Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Cyber Space
December 15, 2014.
turn on the Enhanced Dictation checkbox in the Dictation & Speech area of the
System Preferences to download the necessary software.
Q&A
Dec, 15, 2014,(DHNS):
Q: What is Microsoft fixing every month when I get Windows Update notices
on my PC?
Those Windows Update notices usually contain Microsofts latest security patches
and improvements to its Windows operating system. The company tends to release
all its non-emergency updates on the second Tuesday of every month, a day that
has come to be known as Patch Tuesday, although additional updates during the
month are not uncommon.
Although it can be a bit technical, Microsoft posts information about its security
updates at technet.microsoft.com/security/bulletin if you want to find out what
each patch is supposed to repair. While the updates are intended to plug security
holes and take care of other issues, the new code can sometimes break other
programs.
If an application does not work properly after you have installed Windows updates,
a quick Web search (or a visit to the support forums for the affected program) may
offer workarounds until yet another patch is issued. Q: My Mac has been acting
weird, and Im worried it might be because of spyware. How can I find out
and remove it?
Although Macs have been targeted far less than Windows systems, malware can
still invade through things like security flaws in Java or free programs from the
Web that also include spyware.
Apple has warned about the Flashback and Mac Defender malware that have
targeted its systems and recommends that you download and install all the security
patches available thought the Macs Software Update tool, which is available under
the Apple Menu.
If you suspect your Mac is infected, scan your system with security software from
a reputable company. The independent institute AV Test has reviewed more than a
dozen security programs for OS X, including paid programs like Bitdefender, as
well as free utilities like those from Avast and Sophos.
Nearly two years after Facebook publicly promised to give its users the ability
to search the social network for past posts made by their friends, the company
is finally ready to turn it on.
Facebook recently said it was expanding the capabilities of its search box to allow
free-form searches of anything posted on the service. The improvements will be
rolled out to English-language users of Facebook in the United States soon on
desktop and iPhone versions, with Android to follow.
In theory, that means you will soon be able to dredge up, say, that post your best
friend made about the best croissants in Paris three years ago, or that cute photo
from your nieces first birthday party, or your witty, impromptu review of the
original Hunger Games movie. Type in a few keywords and whatever else you
might remember about the original post, and Facebook says it should come up.
If it works a big if, given the companys record of overpromising on search it
could unlock all that information that Facebook has so eagerly asked us to share on
the service and make it a helpful digital archive of moments both trivial and
Smartphones are slimmer and smarter calendar managers and event planners
than the options of yore. But not all calendar apps are created equal.
Sunrise is my favourite. It adds features that prove how a powerful net-connected
calendar can do so much more to keep you organised.
The app presents a lot of calendar information at a glance. You can see your
calendar entries in two ways: a summary weekly view, which lists coming events
in a long, scrolling list; and a detailed agenda view, which shows several days in
column format, with hours displayed vertically down the page. This means that
with just one tap you can get a quick update about what is on the weeks schedule
and see what is going on in a few hours or tomorrow afternoon.
Entering a new event into Sunrise is simple and straightforward. The app has a
feature that lets you tag a calendar entry with an icon matching the event - options
include Coffee dates and a serious Meeting.
The app automatically syncs with many other calendar programs, including those
from Google, Apple and Microsoft, and apps like the one for the online ticketing
service Eventbrite. It can pull data like friends birthdays from Facebook, and if
you connect it to your LinkedIn account, it can even show the faces of other
attendees at meetings.
Sunrise has a long list of built-in events that you can add to your calendar - from
national holidays to more tailored events like Formula One races.
Tempo Smart Calendar, a free iOS app, is another excellent example of how clever
a calendar app can be.Tempo starts off as a full-featured time planner, but it goes
much further. Like Sunrise, Tempo has clear visuals that make the jobs of reading
what is on the agenda and entering new events simple - and almost pleasant. It also
integrates with a wide range of existing calendar services and apps.
Tempo has a host of extra features. You can sign up for a free conference phone
call via a partnership with Speek, a conference-calling startup, for up to five
attendees; post birthday greetings to friends Facebook pages from inside the app;
check for up-to-date information about flights you have planned and entered into
the app; and view maps and directions.
Best of all, the app can add events to your calendar in natural language - simply
type something like Coffee meeting with Kenton tomorrow at 11, and the app
automatically works out what you mean and adds an event. You can use Apples
voice entry system to make this process even more natural.
The app has a few other nice touches, too, like the ability to add photos as
backgrounds, and its gesture-based controls feel very intuitive.
