data

A recent Wall Street Journal report has revealed that some popular mobile apps have been sending personal data of their users to third parties without consent. A whopping 56 applications using the Apple iPhone and Google Android systems were found ... guilty of such practices. In a recent statement, Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, was outraged with such activity. Founded in 2009, Big Brother Watch is a British-based group dedicated to combating intrusions of privacy and protecting civil liberties. Personal Info Breach "Alarming News" "This is alarming news. Most users of ... (view more)

A solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. SSDs are distinguished from traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), which are electromechanical devices containing spinning disks and movable read ... / write heads. SSDs, in contrast, use microchips which retain data in non-volatile memory chips and contain no moving parts. Solid State Drive (SSD) Compared to a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Today's solid state hard drives are considerably faster than a standard (spinning) hard drive. For example: read / write speeds on a standard HDD are roughly 40-60 ... (view more)

Data Crow 3.9 Data Crow is a media cataloguer and media organizer, which allows you to create a huge database containing all your collected items. Use online services to retrieve the information of your items (CD, DVDs, for example) instead of ... typing all the information yourself. http://www.datacrow.net BienneSoft YouTube Downloader 2.6.3 YouTube Downloader is software that allows you to download videos from YouTube, Facebook, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. The program is easy to use, just specify the URL for the video you want to download ... (view more)

With over 30 years in computing experience, I'm often asked my opinion about computer hardware. Questions like, "What can I do to speed up my computer?", or "What type of laptop should I buy?" and things of that nature. Like anyone else, I love a ... good deal. In order to find the best deal possible, sometimes I spend an entire day shopping online to compare prices and features of similar components. Unfortunately, many of the "recommendations" I've read recently appear to be forged for the sake of making a sale, which means there's an awful lot of time wasted wading through ... (view more)

For eighteen minutes in April, around 15 per cent of all Internet traffic was incorrectly routed through Chinese-controlled servers. Nobody knows what was behind the move, but a US government agency suspects foul play. According to the US-China ... Economic and Security Review Commission, the incident involves servers belonging to China Telecom. That's the largest telecommunications company in China; it used to be government controlled but is now partially independent. The incident, which the commission described as "hijacking", involves the way Internet traffic travels between the computers ... (view more)

Since 2004, Infopackets.com has recommended Acronis True Image to its readers as -the- ultimate backup and disaster recovery solution for Microsoft Windows. There are many new exciting changes to discuss with True Image 2011, but first, let's start ... with the basics. What Exactly is Acronis True Image? To put it in simple terms, Acronis True Image is a backup program on steroids. In order to explain how it's different compared to other run-of-the-mill simple backup programs, let me explain what True Image does. With simple backup programs, you can only archive your files onto another ... (view more)

Facebook has confirmed that user details have been revealed to advertisers inappropriately. Unlike many previous privacy disputes on the site, this appears to be a genuine error. The issue involves applications, the add-on games and tools that run ... on the site but are controlled by third-party companies. The most popular examples include games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Generally, when users install such an application, they grant specific permissions for the app's creators to access their accounts in some fashion; for example to automatically post on the user's page when they achieve a ... (view more)

When you've got as much money as Google, you can afford to try out some crazy-sounding ideas. But none are quite as wacky as the company's latest project: self-driving cars. The search engine giant has been trying out the system in California ... recently. It involves a combination of robotics, road data and processing power. Self-Driving Car Use Lasers, Radar Sensors The technology includes video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder, all of which are designed to detect the position of other vehicles and adjust the car's movement appropriately. The data was collected by Google cars ... (view more)

Verizon will issue refunds to around 15 million customers after mistakenly charging them for non-existent data use. But the company may wind up paying a bigger price for the error. Phone Users Victims of 'Technical Errors' in Billing In a statement ... attributed to deputy chief counsel Mary Coyne, the company said the mistaken bills were issued over the past several years. It said the customers did not have data plans, but were victims of technical errors, either with phone software sending and receiving "minor" data, or being billed for following web links that shouldn't have incurred data ... (view more)

Wal-Mart will soon compete with the major cellphone networks by selling its own calling plan. The world's largest retailer will offer exceptionally low rates on voice calls and texts, though its data charges may be too expensive for many users. The ... chain will be acting as a virtual operator, meaning it licenses bandwidth from a mobile network (T-Mobile in this case), and resells it to customers. Its plan, dubbed "Family Mobile", costs $45 a month for one line and $25 a month for each additional line, with unlimited US calls and texts. That's substantially lower than what major networks ... (view more)