Education on technology

The personal information of 237,000 current and former federal government employees has been exposed in a data breach at the US Transportation Department (USDOT), sources briefed on the matter said on Friday. The breach hit systems for processing TRANServe transit benefits that reimburse government employees for some commuting costs. It was not clear if any of the personal information had been used for criminal purposes. USDOT notified Congress Friday in an email seen by Reuters that its initial investigation of the data breach has "isolated the breach to certain systems at the department used for administrative functions, such as employee transit benefits processing." USDOT said in a statement to Reuters the breach did not affect any transportation safety systems. It did not say who might be responsible for the hack. The department is investigating the breach and has frozen access to the transit benefit system until it has been secured and restored, it said. The maxi...

Regulator TRAI on Friday directed telecom operators to take action against misuse of telemarketing messages templates within 30 days to curb pesky messages. The regulator in the direction said that it has noticed some telemarketers are misusing headers and content templates of enterprises. "Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals and TRAI has been taking various steps to curb it. Today, Trai has issued a direction to stop misuse of message templates under Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018)," the regulator said. Instead of mobile numbers, the authorised telemarketing messages display headers which is indicative of the company from which it has come. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to make changes in the code of practices (CoPs) around headers and content templates of telemarketing m...

Elon Musk on Friday took to Twitter to announce the name of the new Twitter CEO. As his tweets confirmed, NBCUniversal's Linda Yaccarino has been hired to take over Musk's role as the CEO of the social media company. Sharing about her job responsibilities at Twitter, Musk mentioned that her she will look after business operations, while working on transforming the social media platform into X, the everything app. The billionaire, on the other hand, will look after the product design and new technology.  I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023   Yaccarino is the former NBCUniversal advertising chief, who modernized the Comcast entertainment and media division's a...

Alienware m16 and Alienware x14 R2 gaming laptops were launched in India by the company on Friday. These two laptops were first unveiled by the company at CES 2023 alongside other gaming laptop and desktop models. These laptops are equipped with up to quad-HD+ displays, up to 13th Gen Intel Core processors and feature up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs. The laptops are claimed to offer improved stability, navigation, and performance control over their predecessors, with the revamped Alienware Command Center 6.0 software.  Alienware m16, Alienware x14 R2 price in India, availability Alienware m16 pricing starts at Rs. 1,84,990 and is available in a Dark Metallic Moon finish, while the Alienware x14 R2 starts at 2,06,990 and is sold in a Lunar Silver finish. Both laptops can be purchased in India via Dell Exclusive Stores, Dell's website, Amazon, as well as online and offline retail channels, according to details shared by the company. Alienware m16 specif...

The New York state of the US is considering the implementation of stablecoins in its internal financial system. Regulators of the state have floated a proposal to let the residents pay and settle bail bonds in the form of stablecoins. This move has been proposed in accordance with New York's plans to cautiously experiment with virtual digital assets. It, however, could be a few months before the fate of this proposal is sealed by the state authorities. On May 10, the New York Assembly Bill 7024 was extended to the state legislative assembly, seeking an official payment mode status for stablecoins to pay bail bonds in state prisons. “Authorises fiat-collateralised stablecoins as a form of bail; directs the commissioner of taxation and finance to promulgate rules and regulations identifying forms of fiat-collateralised stablecoin acceptable for posting bail to establish a system for the administration of the acceptance, recording, and processing of stablecoins as a means of securin...

Social networking firm LinkedIn announced Tuesday that it will close down its last service available in China, citing "fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate". Microsoft -owned LinkedIn was one of the few US technology companies to successfully operate a social media site in China, where the internet is heavily regulated and censored. The company had introduced a unique domestic version of the career networking platform operated locally in order to comply. In 2021, new sign-ups for the LinkedIn app in mainland China were suspended by the firm, which referenced a "significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China". Microsoft then replaced it with a simplified version called InCareer, which allowed local professionals to continue to find and apply for jobs as well as stay connected with their network. "After careful consideration, we've made the decision to discontinue InCareer effectiv...

Apple is rumoured to adopt microLED panels for its entire product lineup soon. The Cupertino-based tech giant will reportedly begin the transition from organic light-emitting diode to micro light-emitting diode display technology late next year or early 2025 with the launch of the 2nd generation Apple Watch Ultra. MicroLED display offers multiple advantages over OLED panels. It offers higher brightness and enhanced contrast ratio while ensuring lower power consumption. The iPhone lineup, followed by iPad units is also expected to switch from OLED to micro-LED in the future. As per a paywalled  report  by Digitimes, Apple's transition to microLED panels from OLED display technology will begin with the launch of the 2nd generation Apple Watch Ultra by the end of 2024 or early 2025. After evaluating microLED technology performance in action, the company will reportedly release iPhone models with microLED screens followed by iPad. The report, quoting South Korea's state-owned r...

Italy's antitrust agency AGCM said on Thursday it had opened a probe into US technology giant Apple Inc for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the apps market. The watchdog said Apple penalised third-party app developers by imposing "a more restrictive privacy policy" than it applies to itself, from April 2021. Furthermore, external app developers are disadvantaged "in terms of the quality of the data made available by Apple," the AGCM said in its statement. In an emailed statement to Reuters, Apple said it applies privacy rules "equally to all developers, including Apple". "We will continue to engage constructively with the AGCM to address any of their questions," the company added. Under European Union competition law, companies found guilty of abuse of market dominance risk a fine of up to 10 percent of annual turnover. Apple and other US tech giants have come under repeated scrutiny from European regulators. On Wednesday, t...