane a specific item is ... (view more)

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned a $99 genetic home testing kit. The agency says the company responsible for the kit, '23andme', failed to prove its marketing claims and insists that the product could put customers' ... mental and physical health at risk. 23andme was founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The company's kit allows users to collect a saliva sample and send it in for genetic analysis. The company then provides a report that can be used for tracing family connections. It also includes details about 240 health conditions ... (view more)

Sony has applied for a patent on a new, high-tech wig. It's the latest "wearable technology" device to emerge. Sony says the wig will allow the user to wirelessly access various gadgets, like a smartphone or a global positioning system (GPS) device. ... Sony suggests that, when hooked up to a navigation or mapping app on a phone (or using a built-in GPS chip), the wig could buzz on the left or right side of the head to give you directions when walking. (Sony says the head is much more sensitive to touch than many other areas of the body.) That would eliminate the need to keep pulling out your ... (view more)

Microsoft has launched a new set of merchandise carrying anti-Google slogans. It's just a publicity stunt, but the blistering nature of the attacks may land Microsoft in legal trouble. The merchandise is the latest step in Microsoft's "Don't get ... Scroogled" campaign. That term, a mix of "screwed" and "Google", is Microsoft's way of arguing that its rival has a much more aggressive approach to using customer data for its own means. The campaign has largely centered on the fact that Google scans messages sent through its Gmail service and then uses the content to produce relevant advertising. ... (view more)

Google has agreed to pay a $17 million penalty for cheating a privacy system in Apple's Safari browser. Google was fined because it effectively lied to customers about its privacy policy. The case involves cookies, small text files placed in a ... user's web browser so that websites can quickly get information about the user. In some cases this can be beneficial; for example, a movie listing site can make a note about a user's ZIP code so that they immediately receive localized listings when they visit the site. In some cases, though, advertisers will use cookies to track which sites a user ... (view more)

Against the advice of security experts, a police department has paid a $750 ransom to cybercriminals who corrupted its file system using a 'ransomware' attack. The Swansea Police Department in Massachusetts was hit by a virus called 'CryptoLocker' . ... It's not yet known how the virus got onto the police department's system, though the most likely explanation is that somebody opened an email attachment laced with the virus. Many previous CryptoLocker infections have come through bogus emails claiming to carry a delivery note from a courier company. The good news was that the virus didn't affect ... (view more)