Fantastical 2 is another iPhone app that offers bells and whistles similar to
Tempos. For example, Fantastical 2 has an easy-to-read interface and features like
natural-language event entry, but it is more of a straightforward agenda-planning
app with an emphasis on its excellent built-in reminders system. This may be to
your taste, and this might make the $5 (Rs 313) price tag worth it.
On Android, Googles Calendar app comes with Googles signature look and feel.
Its a highly functional calendar that fully integrates with Googles other services,
as you might expect. But if you are not a fan of Googles sometimes strange
design, Cal is a great free alternative.
Cal has a beautiful look that incorporates minimalist menus and photo backdrops
that make dealing with your calendar feel somehow more personal.
Sometimes the app reacts a little slowly and feels as if you need a lot of taps to
create a new event. But its free, so it is definitely worth checking out.
One final mention goes to Calendars 5 by Readdle. Its the most expensive app Ill
mention, at $7 (Rs 438) for iOS devices, but it has lots of nice features.
Enjoy filling your schedule with these apps, but remember that a wise man once
said, Theres never enough time to do all the nothing you want - and thats
something you cant plan for.
Even with their high-tech gadgets and computerised machinery, most cars still
do a pretty poor job of providing helpful information about things like
mechanical problems and fuel use - and of connecting to the devices we use the
most, our phones.
Improvements are on the horizon. Wireless connections are available in some new
models, which could lead to more helpful tools. But even for many older models,
there is an easy way to get better information about your car, including fuel usage,
diagnostics and data about your driving habits.
I tried out two new devices that can connect almost any car, back to the 1996
model, to a smartphone. Mojio, released in October, and Automatic, released last
year, both use apps to offer an interesting look inside your car.
Neither offers entertainment, multimedia or navigation elements, but both can give
you useful information about your car, especially if there are mechanical problems.
Of the two devices, Automatic is the one Id recommend.
The devices take advantage of a standard port that federal law has required every
car since 1996 to have: the onboard diagnostics, or OBD-II, port.
The port is most often used by mechanics and dealers. It outputs a standardised set
of information about a car, like codes that indicate mechanical problems. It also
uses sensors throughout the vehicle to gather data on power, emissions, fuel use
and more.
Many consumer devices already use this port, including some that offer driving
tips to help save gas or that can block cellphone signals inside the car to make
driving safer.
And a growing number of them integrate with your smartphone in some way.Mojio
has grand ambitions to become an app store for cars. The companys $150 (Rs
9,396) device, which plugs into the port and uses Bluetooth to connect with a
smartphone app, has both GPS and a 3G cellular connection, so its online
practically everywhere. The device includes a free year of service; after that, its $5
on improving things like fuel economy, tracking driving habits and providing car
diagnostics - with no monthly fee. Setup is straightforward and took just a few
seconds, and its app is available for Android and iOS.
In terms of the data it provides, Automatic is a little like a wearable activity tracker.
Theres information thats interesting to look at, like how far a trip was and how
much gas you used. But unless you drive for a living or are focused on minimising
your fuel use, its not always obvious what to do with all that information.
You also get a driver score for good behavior, like avoiding speeding, rapid
acceleration and hard braking. That sounds like a buzz kill for those who like to
drive for sport, but its helpful if theres a teenager in the house or if youve had a
lot of speeding tickets.
IForces main interface pretends to be a simple drawing app, and you demonstrate
a sketch to your targets to fool them into believing you. For the trick, you ask them
to, for example, think of a number from one to four, and pretend to draw it on the
screen. Then you put your phone down on its face, ask them the number they have
been thinking of, and then pick up the phone to show them that you correctly
drew the right answer.
The trick is how you flip your phone over. The app uses your phones sensors to
detect how you are turning it over (flip up from the right, for example, or flip up
from the left), and shows a number that correlates with your action. If youre
chatting with your target and are deft with flipping the phone over, that person will
be fooled, though probably only once and only if the person has not read this
article.
The interface makes it easy to activate the setup. You can make a number of
psychic guesses, including world foods and predicting heads-or-tails coin tosses.
You select the right answer for each category by turning your phone over a certain
way and at a certain speed. It takes practice, but it can be amazing.
ISensorMagic is $1 (Rs 62) on iOS and does a similar trick, but only with one set
of symbols. Its limited, but good for a laugh or two.
If youre more interested in learning some classic magic routines, then my choice
is Magic Tricks Pro. Its free on Android and on iOS, but you have to pay for some
extras.
Magic Tricks Pro offers a long list of the classic card and coin tricks you probably
have seen close-up magicians perform. You get an indication of the tricks
complexity, and videos to demonstrate the tricks.
