Tech

These researchers have discovered the perfect password that’s also easy to remember

2015-10-24T18:46:00.004-07:00

from washingtonpost

By Ana Swanson October 22

The first thing you learn when you try to create a good password is that your memory is pretty terrible. The second thing you might learn is that you're really bad at being random.

True randomness is hard to predict; humans aren't. Even if you’re not one of the millions of people who use passwords like “12345678” or “password,” you might still be making some amateur mistakes. For example, using a common phrase as your password, but then replacing the “i” with a “1,” or the "a" with a "@," and so on. Or using common words and phrases, and putting the characters and numerals at the end of the password, instead of spaced randomly throughout. Or re-using passwords across sites, or not changing them often enough.

In short, basically any technique that would allow a human being to actually remember a password.

Okay, you say, but how do you possibly get around this? Any password that is going to be reasonably secure is also going to be impossible to remember. And any password you can possibly remember is probably going to be terrible. That’s just the law of passwords, right?

As the Post's Alexandra Petri writes, “The perfectly secure, perfectly memorable password is absolutely pure and rarer than the unicorn.... That is to say, no one has ever found it, and some doubt whether it exists at all.”

But two researchers at the University of Southern California may have finally come up with the perfect solution. Marjan Ghazvininejad and Kevin Knight of the University of Southern California have published a paper with a novel solution for creating with passwords that are both extremely hard to crack and relatively easy to remember: randomly-generated poems.

The inspiration for Ghazvininejad and Knight’s study was actually a cartoon, created by Randall Munroe of Xkcd, which showed how a password made up of four random words – like “correct horse battery staple” – is far more secure and a lot easier for people to remember than the typical jumble of random letters, numbers and symbols that most people think of as a secure password.

Munroe's point is that, even if you pick a fairly uncommon word, like "Troubadour," and replace some of the letters with other symbols, this combination might only take a computer seconds, minutes or hours to guess. But a combination of four totally random words is both hard for a hacker to crack and easy for a person to remember — you can make up some weird little story about a horse correctly identifying a battery staple that will stick with you forever, unlike your coworkers' spouses' names, or the date of your anniversary. (If you want to know more about the method behind this, check out this reddit thread.)

The secret here is that those four random words are actually generated based on one very large random number. That random number is then broken up into segments, each of which corresponds with a word in the dictionary. It's basically a form of cryptography. To guess the full random number, a computer might have to test billions of billions of billions of possibilities before it hits on the right one, says Knight.

But while Munroe suggested using this large number to pick four random words, Ghazvininejad and Knight hit on the idea of using it to create a little poem.

In their paper, Ghazvininejad and Knight look at a few different methods for generating random passwords – the Xkcd method of using four random words, as well as a method of generating a random sentence – but they find that by far the most secure and the most memorable method is creating a short rhyming poem of random words.

As the researchers point out, humans have been using poetry as a way to remember information for thousands of years. It’s no accident that long epics, like the 12,000-line Odyssey, or the 17,000-line Canterbury Tales, were written using meter or rhyme. Most people today can’t recite the Canterbury Tales, but they’ve still had certain sing-songy rhymes permanently burned into their memory – like “Thirty days hath September,” or the weather beacon rhymes that people once learned before weather apps came along.

Ghazvininejad and Knight create their poems by assigning every word in a 327,868-word dictionary a distinct code. They then use a computer program to generate a very long random number, break that number up into pieces, and then translate those pieces into two short phrases. The computer program they use ensures that the two lines end in words that rhyme, and that the whole phrase is in iambic tetrameter, like so:

Receiver Mathew Halloween
deliver cousin magazine

These passwords might seem a little odd, but they're actually very, very secure. At current speeds, Knight estimates that cracking these passwords would take around 5 million years. By which point, we probably won't be using Facebook anymore.

If you read too many of these, they will make you feel a little crazy. But some of them are really fun to say:

The reigning Hagen journeyman
believers mini minivan

And teaches scripture bungalow
or celebrate or Idaho

Others are weird and evocative, hinting at wild stories just waiting to be made up as memory devices:

And British fiction engineer
Travolta captured bombardier

Australia juggernaut employed
the Daniel Lincoln asteroid

Enrique Hasbro Japanese
revealed aggressive amputees

Competing holy Hemingway
complies American ballet

A peanut never classified
expected branches citywide

The latest Union Rodeo
amounts of aiding dynamo

Ghazvininejad and Knight developed an online generator for these little poems, which you can try out here. They caution that this site is just for demonstration — hackers could potentially download all of these and try them out, so don't use them for your password.

