Expect to see a surge in devices supporting the new faster Wi-Fi 6 standard. Wi-Fi Alliance has just announced the Wi-Fi Certified 6 program for companies like Apple and Samsung to officially label their devices as supporting the higher-capacity IEEE 802.11ax protocol.

Wi-Fi 6 succeeds earlier standards 802.11ac and 802.11n that, as of last year, became known as Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4, respectively. 

As with previous generations of IEEE 802.11 wireless, Wi-Fi 6 operates in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands but promises more capacity and better performance when loads of devices are connecting to the same router.

The new Wi-Fi 6 logo is important for device and router vendors because it will allow them to put a badge on their products to indicate faster speeds. And to take advantage of the new technology, consumers will need both routers and devices that support it, such as the iPhone 11 and Samsung Galaxy S10. 

Recent tests by CNET indicate Wi-Fi 6 transfer speeds are about 30% faster than Wi-Fi 5 speeds.

With the right equipment, consumers can expect speeds of up to 1.2Gbps on the 2.4GHz band and nearly 5Gbps on the 5GHz band, meaning it is faster than most consumer broadband services available today.  

Other mobile chips and routers that have been Wi-Fi 6 certified include Broadcom's BCM4375, BCM43698, and BCM43684 chips; the Cypress CYW 89650 Auto-Grade Wi-Fi 6 Certified; the Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) AX200 for PCs; the Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset WAV600 Series for routers and gateways; Marvell's 88W9064 (4x4) Wi-Fi 6 Dual-Band STA and its 88W9064 (4x4) + 88W9068 (8x8) Wi-Fi 6 Concurrent Dual-Band access point; the Qualcomm Networking Pro 1200 Platform and its FastConnect 6800 Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Connectivity Subsystem; and the Ruckus R750 Wi-Fi 6 Access Point.
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Wi-Fi 6 routers also support the new WPA3 standard for securing data being transferred on Wi-Fi networks.

More than 400 police agencies across the United States are working with the Amazon-owned Ring home surveillance system, and now you can check if your local department is one of them.

Ring disclosed the number late month, and it’s double what reports had previously revealed. It also published an interactive map where anyone can check whether their hometown cops are part of the controversial effort through which police can see all the Ring cameras in a given neighborhood, can seamlessly request the footage and are encouraged to promote the device.

The map, where you can also check when each department started working with Ring, is available here, along with a blog post about the Ring-law enforcement partnership. The company will be updating the map as new departments are added, it says.

The release coincided with an in-depth Washington Post story, which disclosed the full number of agencies for the first time.

The Ring system includes its surveillance cameras (most famously the motion-activated camera doorbells) as well as the Neighbors app (where people can share footage from their cameras and discuss crime in their areas) and the Neighborhood Portal (where police can see a map of Ring cameras and quickly submit a request for footage during an investigation). In recent months, Vice, CNET, and Gizmodo have reported on police’s close relationship with the company, which, for example, gives departments discounts or free cameras to distribute among residents. In some cases, police have used the giveaways as leverage to demand that people hand over their footage, although Ring says it is supposed to be voluntary.
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Critics worry about the privacy implications of such a built-out surveillance network, especially one that is controlled by a private company. What’s more, “neighborhood watch” apps like Neighbors or Nextdoor have had problems with racism and racial profiling, after users have raised the alarm after merely seeing people of color in their area.

Cryptocurrency investors in the United States are receiving letters from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which are proposing backdated tax payments relating to the trade of virtual assets. 

As reported by Bloomberg, some traders are receiving notices asking for input on revised tax returns, based on estimates of profit generated by cryptocurrency-related activities.

The CP2000 notices have been sent in recent weeks, and while they do acknowledge mistakes in past tax returns might be due to cryptocurrency platforms and exchanges rather than individuals, they do signal a clampdown by the IRS on the burgeoning industry. 

In July, the IRS also sent warnings to investors to make them aware that tax may be owed on their trading activities. Some investors received demands for the disclosure of cryptocurrency trades between 2013 and 2017. 

An IRS spokesperson said that the latest batch of warning notices are sent to taxpayers when discrepancies between tax returns and information obtained from third parties are flagged. 

Aletter shared with CoinDesk estimates that an investor owes close to $4,000 in taxes and interest for potentially misreported cryptocurrency profits during the 2017 fiscal year. 

"We received information from third parties such as employers or financial institutions that doesn't match the information you reported on your tax return," the letter reads. 

Recipients can accept the changes and make any further payments required, or they can challenge the IRS' decision if they have supporting evidence. 

According to the IRS website, CP2000 receivers should respond within 30 days even if only to say they need more time. The notices are not straight bills or demands, but what the IRS calls "a proposal [that] informs you about the information we have received, and how it affects your tax."

The IRS won a landmark case against Coinbase in 2017 which forced the cryptocurrency exchange to hand over the records of 14,000 customers that purchased, sold, or obtained over $20,000 in cryptocurrency between 2013 and 2015.

The acquisition, though small, is the latest in Microsoft’s attempts to level up with Amazon. Over the last few years, the company has garnered individual partnerships with retailers, which has laid the groundwork for marketers to see it as a potential alternative to the Jeff Bezos behemoth. Still, Microsoft has a long way to go: Amazon has a substantial leg up on both advertising (which brought in $3 billion this past quarter) and cloud storage (which hit $8.38 billion in Q2 of this year). Adding PromoteHQ – which has clients that include Overstock.com, Office Depot, and Kohl’s – indicates that Microsoft is strategizing about how to expand and undercut the competition quietly.

