George Boole, the mathematician whose work indirectly made modern computing possible, was born two hundred years ago today. Boole’s work is one of the great examples of a seemingly abstract process having practical physical benefits, albeit around seven decades after his death. The British-born Boole developed a new form of algebra, with the difference being […]
Google is reportedly to “fold” Chrome OS into the Android system and drop the distinction between mobile devices and full-blown computers. The Wall Street Journal quoted “people familiar with the matter” as saying work to merge the two systems has been underway for two years, a demo version is expected next year, and a finished […]
Facebook is to ditch a messaging feature which put messages from strangers into a folder that many people didn’t know they had. The company says the new system includes checks to restrict spam or other unwanted approaches. At the moment, messages from people who aren’t either your Facebook friend or a friend-of-a-friend don’t appear in your […]
The Library of Congress has ruled it is legal to hack some old games and consoles in specific circumstances to keep them running. The latest set of rulings on DMCA exemptions also allow for limited hacking of the software that runs “smart cars.” The exemptions are part of a regular review by the Library of […]
US broadband providers have been told they must prove their claims of offering “super-fast” connections. Officials believe technical disputes between companies may mean paying extra for fast speeds could be pointless. The demand comes from Tim Wu, who was recently appointed the senior enforcement counsel for the New York state Attorney General. It’s hardly a […]
A project on Kickstarter hopes to make a virtual reality headset that contains a built-in computer. The idea is to make it completely self-contained and require no technical knowledge to use. AuraVisorworks on a similar basis to Android device-powered headsets. The difference is that you don’t need to either stick a phone inside or connect […]
Facebook is to let users search all two trillion posts ever made on the site, subject to privacy settings. It hope to use the search as a way to gather real-time eyewitness accounts of news events. Previously Facebook search would only let you search content from your Facebook friends and any pages which you had […]
Facebook reports 800,000 Americans “came out” on the site in the past year. The actual numbers may be affected by Facebook’s chosen definition, but there’s clearly a social trend this year. The number covers both sexuality and gender. The Facebook research team put together the figures by compiling the number of people each day who […]
If you’ve heard that French researchers have successfully hacked Siri and Google now, don’t worry too much. “Success” is most certainly a relative term. While the researchers at government IT security agency ANSSI have demonstrated their ‘hack’ it’s barely more than a proof of concept. In this case the concept is that electromagnetic waves and […]
Ubisoft has apologized and offered a refund after a boxed collector’s edition of a game turned out not to include a game disc. Customers say promotional material for Might and Magic Heroes VII clearly showed they should get a physical copy rather than just a download code. It seems Ubisoft’s marketing for the game changed sometime […]