If you want your own little poem password, you can enter your e-mail here, and their program will send you a secure one, which will then be deleted from their server.

Obviously, remembering a little poem for every password you have might be difficult, but the researchers suggest you could use one or two of these poem passwords for your most important accounts, or use one for your password manager, which will keep all your other information secure. Many sites will ask you to add a special character or number to your password, but that shouldn't be too hard -- you could just add some punctuation, or maybe replaces spaces with special characters.

The biggest drawback is that many sites these days limit the number of characters that you can use in your passwords, so these poems are probably too long for many of your accounts. But perhaps that will change someday soon. More and more sites are considering dropping the character limit, since shorter passwords are a lot less secure.

You might also like:

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What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like

Kurt Vonnegut graphed the world’s most popular stories

In light of recent cyber security breaches, here are the best ways to protect your passwords. (Sarah Parnass and Natalie Jennings/The Washington Post)

Ana Swanson is a reporter for Wonkblog specializing in business, economics, data visualization and China. She also works on Know More, Wonkblog's social media channel.

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Why Would Apple Make an Electric Car, Not a Driverless One?

2015-09-22T14:29:00.003-07:00

from theatlantic

A woman touches the display in a Volvo with integrated iPhone voice control.Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters

Apple is doubling down on developing an electric car, and has assigned a 2019 ship-date to its secret automotive project, code-named Titan, according to a report this week in The Wall Street Journal.
The latest news builds on earlier reports that indicate Apple is increasingly committed to entering the car market at a time when many believe the industry faces unprecedented disruption. Earlier this year, Apple lawyers met with officials at California's Department of Motor Vehicles and Apple engineers quietly scoped out a 2,100-acre campus in the Bay Area that’s being used as a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles, The Guardian reported.
With the race to build self-driving cars accelerating, Apple’s plans for an electric vehicle raise one overarching question: Why would the company focus on building an electric car rather than a driverless one?
There are a few ways to think about this, but it should be pointed out that we don’t actually know that Apple isn’t committed to a driverless car. Apple is famously secretive, and often has a deliberate hand in the information that leaks about its plans. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported that although Apple won’t make its first electric car fully autonomous, that capability is “part of the product’s long-term plans.”

There are a few reasons it could make sense for Apple to focus on electric cars before driverless ones. For starters, just establishing itself as a potential player in this space is a way to appear competitive. “At zero cost, with a few leaks, Apple has overnight created brand buzz for itself in the auto market, for which Google had to spend millions developing and promoting its driverless car experiments," Holman Jenkins Jr. wrote for the Journal in March.
The cost of actually developing a driverless car entails more than financial risk. Apple has the money, but it also has to be calculated about what sorts of gambles it takes and when. Silicon Valley is already convinced that driverless cars are the future, but actually getting them on the roads—and not just test vehicles in Mountain View or in Austin, as Google has done—will still require surmounting enormous regulatory and technological challenges. “I don’t think anyone is clear, at the moment, on how autonomous driving is actually going to get introduced,” said Andrew Moore, the dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon.
Perhaps Apple wants to establish itself in the car industry by first introducing a car fully integrated with its existing operating systems before eventually moving to a driverless model. That gradual approach to autonomy is the one favored by traditional automakers, who plan to move their vehicles toward driverlessness feature-by-feature. And, besides, why not let Google and Uber fight regulatory battles and confront difficult safety questions in public? “No one is going to want to realize autonomous driving into the world until there’s proof that it’s much safer, like a factor of 100 safer, than having a human drive,” Moore told me. “But even then, at a factor of 100 safer, it won’t be long before there is an accident.” In Moore’s estimation, those first accidents will set back the driverless-car movement by a couple of years.
Looking back, perhaps something can be learned from Apple's first foray into the phone market, a comparison that also serves as a reminder that the company has a history of testing the waters in a new industry before diving in. In September 2005, Apple teamed up with Motorola and Cingular Wireless on the Rokr, a cell phone that ran iTunes. “We’ve worked closely with Motorola to deliver the world’s best music experience on a mobile phone,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs ina statement at the time.
Just over a year later, Jobs announced the iPhone, calling it “a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone.”
Five years from now, if the company meets its target, we may better understand what kind of car Apple truly wants to build.

