The United States President, Donald Trump may not be a man you like, but the truth is you must agree that he’s never boring or previsible. He always have a new idea on his mind running, never thinking of its consequences or consistencies behind it.

After lifting up the idea of creating the first Space Force to police the galaxy, the President now wants his country to develop 6G as soon as possible. Trump used his Twitter to state that he wants 5G and even 6G in the United States as soon as possible, since it is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current 4G LTE standard.

He endorses that American companies should step up their efforts now, or they will be left behind by the rest of the competition.

I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on……… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019

The 5G network will slowly roll out in the U.S. this year and the first smartphone to arrive in the market with this technology will be the Galaxy S10 5G, which will be available this summer. The download speed of the 5G network is expected to be 20 times faster than 4G LTE.

The new faster speed will allow the creation of new services and businesses and will give more strength to existant segments like video streaming service. When coming to 6G, despite some internal talks of the start of development of this new technology, there are no 6G standards for now, and it’s too soon to even talk about it. The United States President continued its speech by saying:

….something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. We must always be the leader in everything we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019

Currently, Huawei is the leader of the segment, being followed by Nokia, Ericsson, and ZTE. Despite the lack of basis behind some comments of the President, this isn’t a bad idea, after all, more competition will expand the offer for consumers, thus not allowing a monopoly or control over a new technology that will represent another important step for the future of the Mobile industry.

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BuyPower online payment service lets you purchase electricity units (tokens) instantaneously anywhere, anytime in Nigeria by making use of your internet-enabled smart phone or computer. It saves you from queuing and time wasting whenever you want to recharge your pre-paid meter in Nigeria. 

You can start making use of the service by visiting www.buypower.ng or by making use of buypower app for Android. Internet connection is needed for you to be able to make use of the service.
The interesting part of it is that, you can buy electricity units for your loved ones at buypower.ng i.e if the prepaid meter is not registered in your name, you can still make payment to get the token to be recharged on the pre-paid meter. All you need to have handy, is the pre-paid meter number.

How To Buy PrePaid Meter Units Online In Nigeria At BuyPower.Ng

• Type the url buypower.ng in a browser [ Laptop, phone, Tablet or Desktop ]
• If you do not have an account on the platform click on the “register button” on the home page and enter your details on the next page.
• If you have an account on the platform click on the “login button” on the home page and enter your login details.
• Once you login through any of the methods mentioned above, you would be taken to the order page.
• On the Order page, Enter your Meter Number, the Amount you want to purchase, and select the payment method.
• You would be taken to a confirmation page to check that the meter no and other details are valid.
• You would need to check that you accept the terms and conditions in order to proceed.
• Once you click confirm, you would be redirected to the payment gateway to enter your payment details.
• If payment is successful, you would be taken back to buypower.ng where your token would be generated and displayed. It will also be sent to you via sms and email.
• Enter the token on your prepaid meter as required. Once recharged, the units purchased will be added to the available units on the prepaid meter.

That’s all.

How Much In Naira Is Electricity Units Per KWh in Nigeria?

As at 19th of May 2018, buypower.ng was purchased @

29.81 N/KWh

.

According to a report from The Information, Google may be considering licensing Duplex to call centers and telemarketers. An anonymous source that claims to be close with Google's plans says that the company is already in talks with at least one firm that would like to use Duplex for “simple, straightforward customer service calls.” The interested company remains unnamed, but it is reported to be a large insurance company.
Gizmodo contacted Google, which provided a statement neither denying nor confirming the claim directly.

“We’re currently focused on consumer use cases for the Duplex technology where we can help people get things done, rather than applying it to potential enterprise use cases. We aren’t testing Duplex with any enterprise clients. Duplex is designed to operate in very specific use cases, and currently we’re focused on testing with restaurant reservations, hair salon booking, and holiday hours with a limited set of trusted testers. It’s important that we get the experience right, and we’re taking a slow and measured approach as we incorporate learnings and feedback from our tests.”

While Google's statement indicates that it is more concerned with personal voice assistant applications right now, it does not rule out pursuing enterprise customers in the future.

