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The maker of iconic collectable trading cards has said hackers could have stolen customers' credit and debit card numbers along with their associated security codes in a recent breach.

Topps' products include Star Wars, Disney's Frozen, Top Gear and the UEFA champion league.

The New York firm told the BBC that the vulnerability had since been fixed.

But a security researcher said he had previously warned the firm about security weaknesses.

Topps declined to say how many people were affected or why the payment card numbers were at risk. In most hack attacks, companies assure users that they do not store such financial data in a form that can be exposed.

In an email to customers Topps wrote that on 12 October "one or more intruders gained unauthorised access" to its systems.

"[They] may have gained access to names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, credit or debit card numbers, card expiration dates and card verification numbers for customers [who made purchases] between approximately 30 July 2016 and 12 October 2016," it added.

It is offering one year's worth of free identify theft protection to those affected.

Various customers have posted the email on social media and it is also available on the Sports Collectors Daily website.

Topps is part-owned by a fund belonging to Michael Eisner, the former chief executive of Disney.

Image copyright Torante

"The really unforgivable aspect here is the loss of credit card details," said cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University.

"If this was an external attack, these details just should not be accessible or readable. An obvious question is, was the customers financial data encrypted?

"If not that should attract some heavy attention from the appropriate regulators."

Chris Vickery, a security researcher from Chromatech blogged in June about exposed databases of customer accounts with three of Topps' mobile apps: Bunt, Huddle, and Kick.

He wrote that it was fixed. However, he later found another database containing information about the users of all three apps, and on this occasion was unable to get a response from the firm.

"I can't in good conscience watch this data continue to leak without at least trying to get a warning out," he said at the time.

Source: BBC News

Iran has put limits on who can play the popular Clash of Clans mobile game.

A government committee called for restrictions citing a report from psychologists, who said it encouraged violence and tribal conflict.

The app could also negatively affect family life if teenagers got addicted to the game, warned the committee that polices cyberspace.

Statistics gathered earlier this year suggested that about 64% of mobile gamers in Iran played the game.

The decision to limit access to Clash of Clans across Iran was taken on 27 December.

Fan sites in Iran reported that many players began having problems accessing the title - which requires an online connection - afterwards. Some Iran-based players said local reports had suggested that an age limit would be imposed, but for now all gamers were affected.

They did, however, suggest there were ways to get round the restrictions.

In a statement, Iran's deputy attorney general Dr Abdolsamad Khoramabadi said the "vast majority" of the committee backed the call to limit who could play the app.

Iran has a history of taking action against popular video games. In August, it cut off the Pokemon Go game because of fears about the game's location-based system.

Created by Finnish firm Supercell, Clash of Clans has become a massive hit all over the world. It involves players creating villages and then using troops to protect them or to attack other players' settlements.

Earlier this year, Supercell announced that 100 million people were playing its games every day.

In July, the Chinese firm Tencent bought 84.3% of Supercell in a deal that valued the company at $10.2bn (£8.33bn).

Source: BBC

In what can be regarded as a diversification of its prey-base, hackers are "continuously" targeting medical devices and hospitals, the US Federal Drug Administration has warned.

The value of the Bitcoin virtual currency hits a three-year high with a bitcoin now valued at about $900 (£730).

Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman has provided the voice for an AI assistant created by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr Zuckerberg said he asked the actor, who was selected by the public, after an awards ceremony earlier this month.

The Facebook co-founder coded the AI assistant - called Jarvis, after the butler in Iron Man - for his home.

If he decides to release it to the public, people would relate differently to a famous voice than more robotic sounding assistants, tech experts said.

Mr Zuckerberg asked his Facebook followers to pick the voice after building artificial intelligence to help him around the house. He told tech news site Fast Company that he called Mr Freeman after the actor presented the Breakthrough Awards, a science prize co-founded by Mr Zuckerberg.

"I said, 'Hey, I posted this thing, and... thousands of people want you to be the voice. Will you do it?'"

Mr Freeman's answer was "yeah, sure", he added.

Robert Downey Jr, who plays Iron Man, had offered to voice Jarvis, while Arnold Schwarzenegger features as an alternative, disciplinarian voice in jokey videos released by Mr Zuckerberg this week.

Experts in human-computer interaction said Morgan Freeman, whose roles have included God in Evan Almighty and the narrator in March of the Penguins, would distinguish Jarvis from existing AI assistants.