Google said to be in talks to invest in SpaceX at $10bn valuation

2015-01-19T10:27:00.003-08:00

from venturebeat.com

Above: Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Image Credit: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

January 19, 2015 9:20 AM
Daniel Terdiman

SpaceX has gone where most startups never have: To space. And it looks like Google may well want in on the excitement.

According to a report this morning from The Information (subscription required), Google is close to putting a substantial investment into Elon Musk’s rocket company at a valuation above $10 billion. The report cited several people close to the talks as its source.

“The purpose of a deal, which is still in the works,” The Information wrote, “is to support the development of SpaceX satellites that could beam low-cost Internet around the globe to billions who don’t have it.”

That plan jibes with a concept Musk unveiled on Friday: plans to deploy satellites that could connect millions of people around the world with a low-cost Internet.

Google, of course, has pursued initiatives of its own to bring Internet connectivity to people in under-served areas. Its Project Loon concept was designed to connect people via a system of balloons. Facebook, too, is working on a solution to the problem: On the one hand, it has backed Internet.org, a non-profit consortium that is building out connectivity infrastructure in the developing world. And on the other, Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is working on huge drones that could one day beam Internet service into areas that need it.

Neither Google nor SpaceX immediately responded to VentureBeat requests for comment.

SpaceX, of course, has been working on rockets designed to take satellites into space. Already, it has delivered a number of payloads to the International Space Station. Earlier this month, a SpaceX Dragon arrived at the Space Station. It was the fifth of 12 such missions under a $1.6 billion NASA contract. That successful mission was marred — to a certain extent — by the crash, and explosion, of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as it attempted to land on a platform at sea.

For Google, which has a market capitalization of $344.66 billion, an investment in the privately-held SpaceX could well provide it access to the technology — satellites, rockets, launch systems, and much more — that could help it further its mission to spread Internet connectivity around the world.

More information:

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major glob... read more »

NASA Mars Orbiter Arrives at Red Planet Tonight: Watch It Live

2014-09-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

from space.com

By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | September 21, 2014 07:30am ET

Update for Monday, Sept. 22: NASA's MAVEN orbiter has successfully arrived at Mars. To see our arrival story, visit: NASA Spacecraft Arrives at Mars to Probe Mysteries of Red Planet's Air.

A NASA spacecraft built to study the atmosphere of Mars like never before will arrive at the Red Planet tonight (Sept. 21) and you can watch it live online.

After 10 months in deep-space, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft is expected to enter orbit around Mars and begin a one-year mission studying the planet's upper atmosphere. The Mars arrival will cap a 442 million-mile (711 million kilometers) trek across the solar system.

Microsoft fights Android and Chrome OS with dirt-cheap Windows 8.1 PCs and …

2014-09-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

from pctablet.name

September 8, 2014 by admin

How do you compete when your fiercest rival is willing to give away its product? That’s the dilemma Microsoft faces in trying to compete with Google, which offers the Android operating system and Chrome OS to OEMs for nothing.

Redmond’s response, earlier this year, was to introduce a variant of the Windows client software: Windows 8.1 with Bing. This OS option is available to OEMs at a price that’s a carefully guarded secret but is probably close to zero. Yes, there’s a catch—two of them, in fact. Windows 8.1 for Bing is available only on low-cost devices, and OEMs are unable to change the default search engine during the setup process. (The PC buyer can change search defaults with no restrictions after starting up for the first time.)

In all other respects, this is just Windows 8.1, available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, with variants in Chinese and single (non-English) languages.

At the IFA tradeshow in Berlin this week, OEMs have begun taking advantage of the lower Windows licensing cost to unleash a flood of small tablets at prices that were previously unheard of for Windows devices. Toshiba’s 7-inch Encore Mini tablet, for example, will sell for $120 in the U.S. (129 Euros in Europe). Acer’s Iconia Tab 8 W, an 8-inch tablet with a quad-core CPU, is priced aggressively as well, at $150. And plenty more are on the way, all running Windows 8.1 for Bing.

The new, cheaper Windows isn’t just for tablets. Microsoft and its OEM partners are taking aim at Chromebooks, with Windows 8.1 with Bing showing up on low-cost laptops this week as well.

