The Digital Defense Report that Microsoft recently issued includes a typical rogue’s gallery of cyberthreats, including phishing, ransomware, and supply-chain attacks. But it adds an unusual villain to the list: blockchain domains. “The next big threat” is how Microsoft’s latest annual security report characterizes domain names written into a distributed ledger maintained across a constellation of computers instead of stored in a traditional, centralized registry
In the months prior to the outbreak of civil war in Syria, I led a State Department delegation on a controversial trip to Syria that included a sit-down with Bashar al-Assad. Our intention was to muscle the Syrian dictator on a series of security issues in the field of technology. The weaponization of widely available consumer technology was making it easier to surveil, spread disinformation, and both develop and destroy political movements. Our delegation was there to apply political and econom
By looking at the numbers, you’d never know that Facebook is in some of the hottest water it’s felt in its history. The company released its third quarter financial results amid blowback from highly negative news coverage based on internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Facebook reported revenue of $29.01 billion, which was slightly lower than analyst expectations. But earnings came in above analyst expectations at $3.22 per share. Its shares bounced up 3% on the
Cisco will announce on Tuesday that it’s getting into the hologram business. At its WebexOne customer conference, it’ll describe a new service called Webex Hologram, which enables virtual meetings in augmented reality—with the participants represented as photorealistic holograms instead of cartoon-like avatars. I got an early look at the new service and spoke to two of the Cisco executives leading the development of the service, which runs on headsets including Microsoft
It may not be entirely random that 2021 was the year that people started talking seriously about the metaverse. During the pandemic, so many things have gone digital by necessity—from socializing to shopping to work—that it sometimes felt as if we were halfway into a metaverse already. Actually we’re not there yet, or even close. Defined loosely, the metaverse is an all-digital layer of reality that floats above, around, and throughout the features of the real world–o
For months, people have struggled to get rapid at-home COVID-19 antigen tests. Now, those tests are coming to Amazon. On Monday, Becton Dickinson and Co. began selling its rapid Veritor COVID-19 antigen test on the ecommerce site. The Veritor test joins Intrivo’s On/Go test, which launched last week. Both tests make use of an app to explain the testing process and help avoid user error. These tests could mark the beginning of an influx of easy-to-use, at-home COVID-19 testing, which exper
In the photo, Beyoncé looks beatific, with a closed-lip Mona Lisa smile. But it’s easy enough to give her a toothy grin. Just dial up her “Happiness” to the maximum level using Adobe Photoshop’s Smart Portrait tool, and her face gets a Cheshire cat-like smile, white teeth appearing out of thin air. Smart Portrait, released in beta last year, is one of Adobe’s AI-powered “neural filters,” which can age faces, change expressions, and alter the
Oura Health is announcing the third generation of its sleep tracking ring. In its latest iteration, the Oura Ring goes far beyond basic features, such as tracking sleep and counting steps, which were emphasized in previous models. According to CEO Harpreet Singh Rai, that was the long-term plan all all along. “We‘re focused on health—we always have been,” he says. That focus has been evident in the flurry of academic research Oura has been conducting over the past yea
After the runaway success of Pokémon Go, Niantic’s next AR smartphone game based on a Nintendo property will try to be a little calmer. Today, the two companies are launching Pikmin Bloom on iOS and Android, based on an offbeat series of games for Nintendo consoles. Whereas Pokémon Go asked players to round up the game’s eponymous monsters at real-world hotspots, Pikmin Bloom is a more passive affair, in which players can grow plant-like Pikmin creatures whenever they go
If you’re like most people, you probably use at least a handful of Google services every day—maybe without even thinking about it. But while the company has plenty of high-profile offerings, there are still more Google goodies that are unknown, undermarketed, or underappreciated. Here are some to check out. Family Link If you’ve got kids in the house, sometimes it’s nice to set some ground rules. Google’s Family Link app lets you do just that, by