Celebrity voices add to the "novelty effect" and might make it more enjoyable to interact with an AI assistant, said Dr Simone Stumpf, a senior lecturer at City University in London.

"If a user is more engaged, then they might also be forgiving of mistakes, interact more - and thus provide more training data for the AI to get it right - and are less likely to abandon it," she told the BBC.

Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google Home are bringing smart assistants into the mainstream.

Morgan Freeman would be a different offering because he is more of a "grandfather figure" than a friend, said Dr Bernie Hogan of the Oxford Internet Institute.

"We do know people project emotions on to their computers," he said. "We've been anthropomorphizing these things for years."

Research indicates it is often the attitude of AI, rather than the voice, which annoys people, said Yorick Wilks, professor of Artificial Intelligence at Sheffield University.

"It may just be the user needs to choose voice, as they can now with Sat-nav, and also the personality of assistant or change it at different times," he said.

AI companies have also faced criticism for favouring female voices for the assistants.

"The 'gender' of AI assistants has had its recent controversies, with some accusations of sexism aimed at companies who have chosen female voices, particularly where perceptions of their subservience or even sexual undertones may exist," said Dr Rich Picking of Glyndwr University.

Still, it could be a while before users are interacting with the dulcet tones of Mr Freeman in their homes.

Mr Zuckerberg said he thought about opening up the Jarvis code, but decided "it's currently too tightly tied to [his] own home".

 

Source: BBC News

Anyone who buys a drone in future in the UK may have to register it and take a safety test.

Vanity Fair and Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald has claimed he suffered an epileptic seizure after receiving a malicious tweet containing flashing images.

Retail giant Amazon has made its first commercial delivery using a drone, in the UK. The package arrived safely at its destination in Cambridge, 13 minutes after being ordered. A video showing the process details how the order was completed using an electrically powered drone flying at up to 400ft (122m).

Yahoo has said more than one billion user accounts may have been affected in a hacking attack dating back to 2013.

First, it was the FBI and the CIA accused of wiretapping as part of a robust national security measure now the lines have stretched beyond the boundaries of government or its institutions to private enterprise. Mails in sync with about every related detail about individuals anywhere on the internet: one could easily pass the word 'privacy' for fantasy. As if these were mere illusions, following a BuzzFeed news story in 2014 that alleged one of its reporter's rides had been tracked via "God View" without her permission, Uber has defended itself following accusations that a lack of internal security allowed employees to spy on rides in real-time.

Source: BBC News

Apple is tackling an outbreak of spam on iPhone calendars by introducing a button that lets users report the junk appointments.

The messages appear as invitations to events but are sent by spammers not the brands they feature.

The "report junk" button has been added to Apple's iCloud.com site and is expected to be included in an iOS update soon.

The calendar bug was heavily exploited this year around Black Friday.

Clearing out the bogus messages was frustrating because deleting the invitation sent an acknowledgement to the spammer it came from, revealing that an account was live.

Some people reported that declining an invitation led to them receiving more spam from the same source.

The spam invitations appear to come mainly from Chinese email addresses.

The reporting button removes the junk invitations from a person's calendar and lets Apple know about the message.

The button automatically appears on invitations sent by people not in someone's contacts list.

Until iOS is updated, anyone wishing to tackle the spam on their calendar must visit iCloud.com and click to report the faked messages.

The invitation will then disappear from all synched calendars.

Late last month, Apple apologized for the sudden influx of calendar spam and said it was working on ways to fix it.

Before the introduction of the reporting system, many people fixed the problem by creating a second calendar only for spam.

They moved all the junk invitations into that calendar and then deleted it.

A YouTuber has recreated the Atari 2600 games console - by building a virtual version of the device's hardware out of Minecraft blocks.

In a series of developments in recent months arising primarily from the Note 7 fiasco, there have been increasing pressure from some investors for Samsung Electronics to break itself into a holding unit and an operating company to boost shareholder value.

To what extent can a business go in an effort to sell its product or render its service?  At what point should it draw the line as regards adopting its market penetration strategies? Should it be morality, the constitution or the universally acclaimed bill of rights?

Amid a tense stand-off and attempt at negotiations, Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor has started to enforce a proposed block of LinkedIn in the country, after the social network failed to transfer Russian user data to servers located in the country, violating a law instituted in Russia requiring all online sites to store personal data on national servers.