Toshiba’s new Satellite CL10-B, for example, is an 11-inch clamshell-style laptop with 32 GB of eMMC flash storage and 100 GB of OneDrive cloud storage, prepaid for two years. The price tag of 269 Euros undercuts the new 13-inch Chromebook 2, which Toshiba is exhibiting a mere 10 feet away at its IFA stand. That device, with a bigger screen, checks in at a price of 349 Euros for 16 GB of built-in storage and 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage, also prepaid for two years.

And it’s just one of many similar neo-netbooks that will be showing up this fall, including the resurrection of the Ur-netbook, the ASUS EeeBook Z205, at $199. HP’s Pavilion 10Z, introduced earlier this summer, is one of the few Windows 8.1 with Bing devices that includes a touchscreen.

One way that Microsoft and its partners are able to tamp down costs is by shrinking the amount of built-in storage available with these new devices. The specs for Windows 8.1 with Bing allow manufacturers to ship tablets with as little as 16 GB of flash (or SSD) storage. The clamshell devices typically include 32 GB of flash RAM.

The reason PC makers can get away with such skimpy storage is a new feature called WIMBoot, which allows the OEM to install Windows so that it runs directly from the compressed image file previously used only for Windows 8.x recovery functions.

This diagram, taken from a Microsoft technical article for OEMs, explains how the disk layout differs for a WIMBoot installation.

With a WIMBoot installation, the system boots from the same Windows image (WIM) file used for system recovery purposes, freeing huge amounts of disk space. Image via Microsoft TechNet.

The difference in free storage is profound. On that Toshiba Satellite notebook with 32 GB of flash storage, I checked the system disk using File Explorer: there was a total of 24.5 billion bytes of free space (reported as 22.9 GB in File Explorer), which means the full Windows installation takes up only 7.5 billion bytes, or 7 GB as reported in File Explorer. (For an explanation of the confusing way Windows reports disk space usage, see this article.)

That’s a huge improvement over a conventional Windows installation, which can gobble up half of a 32 GB drive. In my tests of other systems using WIMBoot compression, I’ve seen no degradation of performance. In addition, every device I looked at offers expansion through removable storage.

Several of the low-cost devices I’ve seen at IFA so far also include a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal. Presumably Microsoft is betting that a significant proportion of those device owners will get hooked on Office and renew their subscription when the year is up.

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The move is vaguely reminiscent of the inexpensive Starter editions Microsoft released in the Windows Vista and Windows 7 era. Those editions were hobbled, feature-wise, and at one point Microsoft even planned to restrict those editions to running only three apps simultaneously, although they eventually reversed course on that decision. In contrast, Windows 8.1 with Bing contains the full Windows feature set.

And it’s worth remembering that although those early netbooks were unbearably slow, that’s not likely to be a problem with this generation. Modern CPUs are more than capable of handling the demands of media consumption and basic productivity tasks without breaking a sweat. None of these low-priced devices will be suitable for video or photo editing but that’s not their intended role.

For OEMs already dealing with razor-thin profit margins, these new device classes are a mixed blessing at best. The slimmer prices will also drive down revenues for Microsoft, which is used to collecting a full license fee for every Windows device. But for consumers the low prices might be enough to distract attention away from Android devices and Chromebooks.

This story has been updated since its original publication to include discussions of WIMBoot performance and historical comparisons with earlier Windows versions.

Wi-Fi Should Scare the Hell out of Verizon and AT&T

2014-09-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

from bloomberg

By Joshua Brustein September 08, 2014

A major threat looms over wireless carriers that have invested billions in lightning-fast cellular networks: the humble Wi-Fi router.

Well more than half of the online activity produced by smartphone users happens over Wi-Fi, according to newly released data from Adobe Systems (ADBE). Although the report just came out on Monday, Adobe’s research found that Wi-Fi had already surpassed Web browsing via cellular networks by early 2013. The data come from more than 10,000 websites.

AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) have spent years building towers and hoarding expensive wireless spectrum for their LTE (long-term evolution) networks under the assumption that they could charge more once their customers became accustomed to watching Netflix (NFLX) on their phones. The carriers have gradually tightened the ropes on how much data customers can use without forking over extra money each month.

As customers have increased their data consumption, companies like AT&T have been happy to offload some portion of that activity to Wi-Fi networks as a way to clear up the cell networks. “But there’s a flavor of too much of a good thing here, where Wi-Fi offloads start to really impinge on the prospects of monetizing all that additional usage,” says industry analyst Craig Moffett. “All the carriers have put their eggs in the basket of incremental usage as the source of revenue growth. It isn’t going according to plan.”

