Alexa Now Can Dash Off Text Messages to Android Phones

Amazon on Tuesday introduced new functionality that enables its Alexa virtual assistant to send and receive SMS messages on devices running Android 5.0 or higher. Carrier charges may apply. Alexa, the software that powers the Echo line of smart speakers, can play and send personalized messages from contacts for users who have set up voice profiles. Users will hear a chime when they have a new SMS message, and see a yellow light ring on their Echo device. They'll also be notified in the Alexa App.

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Privacy-Minded Smart Speaker May Struggle to Get to Know You

Mycroft AI earlier this week announced that its Mark II smart speaker achieved full funding on Kickstarter in just 6.5 hours. As of Wednesday, pledges reached more than three times its $50K goal -- with 23 days remaining in the campaign. The Mark II is positioned as an open source alternative to the dominant Amazon Echo line of smart speakers and its main challenger, the Google Home device. One of the main draws of the Mark II is its emphasis on maintaining user privacy, an increasing concern as the market for smart home devices has exploded.

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A global heatmap from GPS-tracking company Strava that tracks people's exercise habits could pose security risks for military forces around the world.

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Digital artist Jan Frojdman spent three weeks shifting through 33,000 images obtained from NASA to create this 3D model of Mars.

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Alphabet's New Chronicle Promises to Speed Threat Data Analysis

Alphabet has launched Chronicle, a new cybersecurity venture, following two years of development at the Alphabet X research lab. Chronicle will include VirusTotal, a Google-owned cybersecurity and intelligence platform and malware intelligence service. The idea behind Chronicle stems from the fact that many companies receive tens of thousands of security alerts per day, said the new firm's CEO Stephen Gillett. Typically, security teams can filter those alerts to a few thousand, and at best, review several hundred at a time.

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The Ironic Weirdness of Apple and Intel vs. Qualcomm

I am not remotely religious, but recently it has become harder and harder to ignore that things have become incredibly ironic of late -- as if a divine being with control over the world decided to prank us. For example, take President Trump. During the campaign, everything he made fun of others for doing -- including drinking water badly, playing too much golf, slacking off and slurring words -- he has done himself, in glorious living color. Also, he appears to be on a path that eventually will get him locked up. Given his "lock her up" theatrics at rallies, that would be incredibly ironic.

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A global heatmap from GPS-tracking company Strava that tracks people's exercise habits could pose security risks for military forces around the world.

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NYC Data Science Academy CTO Vivian Zhang: Do the Difficult Things First

In the data science field today, "the big problem is that the industry does not have official data science training," observed Vivian Zhang, CTO of the NYC Data Science Academy. "Their majors don't teach them anything in the industry. We've become a natural transition funnel to bring those people in. Companies know that data science is important, but they don't know how to do it. So we help to train and select and qualify the candidates. The field changes so fast, and there are changes happening every day."

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SolydXK Plasma Rewards Effort With Stunning Results

SolydXK is a Debian-based Linux distribution that comes with a choice of the Xfce or KDE desktop. The latest edition of SolydXK, released this month, provides a state-of-the-art Linux platform. Since I first reviewed the SoldXK distro back in 2013, it has grown into a reputable Linux offering built around two popular computing options. Those two desktop options drew me to the Linux OS years ago. Both have their strong points. Xfce is one of the older workhorse desktops and is a choice I often make when looking at new distro releases.

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Apple Spotlights Key iOS 11.3 Features

Apple has unveiled new features that will become available when iOS 11.3 is released this spring. The company released the developer preview to members of the iOS Developer Program, and a public beta of the update is expected shortly. The update will provide new ways to experience augmented reality on the iPhone and iPad, offer new Animoji on the iPhone X, and give users a consolidated view of their health records in the Health app. A beta version of ARKit -- Apple's AR dev platform for iOS mobile devices -- also has been released to devs.

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Intel Reports Progress on Patch-Related Performance Issues

Intel appears to have encountered some daylight in its struggle to fix performance issues related to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. The company has identified the root cause on its older Broadwell and Haswell platforms, according to Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel's data center group. Intel has begun rolling out a solution to its industry partners for testing, Shenoy said, but the company urged OEMs, cloud providers, software vendors, end users and others to stop deployment of existing versions.

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Apple's HomePod Set to Barge Into Hot Speaker Market

HomePod, Apple's long-awaited entry into the torrid smart speaker market, will be available Feb. 9, the company announced Tuesday. The HomePod, which is not quite 7 inches tall, will be offered in white and space gray. It can be pre-ordered at Apple's website for $349 starting Friday. Unlike other smart speakers, which support a variety of music services out of the gate, HomePod will support the Apple Music subscription service exclusively. Although it has a catalog of 45 million songs, that limitation could curb initial sales of the product.

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Quest Updates Toad Open Source Database Tools

Quest Software on Monday announced a series of updates to its Toad open source database software applications, including new versions of its Toad Edge, Toad Data Point and Toad Intelligence Central products. After launching the first version of Toad Edge last summer, the company began seeing an uptick in downloads of freeware that supported MySQL on its Toad World community site. It also received requests to support MariaDB and Postgres, according to Julie Hyman, senior product manager at Quest. The company began supporting MariaDB last month.

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Batteries in New iPhones Could Have Shorter Life Spans

There was some bad news for owners of the latest iPhone models on Monday. Batteries in the iPhone 8 and X may have shorter life spans than those in prior models. Typically, phone batteries begin losing their effectiveness after 500 recharges. Up to that point, they can hold up to 80 percent of their charge. After that, it's usually downhill for the battery. After only four months, iPhone 8 Plus owner Adrian Kingsley-Hughes found that his phone was racking up recharge cycles at an alarming rate.

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New lifesaving drone rescues swimmers

A new lifesaving drone has been used to rescue two teenagers from the rough seas off the coast of Australia's Lennox Head, New South Wales.

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Two swimmers were in serious trouble off the coast of Australia, until a drone came to their rescue.

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