Group items tagged

Swipe right, chat to a fake user and your personal data could be stolen. A series of bots have invaded dating app Tinder and are spreading dangerous downloads after luring users with tempting profiles and pictures, an antivirus developer has discovered. Bitdefender Labs is currently investigating both the Android application and the bots that seem to have stolen pictures from an Arizona-based photography studio. Some of these images are also being used for fake Facebook profiles. Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender, said: "After users swipe the right button on Tinder to indicate that they like a profile, the bots engage users in automated conversations until they convince them to click on a dubious link. "The name of the URL gives the impression of an official page of the dating app and for extra legitimacy scammers also registered it on a reputable .com domain." Bitdefender warns users to be aware of this risk, and advises that a typical bot message reads: "Hey, how are you doing? I'm still recovering from last night? Relaxing with a game on my phone, castle clash. Have you heard about it? Play with me and you may get my phone number."

It weighs just 34 grams, is 72 x 35 x 12 mm in size, and costs only the $39: The Google Chromecast looks and feels like a USB flash drive with a glandular problem. Cheap, easy to set up and even easier to use, there's really nothing to dislike about the Google streaming device, except for one thing: Canadian content (which we will get to in a moment). The Chromecast is so small that once it's plugged into an HDMI port in the back of a television set, there's almost no indication that it's a part of your home theatre setup. Only its power cord, which can either be plugged into a wall socket or available USB port, gives a hint that it's even there. Unlike other streaming media devices like the Apple TV or Roku 3, Google Chromecast doesn't come with a remote control, or in fact, any onboard applications or content. Everything, from setting up the device to watching a video from your personal media collection or browsing YouTube, is done through the use of apps on an Android phone or tablet, iOS device or via Google Chrome browser on a Chrome OS, Windows or Mac PC. No matter which device you use with the Chromecast, setup is a cinch. Simply power the device, plug it into an available television HDMI port and follow the Chromecast's onscreen prompts. The device will walk you through the process of connecting it to a Wi-Fi network, pairing with your choice of source device and downloading any available firmware updates. Even with the lousy Internet speeds I suffered while testing the hardware in rural southwestern Ontario I was setup and ready to start streaming content to my Chromecast in under 10 minutes.

Protecting yourself against harmful and life threatening viruses, its best to choose the antivirus by brand name. But each Antivirus download that you can find on the internet is dependent on what is most important to the user in terms of variables. Some are more dedicated to filtering through malware and spyware; some systems pride themselves on being the most reliable, or adaptable to the constant change of cyberspace gunk that's floating around. So with all these choices, how're we supposed to know which program is suited to our professional needs? We hope to address those concerns and point the potential onlooker in the right direction for a potential download, or perhaps full-on purchase of the bundled software. For the moment we'll be looking at Avast! and AVG which are both free antivirus downloads available for your computer on reliable online websites. Avast! Free Antivirus Software: The Basics Chances are if you're looking to get in on the ground floor to check if Avast! is right for you, then you'll be looking into the coverage that the free antivirus download is going to offer. Avast! is ranked as one of the top antivirus programs in the market with 17% of users in the entire market share of protection services. Which is pretty far up there with McAfee, Bitdefender, and other potential competition. AVG Antivirus Software: The Basics In comparison to Avast! the folks at AVG are a little behind in their numbers at 170 million+ having entrusted their computer's health to the program. But the software itself is secure and accessible on their website. AVG have won an array of awards for their antivirus software, and can be considered a lively competitor to Avast! and other protection bundles.