As users become more aware of the limits on their data plans, they’re more careful about moving to Wi-Fi as often as possible, says Tamara Gaffney, an analyst with Adobe’s Digital Index. Wi-Fi networks are also spreading from retail stores to parks and stadiums, creating an increasing number of situations where people can easily leave cell networks.

In an added wrinkle, T-Mobile (TMUS) and Sprint (S) have decided to compete against the bigger carriers by being more generous with their own data plans—undermining the ability of the industry to lower data caps all the way to the bank.

The carriers know the Wi-Fi shift is happening. One response to slowing smartphone revenue is a parallel push to move consumers into tablets, which are great for performing data-intensive tasks like watching entire movies. All of the major carriers in the U.S. have been handing out tablets with reckless abandon. A recent AT&T promotion cut $200 off the price of an iPad to anyone willing to buy an iPhone and sign up for a two-year contract.

But Adobe’s data show a shortcoming in the tablet plan, since 93 percent of Web browsing on tablets takes place over Wi-Fi. Moffett says carriers are barely breaking even on tablets, given the discounts they’re offering on the devices themselves. The companies’ attempts to hawk data plans by giving away iPads are likely to become an even harder sell, because people are proving unwilling to ante up for a new tabletevery two years.

Carriers have also been excited about the Internet of Things, thinking that if you can’t sell data plans to new people, maybe you can sell them to refrigerators and sports cars. Connected cars probably carry the most potential, because they’re essentially giant mobile devices that rely on mobile networks.

But the LTE networks built by the wireless carriers aren’t ideal for stationary objects. Smart appliances that live indoors are likely to use free Wi-Fi rather than expensive data plans. Devices parked in remote outdoor locations are also unlikely to connect via expensive, battery-intensive cellular networks.

Startups have started building low-bandwidth wireless networks for connected devices that cost only a fraction of the subscription fees for LTE networks. While carriers talk a big game about the Internet of Things, Moffett thinks they may not have the advantage they think they do: “Assuming that a lot of the data revenue will go to carriers is, in effect, betting against the ingenuity of Silicon Valley.”

Brustein is a writer for Businessweek.com in New York

These are the 8 Android and Windows Phone features we want on the iPhone 6

2014-08-29T18:00:00.001-07:00

from cnet

Apple doesn't hold the patent on good ideas. These hardware and software goodies from other phones would make Apple's next iPhone even better.

by Jessica Dolcourt

@jdolcourt
August 29, 2014 4:25 PM PDT

One could argue that the entire modern smartphone market has been largely built around aping Apple's revolutionary iPhone, which first appeared in 2007. Indeed, that phone still looks remarkably "current" in some ways: the minimalist rectangular design, the no-keyboard glass touchscreen, and tap and swipe interface are all mainstays of the marketplace now.

Apple, of course, is deadly serious when it comes to protecting its intellectual property -- just askSamsung. But the iPhone maker has borrowed good ideas from competitors, too -- plenty of things in iOS 7 and the forthcoming iOS 8 first appeared in competing Android and Windows Phone models.

In my book, that's a good thing -- consumers are getting better features across the board, regardless of their OS. To that end, I'm hoping that the iPhone 6 has picked up a few of its rivals' other tricks as well.

Virtually guaranteed

We already know we're getting home screen widgets (of a sort) and swappable keyboards, courtesy ofiOS 8. Beyond those, rumors of NFC (near-field communication that pairs devices in a tap) and a larger screen make that spec almost a given, not to mention the undeniable industry shift in these directions, supported by consumer demand.

Want, want, want

Smart lock screen tricks: Talk about intuitive. I love the simple way that the LG G2 and LG G3'slock screen turns on and off with a simple, elegant, and totally natural double-tap.
Waterproofing: Rugged water-resistant phones have been around for a long time, but Sony's high-end Xperia line (like the Xperia Z2) and Samsung's Galaxy S5 are making the idea of inherent "waterproofing" less of a luxury and more of a given. If these companies can bolster an everyday handset against ordinary splashes and accidental soakings, Apple can too.

