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The autonomous car has thrown the automotive industry -- an industry that is notoriously slow to change -- into the forefront of technology. The autonomous car has become a technology catalyst because it requires innovation in many areas, ranging from processor and sensor technology to AI. As with all new technologies, the industry rushes to focus on consumers because they represent the billion-dollar pot of gold, but as with many other new technologies, it is the industrial applications that are likely to take hold first. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2DOp3U6

Smart speakers are becoming a more common platform for controlling connected entertainment due to a rapid increase in popularity and ease of use. Household penetration of smart speakers is expected to reach 47 percent among U.S. broadband households by 2022, based on Parks Associates estimates. New entrants in the connected consumer electronics market, including Samsung, Roku and Facebook, are likely to make announcements about new voice-controlled speakers at CES 2019 in order to claim a share of this new voice-first CE market. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2Odh5Yx

I've followed several female CEOs over the years. Most of them failed, largely because they were both unqualified for the job and their boards didn't back them up. In several cases, the board and the CEO seemed to be in conflict, or the board simply didn't do anything. Those failures have created the impression that female CEOs are a bad bet. However, I believe the real problem is that boards haven't been doing their jobs. I think women would make better CEOs than men if they were trained and supported as well. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2pztIiI

Every child who's ever played a board game understands that the act of rolling dice yields an unpredictable result. In fact, that's why children's board games use dice in the first place: to ensure a random outcome that is -- from a macro point of view, at least -- about the same likelihood each time the die is thrown. Consider for a moment what would happen if someone replaced the dice used in one of those board games with weighted dice -- say dice that were 10 percent more likely to come up "6" than any other number. Would you notice? from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2MUeo9w

Since the industrial revolution, technology has changed society continually. Largely due to innovations in semiconductor electronics, software and computer technology, the pace of technological development has continued to accelerate over the past 50 years. Personal computers now fit into your pocket. You have access to people and information all over the world through the Internet. Anything up to the size of a small building can be printed. Just about everything -- from your house to your car -- is becoming intelligent. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2O00kjg

Linux and the open source business model are far different today than many of the early developers might have hoped. Neither can claim a rags-to-riches story. Rather, their growth cycles have been a series of hit-or-miss milestones. The Linux desktop has yet to find a home on the majority of consumer and enterprise computers. However, Linux-powered technology has long ruled the Internet and conquered the cloud and Internet of Things deployments. Both Linux and free open source licensing have dominated in other ways. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2OEBliy

Amazon will unveil eight new Alexa-powered devices for the car and home before the end of the year, according to a report. They include a microwave oven, an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer and an in-car gadget. Amazon is expected to reveal some of the devices at an event later this month. All the devices will connect easily to Alexa, and some will have the voice assistant built in. The products mark Amazon's first move into the home appliances market, an area where competitors have already staked out their turf. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2xBOp0O

Apple aimed to stretch its lead in the smartwatch market when it introduced its Apple Watch Series 4 last week. The redesigned and re-engineered line features a bigger display, thinner and smaller case, an interface with richer detail, and some innovative health applications enabled by new sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope hardware. "Between watchOS 5 and what they revealed to us last week, there's a lot of cool things to like about this," said Ramon T. Llamas, senior research analyst at IDC. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2NnEy9O

The European Union has been stretching its wings. In the shadow of Brexit, it apparently has decided it has the real enemy of the people in its sights: social media companies and Google. France is even more aggressive than the EU overall, suggesting that the region's "right to be forgotten" law should apply worldwide. Given that it actually does fall within the legitimate purview of government, it is hard not to agree. In the United States, the administration appears to be gearing up to go to war with these companies, Google in particular. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2NO9SxP

Google took on French lawyers at the European Union Court of Justice this week, in an effort to fend off expansion of the EU's "right to be forgotten" judgment. The EU's attempts to broaden the scope of that judgment would be "completely unenvisagable," and it could result in impositions on the values of different countries around the world, Google argued. The right to be forgotten directive, which the EU imposed six years ago, allows individuals to request the removal of content from a search engine. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2Mwo1ea

Apple unveiled three new iPhones at a Wednesday in Cupertino. Along with the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR, Apple introduced the Apple Watch 4. "Our mission started with personalizing technology for the desktop," said CEO Tim Cook, and it's "now personalizing it for every aspect of our lives." Apple aims "to put the customer at the center of everything we do," he added. The iPhone X is "the No. 1 smartphone in the world," and the Apple Watch is "not only the No. 1 smartwatch in the world, it's the No. 1 watch. Period." from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2CU49SP

