Amazon: Jeff Bezos was hacked on WhatsApp by Saudi Arabia Prince

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and the world's richest man, had his WhatsApp account hacked. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, the Prince of Saudi Arabia used a stolen video file, transmitted during a conversation with the billionaire, to access the account. Many personal and professional data would have been stolen.



This is a totally incredible story. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world's richest man with $ 115 billion in his pocket, had his WhatsApp account hacked. And not by anyone. As the Guardian newspaper reported in a punched investigation, Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammend Ben Salmane is believed to be directly involved in the operation.

The case dates from May 2018. Jeff Bezos and the Prince of Saudi Arabia converse amicably on the instant messaging application. The two men met a few weeks earlier on his majesty's trip to Los Angeles. During their exchanges, the prince sends a video to Jeff Bezos in which was hidden malware. According to The Guardian, computer experts hired by the businessman were able to trace the hacking trail, to Mohammed Ben Salmane's laptop.

When the video file was opened, the malware was able to get onto Jeff Bezos' laptop and steal a large amount of personal and professional data, without going into the exact details. What happened to this data and how was it used? It remains a mystery, for the moment.

Murder, sex and blackmail

Jeff Bezos does not suspect that his cell phone has been hacked. Meanwhile, a pro-Trump newspaper, the National Enquirer, posts intimate texts from Amazon boss and his lover. What will earn him a very expensive divorce with his wife Mckenzie Bezos. The billionaire then decides to launch an investigation to understand how the tabloid could end up in possession of such information. This is how Saudi piracy was discovered.

It’s at this very moment that the affair takes on the appearance of spy films. In summary, the National Enquirer, President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia were collaborating in a vast blackmail operation targeting the CEO of Amazon. It is common knowledge that Donald Trump and his son have had excellent relationships with the Saudi royal family, remnants of their careers in international trade. So why Jeff Bezos in particular? Because the business man is none other than the owner of The Washington Post newspaper.

A prestigious newspaper for which worked Adnan Khashoggi, journalist brutally murdered in obscure circumstances in Saudi Arabia. Following the murder, the Post's editors mobilized to uncover the truth and repeatedly highlighted the alleged Saudi government responsibility for the assassination.

In fact, for Andrew Miller, expert on Middle East issues and national security adviser to the Obama administration, this hacking was only intended to put pressure on Jeff Bezos, so that he ordered journalists to the Washington Post to stop their investigation. After the Guardian article appeared, Saudi Arabia responded quickly.

"Recent media reports suggesting that the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos' phone are preposterous. We request an investigation into these allegations so that we can know all the facts, "said the Saudi Embassy in the United States on its official Twitter account.

Source : The Guardian

Amazon laid the foundation stone for its Cincinnati airport project

Jeff Bezos was on hand Tuesday to officially launch the work of this terminal to become a relay point for Prime Air. Estimated at $ 1.5 billion, the project will be delivered in 2021, and must allow Amazon to honor its promise to deliver its premium subscribers in one day.

 

 

Jeff Bezos rolled up his sleeves. On the occasion of the inauguration of the airport hub project launched by Amazon in Cincinnati, the richest man on the planet donned a hard hat and set up an excavator to start the work.

In the pipes since 2017, this terminal estimated at 1.5 billion dollars must see the light of day by 2021. According to Associated Press, the giant of the e-commerce signed two years ago a lease of a duration of 50 years with airport managers, for an area equivalent to 360 hectares.

 

What to deploy 24 parking spaces for the cargo aircraft of the Prime Air division of the group. Eventually, Amazon intends to ship 32 of its aircraft, for a total of 64 daily flights. Cincinnati, an unfortunate candidate at the reception of the new headquarters of the group, also finds its account in the operation. The Seattle giant is committed to creating 2,000 jobs in a region where it is already well established.

 

Halve delivery times

Since it has not yet been able to launch its drones deliverers of packages in the sky, Amazon currently operates a fleet of 40 aircraft in the American sky. The group announced last December want to add 10 aircraft for its Prime Air division; it is expected to open another airport terminal in 2019, near Fort Worth, Texas. Objective: to be able to keep promises of delivery time, especially with its premium subscribers.

