Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

After an 18-month lull, Windows Phone took a step closer to an upgrade on Monday as Microsoft released version 8.1 of the operating system to developers Unlike most developer versions of software, however, consumers can download and run the latest edition of Windows Phone on their mobile device -- as long as they're willing to void its warranty unt...

The tech industry reeled last week when security researchers discovered a flaw in a key security technology in the Internet's infrastructure ...

Consumers can do little to protect themselves from the catastrophic Heartbleed bug "Catastrophic is the right word," wrote security guru Bruce Schneier in his blog this week. "On the scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11."

Up to now, Google's smart eyeware, Glass, largely has been considered a diversion for gadget lovers, but the company on Tuesday announced a new program to encourage its use in the workplace "Today, there are thousands of consumers out there enjoying Glass in ways that are both practical and inspirational," a Google spokesperson said in a statement ...

Microsoft added to its list of original programming for its Xbox gaming system Monday with the announcement of a new science fiction series called Humans. Humans -- based on the Swedish TV series Real Humans -- is a cooperative effort of Xbox Entertainment Studios and UK broadcaster Channel 4. It is scheduled to air next year exclusively on the X...

The steady stream of reports on government surveillance of Americans has taken a toll on the image of high-tech companies, according to a Harris poll More than two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) feel technology companies violate their users' trust by helping the government spy on its citizens, suggests the poll of 2,000 consumers, which was spons...

Gauging your popularity on Google's social network, Google+, got a little easier Tuesday, as the would-be Facebook competitor added page view analytics Now, when members view their profile page -- which metrics show isn't that often -- they'll see a number beneath their mug indicating the number of times their content -- profile page, posts and pho...

As Microsoft prepares to cut off support for Windows XP, hackers are sharpening their knives in anticipation of carving up the operating system's carcass Web predators will pounce on XP 10 minutes after Microsoft pulls the support plug on the software, predicted one former military computer specialist and network engineer....

Texting while walking can be dangerous, but Apple could be aiming to make it less so, judging from a patent awarded Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Apple has found an innovative way to use an electronic communication device's camera to continuously capture and present video images as background within a text-messaging session, its ...

Ask the Internet That's the pitch in HTC's TV ads for its new flagship smartphone, the HTC One M8. It's a pitch that hopes to acquire by word of mouth what HTC was unable to get for its predecessor: consumer mindshare....

Bogus web traffic is creating a crisis for advertisers on the Web Advertisers pay for page views. They assume that those views are tied to living eyeballs. When those views aren't tied to eyeballs -- as when they're generated by automated means -- advertisers can get testy....

While Twitter rose to notoriety by being the place where people spilled the minutiae of their lives, there are times when its users don't want everyone in the online world to see what they're thinking. For those occasions, there's direct messaging When direct messages are sent by one tweeter to another, there's a certain expectation of privacy ther...

Alibaba is putting some skin in the mobile-messaging game with a US$215 million investment in Tango; the companies announced the funding on Thursday Mobile messaging apps are hot. Facebook recently scooped up WhatsApp for $19 billion, and Japanese e-commerce titan Rakuten recently acquired Viber for $900 million.

Microsoft's tip of a news event next week triggered an avalanche of prophecy that the long-awaited version of Office for the iPad was about to be released. Microsoft is billing the event in San Francisco on March 27 as a "briefing and news focused on the intersection of cloud and mobile computing." While Microsoft officially withheld further detai...

"Target was certified as meeting the standard for the payment card industry in September 2013. Nonetheless, we suffered a data breach." Those words by Target Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Gregg Steinhafel affirmed what security experts know as gospel: Compliance does not equal security "Just because you pass a PCI audit does not ...

Alibaba, which controls 80 percent of the e-commerce in China, is going public -- but not in its native land Alibaba Group on Sunday announced its decision to begin the process of an initial public offering in the United States, saying the move would make it a more global company and enhance its transparency, while allowing it to pursue its long-te...

Target acknowledged Thursday that it put information on a back burner that led to the compromise of more than 100 million customer records and will cost the company millions of dollars in losses "Like any large company, each week at Target there are a vast number of technical events that take place and are logged," said Target spokesperson Molly Sn...

A powerful U.S. senator has accused the CIA of spying on a network drive legislative staffers used to prepare a report on abuses -- including torture -- in the agency's detention and interrogation program The search may have violated not only the separation of powers clause of the U.S. Constitution, but also the Fourth Amendment prohibition against...

Surfing the Internet last year was a dangerous proposition, and it isn't getting any safer.On average, 200 samples of malicious software were collected every minute by McAfee Labs, the company reported Monday in its threat report for the last quarter of 2013 All kinds of Internet nastiness increased last year -- from ransomware and suspicious URLs ...

Trawling porn sites used to be the best way to pick up an electronically transmitted disease on your smartphone. That's not the case anymore Every one in five times a mobile user is redirected to a malware site on the Internet, it's done through a malicious ad, according to a report released last week by Blue Coat. That's three times what it was tw...