Tag: wired

Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Intel, after a couple of months of negotiation, has agreed to buy Altera for $16.7 billion (£11 billion) in cash. The acquisition comes just a few days after Avago announced its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom, the largest deal ever seen by the tech sector. The timing is probably not coincidental: Intel and Altera had reportedly been in talks since March. Much like the Avago-Broadcom deal, Intel-Altera is a consolidation move. Altera is the second largest maker of FPGAs and other programmable logic devices behind Xilinx . Intel makes a wide range of chips, but has only ever dabbled in FPGAs. Buying Altera will let Intel sell a wider variety of chips through its existing sales channels, while also potentially realising some savings through strategic job cuts. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

If you call Verizon FiOS and try to cancel or downgrade your TV package, you might find that the FiOS rep knows almost as much about your TV viewing habits as you do. Verizon’s Rep Guidance software tells Verizon representatives what channels you watch to help them make a more effective sales pitch. The system, which also shows them how much Internet data you use and which pieces of TV equipment you use most, was detailed by a Verizon executive in a public presentation hosted by Data Driven NYC. A Quartz reporter  wrote about the presentation yesterday . Verizon “is now closely tracking exactly what you watch, what devices you use, and how much data you consume,” Quartz wrote. “It knows whether your household spars over DVR conflicts and how many hours your kids spend binge-watching shows on HBO. What’s more, the company is listening in on phone calls to customer service in real-time, with supervisors poised to jump at the moment they sense a fight brewing or hear trigger words from an unhappy customer, such as ‘switching to Time Warner Cable.'” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

NEW YORK—Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison Friday, following a jury’s finding in February that the 31-year-old was the mastermind behind the Silk Road, once the Internet’s largest online drug marketplace. Operating online as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht worked with a small staff to control everything sold on the site. He was arrested in October 2013, and the government made its case against him during a three-week trial here earlier this year. Ulbricht pleaded for leniency  during the hearing. “I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path,” he said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

AT&T wants to choose which online video services count against data caps

AT&T doesn’t want any rules preventing it from choosing which online video services count against its customers’ data caps. AT&T’s “Sponsored Data” program already charges businesses , often in the ad industry, for the right to deliver services without counting against customers’ mobile data caps. AT&T could potentially charge online video streaming services for exemptions from the caps imposed on AT&T home broadband subscribers as well or exempt its own online services from caps. Though AT&T doesn’t appear to have done this yet, the company this week asked the FCC to make sure it’s allowed to do so. AT&T’s request came after a group of companies and consumer advocacy organizations asked the Federal Communications Commission to prevent AT&T from granting data cap exemptions.  Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T wants to choose which online video services count against data caps

IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]

In an official statement issued today, the IRS announced that it has shut down an online service to obtain tax records after determining that “unusual activity had taken place on the application, which indicates that unauthorized third parties had access to some accounts on the transcript application.” according to an official statement by the agency. An initial review of that activity revealed that “access was gained to more than 100,000 accounts through the Get Transcript application,” according to the statement. The data was obtained not because of a hack of IRS systems, but because of the weak authentication used by the IRS to protect access to taxpayer data. The attackers were able to obtain taxpayer records using stolen personal identifying information—likely pulled from online financial fraud marketplaces. The Get Transcript application, a feature of the IRS’ site that allows taxpayers to download tax return and tax payment transaction data, was apparently targeted by financial fraudsters between February and mid-May. The service was shut down last week as the IRS investigated the activity, which may have been linked to the fraudulent filing of tax returns and transfer of tax refunds. Attempts were made to access over 200,000 accounts; roughly half failed because of incorrect information during the IRS’ authentication process. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]

Hot Topic enters agreement to buy ThinkGeek parent company Geeknet Inc.

Online geek-y retailer ThinkGeek and its parent company Geeknet Inc. are in the process of being acquired by Hot Topic, a popular mall-based retailer best known for selling vampire T-shirts and other faux-goth-pop accoutrements. According to a press release issued this morning , Hot Topic will be picking up all of Geeknet’s outstanding shares of common stock for $17.50 per share, and the company will also be fronting about $37 million in cash. The total value of the transaction will be $122 million. Geeknet CEO Kathryn McCarthy said in the press release that the move would enable Geeknet and ThinkGeek to bring its products to the attention of new consumers, as well as to “expand [its] product offerings to keep up with industry and customer demands.” Geeknet’s shareholders appear to be onboard with the purchase, with the press release noting that a contingent of shareholders holding about 21 percent of the company’s common stock have agreed to go along with the offer. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Hot Topic enters agreement to buy ThinkGeek parent company Geeknet Inc.