 

In February, the group promised its premium subscribers delivery in one day (instead of two currently). "This hub (at CVG) will allow us to deliver parcels to customers more quickly. It's a big investment. We are going to upgrade the Prime deliveries from two days to one day, and this center will help us achieve this, "said Jeff Bezos on the sidelines of the inauguration.

The delivery service is a cornerstone of the group's business model. In 2018 alone, shipping costs reached $ 27.5 billion, or nearly 16 percent of Amazon's online sales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon: In search of the city optimized to build its second headquarters for $ 5 billion

       

Amazon Inc announced Thursday that it will build a second US $ 5 billion headquarters in North America where competition between cities and countries will begin to offer incentives and tax cuts that could bring in 50,000 new jobs.

The world's largest e-commerce company said it plans to build a headquarters in Seattle. One of the qualities that the city must have, he pointed to the availability of more than one million people with international airport, and good education and mass transport.

Amazon said land incentives to reduce fees would be a key part of the decision, and local governments have shown they will do their best to secure jobs and investment. The Wisconsin legislature recently voted to give the Taiwanese company a $ 3 billion stimulus package to build a $ 10 billion LCD plant in the state, for example.

Amazon's investment plan also gives new influence to politicians as President Donald Trump criticized the firm as "a major blow" to retailers, costing jobs in cities and countries. The Wisconsin-Foxconn plant will be in the neighborhood of Paul Ryan House, the US House of Representatives.

Windows 10: Alexa Updates to Make Your PC an Amazon Echo Speaker

Amazon rolls out a new Alexa app update for Windows 10. The voice assistant becomes fully hands-free. In other words, it is now possible to trigger Alexa with a voice command, something that was not possible until now. With this new feature, Windows 10 PCs can further act as an Amazon Echo speaker.



All that the user has to do now is to say "Alexa", followed by his question or order. It does not matter if the Alexa app is open or not, whether in the background or in the foreground. The voice command will work independently.

Alexa for Windows 10 becomes 100% hands-free

So far, those who prefer to use the voice assistant of Amazon at the expense of Cortana, the default voice assistant of Windows 10 had to open the application. It's not really practical to enjoy in a comfortable way. Now, Alexa works as a real default wizard in Windows 10, with the ability to invoke it in any condition as you would with a real speaker connected Amazon Echo.

As a reminder, Alexa was added to the Microsoft Store in November 2018 as a result of a partnership between Amazon and Microsoft. The two companies have agreed to co-locate their assistants Alexa and Cortana, both on Windows 10 PCs and connected speakers Echo.

Microsoft that we know to impose its own solutions has died to be more open for his home voice assistant. In the next 19H1 of Windows 10, Cortana will also detach from the search bar, which will allow users to disable the wizard without losing the use of the search.


Finally, the new update of the Alexa for Windows 10 also adds support for Pandora. Users can launch their favorite stations. To take advantage of this latest version of Alexa, you have nothing to do. Amazon explains that the application will update automatically. Those who do not want to wait can however go to the Microsoft Store and download the latest version, if it is already available at their level.

Spotify launches voice-activated ads: how does it work?

Spotify, the current leader in music streaming, tests ads that respond to voice commands. When the ad is shown, the service leaves you with the choice of accessing the proposed content, whether it be playlists or podcasts, with a short sentence. Users of Google Home or Amazon Echo will not be disoriented! We explain to you how it works.



Spotify is currently testing ads with a voice command from a small portion of US users (Android and iOS), report our fellow Variety. As a first step, these interactive ads will only be used for playlists and other Spotify content. In the long term, brands will also benefit. Ax has already registered his own ad.

Spotify tests commercials to control with your voice

How exactly is it? During the announcement, simply say "Play Now" or "Read Now" to let the advertisement leave room for the proposed content, in this case a playlist or a Spotify podcast. If you say anything else, the ad will unfold as usual.

"We believe that voice, across all platforms, is a critical growth driver, especially for music and audio content," said Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, to the group's investors. "We are investing in this area and we are testing ways to explore and refine our offering," says the manager. Unsurprisingly, the streaming service was inspired by the success of Google Home, Amazon Echo or HomePod smart speakers. These connected speakers have changed the relationship of Internet users with music, says the group.

