NEWSTUFFY TECH

The US asks to remove a million Galaxy Note 7 due to explosion risk

Also, aviation authorities in the United States and Japan have asked passengers not to turn on or charge the device during flights

The United States has announced the withdrawal of nearly one million Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones purchased before September 15, since they present explosion risks, adding to the decision adopted by other countries.

The Consumer Protection Commission (CPSC) formalized the call for withdrawal, in progress in 10 countries, after reports of flawed batteries that caused some phones to explode while being charged.

The CPSC has pointed out that 92 incidents of overheated batteries have been recorded in the United States, including 26 incidents that caused burns and 55 incidents of property damage, such as vehicle fires and parking lots.

The announcement affects about one million devices out of a total of 2.5 million cell phones called to be removed worldwide, which has put under a black cloud the South Korean giant, the largest seller of smartphones in the world.

Temporary device

Samsung advised consumers in ten countries to switch their Galaxy Note 7 to a temporary device while finalizing a new version. However, many users have ignored the offer, choosing to wait until the new model is available and criticized the inconvenience of the temporary change.

The different regulations between the countries, as well as the different reactions among the users, have caused a certain degree of uncertainty and confusion among the customers, making it difficult for Samsung to take out the phones as quickly as possible. In an attempt to steal Apple's market, the Note 7 was launched prematurely in the US market.

Also, the US and Japanese aviation authorities have asked flight passengers not to turn on or charge the Note 7 during flights.

Cellnex closes the acquisition of 230 telecommunication towers to Bouygues Telecom

This is the first phase of the agreement announced in July that includes an extension to 500 towers

   Cellnex Telecom today closed the first phase of the agreement announced last July for the acquisition of a package of 230 telecommunications towers to Bouygues Telecom in France. The investment, of 80 million euros, opens the doors to the French market and consolidates its profile as an independent operator of wireless telecommunications infrastructures with European coverage. Cellnex and Bouygues are already working on the second phase of the agreement in July, which contemplates a possible extension to 500 towers.

   As pointed out by Tobías Martínez, CEO of Cellnex at the time of announcing this first agreement with Bouygues Telecom, "This is the beginning of a long-term collaboration that opens the door to other areas of interest such as the construction of new sites to demand (Build to Suit) or the deployment of new technologies based on small cells for mobile broadband. We reinforce our European reach and with it the capacity to build agreements and alliances with clients that operate in different European countries to which we can offer connectivity solutions for telecommunications ».

The agreement with Bouygues Telecom

The first phase of the agreement reached with Bouygues Telecom, signed today, involves the acquisition and integration of 230 wireless data transmission and mobile telephony transmission sites. The operation, which represents an investment of 80 million euros, opens a long-term collaboration with one of the main mobile telephony operators in France. The acquisition of this portfolio of towers is accompanied by a service contract from Cellnex to Bouygues Telecom that extends for a period of 20 years.

The aforementioned towers are distributed throughout the French territory, mostly in rural and suburban areas, with a small percentage in urban areas. In a second phase, which is expected to close before next December 31, this initial package of 230 towers can be extended to 500.

Bouygues Telecom is, by turnover, the third largest mobile operator in France. It currently has a portfolio of 11,000 transmission sites. The French company has begun in recent years a progressive process of separation and sale of its non-strategic infrastructure assets, in line with the trend of outsourcing and operation of these by neutral and independent operators such as Cellnex Telecom.

The French market

France has 56,000 of the 330,000 sites for telecommunication signaling deployed in Western Europe. Just over 20% of the total sites are managed by independent operators.

With an AA rating of S & P and Fitch, France is in full deployment in the territory of 4G mobile broadband, reaching coverage ranging from 60% to just over 75% of the population according to the operator. Deployment, which, as in other European countries, is being carried out on the basis of existing sites for 2G and 3G.

The improvement of coverage and mobile access to broadband content in areas with a large number of simultaneous users is one of the challenges of the future and a priority. In this sense, the deployment of networks with high density and capillarity, small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS in English) will be some of the vectors of the growth of the French market in the coming years.

Young people forget the risks of social networks

More than half of millennials accept strangers in their internet profiles

   49% of millennials say they are not willing to set their privacy on social networks and 53% say they do not check the identity of people who want to contact them, according to the results of an online study by YouGov that collects in a report the company Blue Coat, that has been recently acquired by Symantec.

The study suggests that organizations are still exposed to an increasing number of sophisticated cyber attacks hidden in social engineering.

   Despite the increase in the use of social networking applications, both inside and outside the professional world, the study reveals how workers still do not adequately protect themselves from complex social engineering techniques such as cyber attacks (phishing), a form of fraud in that hackers pretend to be organizations or individuals to trick users into clicking or downloading malicious programs, and getting hold of sensitive information such as access credentials or passwords.

The behavior of users has not improved in the last year and, in some cases, has even worsened. While in certain areas or departments you can see a better domain of social networks, others provide today's hackers with numerous opportunities to be used.

Among the data collected, for example, in 2016 42% of the participants affirmed that they only accept requests for friendship in social networks of previously known people, which represents a slight decrease from 43% in 2015 and, therefore, a greater predisposition to accept requests from strangers.