Google Fiber’s botched software update locks out users, disables Wi-Fi

Many Google Fiber customers have been reporting that a software update turned off their Wi-Fi and prevented them from logging into the Google Network Box’s administration panel. Customers can still get online using Ethernet connections. Customers in Kansas City and Provo, Utah have been affected and took to Twitter  and sites including DownDetector.com  to describe the problem. I’m not eradicating disease with my @googlefiber internet connection, but it would sure be nice for it to work after a 24-hour-long outage. — Sam Hartle (@Sam_Hartle) May 22, 2015 We have had way more outages with @googlefiber than we ever had with @comcast . Google needs to step up its game. — Austin Graff (@AustinLGraff) May 21, 2015 A DSLReports forum member from Kansas City wrote yesterday , “Having an issue today with my network box. It lost my custom IP address scheme and went back to default. Now I can’t access the advanced menu.” A few hours later, the customer had been able to talk to Google Fiber support. “GF Support had to factory reset my network box so I could get in. They acknowledged that a software update this morning caused the issue,” the customer wrote. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google Fiber’s botched software update locks out users, disables Wi-Fi

New Windows 10 build smooths tablet experience, makes Edge super fast

A new Windows 10 build is now available for Fast Ring users. Build 10122 should be available to download, but Microsoft is advising that users with AMD video cards pass on it for the time being. That’s because there’s currently a crashing issue in the Edge browser (still named “Project Spartan” in this release). Microsoft is working with AMD to update its drivers to address the issue, but until an update is available, AMD users are advised to switch to the Slow Ring. The new build makes Windows 10 look the way it looked when Microsoft demonstrated it at its Build and Ignite conferences earlier this month. This has two major parts; the Start menu has been reorganized to group Explorer, Settings, Power, and All Apps together, and the Start screen now puts more focus on new, larger tiles, putting the menu-like parts (including the aforementioned grouped icons) together in a hamburger menu. Similarly, Edge now includes the new tab screen shown off at Build. This is strongly reminiscent of iGoogle, including a search bar, popular links, news, and weather. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Windows 10 build smooths tablet experience, makes Edge super fast

Apple announces new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch and other upgrades [Updated]

Some good news for power users ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference  next month: the company has just updated its 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, completing the 2015 MacBook refresh it began with the new  MacBook Air , 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro , and the MacBook . The 15-inch Pros include some upgrades that other MacBooks have gotten this year—faster PCI Express storage enabled by increasing the number of PCIe lanes used from two to four and the Force Touch trackpad are chief among them. The discrete graphics option on the high-end $2,499 version of the laptop has also been upgraded, from an Nvidia GeForce GT 750M to an AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB of DDR5 RAM. The entry-level $1,999 version still comes with Intel’s Iris integrated graphics. Visually, the MacBook Pro looks much like the 2012 and 2013 models. The one noticeable physical difference is its Force Touch trackpad, also included in the 13-inch Pro and the new MacBook. These pressure-sensitive trackpads use haptic feedback to simulate the feel of a standard clicky trackpad, but they don’t need as much physical space to move. The trackpad’s inclusion in the MacBook is obviously necessary because of how thin the device is, but its presence in the new Pros is probably intended to encourage developers to adopt Force Touch APIs in their software. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple announces new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch and other upgrades [Updated]

Pandora, fresh off one copyright win, loses its rate case to BMI

Songwriters’ group Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) has beaten online radio provider Pandora after a two-year legal battle, winning a substantially larger copyright royalty rate of 2.5 percent. That’s a large increase from the 1.75 percent Pandora was paying before. It’s also a stark contrast to Pandora’s win in a similar case against BMI’s rival, the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP. It was just last week that a federal appeals court upheld Pandora’s win in that case, finding that the royalty rate should rise to only 1.85 percent. The judge’s opinion in BMI v. Pandora  isn’t yet public, but both sides have put out statements about the results. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Pandora, fresh off one copyright win, loses its rate case to BMI