Internet

OPINION

Bridging the IoT Innovation-Security Gap

There is a problem with the Internet of Things: It's incredibly insecure. This is not a problem that is inherent to the idea of smart devices. Wearables, smart houses, and fitness tracking apps can be made secure -- or at least more secure than they currently are. The problem, instead, is one that l...

Perhaps technology operates at its most profound level when we don't notice it -- when it simply becomes woven into the fabric of our daily lives. We asked ECT News Network's roundtable of industry insiders to pause and reflect on their own personal tech preferences, to speculate on what popular gad...

When we watch a work of fiction, we enter an understanding with its makers. We agree to suspend our disbelief, and they agree to entertain us. If it's a particularly good work, perhaps it inspires us by communicating some kernel of wisdom about human nature. Its story may touch our emotions deeply, ...

Facebook recently promised that it would increase efforts to remove so-called "deepfake" videos, including content that included "misleading manipulated media." In addition to fears that deepfakes -- altered videos that appear to be authentic -- could impact the upcoming 2020 general election in the...

Cybersecurity risks for 2020 stretch far beyond the alarming spike in ransomware. In addition to the daily concerns of malware, stolen data, and the cost of recovering from a network intrusion, there is the very real danger of nefarious actors using cyberattacks to interfere with the 2020 U.S. gener...

Google has inked a deal to acquire 6-year-old Ireland-based firm Pointy for $163 million. Pointy provides a $900 box with built-in cellular connectivity, which lets brick-and-mortar retailers list their stock online. It plugs into the retailer's barcode scanner and automatically obtains accurate pro...

Arduino announced a new low-code Internet of Things application development platform at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. It also introduced the low-power Arduino Portenta H7 module, a new family of Portenta chips for a variety of hardware applications. Arduino's open source microcontroller platform simplifies...

PR companies long have been known for reshaping perceptions to favor their clients. Some now engage in "black PR" -- the calculated spread of disinformation and misinformation online. For example, entrepreneur Peng Kuan Chin's "Content Farm Automatic Collection System" harvests online articles and p...

If you're turned off by the mere thought of talking heads vying to speak the loudest or the longest in a TV "discussion" of some pressing issue of the day, read on for a refreshing dose of sanity. ECT News Network recruited five smart people with plenty to say about the state of technology, and we g...

Facebook has promised to remove certain "misleading manipulated media": videos edited or synthesized in ways not apparent to an average person, which likely would mislead viewers to believe that video subjects said words they did not say; products of artificial intelligence or machine learning that ...

The service speed average among U.S. broadband households has increased steadily over the last four years, but only 6 percent of U.S. broadband households currently have plans with speeds of 1 Gbps or higher.

OPINION

CES 2020: Prepare to Be Amazed

Every year I look forward to CES being over. That's not because it isn't interesting -- it is. It's because the place is a nightmare to get around, thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions that turn Las Vegas into a gridlocked mess. Coming right after the holidays, it is oddly timed, ensuring tha...

OPINION

Is Your Health Data at Risk?

We've recently seen much breathless news coverage of the Nightingale Project, Google's half-secret partnership with Ascension, the second-largest healthcare system in the United States. The details of the project -- which involves sharing the healthcare data of tens of millions of unsuspecting patie...

Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance are teaming up on a new IP-based standard for smart home device connectivity. Connected Home over IP will be an open source project. A working group will define a specific set of networking technologies to enable communication across smart home devices, ...

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