That was Then... This is Now

You most certainly have heard of it and probably use it all the time. Simply put, it’s a method of verifying electronically that it’s “really you.” Unlike many years ago, a single password today is no longer considered secure enough to access most accounts or engage in a transaction. What you need is a second way to verify yourself. That's why many Internet services use two-factor authentication. Sometimes you will see it referred to as 2FA. Two factor authentication allows you to securely access an account, a trusted device (like a phone), or a website. You will need to provide two pieces of information. Typically these are a password that you enter as well as a six-digit verification code that's sent to your phone or other “trusted device.” By entering this code, you're verifying that you are indeed “you.” According to security analyst Neil J. Rubenking "there are three generally recognized factors for authentication: something you know (such as a password), som...

What exactly is 5G? The "5" means it is the fifth and the “G“ simply means it is a new generation of wireless technology. One that will help us to connect many more devices to the Internet and also allow faster transmission speeds than anything we’ve seen previously. Over the years, for most people, the generations have been defined by their data transmission speed. Each generation has also introduced technology that made it incompatible with the previous generation. For example, “1G” used an analog signal. “2G” technologies, such as CDMA, GSM, and TDMA, were digital. “3G” technologies, such as EVDO, HSPA, and UMTS, increased speeds from 200kbps to a few megabits per second. “4G” technologies, such as WiMAX and LTE, were the next step and they have been scaled up to hundreds of megabits and even gigabit-level speeds. “5G” brings three more items to the table: bigger channels, lower latency (less delay), and the ability to connect a lot more devices at once. This last one to m...

PCMag's annual review  and compilation of the best consumer technology products tested and rated over the past 12 months was released this week and includes 100 products spread across 15 categories. Like many of us, the staff of PCMag has been working from home since last March, when COVID-19 hit New York City. The testing labs, which had been located in an office building on lower Fifth Avenue, were dispersed across various apartment living rooms and home offices in the five NYC boroughs. Despite the worst pandemic in more than 100 years, the business of product testing and reviewing continued.  I know I found this year's review helpful. I'm sure you will too.

CNBC reported last week that NASA has selected Nokia to build the first 4G mobile network on the moon. The company’s U.S. industrial research division, Bell Labs, will provide equipment to build the lunar network, with the goal of becoming operational by 2022. Under the Artemis program, NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2024 followed by a “sustainable” human presence by 2028. Humans last walked on the moon in 1972. The extraterrestrial 4G network “has been specially designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the launch and lunar landing, and to operate in the extreme conditions of space,” Nokia said in a press release. NASA has chosen Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Dynetics to develop the spacecraft that will land astronauts on the moon. Nokia said its 4G network will allow the astronauts to carry out a number of activities including making voice and video calls, sending important data and deploying payloads. It plans to eventually launch 5G on the m...

When you're in the market for a new TV the brand name can be a factor. But it's not everything because each manufacturer makes multiple lines of products. There are budget-friendly TVs with low price tags and performance. There are midrange models. And there are expensive high-end televisions with exceptional performance. If you simply purchase a "Samsung" or "Sony” or any other model just because it’s on sale, you really have no idea exactly what kind of TV you're buying, or how good it is. But the “SKU” or Stock Keeping Unit, can tell you lot about the TV you are considering. Television SKU’s are long, complex strings of letters and numbers that identify features of each model. They can tell you the product line, screen size, and even individual retailer variants of TV’s. And they're the key to decoding just how good that TV really is.  Will Greenwald writing for PCMag has created a helpful guide to decoding the SKU’s of different TV manufacturers . At ...

As everyone knows, the year 2020 has emerged as one of the most challenging in our lifetimes. In just six months, the world has endured a pandemic that has spurred a global economic crisis. As societies reopen, it’s apparent that the economy will not be what it was before COVID-19. One of the things necessary to begin a safe and successful economic recovery is greater access to the digital skills required to fill new job opportunities. And one of the keys to a genuinely inclusive recovery are programs to provide easier access to digital skills for people hardest hit by job losses, including those with lower incomes, women, and underrepresented minorities. To address this need, Microsoft is launching a Global Skills Initiative aimed at bringing increased digital skills to over 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year. This initiative will combine existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub, and Microsoft and will be centered around three primary areas of activity: (1) The...

Last June, the FDA authorized the use of “pooled testing” for identifying COVID-19 infections. The method allows up to four swabs to be tested at once. A “bundled sample.” This strategy is expected to expand testing to larger sections of the population. If the sample comes back positive, then all the individuals in that sample will need to be tested separately.  If, however, the sample comes back clean, that’s four people who do not need to be tested further, saving public health officials time and money. The FDA said it expects pooled testing to allow virus identification with fewer tests, which means more tests could be run at once, fewer testing supplies would be consumed and patients could likely receive the results more quickly. This strategy will be most efficient in areas where the outbreak is under control, meaning where only a small percentage of test subjects are expected to be infected, the FDA acknowledged. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, ...