The U.S. Commerce Department announced yesterday that it plans to restrict American companies from doing business with semiconductor startup Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. Micron Technology has accused the state-owned Chinese chipmaker of stealing company secrets, which has raised concerns regarding national and economic security. The restriction will prevent U.S. firms from selling software and goods to Jinhua, which relies on U.S. technology to build its chips. The announcement is the latest in an ongoing battle with China over intellectual property issues. Continue reading U.S. Restricts Business Interaction with Chinese Chipmaker

IBM and open-source software provider Red Hat announced that they have reached an acquisition agreement. Marking what will be the third-largest tech acquisition in U.S. history, IBM will purchase all issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat in a deal valued at approximately $34 billion. Red Hat is the largest distributor of open-source operating system Linux. The deal reflects IBM’s ambitions for a piece of the fast-growing cloud computing market. “The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chair, president and chief exec. “It changes everything about the cloud market.” Continue reading IBM Is Buying Red Hat, Aims to Be Top Hybrid Cloud Provider

Apple chief executive Tim Cook is the latest and most prominent executive to call on Bloomberg to retract the claim that its technology supply-chain had been corrupted by Chinese surveillance microchips. According to two Bloomberg reports this month, Chinese spies infiltrated the technology supply chain with a surveillance microchip installed by Silicon Valley-based server company Supermicro. Those tiny chips ended up in the data center hardware of as many as 30 companies, including Amazon and Apple, added the report. Continue reading Apple’s Tim Cook Asks Bloomberg to Retract China Spy Story

Swedish-based Yubico, in business for 10 years, debuted its latest online security product, YubiKey 5, a device that plugs into a computer to authenticate the user with a “handshake” that is more secure than a password or authentication code. Google has come out with a similar device, the Titan Key. Both devices can also be used with some smartphones, by plugging into a port or via a wireless communication. These keys are the first arrivals in an Internet security strategy that might displace the password. Continue reading Google, Yubico Security Keys May Lead to End of Passwords

Facebook’s internal investigation into the recent data breach that affected 30 million user accounts has concluded that the hack was the work of spammers disguised as a digital marketing company, and not foreign nationals. Facebook believes the attack was initiated by a group of Facebook and Instagram spammers that intended to make money by means of deceptive advertising. The FBI is continuing its investigation into the hack, which is the worst security breach in the social network’s 14-year history. Continue reading Facebook Says Spammers, Not Nation-State, Behind Breach

Semiconductor manufacturer ARM, a division of Japan’s SoftBank, and Silicon Valley tech giant Intel have put aside a longstanding rivalry in order to forge a strategic partnership that will adopt common standards developed by Intel for the Internet of Things. The lack of such standards to manage the security of IoT devices, networks and data has been a stumbling block to the growth of the sector. Gartner analyst Bill Ray explains that NXP Semiconductors, Renesas Electronics and Microchip Technology’s Atmel rely on ARM designs, while Intel’s processors dominate today’s cloud data center market. Continue reading ARM and Intel Team on Common Standards for IoT Devices

Just last week, Facebook announced its two new Portal video chat devices featuring 12-megapixel cameras with HD video and AI-powered software. New information suggests that the social giant is also readying a camera-equipped device codenamed “Ripley,” designed to work with your TV for video calling in addition to entertainment services including Facebook Watch. According to an insider with direct knowledge of the project, Ripley — which will use the same core tech as Portal — is likely to be announced by the spring of 2019. Continue reading Facebook Reportedly Building a TV Cam for Streaming Video

Facebook downgraded the number of users hacked two weeks ago to 30 million, revealing that the personal information stolen was more substantial for 14 million of the those hacked, including gender, religion, telephone number, email addresses and computing devices used to connect to Facebook. Hackers also captured the last 15 people or things the user had searched for on Facebook and the last 10 physical locations he had checked into. Another 15 million profiles were scraped for names and contact information. Continue reading Facebook Offers More Hack Details, Exposes Web Scraping

Facebook debuted Portal and Portal Plus, two video-calling devices, which sport a 12-megapixel camera with HD video and AI-empowered software — all in the service of video chatting. The AI is used to allow the camera to follow users. Portal and Portal Plus also include Amazon Alexa to play music or check the weather. Portal, with a 10-inch screen, is priced at $199, and Portal Plus, with a 15-inch screen that can be rotated, goes for $349. The devices will debut during the holiday season on a standalone website. Continue reading Facebook Unveils Video-Calling Devices Portal, Portal Plus

As we reported last week, Bloomberg published a story claiming that China had secretly installed microchips on motherboards built by Supermicro that were used in data center servers of companies such as Apple and Amazon. In the first official response from the U.S. government, Homeland Security issued a statement indicating that it has “no reason to doubt” the denials issued by Apple, Amazon and Supermicro in the wake of the report. The Homeland Security statement is similar to comments released by the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre. Continue reading Government Backs Apple and Amazon Denials of Spy Chips

Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan and city attorney Pete Holmes plan to sue the FCC over its decision to preempt local rules on 5G deployment — and will also coordinate with other cities on that lawsuit. The Portland City Council voted on Tuesday to approve the lawsuit, reported The Oregonian, which added that there is a growing list of cities preparing to join the fight. Although most of those cities are on the West Coast, others including New York City, Boston and rural areas have also been vocal against the FCC’s move. Continue reading Seattle to Lead Cities’ Fight Against FCC’s 5G Rollout Order

The Justice Department’s National Security Division claims that seven hackers suspected of working with Russia’s GRU military intelligence unit were part of a conspiracy to hack multiple organizations including the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Democratic National Committee, a nuclear energy company and several media outlets. The Fancy Bear cyber espionage group, also known as Sofacy or APT28, is accused of launching a disinformation campaign leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and “hacking to obtain non-public, health information about athletes and others in the files of anti-doping agencies in multiple countries.” Continue reading Justice Department Accuses Russian Spies of Cyberattacks

According to a Bloomberg Businessweek cover story today, Chinese spies infiltrated nearly 30 U.S. companies including Amazon and Apple by embedding tiny chips into servers in the technology supply chain. In 2015, malicious microchips were reportedly embedded in servers bound for U.S. companies, which resulted in compromised software used in numerous hardware devices. While the report cites former government officials and “senior insiders” at Apple, both Amazon and Apple — as well as motherboard manufacturer Supermicro and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — have firmly disputed the findings. Continue reading China Reportedly Used Tiny Chips to Hack U.S. Companies

In its third security breach reported since June, Facebook announced on Friday that hackers had leveraged a security vulnerability in order to attack its computer network and access the personal accounts of about 50 million of its social platform users. In the two other breaches, hackers unblocked individuals that had been previously blocked by Facebook users, and users’ share settings were manipulated without permission. As a result of this latest breach, “the attackers could use the account as if they are the account holder,” according to Guy Rosen, VP product management for Facebook. Continue reading Facebook Reveals Another Attack on its Computer Network

The public cloud is significantly impacting media by moving information technology into a world of utility where compute and storage are available as needed — easy to implement and decommission. It provides a flexible infrastructure for a media-centric world increasingly based on analytics where experimentation is the foundation of digital transformation. The media industry is changing — from the way content is produced and managed to the methods used to protect, optimize, distribute and analyze that content. These changes to the value chain have created enormous pressures (and opportunities) for creative professionals. Continue reading Hybrid Cloud Becoming an Effective Tool for Media Analytics