Expertise

Summer reading for tech heads - part 2

Cynthia Karena  In the second of two articles, we complete your handy guide to the must-read books of the season.

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3D printing

Fighter jets fly with 3D printed parts

Neil Lancefield  British fighter jets have flown for the first time with parts made using 3D printing technology.

Security

Hacker Barnaby Jack died from accidental overdose: coroner

The sudden death of prominent hacker Barnaby Jack was due to an accidental overdose of heroin, cocaine and other drugs, a coroner's report says.

Lawsuit

BlackBerry sues Ryan Seacrest's company over iPhone keyboard

Alastair Sharp  BlackBerry has filed a lawsuit against a company that offers a physical keyboard that can be attached to Apple's iPhone 5.

Surveillance

NSA to keep collecting phone records, US spy court rules

Stephen Braun, Kimberly Dozier  A secretive US spy court has ruled again that the NSA can keep collecting every American's telephone records every day.

Expertise

2014 summer reading: brush up on your tech knowledge

Cynthia Karena  There's nothing like a few quiet days, a lounge chair and a couple of good books to expand our horizons. Part one.

Security

NSA researching quantum computer to crack most encryption

Steven Rich, Barton Gellman  The NSA is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world.

Digital currency

eBay may launch its own digital currency

Todd Wasserman  eBay's PayPal unit has filed a patent application proposing secure tokens that could potentially be used as a virtual currency.

Acquisition

FireEye buys cyber forensics firm Mandiant for $1 billion

Jim Finkle  Cyber security company FireEye has acquired Mandiant in a cash-and-stock deal worth more than $1 billion.

Mobiles

BlackBerry and Alicia Keys to part ways

Alicia Keys and BlackBerry will cut ties at the end of the month, just one year after Keys joined the struggling smartphone maker as a "global creative director".

Security

Snapchat hacked, leaking 4.6 million usernames and numbers

Anita Li  4.6 million Snapchat usernames and numbers have leaked after hackers exploited a security flaw exposed by Australians and posted the information online.

Hacking

Skype's Twitter, Facebook and blog hacked by SEA

Anita Li  Skype's Facebook, Twitter and official blog are the latest hacking victims of the Syrian Electronic Army.

Broadband

Australian broadband speeds inconsistent, patchy: study

Lucy Battersby  More than a third of Australian premises with access to fixed broadband never get more than moderate speeds of 9 megabits per second.

Audio

Monster looks to rebuild brand after loss

Jonathan Landrum jnr  Even though Monster has ended its partnership with Beats Electronics, its CEO says it has the pieces in place to regain its mojo.

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Security

NSA can turn your iPhone into a spyPhone, says privacy advocate

Raphael Satter  The NSA can plant malicious software on Apple's iPhone, turning one of the world's most popular smartphones into a pocket-sized spy, according to a leading security expert.

Business

Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

Gerry Shih  Reddit, the self-dubbed "Front Page of the Internet", is going for a milestone it has been trying to reach since its founding in 2005: profitability.

Year ahead

Eric Schmidt's tech predictions for 2014

Seth Fiegerman  Eric Schmidt highlights the growing importance of big data and the rise of personal genetics, but the key trend boils down to one word: mobile.

Security

NSA hacking methods revealed

Raphael Satter  The NSA intercepts computer deliveries, exploits hardware flaws, and even hijacks Microsoft's internal reporting system, according to a report.

Hacking

BBC hacked on Christmas Day

Jim Finkle  A hacker secretly took over a computer server at the BBC on Christmas Day.

Executive pay

Apple CEO Tim Cook receives pay rise

Ari Levy  Apple CEO Tim Cook received compensation valued at $4.8 million this year, a 1.9 per cent increase on 2012, even as the company's stock gains lagged the S&P; 500.

Year in review

Top 10 most-viewed IT Pro articles in 2013

Ben Grubb  We take a look at the IT Pro stories that captured your imaginations in 2013.

Year ahead

Tech innovations to expect in 2014

Jon Swartz  As Apple, Twitter and Samsung compete for domination, the old guard has not yet given up in the fight for the electronic dollar.

Opinion

Edward Snowden revelations only the beginning

Ryan Gallagher  Edward Snowden's actions have triggered what appears to be a vital culture shift on the issue secrecy.

Spying

Using pigeons to avoid surveillance is not as crazy as it sounds

Rex Troumbley  As governments increasingly block or monitor internet communications, could pigeons be the answer to transporting data securely?

