Category: Gadgets

British consumers carrying smartphones and tablets still do not take adequate precautions to protect themselves.

According to a recent mobile security study that was conducted by Trend Micro, a security firm, many consumers in the United Kingdom who have smartphones and tablets have yet to adopt appropriate precautions in order to guard themselves against the theft of their data.

The survey involved the participation of 2,500 device users throughout the United Kingdom.

The results of this study indicated that 27 percent of the research participants have lost up to three company devices. Another 52 percent regularly carry a device on their person that contains sensitive data from work, which increases the risk that their employers and customers could experience fraud from a mobile security data breach.

This mobile security finding should be taken seriously by businesses in the country.

The survey showed that 61 percent of the participants who use their smartphones and tablets for work purposes have not even protected those devices with a password. Among all of the participants 20 percent were using their personal smartphones for business reasons, which means that this number of unprotected device users is a considerable one. Among those who have gone to the effort of protecting their devices with a password, 63 percent have used the same one or a similar one across all of their various digital accounts.

Almost one in every three participants said that they use Wi-Fi hotspots on a regular basis. However 56 percent of hotspot users do not check the security of those spaces before they connect. Twenty two percent access their work emails from those locations, while 10 percent access confidential documents in those public connection environments.

This survey indicates that in the United Kingdom, there is a standard of relative carelessness when it comes to their attitude toward mobile security and the link between their behaviors and the safety of corporate data when using their smartphones and tablets for work purposes, said the report. In fact, among the respondents, 44 percent had a greater concern regarding the loss of their own personal content than they had about giving access to sensitive business data to cyber criminals.

The Glass features will now include a “listen to” option added to its standard voice commands.

It has now been announced that Google Glass, the wearable mobile augmented reality product form the tech giant, will be including music among its standard voice commands.

This gives wearers the ability to use their voices to complete many tasks relating to listening to music.

The hope is to help to further expand the benefits of these augmented reality glasses, allowing the wearer to listen to music based on voice commands. However, it will also allow the wearer to be able to search for songs, browse through various playlists that have been saved, and stream music that is available at Google Play.

This has further enhanced Google Glass far beyond only augmented reality capabilities.

To be able to access songs and other features through these wearable augmented reality devices, users will be able to link them to their Play accounts. This will give them the ability to stream music as well as the view playlists and song recommendations that are based on the tunes that they have previously listened.

The headphones which will allow wearers to change the use from visual, such as augmented reality, to private listening are not a cheap product. The Glass, itself, currently comes with a price tag of $1,500, for the Explorer Edition, which has been available on a limited basis since April. By the end of the month, the headphones will be $85. That transforms the eyeglasses into a full audio experience that is voice controlled.

Beyond this new standard feature, Google Glass also provides a unique wearable computer experience, similar to a type of smartphone in the form of glasses. It allows for augmented reality, capturing photos, recording videos, chatting, looking things up on the internet, and obtaining directions.

According to Ed Sanders, the Google Glass director of marketing who spoke about this new feature beyond augmented reality, “With these new features, we’re now building a great music experience on Glass, whether you’re a classical music professor, an acclaimed sound engineer and hip-hop producer, or someone who wants to listen to their favorite tunes anytime, anywhere.”