Articles by Richard Adhikari

Facebook last week announced Place Tips for iPhones, a feature that will give subscribers location-based recommendations at the top of their News Feeds. No mention was made of launching Place Tips for Android or Windows Phone devices Tapping on Place Tips will call up the information, which will include posts and photos friends have shared about a ...

The Gamergate controversy, which centers on sexism and sexual violence in the video game industry, has made things hot for Wikipedia, whose arbitration committee has taken punitive action against some of the people involved in the debate The committee decided to impose a complete site-wide ban on one male editor, with the handle "Ryulong," Wikimedi...

Google has decided not to fix vulnerabilities in WebView for Android 4.3 and older, sparking heated discussions among developers Those versions of WebView run on the WebKit browser. Fixing them "required changes to significant portions of the code and was no longer practical to do so safely," Adrian Ludwig, lead engineer for Android security, expla...

SpaceX on Thursday released a computer-generated animation demonstrating how the three Falcon 9 cores of its Falcon Heavy rocket, scheduled for launch later this year, would return to Earth The boosters would land vertically at a selected site....

Canada's spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment, has been eavesdropping on 102 free file upload sites, including Sendspace, Rapidshare and Megaupload, which has been shut down A CSE program called "Levitation" lets analysts access information on 10-15 million uploads and downloads of files from such sites daily, according to document...

Because Cuba's government makes it difficult for all but a handful of Cubans to access the Internet, people in Havana and other parts of the country have linked thousands of PCs to create an informal network known as "StreetNet," or "SNet" for short, the AP reported The network was built with commercially available equipment. The PCs are connected ...

Cablevision on Monday announced plans for Freewheel, an all-WiFi mobile phone service offering unlimited data, talk and text to residents of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania The prepaid service will connect to Cablevision's Optimum Online WiFi network of 1.1 million hotspots. Optimum Online is Cablevision's high-speed Internet ser...

Coinbase on Monday launched Coinbase Exchange, the first regulated bitcoin exchange in the United States The firm raised US$75 million last week in a round of funding from new backers including DFJ Growth and BBVA Ventures, as well as existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital.

The humanoid Atlas robot made by Google company Boston Dynamics has gotten an overhaul to be stronger, lighter and more independent, and to be able to function for one hour of mixed-mission operations Designed by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it stands six feet two inches tall....

Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss on Friday announced Gemini, a regulated bitcoin exchange to be based in the United States The Winkelvoss twins, who shot to fame when they sued Facebook and won US$65 million, have assembled a team of security experts, technologists and financial engineers to build a world-class exchange from the ground up, based on sec...

Google is planning to set up shop as an MVNO -- that is, mobile virtual network operator -- purchasing bandwidth from Sprint and T-Mobile in order to offer its own wireless service, The Information reported Wednesday Details are sparse, but Sprint is putting a volume trigger into its contract that would allow for renegotiation if Google's customer ...

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a slew of new features and capabilities coming in Windows 10: the convergence of the desktop and mobile; the advent of the killer universal app; more power and features for personal digital assistant Cortana, which will be on mobile as well as desktops and laptops; improvements to maps; a new browser, code-named "Project Spartan"; a strong emphasis on gaming; and holographic computing...

FreedomPop on Wednesday announced a new plan that provides Android smartphone users with access to 10 million WiFi hotspots across the U.S. for US$5 a month That sum will give any smartphone or tablet -- regardless of any carrier service it might have -- unlimited talk, text and data on FreedomPop's WiFi hotspot network....

Canonical on Tuesday unveiled Snappy Ubuntu Core, a new rendition of Ubuntu targeting the Internet of Things Snappy Ubuntu Core offers a minimal server image with the same libraries as "traditional" Ubuntu, if we can call it that, but Snappy apps and Ubuntu Core can be upgraded automatically and rolled back if necessary....

HP on Tuesday unveiled eight new business-focused mobile products: six specialized tablets, a 2-in-1 device and a tablet case. The company also announced new strategic relationships with partners and independent software vendors, and a slew of accessories "Our goal with this announcement is to showcase an ecosystem that's easy to navigate and offer...

Microsoft on Wednesday announced Windows Holographic, a feature in Windows 10 that will let users create their own holograms and print them out on 3D printers Every Windows 10 device has holographic APIs enabled, Microsoft's Alex Kipman said. Windows 10 holograms are Windows Universal Apps....

SpaceX, the space transport services company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, has raised US$1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity Investments Together, they will together own almost 10 percent of SpaceX....

Google's recent publication of Windows' vulnerabilities -- two within a week -- predictably raised Microsoft's ire "Risk is significantly increased by publically announcing information that a cybercriminal could use to orchestrate an attack and assumes those that would take action are made aware of the issue," wrote Chris Betz, Microsoft's senior d...

IBM launched its newest mainframe, the z13, last week in New York City Built for the mobile economy, the z13 can process 2.5 billion transactions daily. It enables real-time encryption on all mobile transactions at scale, and it includes embedded analytics that provide real-time transactions faster and cheaper than the competition, the company said...

The United States National Security Agency knew in advance that North Korea was about to hack into Sony's systems, according to The New York Times The NSA apparently penetrated North Korea's network through several vectors, including Chinese networks used to connect with the rest of the world and hacker connections in Malaysia. The NSA was able to ...