To take advantage of these voice announcements, or to disable them, you must go to the Settings menu in the "Voice Activated Announcements" section. For the moment, we do not know when these interactive ads will be offered on a larger scale.

Amazon believes that its employees will not be replaced by robots before "at least 10 years"

Amazon is known for being in the forefront of automating its warehouses. But until when will we still find human employees in the establishments of the firm? According to Scott Anderson, director of the robotics branch of Amazon, explains that the technology is not ready, and that the changeover will not take place before "at least 10 years". Which does not seem so far away. Behind the scenes, the firm is actively developing the technologies needed to automate the entire logistics chain.



Amazon's robotics leader, Scott Anderson, was offering a hand-held tour of his Baltimore warehouse to a handful of US journalists - a visit that focused on beating the myth that Amazon would be "on the run." point "to replace all employees of its warehouses by machines. Scott Anderson has confirmed that the firm is exploring various technologies to automate package management from the vendor to the customer. But the technology is not yet ready: "in the current form, the technology is very limited. Technology is far from an automated workstation that we would need, "said the head of Reuters.

Amazon does not yet have the technology to replace its employees with robots

And to add: "Imagine bananas. I want firm bananas, but others prefer them ripe. How do you make a robot make the right choice? ". Scott Anderson says that fresh food warehouses, in particular, are still reluctant to any kind of robotization. Amazon is starting to use robots in its warehouses - those that store more classic objects like lamps, bluetooth speakers, etc. - but still massively relies on manpower: Amazon manages 110 warehouses in the United States, 45 sorting centers and about 50 delivery points. In total, this represents 125,000 full-time jobs.

The latter are not immediately threatened by the firm's robotic ambitions - which has just made same-day delivery free for Premium subscribers in the United States and which targets a 4-hour delay between the order and the time when the item leaves the warehouse. According to Scott Anderson, this will be achieved by optimizing transportation and delivery, rather than by productivity adjustments in the warehouses. Even if the workforce working at Amazon is not directly threatened by robotization, the situation could change in a few years. Scott Anderson has notably launched the technology puts Amazon "at least 10 years" of a complete robotization.

A "medium term" horizon, more than "long term" that seems to indicate that even if Amazon does not yet have the technological means, it will certainly be one of the first companies to replace its employees with machines. What do you think ? Share your opinion in the comments.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft engage in hybrid cloud warfare

The giants of the public cloud are eyeing the companies, more and more numerous, who equip themselves with both public and private cloud. All propose solutions to meet this dual challenge.



More than ever, the CIO has a two-speed information system. It must maintain and evolve its existing IT infrastructure while migrating at a certain pace in the public cloud. This observation has not escaped the giants of the cloud who now offer hybrid solutions, building bridges between the old and the new world. A way to bring new customers back to them, beyond the converts to the public cloud. To address this market, providers have adopted different approaches. "Microsoft Azure and AWS started with the IaaS services before progressively enriching their offer.Google makes the choice of any container.It is consistent with its strategy and its solutions that are intended for a population of developers", argue Damien Rollet, cloud architect and DevOps at Ippon Technologies.

For Damien Rollet, the maturity of the offer, the security, the level of commitment of services are among the criteria of choice. "The goal is to have the same customer experience between the public and on-premise environment, so the level of integration of the console and the APIs offered by the provider are to be closely watched," argues the cloud architect. .

Azure Stack, pioneer bonus

For once, Amazon Web Services (AWS) got the hang of it by Microsoft. After about a year and a half of pre-release, Azure Stack was released as a final release in July 2017. This is an Azure extension that allows a company to run cloud services in an on-premise environment.

Traditionally, Microsoft started by providing IaaS services to recreate a cloud-based infrastructure with virtual machines, storage resources and a virtual network. The Redmond company can rely on its strong presence in data centers through its Hyper-V and Windows Server virtualization solution.

For hardware, Microsoft has partnered with server builders: Dell, HPE, Cisco or Huawei. In late March, Microsoft announced the launch of Azure Stack HCI, to surf the trend of converged infrastructures in vogue in data centers. On the PaaS part, Azure Stack offers support for MySQL databases, SQL Database and, soon, SQL Server 2019.

