Thousands of web-connected CCTV cameras and webcams have been taken over by hackers to carry out cyber attacks on government department websites and online banks. The network of compromised cameras was uncovered by researchers at security firm Arbor Networks, who reported that large scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks took down websites by flooding them with traffic. The botnet has been assembled by the notorious hacker collective Lizard Squad, best known for taking down the Xbox Live and Playstation gaming networks, as well as knocking North Korea’s Internet offline in 2014 using its LizardStresser DDoS tool.

It was a close run contest – but the Netherlands beat South Korea to announcing a nationwide network for the Internet of Things (IoT) by four days. On June 30, KPN announced the deployment of a network based on the LoRa standard, which went live in November 2015 in Rotterdam and The Hague, with a rapid rollout beginning in early 2016, while on July 4 SK Telecom unveiled its grand plans for a nationwide LPWAN (low power wide area network) LoRa IoT network. For the Netherlands, KPN already has 1.5 million ‘devices’ connected to the network and this figure is …

Throughout all industries, a majority of large companies (those with 1,000 employees or more) are using or planning to use IoT technologies, according to Forrester Research’s 2015 Global Business Technographics Networks and Telecommunications Survey. Those enterprises are hoping to gather data that can be leveraged to improve efficiency, serve customers better and gain insights into new ways of doing business. But IoT technology is already reshaping and revolutionizing the retail industry, yielding advances and new opportunities in customer service, throughout the supply chain and in brick-and-mortar stores and other channels — including new venues that show a lot of promise, …

As per capita purchasing power increases, proportional spending on personal goods has decreased, according to a new report from GfK. For the 28 European Union member states, retail sales accounted for 31.2 percent of spending in 2013 but only 30.4 percent last year. As newly earned purchasing power manifests itself in cultural and recreational spending, brands must invest in the experiential economy to regain prominence.

Pernod Ricard USA’s Absolut Labs is extending the reach of the vodka brand’s millennial-geared Absolut Nights campaign by teaming up with electronic dance music producer deadmau5 for a mobile application and virtual reality experience. The subsidiary of Absolut Vodka has developed an interactive virtual reality experience in partnership with deadmau5, showcasing how the company looks ahead to redefine and reimagine nightlife via its long-running Absolut Nights campaign. Fans will be able to download the Absolut deadmau5 application for their smartphones this July and purchase a branded VR cardboard headset to participate in the experience, which follows the EDM producer as …

Quvium, a U.K. startup, has partnered with DSP Concepts, a Silicon Valley firm that sells digital signal-processing technology, to create a wearable device that monitors the coughing sounds of patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or other chronic respiratory ailments, in order to alert caregivers when a patient is likely to have an acute attack that could result in hospitalization. Dubbed CoughAware, the device will soon be validated by physicians and technologists at London's King's College, in advance of a clinical trial in the United Kingdom.

The potential use of wireless "beacons" to inform smartphone-equipped shoppers of nearby vending machines was the topic of the third technology-themed seminar at the National Automatic Merchandising Association's 2016 OneShow in Chicago. The session was opened by Lindsey K. Nelson, NAMA executive director of development, who thanked the Coca-Cola Co. for its sponsorship of the session. She introduced Google's Dan Cath and Coke's Derek Myers, who offered some insight on potential applications in vending for beacons. Cath explained that beacons have been used to convey information since time immemorial. Before the invention of radio, smoke signals, watch fires and flags were …

Travel application Airside Mobile is leveraging contextual- and location-based push notifications to drive direct downloads among Android users in several major airports and inform them of experiences in their vicinity. Airside Mobile is leveraging sensor beacon solution Bluvision’s Nearby Notifications to prompt more airport travelers to download its app and interact with various in-terminal experiences. Once an individual walks by a Bluvision beacon, the device will send a push notification to his or her Android smartphone with an invitation to download the Airside Mobile app directly from the Google Play Store, thereby simplifying the user experience.

The Internet of Things will boost retail sales, says an electronics wholesaler, as 1,000 smart sensors are set to track UK High Street footfall. Raimund Hahn, CEO of Rhino Inter Group, a wholesale groups for electronic goods, is convinced that the Internet of Things, in other words the connection of all kinds of everyday objects to the internet, will give retailers an enormous boost over the next few years. According to Hahn, all manner of internet-connected devices, from coffee machines and electric toothbrushes to washing machines, will soon be launched to the market, virtually putting people wishing to lead a …