Applying Google Duplex in call centers could be very lucrative for the search giant. According to numbers from market analysts at Research And Markets, the cloud-based customer service market reached $6.8 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $21 billion by 2020. In fact, other companies like Amazon have already started working on cloud-based voice services to offer to companies wishing to automate simple customer service requests.
Of course, there are a few negative implications of this move. Obviously, human telemarketers and customer service personnel will be displaced, which could mean the loss of 1.2 million jobs.
There is also the fact that consumers, in general, do not like dealing with automated customer service systems. According to a 2015 survey, 90 percent of those calling into service centers wish to speak to a human. Another 80 percent say they rush through automated systems just to get to a live rep.
Read more tech updates @ Gobuzz

Intel is going to kill off its Extreme Edition processor branding according to a long time former employee. What once was a badge of true bragging rights is about to be eliminated once and for all.

According to a report from Tech spot, enthusiasts have enjoyed pushing the limits of processors practically since they became available to regular everyday users. Back in the days of Intel Inside commercials and a serious round of competition with AMD, Extreme Edition processors were released with huge price tags so that bragging rights were difficult to obtain.

Intel has used Extreme Edition branding since the first dual core CPU, a 3.2GHz Pentium D based on a 90nm process. Following up the Pentium D, the Core 2 Extreme series was released. Arriving closer to the present, the introduction of Intel Core with i7 Extreme Edition variants kept the same pattern.

Despite dropping Extreme from product titles, there may not actually be all that much changing. The introduction of Core i9 processors has essentially taken the place of extreme edition CPUs. Core i9 options still have the needed overclocking capabilities and certainly have extreme pricing that keeps them only in the hands of enthusiasts or those running a business where time is money.

Russian search engine Yandex claims that it has been indexing private files from Google Docs, but the American firm says everything is a-okay. The alleged documents have not been validated, but Yandex stopped indexing Google Docs completely until the matter gets sorted out.

On Wednesday, Russia’s leading search engine Yandex, notified Google about a potential data breach after its users reported finding dozens of what appeared to be private documents turning up in searches.

According to the news from Tech Spot, Yandex spokesman Ilya Grabovsky said users were reporting that they were finding Google Docs files in arbitrary searches. The documents, which included an internal memo from a Russian bank, press summaries, and business plans, started flooding social media platforms in the country. The authenticity of the documents is so far unconfirmed.

“Yandex search only yields files that don't require logins or passwords,” Grabovsky said. Adding that the files were turning up in other search engines as well but not naming any specifically.

Within hours of the first reports, Yandex stopped producing links to Google Docs altogether and notified Google.
After a brief investigation, Google released a statement Thursday claiming that everything was functioning properly.
“Saving and protecting users’ personal data is our main priority,” the search giant said. “Google Documents is a highly protected tool for joint work and it is working correctly.”

The company explains that search engines can only index documents that have been "deliberately made public" by the authors. Users must make a conscious decision to open a file to indexing. It sees no issues with the way Docs is working internally, and all data should be private by default.

Google has launched its own podcast app

Google Podcast App

Google Podcasts is a very simple podcasting app. Users can search and subscribe to podcasts and Google includes a fairly robust library of podcasts so you’ll find almost anything here. Once you are subscribed, videos can be downloaded for offline playback or you just stream the videos online. It will also use AI to learn from your listening history and suggests podcasts you might like.

However, the Podcasting app is yet to receive the reception Google might actually expected as it’s current rating is just 3.7/5 on Play Store.

Apparently, most reviewers believe that Google’s new app lacks a lot of features that other apps have. For example, the app lacks the ability to create playlists, an auto-download feature, inability to mark multiple podcast episodes as played, and many more.

Google Podcasts covers all the basics in a quick and compelling way. It’s nowhere near as full-featured as a podcast app like Pocket Casts , but it’s a great option if you don’t want to deal with a lot of setup or are just getting started in the magical world of podcasting. Also, it’s free to use.

Yahoo's UK arm has been fined £250,000 ($335,000) by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) over a data breach affecting more than 500 million users which took place in 2014.