Higher level managed services are also coming gradually to the platform. Last September, Azure Stack's CEO announced in a blog post the availability of Service Fabric, Azure Site Recovery (ASR), and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in public preview, and services IoT Hub and Event Hub in private preview.

AWS Outposts, the VMware Asset

New service announced in November 2018, Outposts is part of AWS 'strategy to conquer private clouds. In the wake of the partnership with VMware presented two and a half years ago, the Amazon subsidiary goes a step further in the hybrid world. Unlike Microsoft, which has partnered with manufacturers, AWS makes the choice to offer a hardware-based infrastructure that it has designed, promising the same level of service as its public cloud. A customer can perform on-site EC2 calculation and EBS storage services. In addition to this IaaS layer, AWS plans to add services such as RDS, ECS, EKS, SageMaker, and EMR over the months.

Its partneralui offers the ability to attack customers who have a strong history and an existing one, especially among large accounts

Outposts offers two options: a VMware version and an "AWS native" version. In the first case, "VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts" provides the data center with the computing, storage and network infrastructure for on-site execution. The solution is managed as a service from the same console as VMware Cloud on AWS. For Damien Rollet, this extension of the partnership with VMware allows Amazon to address, especially in France, a large installed base. "This gives it the ability to attack customers who have a strong history and a strong existing, especially among large accounts," insists the expert.

The second option is for organizations that prefer to use the APIs and consoles they are used to using in the AWS cloud. They will continue to do so but at home. The same VMware brings, here too, its stone to the building. The publisher offers VMware Cloud Foundation for EC2 to run its most common services in the environment, such as NSX, VMware AppDefense and VMware vRealize Automation. In either case, AWS delivers the racks to customers, installs them as needed, and maintains and replaces them. A scenario that seduced Volkswagen. In the contract with AWS unveiled at the end of March, the automaker says it wants to use Outposts for latency-sensitive applications. Currently in private preview, the commercial launch of Outposts is scheduled for the second half of 2019.

Google Cloud Anthos, the choice of any container

Anthos was without a doubt the most commented novelty of Next'19, the Google Cloud conference held this year in early April. In fact new, this is the new name of Google Cloud Services launched a year earlier. As for Azure and AWS, the web giant proposes to embed its technologies in the data centers of its customers. Originality, Anthos opens the way to multicloud by managing workloads executed on third-party clouds. And to accelerate the transition, Google Cloud also announced in beta Anthos Migrate, a service that automatically migrates virtual machines, from a local cloud to a public cloud.

we find the inevitable Kubernetes, the open source container orchestrator house available in two versions: Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to run services in the public cloud Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and GKE On-Prem for deployment in third-party data centers. Anthos also relies on Kubernetes extensions including Knative, which can deploy functions, applications and containers in serverless mode, and Istio, a mesh service that manages and secures microservices. Stackdriver provides the monitoring component.


To ensure the compatibility of the underlying infrastructure, Google Cloud has moved closer to more than thirty hardware partners, software and integrators such as Cisco, Citrix, Dell-EMC, HPE, Intel, Lenovo and ... VMware, long-time partner of AWS.

5 sites compare prices before buying anything! Get the cheapest price for anything you want to buy

Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Best Buy ... There are a lot of online stores with thousands of products of all kinds, and sometimes it is difficult to find the best price at these stores easily.

With this short list of sites that we will show you today, you will facilitate this process, since it tracks the price of the product we want to buy among many online stores, thus offering the best magic to get what we need.

Youpil site:
The product you buy is placed in the search box and the site will search the four stores listed above in the introduction. It has an Android application, and the result appears in the form of columns with the prices found in each store. Unfortunately the link to Amazon is com. , The urge can not be customized by country, and the price is always in dollars. It is ideal for simple price comparison

  Idealo:
Compare prices and also offers flights. The results show as you type in the search box what we want to buy, it has filters so that the correct result can be reached without losing a lot of time.

Kelkoo.es:
 Compares up to 25 stores at the same time, with results grouped by categories. Sometimes it is possible to find discounts, although you will sometimes see the site things of type: "Galaxy Note 9 of 4000 euros for only 700", something that scares a bit.

twenga.es:
Compares more than 18 million products in more than 200 stores, being one of the most complete listings. Contains filters in the sidebar, including prices, although when searching for mobile phones, it always displays the security tools in the first place, making it difficult to access the first devices required.

