service

We've all lost our keys at some point or another. But now there's a way to avoid having the locksmith make a house call: KeyMe, a new app that stores an image of a physical key. The image can then be used to create a new key at the local locksmith. ... The app requires the user take a photograph of the front and back of their key using the camera on their mobile device. Photographs must be taken within four inches of the key or the backup won't work properly. Once acceptable photographs have been taken, KeyMe stores them in the cloud. It then calculates the key type and the corresponding serial ... (view more)

Google has unveiled a new tool that allows Android users to find and track a lost smartphone or tablet device. The utility can also be used to wipe a smartphone's hard drive if recovery is deemed unsafe or unlikely. Google is calling the service ... 'Android Device Manager'. The firm says the service should be available to most Android users by the end of August 2013. It's been a long time coming. Apple released a similar tool -- called 'Find My iPhone' -- several years ago. That service lets iPhone users narrow down their smartphone's location to a specific geographical area (such as an ... (view more)

Microsoft SkyDrive is no more. However, it's not a case of Microsoft phasing out its popular cloud storage service -- instead, the firm is simply being forced to rename it after losing a trademark case. British Sky Broadcasting (or BSkyB, as it's ... often called) originally filed suit against Microsoft in 2011. It argued that the "Sky" portion of its own name could easily be confused with Microsoft's SkyDrive . Therefore, BSkyB said Microsoft had infringed on its trademark. Microsoft fought the matter in the English High Court but lost the case in June 2013. Now, an appeal by the Redmond, ... (view more)

Want to access a service that requires an email address but don't want your inbox bombarded with annoying spam messages? Then you may be interested in disposable email address service 'MailDrop'. In essence, MailDrop gives you access to a throwaway ... email address. That's a useful tool for scenarios where you want to try out a new service or learn information about a program or product but don't want to receive a plethora of unnecessary spam emails. MailDrop is especially useful in situations where accessing a program, product, or service requires you send a confirmation message via email. ... (view more)

U.S. authorities say a website that allowed users to convert money into virtual currency was a front for money laundering operations. The Liberty Reserve site was shut down amid claims it helped criminals 'clean' more than $6 billion dollars. The ... site, which is based in Costa Rica, billed itself as an easy way to transfer money to people, regardless of their location. Unlike PayPal, Liberty Reserve didn't process direct payments between people. Instead, users could convert their cash into either 'Liberty Reserve Dollars' or 'Liberty Reserve Euros,' which were tied to the value of the real- ... (view more)

Microsoft now says that more than 1 million people have signed up for the firm's new Office 365 Home Premium service. The firm feels this is an indication that consumers are willing to forego physical software and embrace cloud-based services. On ... Wednesday Microsoft announced that the new Office "is officially the best-selling Office edition yet, with more than one sold every second on average since it launched." To reach that conclusion Microsoft is counting all sales of Office, not just Office 365. Office 365 the Fastest-Selling Office, Ever However, the firm did note that it has now sold ... (view more)

T-Mobile's "No Contract" deal is supposed to let a customer sever their relationship with the wireless carrier at any moment. However, Washington state officials have ordered the firm to offer refunds to people who didn't realize that quitting the ... contract would come with a fee. With most smartphone deals, the user only pays a portion of the cost of the handset, while the service provider picks up the rest of the tab. In return, the user is tied to a minimum service term (usually lasting two to three years), during which they must pay a steep early termination fee if they choose to cancel the ... (view more)

The intensity of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is on the rise, a new report suggests. According to Florida-based security firm Prolexic, such attacks have become eight times more potent in just the past quarter. Prolexic says that the ... average attack bandwidth associated with DDoS attacks seen during the first quarter of 2013 was just over 48 gigabytes per second (Gbps). That's a huge increase from the last quarter of 2012, when average attack bandwidth was just 5.9 Gbps. A DDoS attack involves flooding a website with bogus traffic to the point that the website's server can no ... (view more)

Google aroused plenty of anger on Thursday by announcing that it will be taking its popular Google Reader service offline. The decision is part of the company's "spring cleaning" campaign, which, despite the name, started in 2011 and has resulted in ... 70 services being disabled. Google Reader launched in 2005. It's a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) service, meaning it allows users to keep track of their favorite websites with a constantly-updated news feed. Declining Popularity Prompts Move In explaining the decision to kill Reader, Google says that the service just wasn't that popular anymore ... (view more)

Each day, millions of images and messages are sent through social media platforms. Now, those who have regretted transmitting personal information in this fashion will be relieved to find that a popular new app is making significant strides in ... changing the way people share private data on social networking sites. Snapchat doesn't store data -- including messages and photos -- for years on end. Instead, this information is wiped out, permanently, at a time set by the sending / posting user. It's a simple concept, but early indications reveal that Snapchat is becoming a popular alternative to ... (view more)