Mike Wheatley
Latest from Mike Wheatley
Federal Circuit Upholds Patent on “Viewing Ads Online”
Concerns have been raised that a recent decision by the Federal Circuit court of appeal could lead to an escalation in so-called patent abuse in the technology industry. The decision, which was taken last Friday, upheld a controversial patent owned by a company called Ultramericial, and has been called a “missed opportunity” to finally rein ...
Microsoft – Oracle Cloud Alliance Boosts Azure in Battle with AWS
Enterprise giants Microsoft and Oracle appear to have put aside some of their differences after announcing a major deal regarding their enterprise cloud services. In a surprise press call yesterday afternoon, the two companies divulged details of an unlikely alliance that was first hinted at by Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison during the company’s Q4 earnings ...
Flickr Flaw Leaves Yahoo Mail Accounts Exposed to Hackers
Fresh security fears have been raised over Yahoo’s email service since last month’s update of Flickr.com, the photo-sharing website that’s integrated with the wider Yahoo network. The concerns have to do with the way the services are inextricably linked together – i.e., when you log into one service, you’re automatically logged into the other at ...
Project Tempora: How the British GCHQ Helps the NSA Spy on US Citizens
Amidst all the media excitement over Ed Snowden’s dramatic flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, one story that slipped under the radar at the end of last week relates how the UK’s version of the NSA, the GCHQ, has been secretly tapping into the fiber optic systems running into and out of the British Isles. ...
Bitcoin Foundation Under Attack in California
Bitcoin has just found itself a new enemy in the shape of the California Department of Financial Institutions, which has just sent a cease-and-desist letter to the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that’s devoted to promoting best practices for the cryptocurrency. The California Department of Financial Institutions, which regulates banks and credit unions in the ...
Feeding the Patent Trolls: Here’s Their Side of the Story
When something as mundane as using Wi-Fi in a coffee shop or making an online purchase with your smartphone provokes a lawsuit, it’s clear that the legal system is seriously flawed. Unfortunately, that’s the way things have been in the US for a number of years now, but with any luck, it might be about ...
What’s Up With Mt. Gox? US Dollar Withdrawals Suspended for “Next Two Weeks”
As the world’s most popular Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox sees a huge amount of traffic with thousands of users each day transferring money into the exchange to buy the virtual currency, or else to sell their Bitcoin and withdraw US dollars or some other currency. Now, it’s claiming that the levels of traffic are so ...
How to Squeeze 1,000 Terabytes of Data onto a Single DVD
DVDs and Blu-ray discs probably don’t get as much respect as they deserve from technophiles, simply because the amount of data they can store in comparison to hard drives or flash is minuscule. But that could be about to change thanks to researchers at Swinburne University in Australia, who believe they’ve found a way to ...
Leaked FISA Documents Show The NSA Can Access US Data Without a Warrant
The Guardian has just released a new bunch of FISA documents relating to the NSA’s PRISM spying program, in particular regarding the circumstances under which it can can collect data on US citizens, and the measures it must take to “minimize” that data. Until now, the government has insisted that these rules help to ensure ...
Hackers Make Short Work of Photoshop CC: Get Your Pirate Copy Now!
Although Adobe has never explicitly stated that one of the motivating factors behind its decision to transform its Creative Cloud into a subscription-only cloud service was to curb software piracy, doing so was surely one of its intentions. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked. Fstoppers is reporting this morning that a hacked version of Photoshop CC is ...