Privacy and configuration for access to information is still a problem, with only 40% of participants that in 2016 recognize configuring their accounts to allow only certain people to see their profiles. When it comes to connecting with other people, 41% of the participants of 2016 recognize that they check the identities of those who request access, a small improvement compared to 38% in 2015.

Researchers prove the use of smartphones to detect skin cancer

IBM Research workers are working on the use of the phone camera to identify melanoma markers

   Researchers at IBM Research are working on the use of the phone's camera to identify melanoma markers through analysis of skin images made with the mobile phone and detect skin cancer.

Dermascope, as the system is called, works by storing the images and comparing them with photographs from the skin cancer database, in order to estimate the likelihood that the lesion is melanoma or not.

A system that, they explain, is more precious than that of dermatologists: 76% of correct answers of the artificial intelligence system compared to 70% of dermatologists.

   The methodology is simple, according to Mashable: when someone sees a questionable point on their skin, they use the phone's camera, take a photograph in the exact place and send the image to be evaluated by an analysis service that recognizes and identifies reliably if it is a disease or not thanks to a large database.

The researcher Noel Codella, in charge of this research, explains that tools like this could help a doctor to quickly check if there is or there is no risk to the skin, since "emergency dermatologists are not always available." "The IBM computer system can work as a substitute," explains Codella.

However, it is not yet known when this technology could be available to the public and described it as "a research project".

Airbnb expands its business as a travel agency

In what it describes as "the most important evolution in its eight years of existence", the platform announces the launch of 'Trips', a new application that offers services such as "experiences" and "places"

   Airbnb wants to go beyond its usual business with hotels and aims to expand its influence to all the activities of its users during their trips, with new features disclosed this Thursday.

"The ultimate vision of Airbnb is to satisfy all aspects of a trip" of the users, the online platform has pointed out in a statement.

   In what it describes as "the most important evolution in its eight years of existence", Airbnb announces the launch of 'Trips', a new application that offers services baptized as "experiences" and "places".

The first allows you to book activities proposed by "local experts" presented by Airbnb, for example, go hunting for truffles in Tuscany or driving legendary vehicles in Miami.

The platform announces 500 possible "experiences" in cities such as Paris, London, Florence, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Havana, Nairobi, Tokyo or Seoul.

The hosts of some 50 cities around the world will be able to propose activities that they organize in the list of "experiences".

"Having transformed the place where people stay when they travel, through the hospitality of the people," Airbnb wants to use this approach "for the rest of the trip and, in this way, to give a way for people to do money thanks to their passions and interests, "the company said.

In the menu of "places" there is a kind of interactive travel guide, with recommendations from local residents about bars, restaurants, parks, cafes or the best itinerary for a walk.

Airbnb has also announced an alliance with Resy, a service for restaurant reservations, and with Detour, which offers audios for walking tours in some cities.

In the long term, the online platform plans to add supplementary menus to book flights.

In addition to diversifying its services, Airbnb has announced a new mechanism to authenticate the identity of its users. The organizers and participants of the "experiences" should take a selfie and scan their identification. This procedure is also being tested for hosting services.

Airbnb, headquartered in San Francisco, is next to the transport multinational Uber leader of the "shared economies", but its growth is framed in the controversy, mainly by an inequality in the conditions of competition with local companies that offer the same services .

Mobile devices, preferred for cyber threats

15% of attacks affect users through smarthphones or tablets

The diversity and sophistication of cyber attacks, as well as the increase in the number of devices used today by both companies and users, currently require a synchronized security strategy to keep the information safe.

This was one of the main conclusions drawn in the Sophos Day 2016, the event organized by Sophos Iberia, global leader in security for network protection and endpoints, which has brought together more than 300 professionals from the cybersecurity sector in Madrid.

"Traditional antivirus is no longer enough to deal with the increasingly advanced cyber attacks, and Sophos has seen that a synchronized security strategy to protect our information from cybercriminals, anti-exploit solutions such as Sophos Intercept X, makes the difference. In addition, when we talk about cybersecurity today, we must do so taking into account all the devices we use, not just the PCs ", warns John Shaw, vice president of product of Sophos.

A sign that cybercriminals not only attack computers, is the increase in threats to mobile devices. Shaw notes that 15% of cyberthreats affect users through smarthphones or tablets, doubling the number of threats compared to last year.

On the other hand, John Shier, expert in cybersecurity of Sophos, says that in Spain there is a wide diversity of cyberthreats, although ransomware is one of its most visible faces nowadays, we must not forget other vulnerabilities detected by Sophos laboratories. .

Artificial intelligence is capable of retouching photos

Facebook creates a tool that works on a 'smartphone' without wasting computational power

   Facebook has gone one step further in its race to deploy artificial intelligence in its services. The latest announcement has been the launch of Caffe2Go and a set of models that make small photo retouching.

This innovative software is formed by neural networks that transform images directly. The main change that the application presents is that the entire computing is done from the smartphone itself.

   Mark Zuckerberg's company joins other multinationals in the sector such as Apple and Google, which have already introduced artificial intelligence in software that runs on the device itself and not in the cloud.

With Caffe2Go, the company seems to have discovered a way to integrate the AI ​​into the device itself in many more products.

This could include the recognition of gestures or images in the near future, and it is not difficult to imagine that it adopts a similar approach to feed voice recognition or sound synthesis.