data

U.S. officials are concluding that the 2010 hacks into Google's servers may have ended with Chinese hackers getting ahold of sensitive data, according to The Washington Post.

Current and former government officials told the Post that the hackers were able to access information on U.S. intelligence, as well as find out which possible Chinese spies government officials may have been targeting.

In January 2010, Google shocked the security community by being one of the first tech companies to disclose that it and other companies had been hit by attacks that originated in China. The Web giant said … Read more

Twitter's shopping spree shows no signs of letting up. Today, the social-networking giant said that it has acquired big data startup Lucky Sort.

Lucky Sort CEO Noah Pepper said in a blog post that his company's "goal was to make huge document sets easier to analyze, summarize, and visualize by building elegant and user-friendly tools for text analysis."

Neither Twitter nor Lucky Sort said precisely how the startup will be integrated into Twitter's larger plans, but Pepper said in his post that several members of his team would be moving to San Francisco to become … Read more

Very few people have unlimited data for their iPhone, so a tool like Data Usage is very useful, showing you quickly how much you've used and how close you are to your limit.

Data Usage provides only what it promises to show you. There are two readouts on the screen--one shows how much data you have used and the other shows your limit. You can change either number with the tap of a button and the graphic at the top will show you visually how close you are to your limit. In tests, the meter proved to be fairly … Read more

Apple has to amend its customer privacy policies in Germany following a court ruling issued Tuesday.

The Berlin Regional Court found that 8 of the 15 clauses in Apple's data use policy were invalid because they didn't comply with German law. Specifically, the company is no longer allowed to request "global consent" to use customer data, which gives it carte blanche to use any information. Further, Apple cannot use location-based data to target specific products and services to consumers based on their location.

The court also found that Apple cannot request the names, addresses, e-mail addresses, … Read more

About two weeks ago, wireless Internet provider FreedomPop introduced the Overdrive Pro, a Sprint-powered 3G/4G mobile hot spot with a tantalizing price tag: $39.99 for the hardware, 500MB of data per month absolutely free, and low rates on additional data.

FreedomPop's previous products all relied solely on Clearwire's WiMAX network, which left users like me (who live where there's no coverage) out in the cold. But the Overdrive Pro changes that, and so I was excited to test-drive one.

Which I've been doing for the past few days. The good news is the Sierra … Read more

Aside from monopolistic cable providers that force their customers to buy expensive bundles of TV channels they might never watch, wireless operators may be the only other businesses I know of that often force their customers to buy expensive services they don't really want.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I answer two questions from readers who highlight this point. In the first question, a reader asks if he can avoid hefty international roaming fees by getting his brand-new Samsung Galaxy S4 phone unlocked so that he can use a foreign carrier's wireless service while he is abroad … Read more

Let's face it: BlackBerry 10 isn't going to be for everyone. There are going to be people who have purchased a Z10 only to find out it's not the device for them, and some people might find that they prefer the Q10, which launches soon.

As such, you're going to want to securely wipe all of your information from the device. With just a few taps you'll be able to secure your data, ensuring it doesn't end up in the wrong hands.

For a while now I've been wanting to test-drive FreedomPop, the wireless Internet provider that offers, among other things, 500MB of free mobile data per month.

Alas, because it's a 4G-only service based on Clearwire's WiMAX network, there's no coverage in my area.

That changes today with the introduction of FreedomPop's new Overdrive Pro mobile hot spot, which offers both 4G and 3G coverage via Sprint.

In other words, now I can get in on the free-data action. The Overdrive Pro costs $39.99 and allows for up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices to connect at … Read more

Rumors have been confirmed that the new massive data center to be built in Altoona, Iowa, will be owned by none other than Facebook.

The social network announced Tuesday that the 194-acre site will be the home of its fourth wholly-owned and operated data center worldwide.

"For most people, Facebook is something pretty simple. It's a service you visit every day to connect with the people and things you care about," Facebook's vice president of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh wrote in a blog post. "But behind the scenes, Facebook is a global service of immense … Read more