Yahoo have been fined over cyber attack - Zeallbog

The firm said "state-sponsored" hackers had stolen personal information, which included names, emails, unencrypted security questions and answers.
The ICO said Yahoo had failed to take appreciate measure to protect it. Yahoo said it did not comment on regulatory action. "The failings our investigation identified are not what we expect or will accept from a company processing significant volumes of personal data," wrote deputy commissioner of operations James Dipple-Johnstone in a blog.

"Yahoo! UK Services Ltd had ample opportunity to implement appropriate measures, and potentially stop UK citizens' data being compromised."

Around eight million of the affected accounts were believed to belong to people in the UK.

The ICO's investigation also found:
  The firm failed to ensure that its Yahoo-owned data processor "complied with the appropriate data protection standards"
  It did not ensure that the credentials of employees with access to customer data were monitored
  There was "a long period of time" before the flaws which led to the breach were discovered or addressed

Verizon acquired Yahoo in 2017 and combined it with AOL to form a company called Oath. The firm was investigated under the UK 1988 Data Protection Act which pre-dates the new European data regulation GDPR.

Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress Software Technologies, said the data breach would go down in history as "one of the most notorious" - both because of its size and the two-year period between the attack and the report.

"Although the fine has been a long time coming, I imagine there would be some sighs of relief that the investigation was carried out under the Data Protection Act, rather than the GDPR which has much tougher consequences for a breach," he said.

GDPR - Zeallbog

If members of the European Parliament thought they could bring Mark Zuckerberg to heel with his recent appearance, they underestimated the enormous gulf between 21st century companies and their last-century regulators.

Zuckerberg himself reiterated that regulation is necessary, provided it is the “regulation".
But anyone who thinks that our existing regulatory tools can reign in our digital behemoths is engaging in magical thinking. Getting to “right regulation” will require us to think very differently.

The challenge goes far beyond Facebook and other social media: the use and abuse of data is going to be the defining feature of just about every company on the planet as we enter the age of machine learning and autonomous systems.
So far, Europe has taken a much more aggressive regulatory approach than anything the US was contemplating before or since Zuckerberg’s testimony.

The European Parliament’s Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now in force, which extends data privacy rights to all European citizens regardless of whether their data is processed by companies within the EU or beyond.
But I’m not holding my breath that the GDPR will get us very far on the massive regulatory challenge we face. It is just more of the same when it comes to regulation in the modern economy: a lot of ambiguous costly-to-interpret words and procedures on paper that are outmatched by rapidly evolving digital global technologies.

Crucially, the GDPR still relies heavily on the outmoded technology of user choice and consent, the main result of which has seen almost everyone in Europe (and beyond) inundated with emails asking them to reconfirm permission to keep their data. But this is an illusion of choice, just as it is when we are ostensibly given the option to decide whether to agree to terms set by large corporations in standardized take-it-or-leave-it click-to-agree documents.  

There’s also the problem of actually tracking whether companies are complying. It is likely that the regulation of online activity requires yet more technology, such as blockchain and AI-powered monitoring systems, to track data usage and implement smart contract terms.

As the EU has already discovered with the right to be forgotten, however, governments lack the technological resources needed to enforce these rights. Search engines are required to serve as their own judge and jury in the first instance; Google at last count was doing 500 a day.

The fundamental challenge we face, here and throughout the modern economy, is not: “what should the rules for Facebook be?” but rather, “how can we can innovate new ways to regulate effectively in the global digital age?”


The answer is that we need to find ways to harness the same ingenuity and drive that built Facebook to build the regulatory systems of the digital age. One way to do this is with what I call “super-regulation” which involves developing a market for licensed private regulators that serve two masters: achieving regulatory targets set by governments but also facing the market incentive to compete for business by innovating more cost-effective ways to do that.  

Imagine, for example, if instead of drafting a detailed 261-page law like the EU did, a government instead settled on the principles of data protection, based on core values, such as privacy and user control.