Shopmania.es:
 Much like the previous site, although it has a more complex but better appearance when it comes to displaying results.

3 of the best TV control applications by phone

Smart television is now available in every house where most people have abandoned the normal television and headed towards this giant, if you have this TV there are many features in your TV did not know yet and today we will touch one of them, there is a feature in the television enables us to make the phone works as Remote Control And to control the kidney through the phone.



Internet is packed with many applications that help you to use this feature, but today I will give you the most reliable and best applications, which God willing you will like a lot and will benefit you more Let us start with an explanation.
 
Peel Universal Smart TV Remote Control



 This application is similar to the previous application, but what distinguishes it is that you can control many types of devices other than television and it is compatible with all kinds of smart TVs and of course as a package you will need to connect to the same network used in television.
  
Android TV Remote Control

This application is not much different from the two previous applications, but what made me a list in this list is the ease of use and the possibilities that it provides beside the volume of the small that suits everyone. Actually this application will impress many of you.

 
Amazon Fire TV Remote

 This application is provided by Amazon, where you can control the TV in a holistic way through the phone just download the application and then connect to the Wi-Fi on the same network connected to the TV and so the application will show you all the tools you need to manage your TV, which characterizes the application is universal and very easy The wa side is smooth and very simple.

Amazon: How the firm decides to fire an employee

Amazon is again at the heart of a controversy related to working conditions in its warehouses. The company constantly scrutinizes the smallest actions of its employees. That, we already knew it. To achieve this, she uses specific software that is able to decide on its own the dismissal of an employee.

 

 

The verge has gotten hold of documents that show how Amazon monitors its employees with systems specifically designed to not only spy on them, but also assess their productivity. Employees are constantly under the control of automatic devices that "generate warning messages in the event of a work stoppage or a drop in productivity without the intervention of a human supervisor".

 

How Amazon fires low-performing employees

The software is even able to decide on the dismissal of a worker automatically. In a letter signed last year by an Amazon lawyer, the company willingly admitted to laying off "hundreds" of employees in a single warehouse between August 2017 and September 2018. They were criticized for not being productive enough.

According to The Verge, production quotas or the number of packets scanned can reach 100 units per hour. This information is consistent with the report of a British journalist who investigated last year the conditions of work in the warehouses of Amazon.

He describes an infernal setting, going so far as to say that many employees urinate in bottles rather than take breaks to go to the bathroom, for fear of not meeting their goals.

A few days ago, Jeff Bezos invited his competitors to increase the salaries of their employees as Amazon had done a few months ago by raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars. But it is clear that in the warehouses of the company, the working conditions are still so execrable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon Prime now: soon free delivery the same day?

Amazon wants to provide a free delivery service in one day or even the same day for its premium subscribers. The launch has already started and will be progressive. The goal of the US group is to also become a benchmark for emergency purchases, which should hurt even more online and physical competition.

 

 

 

Amazon is preparing a same-day delivery offer for Prime customers, said Brian Olsavsky, the US group's financial executive, at a video conference commenting on Amazon's results for the first quarter of 2019. "We're working to move the delivery to two days to a single day, "he said in statements relayed by The Verge.

 

Amazon Prime: same-day shipping in the boxes

Currently, there is already the possibility of being delivered the same day, but the possibilities are limited. In France, only a few areas are covered: Paris, part of the Paris region (postal codes eligible), Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. Shipping costs are also high: 9.99 dollars per shipment for media articles (Books, Music, DVD, Software and Video Games) and 12.99 dollars per shipment for other eligible items. The price is reduced to 4.99 dollarss for Premium subscribers (free if the amount of the order exceeds 25 dollars).

Olsavsky says that Amazon is already experimenting with the same day free delivery with no minimum purchase for Premium subscribers, but it will take a long time for the majority of users to enjoy. Amazon is working with carriers to improve its logistics and make it all possible. The launch of this offer has already begun in North America and will be extended internationally gradually.

