Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

A simmering conflict between Oculus, a virtual reality startup Facebook bought last month for $2 billion, and ZeniMax Media began to boil Monday ZeniMax las week claimed one of its former employees, John Carmack, improperly shared some of its tech with Oculus for use in its Rift virtual reality headset, which is touted as having the power to bring ...

As the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks increase, system defenders in the trenches are losing confidence in their ability to protect their organizations' information assets, suggests a survey released last week by Websense and the Ponemon Institute The survey of almost 5,000 global IT security pros found that more than half of them (57 per...

Snapchat built its popularity on pictures that disappear, but new features added to the latest version of the program shows its creators want it to be more than a one-trick app Both text and video chatting on Thursday became available in the mobile app for Android and iOS devices. "Until today, we felt that Snapchat was missing an important part of...

Smarting from speculation that the U.S. intelligence community hoarded knowledge about the Heartbleed bug that's placed millions of servers and devices that access the Internet at risk, the White House Tuesday gave the public some insight into how it decides to release information about vulnerabilities in computer software and hardware "This admini...

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser has a flaw that allows hackers to commandeer control of computers, FireEye reported Saturday Although the never-seen-before vulnerability can be found in all versions of the browser, hackers are targeting IE versions 9 through 11, according to a blog post by the three researchers who made the discovery....

Cybersquatting is a seedy practice that's as old as dot-com, but the upcoming expansion of domain names could be breathing new life into the practice, while offering seamier elements on the Net an invitation for mischief In the early days of the Internet, nimble squatters would register domain names of brands, then sell them back to the owners for ...

Reports that the FCC is abandoning its support of Net neutrality are incorrect, the agency's chairman claimed Thursday The reports appeared just prior to the release by the FCC of a notice that it is proposing some new Open Internet rules. The old rules were rejected by a federal court in January and tossed back to the FCC for a rewrite....

The folks who introduced the masses to ex post facto focusing upped their game Tuesday with the introduction of a new camera aimed at shooters who take their photography seriously The Illum, by Lytro, contains an updated version of the company's innovative Light Field engine, which allows the focus in a photo to be manipulated after it's shot. Unl...

Nike appears to be retreating from its vanguard position in the computer wearables market The company has begun slashing the engineers working on its FuelBand product, a fitness computer that can be worn on a wrist, based on reports that surfaced late last week....

Purveyors of a notorious mobile banking Trojan have started targeting Facebook users to infect Android smartphones The Net predators use a desktop Trojan to leverage a Facebook socializer to install banking malware on their phone, ESET malware researcher Jean-Ian Boutin discovered last week....

Have you ever heard a song you never heard before while you were out and about and wished you knew its title and artist? iOS soon may be able to tell you. The next version is expected to be unveiled at the Apple Developers Conference in San Francisco in June Apple is working with Shazam Entertainment to incorporate into iOS 8 a feature that allows ...

A picture may be worth a thousand words but the photo of what might be a smartphone in development by Amazon has produced many more words than that The photo, posted Tuesday by BGR, shows a black smartphone that looks like any number of mobiles on the market, save for the number of cameras on the front of the phone. In addition to the typical front...

After an 18-month lull, Windows Phone took a step closer to an upgrade on Monday as Microsoft released version 8.1 of the operating system to developers Unlike most developer versions of software, however, consumers can download and run the latest edition of Windows Phone on their mobile device -- as long as they're willing to void its warranty unt...

The tech industry reeled last week when security researchers discovered a flaw in a key security technology in the Internet's infrastructure ...

Consumers can do little to protect themselves from the catastrophic Heartbleed bug "Catastrophic is the right word," wrote security guru Bruce Schneier in his blog this week. "On the scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11."

Up to now, Google's smart eyeware, Glass, largely has been considered a diversion for gadget lovers, but the company on Tuesday announced a new program to encourage its use in the workplace "Today, there are thousands of consumers out there enjoying Glass in ways that are both practical and inspirational," a Google spokesperson said in a statement ...

Microsoft added to its list of original programming for its Xbox gaming system Monday with the announcement of a new science fiction series called Humans. Humans -- based on the Swedish TV series Real Humans -- is a cooperative effort of Xbox Entertainment Studios and UK broadcaster Channel 4. It is scheduled to air next year exclusively on the X...

The steady stream of reports on government surveillance of Americans has taken a toll on the image of high-tech companies, according to a Harris poll More than two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) feel technology companies violate their users' trust by helping the government spy on its citizens, suggests the poll of 2,000 consumers, which was spons...

Gauging your popularity on Google's social network, Google+, got a little easier Tuesday, as the would-be Facebook competitor added page view analytics Now, when members view their profile page -- which metrics show isn't that often -- they'll see a number beneath their mug indicating the number of times their content -- profile page, posts and pho...

As Microsoft prepares to cut off support for Windows XP, hackers are sharpening their knives in anticipation of carving up the operating system's carcass Web predators will pounce on XP 10 minutes after Microsoft pulls the support plug on the software, predicted one former military computer specialist and network engineer....