Today’s topics include the lawsuit against Apple for defects that cause touch-screen failures on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the network breach that forced browser vendor Opera to reset user passwords, Hewlett Packard’s expansion of its machine learning capabilities for big data analytics and the hints that Microsoft is planning to release an updated Surface Book.
Apple is being sued in a class action lawsuit over allegations that many of its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones have a known defect that causes the devices’ touch screens to become unresponsive and ultimately fail.
Three U.S. plaintiffs, Thomas Davidson of Pennsylvania, Todd Cleary of California and Jun Bai of Delaware, have now filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, alleging that that the company has been refusing to repair phones that exhibit the condition and that it has been continuing to conceal a design defect that plagues the devices.
Browser vendor Opera says it was the victim of a network breach the week of Aug. 22 that it discovered and quickly blocked. The breach affected a browser function that allows users to synchronize settings and passwords across multiple devices.
Opera has reset end-user passwords required to access Opera sync to help limit security risk to users. Additionally Opera is advising its sync users to reset passwords for third-party sites that they used with Sync as well.
Opera estimates that approximately1.7 million people use the sync service. It’s unclear who attacked Opera and what the root cause of the breach is.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is continuing to expand its capabilities in big data analytics as part of what officials have called a pivot in the way the company is approaching the fast-growing space.
At the tech vendor’s Big Data Conference 2016 in Boston on Aug. 30, HPE officials unveiled enhancements to the Haven OnDemand machine learning platform it launched in March that are intended to make it easier for developers and data scientists to build applications that can draw insights from the huge amounts of data being generated by their businesses.
At the same time, HPE also unveiled the latest version of its Vertica analytics software that enables users to analyze the data more quickly—regardless of where it’s stored on-premises, in the cloud or in a Hadoop data lake.
Microsoft surprised the industry during its hardware event in New York City last year when it took the wraps off the Surface Book, the company’s first two-in-one hybrid laptop. Featuring a detachable screen with a unique hinge design and optional discrete graphics on some models, the Surface Book is Microsoft’s take on what a premium Windows two-in-one hybrid should be.
On Sunday, the official Microsoft Surface account on Instagram posted a cryptic, close-up image of a Surface device. The photo was accompanied with the following text: “Your key to success. #Microsoft #Surface #DoGreatThings” The image appeared to show a black keyboard and a redesigned hinge.
Expecting another hardware event from Microsoft in the coming months along with a refresh of the company’s devices, industry watchers took it as a sign that new Surface Book was on its way.
