microsoft
After seven long years, the tech support scam continues as a reigning rip-off, generating more reports nationwide to the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline (877-908-3360) than any scheme except the IRS impostor ruse. Microsoft estimates that another 3.3 million Americans will fall victim in 2015, losing an estimated $1.5 billion to fraudsters posing as its or other tech company employees.
The other day I was sitting in my neighborhood Starbucks surrounded by the chatter of conversation and people hunched over their laptops or newspapers. At one table, however, something remarkable was going on.
En español | For six years, telephones have been ringing off the hook with alarming but bogus news: There’s a dangerous virus on your computer, and the caller – a self-described technician with Microsoft, “Windows” or an antivirus software company – says he can remove it … for a price.
In an era in which online accounts can be cracked with sophisticated software or a hacker’s ingenuity, taking an extra step when you log in can give you miles in added protection — even when using “strong” passwords.
Digital giants like Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft would all like to be the home base for your mobile phone or tablet. The challenge is keeping you connected to them even when you're doing something completely different.
Planned obsolescence. You expect it with your cellphone and your TV. You're used to it with your car. But your computer operating system - the software that determines what you see on the screen and how you make the hardware work - has nearly always allowed you to upgrade and stay connected and productive.
Everybody knew that Apple would announce its new, lighter, slimmer, faster iPads on Oct. 22. Only the change in name came as a surprise.
If it weren't for Douglas Engelbart, the computer on your desk might still be little more than a glorified typewriter, and you might still be struggling to remember arcane DOS commands so you could type them into a luminous green C:\ prompt on a black screen. And the multimedia marvels of the Web might not have ever existed.
Do you hate waiting on hold for a customer service rep to answer the phone? How about that phone tree navigation system that nearly every company uses? Don't you just want to scream "representative" to the recorded voice that isn't listening?