Technology

Microsoft wants to stop one of the most annoying parts of email. It's going to try cutting the vicious cycle of the "reply all" message storm. The problem arises when somebody sends a group message to a large number of people and then one of the ... recipients mistakenly (or perhaps worse, deliberately) clicks on "Reply All" rather than simply using "Reply" to address the original sender. Not only does that mean the entire group seeing the reply, but it can quickly spark others to reply, extend a conversation, point out the error, or make a joke. In some cases, the configuration means that all of ... (view more)

Researchers believe a new type of cable could carry Internet data at speeds 100 times greater than even the fastest on offer today. The new technology could benefit hospitals and research facilities in particular. The technique was developed by ... researchers at universities in Leeds and Nottingham in the United Kingdom, and is based around similar technology found in fiber optic cables. Those are the fastest data-carrying cables and work by sending pulses of light down a tiny transparent tube. By far, the greatest benefit of utilizing fiber optic cables is that it can transfer data over long ... (view more)

The Chrome browser may soon put less drain on processors and battery life in Windows 10. Perhaps surprisingly, that's because of changes made by Microsoft rather than Google. The relevant tweaks were discovered by Microsoft as part of its work to ... rebuild the Edge browser that comes with Windows 10. Originally it ran on Microsoft code, but the new version of Edge is now based on Chromium. For those unaware, Chromium is an open source project, which is the basis of Google's Chrome browser. Microsoft found one cause of battery drain was disk caching during online video playback. In simple terms ... (view more)

Facial recognition software may be less accurate when dealing with non-Caucasian faces, according to a new study. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) noted the problem was likely the data used to "train" algorithms. The NIST ... examined 189 algorithms from 99 different developers, which it says is a majority of all commercially available systems. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) In the testing, it looked at two tasks. Specifically, they looks to see if two specific photographs are of the same person. In one example, it was to verify identity in order to unlock a phone or check a ... (view more)

The FBI has warned users to think carefully when buying and using "smart" televisions. The warning is based on the idea that many people have bought or will buy new televisions either as part of "Black Friday" or in time for Christmas. The warning ... from the FBI's Portland office is based partly on the prospect that people might not have set out to buy smart sets, but that most or all of the TVs on offer currently have such features. (Source: techcrunch.com ) Cameras and Microphones on Some Sets A "smart" television is simply one that has an Internet connection. Previously that's mainly been ... (view more)

Google is making several changes to the way it handles audio collected from phones and smart gadgets such as the Google Home speaker. It follows revelations that humans listened to recordings collected by several tech giants. Amazon, Apple and ... Google were all hit by claims that they'd not done enough to make clear that staff or contractors listened to recordings to check the accuracy of automatic speech recognition. In several cases, human engineers heard sensitive material which appeared to have been collected unintentionally, rather than the user meaning to make a spoken query or request. ... (view more)

Researchers have discovered that many smart gadgets (such as smart TVs and streaming sticks) send data to tech companies, even when idle. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if devices were being used to monitor users, or could ... potentially leak data about the user to a third party. The research was a joint project between Northeastern University and the UK's Imperial College London. They examined 81 devices under the broad category of the Internet of Things (IoT). The study included security cameras, home automation devices such as WiFi plugs, Smart TV sets, smart speakers and home ... (view more)

The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly backed a bill to crack down on unwanted robocalls. The bipartisan measure would increase regulatory power and make use of technology to tackle the problem. The proposed Stopping Bad Robocalls Act ... passed by 429 votes to 3. It follows a 97 to 1 vote in the Senate on a similar bill in May. It's now highly likely one of the bills will pass through both houses and become law. (Source: appleinsider.com ) Robocalls are automatically dialed phone calls. Because there's no need for a human to dial the number, both legitimate marketers and scammers can ... (view more)

Google has admitted that staff listen to some recordings from the Google Home smart speaker. It says it's only for quality control purposes. It made the comments after a contractor in the Netherlands went to local media to talk about his work, in ... which he was paid a "few cents" to transcribe comments and questions made by people using the voice controlled device or phone app. According to the worker, some of the clips he heard did not appear to be people intentionally using the device. This included one case of a mother scolding a child and another clip which the worker suspected ... (view more)

The man who co-created the USB plug says its greatest annoyance was simply a matter of cost. Ajay Bhatt says that in the original design of the USB-A cable, the plugs were not reversible in order to keep costs down, which would then help get the ... format established. Bhatt discussed his work in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR). He talked about the often baffling experience in which users would try to plug a USB cable in, find that it would not fit, flip it over, find it didn't fit (again), then flip it back to its original orientation and find that inexplicably it now fit. It's a ... (view more)