In the first video, you watch the trick being performed; the second video walks you
through how to perform the trick, including the skills you will need to learn, like
how to hold your props properly.
With the help of one of the videos and just five minutes of practice, I was able to
make a salt cellar travel through a table.
The app is straightforward, and the videos are effective teaching aids. But not all
the tricks are stunning, and you have to pay as much as $3 (Rs 185) each to view
Today thermostats, bathroom scales, automobiles and even slow cookers can be
controlled and updated through a live connection with the online world. Tomorrow,
our toys will have similar powers, too. And that digital connection may forever
alter how we think about play.
We want to draw kids out of a two-dimensional screen, to blend a hands-on
physical experience with an app, and make something new come to life, said
Vikas Gupta, a co-founder and the chief executive of Wonder Workshop, a startup
that makes Dash and Dot, two programmable toy robots that will begin shipping to
early backers this holiday season.
Dash and Dot are controlled by a mobile app, but they can also be taught to
understand and react to events that happen in the real world - to play a real tune on
a xylophone, say, or to bark in response to a childs clap.
Wonder Workshop is on the vanguard of a trend that threatens to overrun much of
the traditional, mass-manufactured toy business. The Internet is infiltrating just
about everything your child plays with, promising to make transform it.
Because connected toys can acquire new capabilities over time, the Internet might
even make toys less disposable. As soon as your child becomes bored with a toy, it
might be able to do something new.
Some manufacturers, including Gupta, say digital toys could also revolutionise
education. While disguised as playthings, toys like the Dash robot are teaching
children the basics of computer programming.
But most important, the Internetification of toys might finally break the spell of the
screen. When a generic toy like a ball or a car is sprinkled with digital pixie dust, it
becomes something like a real-life video game. But because these are physical
gadgets that move in the real world, they often make for a far more powerful
experience than a game rendered on a two-dimensional tablet.
I think the heart of the toy industry is going to move from purely physical toys to
what I call 'phygital play,' said Richard Gottlieb, the chief executive of the
consulting company Global Toy Experts.
Forgive Gottliebs ugly coinage; the convergence he is describing between physical
and digital toys is a powerful force, and it is already being felt by large
manufacturers. He notes that one of the worlds most popular series of action
side that was never possible in physical toys, said Boris Sofman, a co-founder of
Anki and its chief executive.
One of the ways toymakers have fought the power of video games is through
licensing and merchandising; they make toys in the images of characters from TV
and movies to imbue some personality into otherwise static figurines. But Sofman
says apps allow toymakers to create physical toys with their own personalities that
arent necessarily borrowed from other media.You can start thinking about this as
Pixar in 3-D, he said. You have this blank slate where you can build whatever
you like, because you have software controlling it.
For years security researchers have warned that it was only a matter of time
before nasty digital scourges like malicious software and spam would hit
smartphones.
Now they say it is has finally happened.
A particularly nasty mobile malware campaign targeting Android users has hit
between four million and 4.5 million Americans since January of 2013, according
to an estimate by Lookout, a San Francisco mobile security company.Lookout first
encountered the mobile malware, called NotCompatible, two years ago and has
since seen increasingly sophisticated versions, which have infected 50 million
users.
Criminals infect smartphones primarily by infecting legitimate websites with
malicious code. When victims visit the site from their mobile phone, they
inadvertently download the code, in what is known as a drive-by download.In
other cases, the attackers sent spam from hijacked email accounts to their victims.
That technique, Lookouts researchers say, successfully caused more than 20,000
infections a day. More recently, researchers say, attackers have been tricking their
victims into installing the malicious code by disguising it as a security patch in
an email attachment.
The attackers goal, researchers say, is to infect as many smartphones as possible
and turn them into a so-called botnet, a network of infected devices that can be
used by attackers for various malicious purposes.
Lookout says the malware, now on its third iteration, allows infected devices to
search for and communicate with other infected machines and share intelligence.
Attackers also have found a way to encrypt communications between their
command and control centre and infected devices, which makes it more difficult to
detect and decipher.
The latest version, Lookout said, has set a new bar for mobile malware
sophistication and operational complexity.
All this malicious activity can be costly. The criminals are incurring data charges
on phones that, ultimately, victims are held responsible for. As if that werent
annoying enough, researchers say the malware causes tremendous battery drainage.
As with most malware discoveries, Lookout, the company sounding the alarm, has
a stake in raising concerns about the security of mobile devices. Its mobile security
application is able to identify the NotCompatible malware and keep it from
infecting Android devices that have downloaded the Lookout app.