Until now, Microsoft has had to face Google as its primary advertising competitor. The acquisition hints at Microsoft’s ambition to go beyond search. Bloomberg estimated search would bring in about $7.9 billion in annual revenue for the fiscal year 2019, a drop in the bucket compared to Google’s $120 billion in annual ad sales. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it was changing its ads name from Bing Ads to Microsoft Ads, which also implied that it had grander horizons beyond mere web search, which Google will almost certainly always dominate. Indeed, the PromoteHQ purchase is a way for Microsoft to go beyond search in its quest to court retailers – effectively providing a platform so that brands with e-commerce sites can run ads on their own storefronts.

Microsoft over the last few years has become a quietly growing alternative to the ever-growing Amazon behemoth, something that retailers squeamish to do business with Amazon would welcome. Even though Amazon Web Services has about one-third of the cloud market share, retailers have been inking long-term contracts with competitors like Microsoft to try to chip away at the e-commerce giant’s bottom line. Kroger, for example, has signed significant agreements with both Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. With that, the grocery chain announced that it was working with Microsoft to build out in-store technology – including a connected store experience and digital shelving that would serve shoppers personalized ads. Walmart too has reportedly told vendors it wants them to stop using AWS.

There are other examples too. Walgreens also signed a long-term deal with Microsoft, as have Walmart and Gap.

“What Microsoft has done well over the last three to five years,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, “is [work] with retailers.” But what it’s been very weak on, he said, is advertising. These incremental moves over the last few months – the Microsoft Ads rebrand, as well as acquisitions like PromoteHQ – are setting the groundwork to work with retailers on multiple fronts, including advertising. “Every retailer feels they have a gun to their head from Google, Amazon, and Facebook,” Wang said. “There’s a unique opportunity for Microsoft to be in this space.” Of course, other software giants working with large companies are likely trying to follow suit, such as Salesforce, Adobe, and Oracle,” Wang added.

All of these announcements are piecemeal, but they do add up to a more significant strategy. Retailers want to rely as little on Amazon as possible while growing their e-commerce businesses, and Microsoft has laid the groundwork to offer solutions that are direct alternatives. Meanwhile, as Microsoft continues to make individual long-term deals with big retail companies, it puts it in the position to have future clients as it increases its advertising and software offerings.
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For retailers, forgoing Amazon could become an almost moral imperative. By doing business with them, said Wang, “you’re giving [Amazon] the ability to crush you.” Thus, if Microsoft were to continue to play to these fears – and focus on more retail-adjacent products like PromoteHQ – its business stands to grow even more.

A new security product has been launched, and it’s packed with features for a reasonable price. Authen2cateis a single-sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) service provider. Authen2cate provides a full-service, end-to-end solution that includes consulting services, implementation, integration, and ongoing maintenance and support.

Reduce Security Risk. The need for multi-factor authentication in today’s world is only becoming more and more apparent. According to The Password Exposefrom LastPass, the average employee is managing 191 passwords. Even a genius would sweat at the thought of remembering 191 unique, strong passwords from memory. This promotes the re-use of basic passwords and is a looming threat to every company. Remember, a simple eight-character alphanumeric password can be cracked in a matter of minutes.

As the internet and cloud solutions become an even more significant part of everyday life, especially in the workplace, ensuring identities can be properly authenticated and access is securely granted to only the right people, passwords alone are an outdated security measure. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)states that “MFA should be used wherever possible for any external access like VPN, Outlook Web Access or Citrix” and advised that many of the security issues they see today stem from passwords. Also, NIST recommended that businesses should incorporate Multi-Factor Authentication in their login policies, and that password management and policies are not “one-size-fits-all.” Authen2cate is designed to help with these issues. 

By implementing Authen2cate’s unified Identity and Access Management solution, users can prevent identity attacks and data compromise with an added layer of security. 

Meet Compliance Requirements. Security and privacy are essential topics in many industries: Healthcare, Government, IT, Education, and more. Most industry compliance guidelines and requirements from HIPAA, HITECH, PCI, FIPS, NIST, and others require or highly recommend added layers of security. By implementing Authen2cate’s Multi-Factor Authentication solutions, users can better prepare for audits and meet compliance standards to protect their organization.

Multi-Factor Authentication allows for added security to protect user logins and sensitive data. In today’s technical world, where everything is saved on a computer, in a server, or the cloud, it is more important than ever to protect personal information further. Should a username and password become compromised, MFA serves as a second layer of security preventing access to sensitive information.

Provisioning. One of the critical requirements of all compliance standards is not only creating access for a new user but also making sure that when a user leaves the organization, access is revoked. Authen2cate’s solution allows the administrator to seamlessly and automatically provision a new user by simply adding them to the application group in the directory. Applications like Office 365, Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, and many more take only a few minutes to deploy. When a user leaves the organization, delete them from the directory or remove them from the application group, and access is terminated for all applications they had previously been assigned.

Simple User Experience. Authen2cate's unified Identity and Access Management solution offers a seamless and straightforward experience for all users while adding another layer of security. How can Authen2cate make your life easier and more secure?

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