Private entities, profit and non-profit, could apply to a government oversight agency for a license to provide data regulatory services to companies like Facebook, showing that their regulatory approach is effective in achieving these legislative principles.  
These private regulators might use technology, big-data analysis, and machine learning to do that. They might also figure out how to communicate simple options to people, in the same way that the developers of our smartphone figured that out. They might develop effective schemes to audit and test whether their systems are working—on pain of losing their license to regulate.

There could be many such regulators among which both consumers and Facebook could choose: some could even specialize in offering packages of data management attributes that would appeal to certain demographics – from the people who want to be invisible online, to those who want their every move documented on social media.
The key here is competition: for-profit and non-profit private regulators compete to attract money and brains the problem of how to regulate complex systems like data creation and processing.

Zuckerberg thinks there’s some kind of “right” regulation possible for the digital world. I believe him; I just don’t think governments alone can invent it. Ideally, some next generation college kid would be staying up late trying to invent it in his or her dorm room.

The challenge we face is not how to get governments to write better laws; it’s how to get them to create the right conditions for the continued innovation necessary for new and effective regulatory systems.

Enterprises and their Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are under siege. Security events are being triggered from all corners of the security stack – from the firewall, endpoints, and servers, from intrusion detection systems and other security solutions. What’s more is that security teams do not have enough people or hours in a day to analyze the alerts that are coming in, and most ‘security events’ don’t even imply an attack in progress. They often are simply sharing information (failed connections, for example) or are what we call ‘false positives’ (when a solution thinks it has found a specific vulnerability, but in fact, it hasn’t.) 
  This is important because today, attackers use stealthy tactics that leverage these security challenges – after infecting an asset inside an organization, they keep a low profile, moving laterally in the hunt for valuable, sensitive data. The longer they stay in the network, the harder it becomes to detect their trail. The average ‘dwell time’ – how long an attacker or malicious insider is inside an organization’s network – is measured in months, with some estimates in the 200+ day range. That’s why it’s critical for organizations – both large and small – to focus their cybersecurity strategy on earlier detection and faster response. One of the technologies trend that is promising to do this, is deception.

What is deception technology?

Sun Tzu said it best in his book on The Art of War: “All warfare is based on deception.” ‘Deception’ is a classic tactic used in warfare, both for protection and as a mechanism to attack enemies. One of the best-known deception operations conducted during World War II was when the British deceived the Germans in Operation Mincemeat, which preceded the invasion of Sicily. This was a classic operation of planting strategic misinformation in order to deceive the enemy and distract them from the real place where the attack actually took place. The idea behind a cyber deception strategy is similar. Organizations often know to varying degrees what the attackers are looking for, what they expect to find, and how they might attack and use the information they find – so why not use this against them? The ultimate goal of deception is to lure attackers to ‘decoy’ assets that look and feel real but aren’t. This can be done through different methods including traps in the network, on the endpoints and servers, data traps, and more. By engaging with the decoy or deception environment, attackers or malicious insiders essentially reveal themselves to the organization – but they don’t know it.

5 ways deception is changing the cybersecurity landscape

Often people hear ‘deception’ and they immediately think of ‘honeypots’ – which is basically a static decoy that imitates a simple computer system and does nothing unless an attacker stumbles across it. However, deception technology has greatly improved beyond the honeypot concept today. How? By being active – both in luring and baiting attackers to a deception environment, as well as in the decoys. Here are five ways deception technology is changing the cybersecurity landscape:

1. Maximum accuracy with minimal human investment

When a deception solution triggers an alert, organizations know it is an accurate incident no matter what – goodbye false positives! Any access to the deception layer is by definition malicious and the security team has to investigate it immediately. With cybersecurity teams struggling to focus on real threats due to all the “noise” that is generated from the multiple layers of security tools and the lack of personnel to physically triage and investigate each alert.

2. Get personal with your business

Deception has taken the honeypot concept to another level. It structurally learns and adapts to your organization’s network and cloud environments. Decoys change to match the real environment as it changes. Additionally, solutions that use ‘breadcrumbs’ can strategically lure attackers and malicious insiders to the decoys. This ‘personalization’ is critical to a modern deception defense – to ensure that the deception components always look and feel real to bad guys.

