Articles by Richard Adhikari

The United States Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against Amazon over billing kids for unauthorized in-app purchases that in many cases they did not know they had made The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington, accuses Amazon of violating Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive...

It's been known for years that the U.S. National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have targeted Muslim Americans What hasn't been widely known is that their targets included lawyers and some who have served the United States at the highest levels, which was revealed in an Intercept.org report....

Doing a factory reset to wipe the data off smartphones does not work, and the data can be recovered, warned Avast The company recovered tons of data, including more than 40,000 stored photographs, from 20 used Android phones purchased from eBay....

People need to work less than 1 percent of the time they do to fulfill their basic needs -- housing, security and opportunities for their children -- Google cofounder Larry Page suggested recently, reviving a Utopian vision that has long been a staple of sci-fi as well as technologists' vision of the future "The idea that everyone needs to work fra...

BlackBerry's Passport smartphone, which reportedly is due to be launched in September, is creating a buzz because of its shape The Passport is square, unlike the rectangular form of conventional smartphones....

Marie Antoinette may not have been too far off the mark when she intoned the immortal line, "Let them eat cake." When it comes to the right to be forgotten, it seems Europeans want both to have their cake and eat it Europeans are up in arms over Google's having deleted links to various BBC and Guardian stories from search results in Europe....

The years-long PC sales slide will slow somewhat this year, Gartner has predicted. "After declining 9.5 percent in 2013, the global PC market is on pace to contract only 2.9 percent in 2014," Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal said. The company lumps in desktops, notebooks and premium ultramobiles under the "PC" category....

Nine out of 10 people whose information is being collected by the United States National Security Agency are Americans who have nothing to do with people targeted by the agency, The Washington Postreported Data provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden includes some information pertaining to terrorist activities and possible threats to U.S.

Microsoft-owned Nokia created some fireworks over the holiday weekend by making the Lumia 635, sporting Windows Phone 8.1 , available with T-Mobile's Simple Choice prepaid plan over the Home Shopping Network ...

The United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has come under fire for its latest report on NSA surveillance The report essentially says collection of information under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "has been valuable and effective in protecting the nation's security and producing useful foreign intelligen...

As the anticipated April 2015 launch of Threshold, the next major version of Windows OS, draws closer, Microsoft reportedly is tightening up its features One of the OS Group's main goals in thedesign and development of Threshold is to make it more palatable to Windows 7 users, according to ZDNet....

T-Mobile's efforts to market itself as the un-carrier that puts customers first may be impacted by the United States Federal Trade Commission'sallegations that it has engaged in "cramming" -- charging consumers for services offered by third-party companies without the consumers' knowledge or authorization "We're asking the court for an order both...

The energy industry in the United States and Europe is being targeted by a cybercriminal gang that's suspected of being state-sponsored and has links to Russia Known variously as "Dragonfly" and "Energetic Bear," the group has been operating at least since 2011....

Once again, Facebook is embroiled in a controversy over privacy. This time, hackles have been raised by publication of a study for which the company manipulated the News Feeds of nearly 700,000 subscribers The study concluded that, yes, negative messages on social networks make people sad, and positive ones make them happy -- and those feelings can...

Facebook, not known for respecting users' privacy, is battling a New York County district attorney's demand for all information pertaining to the accounts of several hundred of its subscribers DA Cyrus Vance's office issued 381 secret warrants for the information in July of 2013 in a hunt for retired police officers and firefighters wrongfully clai...

One of the many notable things to come out of Google's I/O conference this week was the announcement that 40 new auto industry companies representing 25 brands had joined the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), which Google formed earlier this year Google also unveiled Google Automotive Link, or GAL, which works like Apple's Carplay, along with an And...

Action camera maker GoPro, which went public Thursday, saw its share prices skyrocket, closing at US$31.34, 30 percent over its asking price of $24 ...

Google-owned Nest Labs, maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors, this week launched a developer program along with partnerships that already have products on offer Partners include Jawbone; LIFX, which makes smart WiFi-enabled light bulbs; Logitech; and Mercedes-Benz, which will offer models that allow owners to remotely control the Nest dev...

Police need a warrant to search the cellphone contents of people they have arrested, the United States Supreme Court ruled Wednesday Warrantless searches, in essence, would impact privacy to a far greater extent than is acceptable....

Google on Wednesday announced a plethora of opportunities for developers at its I/O conference, under way in San Francisco The upcoming version of Android, currently known as "L," will have 5,000 new apps....