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The IRS failed to adequately store, backup, and search official records for use in Freedom of Information requests and other litigation, according to a new report released by the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration. Performing an independent audit, TIGTA found: The IRS’s current e-mail system and record retention policies do not ensure that e-mail records are saved and can be searched and retrieved for as long as needed. Additionally, repeated changes in electronic media storage policies, combined with a reliance on employees to maintain records on computer hard drives, has resulted in cases in which Federal records were lost...

On the heels of Lenovo’s massive $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on laptops without users‘ consent, Hewlett-Packard is jumping in with both feet when it comes to installing spyware on its PCs without the consumer’s permission. According to numerous reports gathered by Computer World, the brand is deploying a telemetry client (a system data that is uploaded by the Connected User Experience and Telemetry component), on customer computers without asking permission. The software, which was first identified on November 15 of this year, is called “HP Touchpoint Analytics Service” and appears to replace the self-managed HP Touchpoint Manager solution....

Second Life was supposed to be the future of the internet, but then Facebook came along. Yet many people still spend hours each day inhabiting this virtual realm. Their stories—and the world they’ve built—illuminate the promise and limitations of online life. Gidge Uriza lives in an elegant wooden house with large glass windows overlooking a glittering creek, fringed by weeping willows and meadows twinkling with fireflies. She keeps buying new swimming pools because she keeps falling in love with different ones. The current specimen is a teal lozenge with a waterfall cascading from its archway of stones. Gidge spends her...

For years, China has claimed the top spot on a list of the 500 fastest supercomputers. Now it dominates the overall list, too, pushing the United States into second place. For the first time, China has the most systems on the Top500 list, 202, up from 159 six months ago. The US dropped from 169 to 144. And in terms of the total performance of those machines, China also overtook the US, the Top500 supercomputer list organizers said. The news underscores the relentless ascent of China's supercomputing trajectory in recent years. It also marks a notable shift in the international...

I hope I am posting this in the correct place. I downloaded version 12.7 of iTunes this morning, and it does not allow me to purchase apps from the store anymore. It seems I have to do that from my iPhone. I live where there is no cell phone signal, and I really do not want to wait until I leave home to download or delete apps. I tried to revert to an older version of iTunes, but it tells me the exported library was created on a newer version that it cannot read. Can someone help?

Online education company Udacity is growing its new Nanodegree program yet again – it’s adding two entirely new programs to the roster, including a new entry-level self-driving Nanodegree, as well as a brand new one focused on ‘flying cars’ (though it’s actually a bit more nuanced than that). The Flying Car program will include course material created by world-leading aeronautics and aerospace industry experts, including MIT professor Nicholas Roy, ETH Zurich professor and Kiva Systems co-founder Raffaelo D’Andrea, University of Toronto Aerospace Studies professor Angela Schoellig and Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun himself. Thrun is also CEO of personal aircraft startup...

I am not going to go over the new hardware being brought out by Apple.  Fanboys are already cooing over the new iPhones.  But something – something that flew under the radar to all but techies – is about to substantially alter the power and cost of computing. To those following the Apple event, one item was missing: the Mac Mini.  The Mac Mini was and is Apple's desktop option for those who want to buy just the core computer and provide their own monitor, speakers, keyboard, et al.  In its heyday (the 2012 Server Model), the Mac Mini...

It was inevitable that someday, hackers would have the ability to exert control over the U.S. electrical grid.  According to the computer security firm Symantec, someday is today. Hacking attacks over the last several months that targeted U.S. energy companies have been able to gain "operational control" over systems, thus threatening blackouts across the U.S., says Symantec.  The hacker group known as DragonFly 2.0 was able to gain control in at least 20 places, according to the firm. Wired: Symantec on Wednesday revealed a new campaign of attacks by a group it is calling Dragonfly 2.0, which it says...

The 4th International Conference on Quantum Technologies held in Moscow last month was supposed to put the spotlight on Google, who were preparing to give a lecture on a 49-qubit quantum computer they have in the works. A morning talk presented by Harvard University’s Mikhail Lukin, however, upstaged that evening’s event with a small announcement of his own – his team of American and Russian researchers had successfully tested a 51-qubit device, setting a landmark in the race for quantum supremacy. Quantum computers are considered to be part of the next generation in revolutionary technology; devices that make use of...