IPHONE 6: MOST-WANTED FEATURES (PICTURES)SEE FULL GALLERY

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Sapphire screen: Kyocera's Brigadier proves that lab-grown sapphire doesn't have to make a handset expensive, and Huawei is also purportedly working on a sapphire phone. Apple already uses the hard material as a camera lens cover. It would be terrific to see the durable materials also cover a mainstream phone's display, though analysts don't think it'll happen.
Biometric sensors: It's true that the heart-rate monitor in Samsung's Galaxy S5 is a niche feature that many don't even use, but it's also true that device-makers' interest in fitness and personal data sensors is high. We've also found that of all Samsung's heartbeat readers, the fingertip sensor on the phone is more accurate than the wrist-worn watches.

Even if Apple does offload a similar heart-rate monitor onto an iWatch or other wearable, it isn't a long shot to think that the company could also integrate a similar sensor into Touch ID on the home button.
HTC's One-series phones are known for top audio output.Josh Miller/CNET
Surround speakers: The iPhone's audio quality through the external speakers on the phone's bottom edge isn't bad, but it's pretty average, especially when compared with the HTC One M8's standards-bearing audio. Apple could easily follow HTC's lead here.
Wireless charging: Nokia (now Microsoft-owned) has experimented the most visibly with wireless charging, down to accessories that use NFC to pair phones to, say an external speaker, while also charging the device. Apple's premium on design and functionality could give the wireless charging industry the juice it needs to bring on the next generation of more powerful and efficient cord-free top-ups.

Icing on the cake

Physical camera button: Apple's minimalist approach to buttons means we probably won't see a dedicated camera button anywhere on the iPhone 6, but it's at least conceivable that the power/lock button's move to the side of the phone (as it's rumored) could maybe -- maybe? -- let it double as a camera shutter. Regardless, it's still one of my all-time favorite hardware features on any phone.

A hardware shutter button lets you launch the camera even before you pull it out of your pocket.James Martin/CNET
Settings shortcuts: This is more the cherry on the icing on the cake, but it would be terrific if Apple could close the loop on this feature seen on Android phones: long-pressing the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles in the Control Center to open each individual setting, not just to turn the functionality on and off. This would be especially useful for selecting a new Wi-Fi network.

Do you have a wish list of your own? Share with us which specific hardware or software features you'd like to see carried over from other phones, in the comments below.

HANDS-ON WITH THE FIRST BATCH OF 'IPHONE 6' CASES (PICTURES)SEE FULL GALLERY

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Technology Helps Pilots Land in Fog

2014-08-19T21:00:00.001-07:00

from wsj.com

High-Resolution Views of Runways Could Allow More Airports to Stay Open in Bad Weather

Aug. 19, 2014 6:52 p.m. ET

Technology showing high-resolution, color depictions of runways could allow more airports to remain open when visibility is limited. Shown, a jet lands in fog at London's Heathrow. eyevine/Zuma Press

Rockwell Collins Inc. COL +0.56% and other cockpit-equipment makers are developing technologies to combat a major source of frustration for airline passengers: flights that are canceled or diverted due to poor visibility at their scheduled destinations.

Using computer-generated color images, and sometimes infrared-enhanced views of runways and their surroundings, Rockwell, Honeywell International Corp. HON -0.09%and other suppliers are seeking to reduce such schedule disruptions and lost revenue for carriers.

The new onboard landing systems have been gaining momentum and seem poised for further regulatory approvals on both sides of the Atlantic. With high-resolution, color depictions of runways and other features, they are designed to allow many more airports that lack the latest ground-based navigation aids to remain open in bad weather.

In the U.S., they would enable low-visibility landings that are now prohibited at scores of mid-size and smaller fields.

Proponents say the result would be increased capacity and improved safety, because pilots would get significantly more detail about terrain or other potential obstacles.

Eventually, according to these people, the goal is to effectively eliminate any requirement to see the physical runway. Crews of jetliners and business jets could continue low-visibility approaches practically all the way to the ground —even when they can't see the actual runway.

Regulators still have a long way to go to give the green light for such radical changes.

Before current rules can be revised at thousands of airports world-wide, vendors have to demonstrate that virtual images are just as safe and reliable as current requirements for pilots to catch a glimpse of the physical runway just before touchdown.

"It's definitely a big trend" and progress so far "is a huge deal," Kent Statler, chief operating officer of Rockwell's commercial products division, said at the international air show outside London earlier this summer. Relying on sensors that can peer through moisture regardless of temperature or humidity, he adds, Rockwell has "spent a lot of time" developing such equipment and significant advances are likely "in the foreseeable near future."

