Wayne Rash

Advertisers on the Internet know who you are; they know where you are with your mobile phone; and they can track your interests and send you advertising despite efforts on your part to avoid their attention. The good news is you can find out fairly easily if this tracking is taking place. The better news […]

As security breaches go, the attack on CurrentC was small potatoes. According to an email sent out by the payment card service, someone broke into their email system and stole a bunch of email addresses. CurrentC followed standard practices and notified anyone who might be affected that the breach had taken place. CurrentC is the […]

Two national drug store chains, CVS and Rite Aid, have turned off their near-field communication terminals to block the use of Apple Pay just a week after the contactless payment system went into operation on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. But this action not only blocks Apple Pay, but also Google Wallet, which the […]

Microsoft’s move to Windows 10 continues with a release of a new build of the operating system and announcements of what the company has planned to make Windows more secure and easier to administer. In addition, Microsoft has released a new build of its Windows 10 Technical Preview, making good on its promise to keep […]

Apple Pay may be the first widely successful electronic payment system using near-field communications (NFC), despite the feature being available on phones for the last few years. The difference between Apple Pay and other similar phone-based payment systems is that Apple has managed to build a significant level of buy-in from merchants and credit card […]

There were surprises at Apple’s introduction of the iPad Air 2, but for the most part, they weren’t about the tablet itself, nor were there many surprises in regards to OSX Yosemite, the new iMac or even the iPad Mini 3. While there were new details that we learned for the first time, most of […]

There’s no question that the institution of automatic encryption by Apple and Google for their respective mobile devices has the intelligence community on edge. Senior officials from a variety of agencies in Washington, D.C., have been complaining since Apple announced that it was instituting encryption for mobile devices that even Apple can’t break. Not fair, […]

Microsoft, clearly stung by the rejection of Windows 8 by enterprise users and eager to repair the damage, has taken the step of releasing the next version of its Windows operating system very early. The idea is to allow users at all levels, but especially enterprise IT users and managers, a chance to try out […]

Windows 10 Preview Shows What Windows 8 Should Have Looked Like By Wayne Rash Shades of the Past Loom in Windows 10 Preview Windows 10, labeled here as the Windows Technical Preview, boots into the Windows Desktop when it’s installed on a machine without a touch screen. If this looks a lot like the Windows […]

If there was one really dumb move by AT&T in its history of placing unauthorized charges on customers’ cell phone bills, it may have been to charge the official cell phone of the Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell with a premium text message service. Sorrell was one of the people who took part in a […]

Open Garden’s FireChat may be the most popular mobile social networking app that you’ve never heard of. That is, it’s unlikely you’ve heard of it unless you’re a political protester in Hong Kong or Iraq, or you recently attended the Burning Man art and entertainment festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. In those places, participants […]

My biggest complaint about the Apple iPhone during my previous brief periods of ownership was that the screen was too small to use. Specifically, I couldn’t type on the crowded buttons without a substantial error rate that was frequently exacerbated by Apple’s idiosyncratic auto-correct feature. Worse, the tiny screen made reading Websites and other online […]