Articles by John P. Mello Jr

Apple will announce a new processor for its Mac computer line at its virtual World Wide Developers Conference later this month, Bloomberg reported Tuesday Fulfilling a years-long rumor, the company will begin using an ARM chip based on Apple's A14 processor, which will be featured in the next iPhone....

A browser that has received plaudits for privacy protection has been exposed for redirecting Web searches to make money Brave, a browser with some 15 million monthly users, has been redirecting searches for cryptocurrency companies to links that produce revenue for the browser's owners through advertising affiliate programs....

Some 50 editors working for MSN, Microsoft's news operation, have learned their contracts won't be renewed and their jobs will be performed by artificial intelligence software, according to multiple news reports The contractors hired through staffing agencies Aquent, IFG and MAQ Consulting were notified May 27 that their services would not be neede...

A new virtual reality headset designed for mobility will serve as an entry point into a new virtual world, its maker announced Tuesday The US$599 Mova headset from XRSpace, founded by former HTC chief Peter Chou, will support 5G and be the exclusive on-ramp to Manova, a social reality platform that aims to defy the boundaries of space and time to b...

Apple may launch an augmented reality line of smart glasses in the spring of 2021, according to Jon Prosser, host of the video blog Front Page Tech The new peepers will be called "Apple Glass" and sell for US$499, with prescription lenses costing more, Prosser claimed....

Apple on Sunday said it has reopened nearly 100 of its retail outlets around the world The company will be opening an additional 25 stores in the United States and 12 more in Canada this week, according to a Bloomberg report....

Microsoft and Intel researchers have found a way to combine artificial intelligence and image analysis to create a highly effective means to combat malicious software infections The researchers call their approach "STAMINA" -- static malware-as-image network analysis -- and say it's proven to be highly effective in detecting malware with a low rate...

The next generation of Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets is in the works, but pandemic-related product development and supply chain problems may delay market arrival Oculus, which is a division of Facebook, has multiple potential Quest successors on the drawing board, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. Smaller, lighter versions with a faster image ref...

The United Kingdom's plans to launch a smartphone application to track potential COVID-19 infections won't include Apple and Google The country's National Health Service has designed its own mobile software to do contact tracing of people exposed to the coronavirus, the BBC reported Monday.

With measures to stem the spread of COVID-19 putting a chokehold on their filming capabilities, advertising agencies are enhancing old content with new tech, including deepfakes Deepfakes typically blend one person's likeness, or parts thereof, with the image of another person. For example, a recent commercial for State Farm insurance blended the m...

Cuffless blood pressure measuring is coming to the Android world. Samsung on Tuesday announced that South Korean authorities have approved its Health Monitor app for use on the Galaxy Watch Active2. The app will be available in the third quarter of this year High blood pressure has been associated with increased risk of brain, kidney and heart prob...

Facebook on Monday launched a free standalone app for creating and watching live video game play on Android devices Some 700 million users already engage in gaming on the platform, but with its dedicated app Facebook is locking horns with the leaders in the market -- Amazon, Google and Microsoft....

Zoom's paying customers will be able to choose the region they want to use for their virtual meetings, the company announced Monday Starting Saturday, paying customers can opt in or out of a specific data center region, although they won't be able to change their default region, which for most customers is the United States....

Google, Apple and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week made headlines with announcements of contact tracing mobile apps in the wings. Their purpose is to identify contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19 so appropriate actions can be taken to stem its spread. However, a Cambridge University professor threw some cold water o...

E-commerce account takeovers increased 347 percent, and shipping fraud jumped 391 percent from 2018 to 2019, a fraud and identity solutions company reported Tuesday Fraudsters are gaining access to accounts using credential stuffing, romance scams, social engineering, phishing, or hacking, noted TransUnion, formerly Iovation, in its "Global E-Comme...

Apple users wondering if they've caught COVID-19 can now ask digital assistant Siri for advice The company on Saturday rolled out a self-screening feature that allows users to ask, "Hey Siri, do I have the coronavirus?" Siri then takes them through a questionnaire prepared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and U.S. Public Health Service to de...

Researchers into the COVID-19 virus have a new source of distributed computing power: crowdsourcing Usually crowdsourcing involves information or opinion gathering, but in this case it involves computing power....

Project Baseline, a new website to facilitate screening and testing of people potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus, became available on Sunday. Verily, a company owned by Google parent Alphabet, launched the site Access requires a Google login, and assistance currently is limited to residents in two counties in the San Francisco Bay Area....

A number of VPN and ad-blocking apps owned by Sensor Tower, a popular analytics platform, have been collecting data from millions of people using the programs on their Android and iOS devices, BuzzFeed reported Monday The software involved includes Free and Unlimited VPN, Luna VPN, Mobile Data, Adblock Focus for Android devices, and Adblock Focus ...

Twitter on Sunday applied its "manipulative media" label to a deceptively edited video showing presidential hopeful Joe Biden saying, "re-elect Donald Trump." It was the first time the service enforced rules adopted last month to control synthetic and manipulated media....