The goal is to make Amazon even more indispensable and to convince consumers that it is also becoming a solution for emergency purchases. A way to further increase its market share to the detriment of its competitors, online and in physical store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download 4 games Apps with enhanced reality technology will make your Android phone distinctive

With the introduction of ARCore to the Android system, many application and gaming developers have been able to provide the enhanced reality experience on these phones better. Although many applications have already introduced games for enhanced reality technology but the experience has not been optimized, Google has launched the ARCore The current time for only 13 phones is Pixel, Galaxy S7 and newer, LG V30 / V30 +, One Plus 5, and Zenfone AR.



 These devices are currently the only ones capable of running this feature, but in Google's store there are many applications and games that rely on this technology. In this article I will give you 4 of the best applications and games based on the experience of enhanced reality.
 
 My Tamagotchi Forever game
This game is supposed to live in a small fictional city with personal Tamaguchi and within the game will meet the personal friends and you will have to take care of the hero and be keen to feed him the best in addition to the interest in going to sleep every night.
 
MoleCatchAR game



This game is a game of the capture of the mole, but very famous reality enhanced reality, where all you have to do is to hit the mole when he appeared directly before disappearing inside the hole to get points, a beautiful game, you want to spend some time and waste.
 
Application of Amazon

 

 Amazon's e-shopping application has been widely recognized for its support of AR View, which allows you to use a number of pieces of furniture and experience them in real life through the application to try them in real terms in your home and get to know them completely before buying them all. To any store.

Pottery Barn 3D Room View App
This application will show you multiple designs of your room from all angles with many suggestions for furniture that fit the room, provided by the famous company Putre Barn to buy furniture from the application of itself is also an idea similar to Amazon.

Apple would be one of Amazon's biggest customers for iCloud

Each month, Apple would spend more than $ 30 million to host iCloud data. This money would end up in Amazon's pockets, specifically its dedicated hosting and cloud branch, AWS. CNBC's Jordan Novet reports that this would make Apple one of Amazon's biggest customers. Anyway, this figure is not surprising when you know that data related to iCloud is not stored directly by Apple.

 

 Since the beginning, Apple has designed iCloud to use any cloud service to store data. For security, all files are encrypted before being sent to third-party hosts, but the firm has been using AWS services for years, as well as competitors. In the past, Microsoft's Azure has been exploited for iCloud, more recently Google is used in conjunction with Amazon's servers

Apple builds its own data centers with the aim of reducing its dependence on third-party providers and therefore its rating. But knowing there are more than a billion iCloud accounts, and each account has at least 5 GB of online storage, that's millions of terabytes to store. And then it's not just about buying the right number of hard drives for a California data center, you have to distribute that content around the world at a good pace.

With 61 "Availability Zones" (equivalent to a data center) around the world, Amazon remains a partner of choice for this task. Even though Apple is completing its data centers under construction, especially in Europe1, AWS gives it the ability to reach customers around the world with unparalleled performance in its own server network.

This is an expense that increases logically as the number of iCloud users increases: 10% more than last year, according to the site. With this bill of more than $ 30 million, Apple would be in any case one of the largest AWS customer according to CNBC, even if the sum is only a tiny part of the revenue of this branch for Amazon.

"Scranos", the new virus that wreaks havoc on Windows

Researchers at well-known security software vendor Bit Defender have discovered a new and sophisticated malware program running on Windows.

Bit Defender researchers have launched an alert since April 16, 2019 

They say they have discovered a new malware that is currently wreaking havoc on PCs running Windows. Called "Scranos", the virus first appeared in China before spreading. It infects computers with elaborate techniques that allow it to update itself regularly.

As the researchers explain in their multi-media publication, Scranos is spreading by the Trojan horse method, hiding in various seemingly harmless software like video players or e-books readers. and even security utilities and drivers. Once in place, it installs shared libraries that can scan browser cookies and retrieve a lot of sensitive information, including account credentials, codes, and passwords from various online services like Facebook, Amazon, YouTube or Airbnb.

According to experts, this newly discovered virus "disables the real-time protection of Windows Defender installed by default with Windows, so as to go unnoticed." "Scranos then moves on to the next step by installing a disguised rootkit as a signature-authenticated graphics driver on behalf of a Chinese company (Yun Yu Shanghai Health Management Consulting), a module that modifies the Windows registry so that it automatically activate each time you start the computer without being detected ", can we understand.

