Articles by John P. Mello Jr

Apple is preparing to launch an app called "Home" to act as an interface for setting up and managing smart devices that plug into its HomeKit framework, 9 to 5 Mac reported last week The Home app is expected to manage thermostats, smoke alarms, garage door openers, door locks, and other automated home tech....

Apple on Tuesday announced performance enhancements for the MacBook Pro and a new configuration and price changes for the iMac The new 15-inch MacBook Pro with its Force Touch trackpad and improved flash storage, battery and graphics performance is available immediately online, starting at US$1,999....

It was a little over a year ago that the Heartbleed bug shocked the Internet with its potential for mischief. Now another flaw in open source code has sent network administrators into damage control mode The bug, called "Venom" for "Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation," allows an intruder to jump out of a virtual machine and e...

A security researcher who made headlines last month for bragging he'd hacked into a passenger jet's internal computer systems while in flight appears to have performed the act more than a dozen times over a three-year period, based on a search warrant application published last week. The FBI filed the application in April Chris Roberts, founder and...

FireEye and Microsoft have scotched a scheme by a group of cybercriminals based in China to use an IT pro forum to hide malicious activity, according to a report released Thursday The Chinese gang known as "APT17" devised the scheme, which uses forum pages and profiles on Microsoft's TechNet, to cover traffic from machines infected with the group's...

Cyberdefenders for years have adopted Fort Apache strategies to protect their networks. Strong perimeters could prevent attackers from reaching precious data, they reasoned As technology marched on, however, the idea of an impermeable wall became as quaint as the Maginot Line on the eve of World War II. Firewalls alone no longer were strong enough ...

Most auto-correction programs correct mistakes as you make them. They even predict words for you as you type. Swiftkey's recent release for Android,Clarity Keyboard Beta, corrects mistakes -- up to several at a time -- after you've typed them "SwiftKey, for a long time, has had context awareness, but it's applied it looking forward," explained Swit...

Apple on Tuesday released some guidelines that may deliver a charge to the accessory market for its Apple Watch The guidelines make recommendations for accessory makers interested in making bands for the new smartwatch....

Drive-by attacks on the Internet are a particularly pernicious form of online threat, especially for individual Web surfers. On the corporate level, though, a company with good endpoint protection software can foil the malicious practice A drive-by occurs when an infected website automatically downloads malware onto a Net traveler's computer. Sever...

Adobe's recently launched new version of Lightroom for its Creative Cloud Photography platform improves performance of the photo manager and adds new HDR, panorama and facial recognition features Lightroom's mobile support also is bolstered in the latest version of the program. Further, it has new capabilities for creating slideshows from stills an...

A production snag in making the component that provides tactile feedback in the Apple Watch could impact its availability in coming weeks Apple was having problems obtaining sufficient vibration motors for the component, called the "taptic engine," AppleInsider reported two weeks ago....

With password tolerance levels at an all time low, alternatives to the pesky and insecure authenticators are beginning to abound. One of those alternatives could be the Apple Watch Even before Apple's latest gadget began shipping last week, MicroStrategy announced it was extending its Usher enterprise security solution to the Apple Watch....

Last year's breach of unclassified White House computer systems was far more intrusive than initially thought and included the theft of some presidential correspondence, The New York Times reported Friday No classified systems were compromised in the attack, including the servers that control the message traffic from President Obama's BlackBerry mo...

Two cybersecurity bills approved this week by the U.S. House of Representatives pose a threat to citizens' privacy, according to opponents of the measures Both bills, H.R. 1560 and H.R. 1731, aim to improve sharing of cybersecurity information between businesses and government agencies.

As data breaches make headlines around the world, more companies are turning to encryption to protect their information jewels. That is one of the findings in a study released Monday, conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Thales E-Security "Mega breaches and cyber attacks have increased companies' urgency to improve their security pos...

Google on Monday released an update to Android Wear -- just the second significant feature refresh for its wearable device software since its introduction more than a year ago "This update is overdue," said Ian Fogg, senior director and head of the mobile and telecoms team at IHS Technology....

Microsoft and Yahoo on Thursday announced they were altering a search partnership that has been in place since 2009 Under the amended agreement, Yahoo no longer will exclusively serve Bing ads and search results for its desktop traffic. That means Yahoo can sell some of that desktop traffic to another party....

Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich raised a few eyebrows at ChefCon earlier this month, when he aired the possibility of Windows becoming an open source program Sure, Microsoft's attitude toward the open source movement has mellowed over the years, but the prospect of the company rubbing elbows with the likes of Linux overloads the imagina...

Several wireless and cable industry groups on Tuesday filed lawsuits challenging the Federal Communications Commission's new open Internet rules The lawsuits seek to nullify the new rules on the grounds that the FCC exceeded its authority in making them -- most notably by redefining broadband service so it can be regulated like a utility....

A new aerial drone from 3D Robotics packs two computers and an array of powerful features for US$999 Solo's two computers -- one on the craft and one in the controller -- have enabled it to make some radical breakthroughs in autonomous flight and camera control, according to 3DR....