Android, iOS, Windows Phone. Each of these mobile platforms had to start somewhere, and none were anywhere near perfect on the first try. Fortunately, each OS gets better with every iteration until, at some point, it all just clicks. Arguably, Windows Phone just came of age with its latest update, version 8.1. Even before today, Windows Phone only had a few big holes remaining and indeed, 8.1 appears to fill those gaps. In particular, the OS now has a fancy notification center in addition to those signature Live Tiles; the keyboard now allows for swipe gestures; and last but not least, it now has Cortana, a virtual assistant to take on Siri, Google Now and Samsung S Voice. The 8.1 update is a fairly significant one, and I got the opportunity to take it for a spin ahead of the official developer preview's launch. It may not be perfect yet, but it's clear Windows Phone has finally grown up. Cortana Windows Phone included a search option from the beginning, and though it was useful at the time, rivals like Siri, S Voice and Google Now have quickly turned the tide, rendering Microsoft first "voice assistant" completely obsolete. Thankfully, the 8.1 update introduces a personal assistant named Cortana to help bring Windows Phone into the modern era. Named after Master Chiefs trusty AI sidekick in Halo, Cortana is designed to help you do whatever you do on a phone. Think: scheduling appointments, alerting you to upcoming flights, telling you the weather, offering up directions, dictating messages, opening apps and adjusting settings. She even tells jokes and responds in humorous ways to (most) silly questions. Those are all givens these days, so let's instead move on to the more unusual things she can do.

Sharing files with colleagues and clients should be easy and convenient. What it shouldn't be is a security risk - but it frequently is. Because many small businesses don't have the right file-sharing systems and policies, many turn to unsafe practices that often put both their business's and clients' privacy in jeopardy. Is your business guilty of engaging in dangerous file sharing habits? Here are five you need to watch out for and what you can do about them. 1. Sharing files via email The most obvious dangerous habit is sharing files via email. Just the other day I received a design document from a client as an email attachment. 2. Using consumer-grade cloud solutions Workers around the world are putting themselves and their employers at risk by indiscriminately using unauthorized file sharing services on their mobile and desktop devices - to the tune of $2 billion. With more workers joining the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) revolution and turning to insecure file sharing services like personal Dropbox and Google Drive accounts, the threat is greater than ever. 3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing P2P sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It's also great software to get hacked. 4. Using flash drives Flash drives are the easy tool of choice for infection since they bypass network security. If an infected file is on a flash drive and inserted into a system, it can start an infection spread from the PC. 5. Lack of visibility The danger starts when employees take matters into their own hands and engage a file sharing service on their own. The individual making a one-off decision is not going to be thinking of the bigger picture of organization-wide requirements.

If you are a gadget enthusiast and aching to have your hands on Galaxy S5 or you just cannot since you have your Galaxy S4 from the previous year, you have a way to work it out. Consider trading your device with your carrier for a credit to your new phone. To get the most of your device, you can sell your phone, which you have lots of options. Here are some of them: EBay EBay provides you a marketplace for your items where predictability is less. Auctions can give you more or less earnings. Posting and managing items for sale are quite tedious until eBay introduced My Gadgets which will help you create a listing. You may list what you own and My Gadget will tell you how you can make based on eBay price trends if you sell it. EBay may not be the best choice for making more money with regard to selling your handsets. But it is usually a site where you can locate items which are extremely low or high demand or those which are difficult to find. Amazon Amazon is one of the most convenient ways to sell your old phone with some drawbacks. Find your device on Amazon, click the "Sell on Amazon" button and provide details. Tech Reviews by The Corliss Group

The way we navigate in cities has been revolutionized in the last few years by the advent of GPS mapping programs. Enter your start and end location and these will give you the shortest route from A to B. That's usually the best bet when driving, but walking is a different matter. Often, pedestrians want the quietest route or the most beautiful but if they turn to a mapping application, they'll get little help. That could change now thanks to the work of Daniele Quercia at Yahoo Labs in Barcelona, Spain, and a couple of pals. These guys have worked out how to measure the "beauty" of specific locations within cities and then designed an algorithm that automatically chooses a route between two locations in a way that maximizes the beauty along it. "The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant," they say. Quercia and co begin by creating a database of images of various parts of the center of London taken from Google Street View and Geograph, both of which have reasonably consistent standards of images. They then crowdsourced opinions about the beauty of each location using a website called UrbanGems.org. Each visitor to UrbanGems sees two photographs and chooses the one which shows the more beautiful location. That gives the team a crowdsourced opinion about the beauty of each location. They then plot each of these locations and their beauty score on a map which they use to provide directions. The idea here is that the user enters a start and end location and an algorithm then finds the most beautiful route, rather than the shortest one. It does this by searching through every possible route, adding the beauty scores for each and choosing the one that ranks highest.