Sourav Bose | Geek

What goes up must come down and on Wall Street, billions are made and lost betting on which direction companies are headed. Apple is the most valuable technology company in America by a huge margin so needless to say, it gets plenty of attention on the Street. At some point, be it sometime in the next few years or sometime in the next few decades , Apple will no longer be on top. It is inevitable. The question countless industry watchers try to answer, of course, is when. Various guesses — sorry, estimates — have been made in recent years, and the boldest among them have been off by a laughable margin. In mid-2011, for example, Pyramid Research released projections that showed Windows Phone’s global market share rocketing past iOS later that year and then going on to overtake Android in early 2013. Fast forward to the third quarter of 2013 and Windows Phone’s market share still sits in the low single digits. At last count, Android was installed on an estimated 81 per...

A new report on FBI surveillance techniques has revealed some interesting details on the hacks the Bureau is using to keep tabs on suspected criminals. Published in the Washington Post, the story covers the search for a man known as ‘Mo’ who is alleged to have made several bomb threats to authorities. In the article, Marcus Tho mas, who used to work at the FBI’s Operational Technology Division, admits that FBI software can covertly enable a laptop’s webcam without triggering a warning light. This kind of secret surveillance is only used in terrorism cases or the “most serious” criminal investigations said Thomas. According to the report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation often attempts to install malware by targeting the email addresses of those who are under investigation. Essentially, law enforcement agencies are using the same phishing techniques as spammers pushing medication supplies or looking to get into your social media accounts. “We have transitioned int...

Recent revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency's expansive data-collection efforts have underscored the power of electronic surveillance in the Internet era and renewed an historic debate over how far the government should go in spying on its own people. A disillusioned former CIA computer technician named Edward Snowden, who had worked as a contactor at the NSA, identified himself on Sunday as the source of multiple disclosures on the government's surveillance that were published by the Guardian and the Washington Post last week. The information included a secret court order directing Verizon Communications Inc to turn over all its calling records for a three-month period, and details about an NSA program code-named PRISM, which collected emails, chat logs and other types of data from Internet companies. These included Google Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp , Yahoo Inc, AOL Inc and Apple Inc . Snowden cast himself as a whistleblower alarmed a...

The world's leading technology companies have united to demand sweeping changes to US surveillance laws, urging an international ban on bulk collection of data to help preserve the public's “trust in the internet”. In their most concerted response yet to disclosures by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL will publish an open letter to Barack Obama and Congress on Monday, throwing their weight behind radical reforms already proposed by Washington politicians. “The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favour of the state and away from the rights of the individual – rights that are enshrined in our constitution,” urges the letter signed by the eight US-based internet giants. “This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for change.” Several of the companies claim the revelations have shaken public faith in the internet and blamed spy agencies fo...