Web

Google edges Apple as most talked about company of 2013

Salvador Rodriguez  When it came to being mentioned by the media, Google was the top company in 2013, just edging out rival Apple.

Online shopping

Amazon says it sold 426 items a second on cyber Monday

Salvador Rodriguez  Amazon.com sold almost 37 million items on cyber Monday, at a pace of 426 a second to be exact.

Gadgets

Coming soon: next-gen sex gizmos turn foreplay into gameplay

Alex Hawgood  For the modern-day pleasure seeker, stimulation is rendered in a series of 1s and 0s.

Wearables

Device implants push the boundaries of what it means to be human

Steve Johnson  It's likely the world in the not-so-distant future will be increasingly populated by computerised people like Amal Graafstra.

Jobs

New Year to bring some cheer to IT jobs market

Sylvia Penningon  Christmas came and the geese got fat but did anyone put a penny in the IT professional's hat?

Surveillance

Snowden says today's surveillance worse than '1984'

Jonathan D. Salant  Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden says government surveillance is worse than anything envisioned by George Orwell in his novel 1984.

Smartphones

BlackBerry founder walks away from takeover, reduces stake

Ian King  BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis walked away from a possible takeover plan and reduced his stake in the struggling smartphone maker.

Fine

Apple fined in Taiwan for fair trade violation

Taiwanese authorities have slapped a fine of $Tw20 million ($746,000) on tech giant Apple for violating a fair trade law over local iPhone pricing.

Predictions

Security predictions for 2014

Cynthia Karena  Unless you're planning a return to typewriters to avoid data leaks as the Kremlin reportedly did, you'll need to be aware of the ever-changing information security landscape.

Security

Major security vulnerability in Samsung's Galaxy S4: researchers

Salvador Rodriguez  Researchers claim to have found a major hole in Samsung's Knox security software that leaves Galaxy S4 devices used for enterprise and government work vulnerable to hackers.

Surveillance

Mission accomplished, says Edward Snowden

Barton Gellman  The cascading effects of Edward Snowden's revelations have made themselves felt in Congress, the courts, popular culture, Silicon Valley and world capitals.

Business

BlackBerry deal bolsters Foxconn's makeover gambit

Clare Jim, Poornima Gupta  Foxconn's BlackBerry deal marks the Taiwanese firm's biggest step up the value chain - a chance to not just assemble smartphones, but help design them, too.

3D

3D holographic video calls a step closer

Drew Turney  "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi ... you're my only hope" might have been the first vision of a teleconferencing technology being developed in the US.

Business

Acer names Jason Chen as new CEO

Taiwan's struggling PC maker Acer has named a new chief executive following losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in the third quarter.

Currency

Bitcoin: fad, or currency of the future?

Nick Bilton  As the value of Bitcoin continues to increase, experts say there is a need for digital currency in the future.

Mobiles

Apple reaches deal to sell iPhones through China Mobile

Apple has struck a deal to sell the iPhone through China Mobile, giving both companies a means to fight declining share in the world's largest mobile market.

Analysis

Is this finally BlackBerry's last chance?

Will Oremus  BlackBerry released its third-quarter earnings report last week, and, well, let's just say that "earnings" is a misnomer.

Broadband

NBN alternatives: fibre to the node or HFC cable?

Adam Turner  HFC cable has the potential to outperform fibre to the node, but only after a significant and expensive network upgrade.

Business

Microsoft executive charged with insider trading

US authorities have charged a Microsoft executive and his friend and business partner with insider trading.

Stock

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg to sell $4.4 billion in shares

Kim McLaughlin, Ruth David  Mark Zuckerberg is selling Facebook shares to help pay taxes, joining the company and board member Marc Andreessen in an offering worth $4.4 billion.

Spying

NSA review calls for halt to indiscriminate data collection

Nick O'Malley  The US government should cease systematically collecting the phone records of all Americans, instead leaving the information in private hands unless it has specific cause to access it, a panel established by the President in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks has found.

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Hacking

Target customers hit by major credit card hack in US

Brian Krebs  Retail giant Target is investigating a data breach potentially involving millions of customer credit and debit card records.

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Broadband

The $1b difference between Labor's and the new NBN

Lucy Battersby  Hidden within the recently released NBN strategic review is a surprising fact.

Predictions

What's hot for 2014

Cynthia Karena  In the first of two predictions snapshots, IT Pro talks to futurists, leading technology researchers and some of those deep in future technologies in Australia to paint the 2014 picture.

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