Infopackets Reader Teresa P. writes: " Dear Dennis, My computer has been acting terribly slow! I pressed CTRL + ALT + DEL to bring up Task Manager to see what was going on, and I have a task called presentationfontcache.exe that is eating 25% of my ... CPU. This is an older computer, and these days I need all the CPU processing power I can get - and this definitely isn't helping! Can you please tell me how I can disable presentationfontcache.exe in Windows 7? " My response: I have not had this problem before so I asked Teresa if she would like me to look at the issue more closely using my remote ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sam R. writes: " Dear Dennis, The other day I wanted to connect to my wife's PC using Remote Desktop, but the Remote Desktop settings are missing. I've right clicked 'This PC', then selected Properties, then clicked on the 'Remote ... Desktop' link, but all I see is an option for 'Remote assistance' - there is no option for 'Remote Desktop' as there is on my machine. She is running Windows 10 Home. What gives? " My response: Unfortunately, there is no way to manage the Remote Desktop service using Windows Home versions; you need the "Pro" version of Windows to be able to use ... (view more)

Researchers have found a way to track web users even if they switch web browsers. It could improve security but also weaken online privacy. The researchers at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania were trying to find ways of improving fingerprinting. ... That's a way to attempt to identify an individual user (or at least their computer) without relying on single identifiers such as login details, browser cookies, or an IP address. Instead, fingerprinting involves taking multiple pieces of information provided by a user's browser such as the browser name, it's version, whether they have an ad blocker ... (view more)

IBM's artificial intelligence system Watson is to lend its hand to security. It will help scour millions of reports to try to learn more about current online threats. The Watson system was originally designed to see if a computer could compete on ... Jeopardy!, the show where contestants are given an answer and have to try to figure out the question. It was considered a challenge for computers because, although they can store a lot of information and process it quickly, they don't always have the human ability to decipher meaning and context. In the event, Watson prevailed against two human ... (view more)

Facebook is to make it easier for people to offer practical help after a crisis or natural disaster. It's an update to an existing tool for people to check up on loved ones. When triggered, the "Safety Check" feature will check which Facebook users ... are in the relevant physical area, based on their IP address or the location information on their mobile device. They'll then be asked to choose options of "I'm safe" or "I'm not in the area." Their Facebook friends will then see them listed as safe. The idea is that publicizing somebody as being " ... (view more)

Vizio is to pay $2.2 million in fines after tracking viewing habits on 11 million smart TVs without their owners' knowledge or permission. They then sold the details, including personal information, to advertisers. As part of a settlement, Vizio has ... now agreed to inform customers about the practice and promises to always get their express consent before tracking any viewing. It will also have to delete much of the data it has already collected. Vizio had relied on the idea that customers retained enough control because there was a setting named "Smart Interactivity" that could ... (view more)

A US court has ordered Google to hand over emails that it stores on computers in another country. That's a contrast to a previous ruling involving Microsoft, and highlights the complexity of applying national laws to Internet issues. The case ... involves an FBI search warrant that applies to a criminal suspect. Google had refused to comply with the warrant on two grounds: that there wasn't enough evidence for a seizure to overcome the restrictions placed by the constitution, and that the emails were physically stored outside of the US and thus couldn't be covered by a domestic ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader John R. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm running Windows 10. For the last week, Windows Update fails every time with this error: 'Critical Update for SQL Server 2016 MSVCRT Prerequisites KB3164398 - Error 0x80070643'. Any idea how to ... fix this? " My response: I have not had this problem before so I asked John if he would like me to connect to his machine using my remote desktop service , and he agreed. The reason for the SQL Server update (KB3164398) failing was an interesting problem, as it was not very obvious. I'll explain more about that further down - for now I'll go through ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Scott W. writes: " Dear Dennis, Dennis, I have not been able to update Google Chrome for about a year. If I click Help -> About, it says it's up to date, but it's not. Sometimes I get an error message that says: 'An error ... occurred while checking for updates: The installer encountered error 106. (error code 7: 0x80040902: 106 -- system level).' I have no idea what that means. I tried uninstalling Chrome but Windows 10 says 'You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Chrome'. What is going on here? I would like to hire you to fix this vexing issue because my business ... (view more)

An artificial intelligence program has beaten professional poker players for the first time. It may sound trivial but marks a major advance in technology that could have practical benefits. Computers beat human experts at chess many years ago, and ... last year a computer beat the world champion at the far more complex board game "Go" for the first time. That was significant because the sheer number of possible moves available in Go means ever the most powerful computer can't assess every possible move. Instead the program had to learn to use human tactics such as heuristics (in ... (view more)