3. Ensure a post-breach defense for any type of attack

Cyber attacks come in many forms. Deception provides a post-breach defense that is agnostic to the type of attack. Whether the attack is by spear phishing, drive-by download, or comes through from a connected device, deception lets you know there is someone inside your network looking to steal data.

4. Triggers threat hunting operations

Threat hunting exists in only the largest, most mature security organizations. But even smaller companies can make this highly advantageous strategy work with deception. Deception provides the first true signal of an infected asset that a threat hunter can use to quickly begin the investigation process.

5. Empowers organizations towards strategy and active defense

Traditional security attempts to block and prevent threats. It’s a constant game of cat-and-mouse. Deception changes this game by giving defenders the ability to learn about attackers in a similar manner that attackers try to learn about their targets. Once they know an attacker is in the network, they can observe their behaviors and patterns. This intel helps security teams better understand what attackers are after and the best way to respond.

Finally

While prevention defenses are certainly still needed, it’s clear that advanced threats still have too much success. Early detection is now more critical than ever. Every business needs to be strategizing about how they plan to fill the detection to infection gap. There are several vendors offering deception, including Fidelis Cybersecurity, Trapx, Attivo and Illusive Networks. Deception is one technology that can significantly reduce dwell time. On top of this it is easy to install, does not require a lot of resources to manage, and it increases the effectiveness and the efficiency of security teams. For companies considering this technology, deception should be tightly integrated not only with the SIEM but also with endpoint solutions (EDR/ EPP) and with network security solutions to ensure a pre- and post-breach defense that strengthens the security posture of the organization.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has decided to retire its short-form rating system.

In a statement provided to Gamasutra, the ESRB has indicated that it will no longer offer developers the option of using the short form to have their games rated. The system is used to evaluate digital-only titles and costs nothing. The long-form system is used for games that have a physical version and requires developers to pay a fee.


The move is of particular concern to indie developers since production expenditures are tight. Digital games are far cheaper to produce, but not having a way to rate the titles could hinder game makers. Fortunately, the ESRB says that studios can still have their products rated for free by the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), which was created by the board to make it easier for publishers to get ratings for other regions like the UK and Australia.

The bad news is that currently IARC is only supported on certain storefronts — specifically Nintendo eShop, Google Play, Oculus Store, and Microsoft’s store. Without an accessible and affordable rating system for other marketplaces like the PlayStation Store, Apple’s App Store, and Steam, indie developers could be squeezed out of those sectors.

However, the rating board believes that it can have an alternative ready before it retires the short form.

said a representative.
said a representative.

The board also said it does have plans to deploy the IARC for the PlayStation Store but did not mention it coming to other platforms where digital indie games are sold.

It seems Google isn't willing to let Microsoft take the lead in the realm of augmented reality (AR).

As reported by The Verge, the social media giant is working on their own standalone AR headset in partnership with computer maker Quanta. The headset will be completely cordless, and it will run on a Qualcomm QSC603-family processor. The outlet also claims the device will include an array of cameras and microphones, though their purpose isn't entirely clear at the moment.

Internally, Google and Quanta are reportedly calling the device "Google A65," but the former will undoubtedly change the name closer to its official release.
Of course, this is assuming the device releases at all. Google has a bit of a complicated past when it comes to wearable devices, as evidenced by the Google Glass debacle back in 2014.

For those who don't know, Google Glass was a small monocle-like device that contained a touchpad, an LED display, and a camera. It seemed like an interesting enough concept, but widespread concerns regarding privacy and security largely killed the project shortly after it launched to the public.


Some feared the glasses could be used to record people without their permission, and numerous business (including movie theaters) pre-emptively banned the devices' use in their establishments. As a result, Google decided to cut their losses and shift the focus of Glass to enterprises; a move that has proven successful so far.

At any rate, assuming Google has learned from their past mistakes, A65 could prove to be a tough competitor to Microsoft's HoloLens, but for now, details are scarce.