The damage caused by Scranos is not all known. But, it seems that its creators are already using it massively to create a network of "slaves PC" (a net bot) generating fake clicks on advertisements displayed in YouTube channels. A process to make their misdeeds profitable. The researchers, through their publication, report that Scranos is constantly evolving, through a module that constantly updates it and allows it to download other malicious components.

One of them would be used to send malicious applications via Facebook to the friends of his victims. Another would install extensions to browsers to inject advertisements or force the opening of certain pages. The experts at Bit Defender believe that it is appropriate for any user to update its antivirus and launch an analysis as soon as possible.

The keyboard is dead? Ask Alexa

This may be wishful thinking, but according to a recent survey, voice technology on touch interfaces is widely supported. When are the keyboards in the closet?

 

 

 

Voice technology is rapidly gaining ground as the primary means of interaction with terminals. In the UX zero-sum game, this trend challenges the dominance of tactile interfaces such as touch screens and keyboards.

And a new poll suggests that a surprising portion of consumers expect keyboards in particular to be endangered.

Voice command ubiquitous in 5 years?

As I lazily cleaned my laptop keyboard this morning trying in vain not to turn on the computer (yeah yeah ... but who has time to turn off his computer?), All I could think was : Good riddance.

The survey, conducted by Pindrop Solutions, which provides telephone fraud detection and authentication technology to corporate customers, is the result of 4,057 online interviews with a cross-section of people in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. United States, France and Germany.

According to the survey, nearly half (48%) of the general public believe that keyboards will barely be used by 2023, when voice technology will take over. This four-year horizon may seem a little exaggerated.

Aside from some obvious privacy and decency issues, especially for those working in open, crowded offices, it is quite plausible that the passage from text to voice is gaining popularity, as in many mobile applications, and become commonplace in everyday computer applications like email.

In fact, the desire for a healthier relationship with technology is one of the main drivers of an upward trend in favor of voice-activated interfaces. Two-fifths believe voice technology promises "a future where the use of technology is less intrusive. ".

According to the survey results, "41% believe that it will allow people to stop looking at their phones. The same number believe that as their capabilities increase over the next five years, voice interfaces will make life easier for users.

The voice for another relationship with techno

Outside of work, the majority of people (63%) already use their voice to interact with devices and terminals, and 53% plan to use it even more in a year. Over the next five years, more than half of those surveyed plan to use voice-activated devices and devices for everyday tasks such as cooking (63%), managing their home (58%), ordering provisions (52%). ) and organize an event (52%).

"In recent years, early adopters have been quick to introduce smart phones and speakers to their homes, normalizing a technology once considered skeptical," said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and co-founder of Pindrop.

"Today's results prove it and also point to a future where the way we interact with technology is fundamentally evolving towards a hands-free model. Individuals can see the benefits it brings, allowing them to simplify their lives and help combat the constant distractions of handheld devices. "

The diffusion of voice technology will be partly facilitated by complementary technologies that require hands-free interfaces. Virtual reality, for example, is becoming increasingly common in enterprise applications for uses such as virtual meetings and data visualization and analysis. The ability to incorporate voice into virtual reality will promote the immersive experience and seems to be a natural evolution.

The big challenges: security and privacy

Similarly, robotics is an area where human-machine interaction is fast iterating. As robots become more and more present in our lives, voice technology will allow us to interact with them more transparently.

There are, of course, problems with voice technology. In particular, client companies need to be concerned about security. According to Pindrop, respondents in 2017 rated usability as the main problem with voice technology. "In 2018, security and privacy were the number one challenge. "

For example, 46% of respondents would say no if they were given the option to use voice authentication as their password, compared to 44% who would answer yes. But the trend is changing in favor of voice authentication. In 2017, only 39% of respondents said they were ready to use their voice as their password.

 

"It's quite reasonable," says Balasubramaniyan. "People are still skeptical about the security of these terminals. The media has published numerous incident stories with connected speakers, and our own June 2018 study revealed that 80% of companies are concerned about how to secure voice data. In order to allay these fears and encourage wider use of the voice, those deploying voice services must ensure that the systems put in place to verify the identity of users are up to the task and can accurately detect activities that are both fraudulent and real. "