Widespread use of unpatched open source code in the most popular Android apps distributed by Google Play has caused significant security vulnerabilities, suggests an American Consumer Institute report. Thirty-two percent -- or 105 apps out of 330 of the most popular apps in 16 categories sampled -- averaged 19 vulnerabilities per app, according to the report. Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in many common applications, including some of the most popular banking, event ticket purchasing, sports and travel apps. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2OekOSj

Getting Sonos' top-shelf speakers to play nice with other connected devices in the home has been challenging in the past, but that's about to change. The company has announced the Sonos Sound Platform, which includes new APIs, developer tools and documentation to make it easier for Sonos products to operate with third-party hardware and software. Sonos also announced integration with IFTTT. "IFTTT support adds a way for Sonos to tie its offerings into wider smart home integrations," noted Jonathan Collins, research director at ABI Research. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2x4ZdFh

An increasing number of healthcare professionals have become alert to the need for well-rounded medical device security in recent years, and players throughout the industry have started putting more effort into raising the bar. Developers have become aware of the most glaring holes, and more information security researchers have been brought into the fold. The formation of advocacy groups and the simple uptick in the number of vulnerability disclosures have started to chart a course toward medical devices that are resilient against attack. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2OdA6Ha

The level of effort devoted to manipulating our opinions is unprecedented. Granted, a lot of this has to do with the fact that most of the "free" online services we use aren't free at all. They are trading our ability to make measured opinions for advertisers' money, and some of these "advertisers" are foreign governments. With all of these attempts to manipulate us into doing things we otherwise don't want to do -- many of which are surprisingly successful -- there is one question we should be asking of any inflammatory story: Why? from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2oT1zCS

The official release of version 3 of Linux Mint Debian Edition hit the download servers at summer's end, offering a subtle alternative to the distro's Ubuntu-based counterpart. Codenamed "Cindy," the new version of LMDE is based on Debian 9 Stretch and features the Cinnamon desktop environment. Its release creates an unusual situation in the world of Linux distro competition. Linux Mint developers seem to be in competition with themselves. LMDE is an experimental release. The Linux Mint community offers its flagship distro based on Ubuntu Linux in three desktop versions: Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2MaJFEZ

As summer winds die down here's hoping one of the season's most ridiculous and unnecessary fads goes with them. Bird and Lime e-scooters are just the latest twist on the foot-powered Razor Scooters that took America by storm in 2000. Unlike Razor, which introduced electric-power models back in 2003, Bird and Lime utilize a subscription model instead of ownership. Bird, Lime and another competitor, Spin, have similar business strategies -- namely to provide simple, cheap transportation for the "last mile." from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2NlUNU5

An empty chair reserved for Google became the focal point for harsh criticism Wednesday at the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing on Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. After thanking Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for agreeing to testify at the forum, Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., added, "I'm disappointed Google decided against sending the right senior level executive to participate in what I truly expect to be a productive discussion." from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2M24Vwo

Strong encryption can be a threat to law enforcement and national security, the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand said in a statement issued Sunday. "The increasing use and sophistication of certain encryption designs present challenges for nations in combating serious crimes and threats to national and global security," maintained the countries, which are known as the "Five Eyes" based on an agreement they entered to cooperate on signal intelligence. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2Q0ObJf

"Mobile advertising and location-based marketing are getting more and more data-driven, both in targeting and analyzing results," said UberMedia CEO Gladys Kong. "Advertisers are trying to understand more about the consumer's journey. They want any insights they can get their hands on in order to understand the consumer. Location measurement is becoming a much more important part of advertising, so a lot of our focus at UberMedia is to make data actionable, in order to help businesses measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns." from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2NgjBfT

Bias is a nasty beast. A market research class I took in graduate school focused on the identification and elimination of bias. My final paper was on an intentionally biased piece of research. It was far easier to introduce bias and then talk about the bias than it would have been to attempt to do unbiased work and defend it as unbiased. For that reason alone, the Trump administration's recent complaints that Google's search engine is biased are almost certainly true. The nature of the bias, however, has not been determined. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2MNEyzK