More than one billion WhatsApp users will be able to make video calls on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices “in the coming days”, the company has announced.

Facing criticism that fake news on Facebook aided the rise of Donald Trump, founder Mark Zuckerberg has strongly defended his network.

Human’s increasing dependency on technology is now well past an imminent threat to our natural social behavior: social media chats on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. have replaced in an unimaginable measure physical conversations, family and friends visit times ….I mean one could just keep enumerating! It is common place now to visit 86 years old grandma and expect the meeting to be anything but a great learning experience from an old walking library: credits to granny’s friends on WhatsApp chatting away the valuable time she would have had for you!

A surge in income from mobile advertising is responsible for a dramatic rise in earnings, the social media giant says.
Quarterly profits at Facebook have surged by 166% to $2.4bn (£1.95bn), the tech giant has announced.

For high-rolling drivers in the United Arab Emirates, no car is complete without a single-digit license plate.

Ghana's Bright Simmons, a social innovator and founder of mPedigree has been appointed onto Microsoft’s 4Afrika Advisory Council.

       It is perhaps one of the most important subjects for discussion today among policy makers around the world, at least those serious about their national security in the 21^st Century. Its operation unconventional and impact, anything but to be underestimated. It requires no large sites for development plants like the missile launchers or nuclear bomb does nor its goal to destroy the physical human life. It runs covertly from behind personal computers or mobile devices from various locations on our planet and its aim, to distort the flow of the generation’s currency – information,  mislead the public and create a kind of war that might not be resolved by mediation efforts from some of the most skilled diplomats nor the damages mitigated by the most effective reconciliation commission ever organized. Whether one accepts it or not, the threat  or even reality of cyberattack is not just imminent ; it lives with us.

   It has been a century and decade now since those genius siblings popularly referred to as the Wright Brothers launched the first manned flight when they made those four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. It was an astonishing sight for all in America and around the world: mankind had once again achieved a milestone.

Founded in 2003 by a group of engineers in Silicon Valley who wanted to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered cars and characterized by instant torque, incredible power, and zero emissions,

Every year since 1895, when through Swedish inventor, Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prize got established to celebrate outstanding achievements or strides in various spheres of society; leadership, economy, science, etc., we have continually witnessed growing credence to the works of this highly reputable foundation and to those who earn its converted awards.

Realising that the church couldn’t afford to be left behind in its operation technologically, a group of Christians have introduced a web and mobile application system that enables effective church administration and seamless engagement with members via app and sms.

On May 25, 1961 when America’s 35^th President, John F. Kennedy, in a Joint Session of Congress, announced to his country and world the nation’s ‘overly ambitious’ plan to land a man on the moon before the end of 60s decade, it was deemed by many  around the globe as madness or insanity laced desire.

Social media giants Facebook has done an  uncommon thing of shutting down ads for Thailand. According to the social network it has turning  off ads in Thailand has become necessary because of the demise  of the country’s deeply esteemed king. It’s the first time Facebook has imposed an ad blackout for a whole country.

Currently South Korea's largest "chaebol," a type of family-run business group that plays a big role in the country's economy. Samsung is typical example of a postmodern times business success:  its transition from dealing only in regular consumer electronics to semiconductors and phone technology, is a testimony of the dynamism of the organization’s leadership in the last decade.

Social media giant Facebook has rolled out a new feature "Secret Conversations" in it Messenger App which will ensure that only two people involve in a conversation can see the text.

Over 1 billion Messenger users now have access to the feature, the feature uses end-to-end encryption, compared to WhatsApp, Viber, Line .With the new Messenger App if you're chatting in secret mode on a specific smartphone, you will lose the right to see previous messages on your desktop. Also Facebook also gives people the option to let specific messages within Secret Conversations expire after five seconds or up to a day -- a feature not unlike what's offered on Snapchat.

To freely enjoy Messenger’s new feature, you'll need to make sure you install the latest version of the iOS and Android app to get it. Messages will only be kept secret if both users have the updated versions.
"We've heard from you that there are times when you want additional safeguards -- perhaps when discussing private information like an illness or a health issue with trusted friends and family, or sending financial information to an accountant," the company said earlier this year.

Even the government or Facebook itself won't have access to conversations in secret mode, according to the social network.