Reshma Saujani is not a coder but she's empowering "an army of young women" to take on tech's gender gap through her nonprofit Girls Who Code. "I think that this is an opportunity we have to give every single one of our children," Saujani says in a new episode of CNN's Boss Files with Poppy Harlow. "I think the problem is right now, culturally, images that we see are very male. We have to be thoughtful and think about how can we open the door." Through Girls Who Code, Saujani is helping to bridge the opportunity gap for young girls...

Help.....I just updated my Android Samsung 4....been putting it off....ALWAYS worry what that might bring. Well, now I can't read the FR page and other pages like Duck Duck Go.....any ideas....suggestions?

It's no secret that the economy is changing. As technology plays a greater role in our personal and professional lives, our economy too increasingly relies on technology to create jobs and encourage growth. Technology is the foundation of our digital economy, and its modern infrastructure is data. However, in order to use data, we need a place to process and store it - in other words, data centers. Data centers are facilities that house the computers that process data. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are three million data centers across the country - including here in Alabama....

...and I need recommendations.

Salaries have risen in places like South Asia, making outsourcing there less of a bargain. In addition, as brands pour energy and money into their websites and mobile apps, more of them are deciding that there is value in having developers in the same time zone. For years, U.S. companies have been saving money by “offshoring” jobs — hiring people in India and other distant cubicle farms. Today, some of those jobs are being outsourced again — in the United States. Nexient, a software outsourcing company, reflects the evolving geography of technology work. It holds daily video meetings with one...

When Microsoft unveiled the first Surface tablet five years ago, it was a spectacular failure. At the time, the Apple iPhone was well on its way to conquering the technology industry, and the iPad appeared set to lead an even more devastating invasion of Microsoft’s office-worker kingdom. Microsoft conceived of Surface, an innovative laptop-tablet hybrid, as a way to show off the versatility of its software. Windows machines, it argued, could work as phones, personal computers and tablets. And didn’t everyone love Windows? Nope. Microsoft soon took a $900 million write-off for unsold Surfaces. Another effort to break into the...

My grandson has been accepted into the Business School at the University of Michigan, and we are all happy for him. Here is the dilemma. They strongly advise that all incoming student have a PC, not a Mac. Since we are all Mac users from way back, we do not know enough about PCs to make an intelligent purchase. We do know that Macs can run PC software partitioned, but it seems that there are some software programs that do not run well on partitioned Macs (proprietary, maybe?) So can you all offer to help, without turning it into a...

IT major Tech Mahindra plans to hire around 2,200 people in the US this year, same as last year, amid the American government’s call for creation of jobs in the country. The Mumbai-based company, which has over 6,000 people working for over 400 clients in the US, has been recruiting resources out of colleges in the US over the past four years. “Last year, we hired around 2,200 people and we expect to do the same this year as well,” Tech Mahindra President, Strategic Verticals, Lakshmanan Chidambaram told reporters here. On the reasons for stepped up US hiring, he said:...

The Air Force is updating its awards to recognize drone pilots and hackers Christopher Woody Jun. 23, 2017 US airmen tasked with jobs like surveillance and cyber operations have a growing role on the battlefield, even though they are often physically distant from it. To ensure that kind of work is recognized, the Air Force has introduced new hardware for its service men and women. "As the impact of remote operations on combat continues to increase, the necessity of ensuring those actions are distinctly recognized grows," Defense Department officials said in a memo published on January 7, 2016.

Computer systems from Russia to the United States were struck on Tuesday in an international cyberattack that bore similarities to a recent assault that crippled tens of thousands of machines worldwide. As reports of the attack spread quickly, the Ukrainian government said that several of its ministries, radiation monitoring at the Chernobyl nuclear facility, local banks and metro systems had been affected. A number of companies — including the Danish shipping giant Maersk; Rosneft, the Russian energy giant; Saint-Gobain, the French construction materials company; and WPP, the British advertising agency — also said they had been targeted.

Here’s a novel thought: introducing artificial intelligence into insurance could actually create jobs, rather than stripping them away. That not just pie-in-the-sky daydreaming, that’s the opinion of an artificial intelligence (AI) company chief executive heavily involved in the insurance industry. Alex Dalyac, co-founder and CEO of Tractable, says his company’s AI for P&C auto claims could actually generate jobs – depending on what insurance carriers decide to do with the savings in accuracy and time his services generate for them. “We enable insurers to ensure their estimates are all accurate. With AI, all repairs are visually checked [and] many more...