Apple Watch devices with a rock-bottom $25 price tag are being awarded to employees of three companies who meet fitness goals. A health services firm is launching the program this year at companies to encourage workers to stay healthy by highlighting the health tracking features of the Apple wrist wearable, and save companies money on insurance premiums.
Ransomware that targets Apple's OS X has been discovered by a security research company due to the fact the malicious software encrypts files and makes a demand for money. Palo Alto Networks discovered the Mac malware and the security firm expects more Mac ransomware to show up. Past ransomware attacked Windows PCs and mobile devices.
Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin recently sent an email to the company's investors to inform them the livestreaming app is failing. The email explained that the company started last year on a "high note," but the situation became worse during the year because mobile broadcast video did not become as popular as the company had hoped. Tech rivals including Twitter and Facebook had more early users and Meerkat was unable to grow as fast.
"Killer Instinct: Season 3" is on its way, and as expected, the new season will bring forth several characters. One of the newly announced characters is Tusk, a character veteran players should know of.
Apple is expected to hold its first public event of the year during the week of March 21, unveiling its next-generation 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
Tinder is testing a share button that allows users to send profiles to friends by texting a link instead of capturing a screenshot. The link disappears after five clicks or 72 hours, allowing mobile device owners with the Tinder app installed to swipe left or right on the texted profile in order to answer "yes" or "no," then wait to see if there is a match.
Amazon has quickly reversed its recent disabling of encryption on its Fire OS 5 running on Fire tablets after a public relations nightmare. It came after Amazon backed Apple in its battle with the FBI about a San Benardino shooter's locked iPhone 5s that the feds have asked the tech giant to build a backdoor for so it can access data on the mobile device.
Samsung and Six Flags have teamed up to produce a promotion for Gear VR headsets to be used on actual roller coasters. Visitors to the nine Six Flags coasters in the United States will have the option to wear a Gear VR headset for the "Superman" and "New Revolution" virtual reality coaster. New Revolution will include interactive shooting that probably involves Gear VR's trackpad.
Amazon just launched its Echo Dot smart speaker that is a mini version of the original Echo and includes the Alexa virtual assistant. Like the larger Echo it also has a cylinder shape and blue ring around the top that shows the digital assistant is ready to answer questions, but is shorter.
Amazon has confirmed it has removed data encryption for Fire OS 5 for the company's Fire tablet. It revealed that the tablet computers' communication with Amazon's cloud meets the company's high standards for privacy and security. This means Amazon is encrypting data transfers from Fire tablets to external servers but is not protecting data stored locally.
