Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

Facebook on Monday denied that its network and Messenger app were being used to spread ransomware to its users, contradicting the claims ofCheck Point researchers Roman Ziakin and Dikla Barda The two researchers last week reported they had discovered a new method for delivering malicious code to machines, which they dubbed "ImageGate."

Recent high-profile distributed denial of service attacks on the Internet's infrastructure and an investigative journalist's website have spiked concerns over possible disruptions of traffic during the biggest online shopping weekend of the year Online spending last year exceeded US$5.8 billion on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to Adobe, ...

Hackers have stolen information of more than 400 million users of Friend Finder Networks, which runs several adult dating and pornography websites, LeakedSource reported earlier this week This is Friend Finders' second breach in two years. Last year, hackers accessed 4 million accounts, exposing information on users' sexual preferences and extramar...

Apple this week introduced a new offering that is neither hardware nor software, but a pricey book bulging with artsy photos of the company's products Designed by Apple in California contains 450 photos of products created by Apple over a 20-year span. It's available in two sizes: 10.20 by 12.75 inches for US$199 and 13 by 16.25 inchesfor $299....

GoPro's ambitious plans to be a player in the fledgling drone market crashed last week when it had to announce a product recall due to Karma UAV units falling from the sky The company needed to resolve a performance issue related to loss of power during operation, it said. It indicated it would resume shipment of Karma at some point, but didn't sug...

The folks who brought Vine into the world last month introduced a new video broadcasting app called "Hype." Available for free from Intermedia Labs in Apple's iTunes App Store, Hype not only allows users to broadcast live to the Internet, but also lets followers interact with their broadcasts in real time....

It's widely known that human DNA evidence has had a major impact in the criminal justice system. Now another kind of DNA may have a similar impact in the fight to eradicate malicious software Malware DNA, also known as "malware provenance," is the art and science of attributing elements of one object to another object. The technique has application...

Google's Pixel smartphone, which made its debut last month, has gathered some high praise from reviewers "The Google Pixel is now the best Android smartphone you can buy," wrote Joanna Stern in The Wall Street Journal....

Microsoft earlier this week launched Teams, a new collaboration offering designed to fend off competitors to its Office 365 platform The new chat-based workspace product brings together people, conversations and content, along with some familiar productivity tools, to facilitate collaboration on projects....

Google on Monday posted to the Internet a previously unpublicized flaw that could pose a security threat to users of the Microsoft Windows operating system Google notified both Microsoft and Adobe of zero day vulnerabilities in their software on Oct. 21, wrote Neel Mehta and Billy Leonard, members of Google's Threat Analysis Group, in an online pos...

Internet bots have many useful online purposes, but they have a dark side, too, as three researchers demonstrated in their analysis of Twitter traffic during the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Bots are used to automate functions on the Net. For example, if you belong to several social networks, you could use a bo...

Apple on Thursday unveiled two new MacBook Pro laptops, adding a touch more power to the line Both the new 13-inch and 15-inch models will be offered in silver and space gray. They have a Touch Bar that replaces the row of function keys found on laptops, as well as a Touch ID fingerprint scanner incorporated into the power button. They sport a Forc...

Xiaomi on Tuesday fired another shot in the shrinking bezel wars, as it announced a smartphone with a front that's more than 90 percent display The Mi Mix is a 6.4-inch phone that's stylishly crafted by French designer Philippe Starck. It sports a feature set that indicates Xiaomi wants to compete at the high end of the smartphone market....

A refresh of Apple's flagship laptop, the MacBook Pro, likely will be the highlight of an event scheduled for this Thursday at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California The update to its flagship MacBook line couldn't come at a more critical time. ...

Tesla on Wednesday announced plans to install hardware that will allow all of its cars to become driverless The equipment will enable self-driving at a safety level substantially greater than human-driven cars, according to the company....

Apple appears to be shifting its driverless car ambitions into a lower gear.Changes in the company's automotive strategy have resulted in hundreds of job cuts and the shelving of plans to build a car of its own, Bloomberg reported Monday "Project Titan" -- Apple's internal name for the automotive initiative -- has a new focus, according to the repo...

When the new president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., cybersecurity will be on the shortlist for action. What's a president to do? TechNewsWorld asked more than a dozen experts what should be at the top of the new leader of the free world's cyberagenda. Following are some of their responses....

Watch out, Apple. HP on Wednesday introduced a new generation of premium computer products that could generate the kind of excitement in the market that's usually the domain of the folks at One Infinite Loop Among the new HP offerings are a new tablet-laptop convertible, a svelte laptop, an innovative all-in-one model, and a 4k display designed for...

Cyanogen, the maker of an alternative version of Android, on Tuesday announced that it was going modular. Future releases of its open source firmware product will not support a full stack of the Android OS The new modular setup will bring a slew of benefits to phone makers and developers, according to Cyanogen....

Project Noto, one of Google's most ambitious undertakings ever, has reached a milestone. Noto now supports 800 languages and 100 writing scripts, the companies announced last week Google and Monotype launched the open source initiative to create a typeface family that supports all the languages in the world, even rarely used languages.