Preventing weather-related flight diversions "clearly saves fuel and saves time," according to Chris Benich, head of regulatory affairs at Honeywell's aerospace unit. The company's products seek to "squeeze as many benefits out of [the technology] as we can," according to Mr. Benich, while reducing overall investment costs for carriers.

Today, a relatively small percentage of airliners already can land when visibility is almost nil. The most advanced jets arriving at the best equipped airports can use fully-automated systems when big storms, low-hanging clouds or fog prevent most other flights from touching down. Depending on pilots' preferences, so-called "autoland" equipment also can use computers to apply brakes, reduce engine thrust and even taxi down the center of the runway.

In a few years, automated taxi systems are even expected to turn planes off runways and use electric motors attached to landing gears to direct them to gates—all without direct pilot commands.

The majority of U.S. airline flights, however, don't fall into those categories. When typical airline pilots fly approaches to socked-in airports without relying on the latest autoland technology, usually they have to see the runway before descending below 200 feet. With special training and equipment, cockpit crews in some business jets and airliners can descend as low as 100 feet, before deciding whether they have glimpsed enough of the strip through the windshield to land.

Otherwise, the pilots must immediately abandon the approach, climb away from the airport and then circle or divert.

The cutting-edge equipment under development is intended to chip away at those longstanding vertical thresholds, while also permitting landings when pilots are able to see less than one-quarter mile down the runway prior to touchdown.

The Federal Aviation Administration last year proposed rules that for the first time, would allow pilots to postpone a go-round decision until their plane is below 100 feet using enhanced or so-called "synthetic" vision. But the timetable for a final, broad policy decision isn't clear, and the regulations ultimately may call for case-by-case approvals of specific systems at various categories of airports.

An FAA spokeswoman didn't have any immediate comment.

Rockwell, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has staked its claim to displaying images and certain cockpit instruments data on aircraft windshields. The company says it recently completed over 140 test approaches and plans to begin certification flights in 2015.

Two years ago, Rockwell scored a marketing coup when Chinese aviation regulators committed to install the company's windshield-systems, called "heads up displays," on hundreds of new Boeing Co. 737 planes and potentially several other jetliner models. The devices allow pilots to concentrate on the forward view rather than having to glance down to scan cockpit instruments during takeoffs and landings.

Honeywell, based in Morris Township, N.J., is focused on what it describes as a less expensive system, dubbed SmartView, that uses traditional displays inside the cockpit.

Within the next few years, Honeywell expects the latest versions to be installed on nearly a dozen different airplane models, including a regional jetliner.

Honeywell officials have argued their solution—melding a digital data base with an infrared camera—is able to give pilots maximum information and unmatched image fidelity, without the extra acquisition and maintenance costs associated with installing windshield displays.

At San Diego International Airport alone, the company previously projected widespread use of its system could permit hundreds of additional flights to land there annually.

But with fast moving jets at altitudes below 100 feet, many experts believe pilots most likely wouldn't have enough time to scan instruments inside the cockpit and also look out the windshield to try to catch sight of the runway.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

California Nears Smartphone Kill Switch

2014-08-12T08:27:00.004-07:00

from informationweek

Law would force phone makers to add remote kill switches; Apple, Google, and Microsoft have already agreed to implement them.

5 Inexpensive Smartphones: No Perfect Choice

(Click image for larger view and slideshow.)

California is on the brink of becoming the first state to require kill switches in smartphones. The state's senate passed a bill this week mandating the security change, and it is now up to Governor Jerry Brown to sign it and make it law. The state's efforts are laudable, but may be moot at this point.

The law has been years in the making.Lawmakers in California and New York are looking to curb the theft of smartphones, which has spiked in recent years. Smartphones are easy pickings when left unattended on tables in coffee shops, restaurants, and bars, and they are often snatched out of owners' hands by brazen thieves on the street and in subways. According to the NYPD, 8,000 Apple products -- mostly iPhones -- were stolen in New York City during 2013. Some of the robberies led to injuries and even deaths.

The idea behind the kill switch is simple: Make stolen phones unusable. Unusable phones won't score thieves any cash. There's less incentive to steal smartphones if they'll be rendered useless and can't be sold. The kill switch is something device owners can trigger remotely from their desktop or other mobile device, such as a tablet.

The Apple iPhone already has this feature, Find My iPhone, which is part of iOS 7. Earlier this year, law enforcement agencies reported a drop in iPhone thefts after the remote kill switch was added.

In June, both Google and Microsoft announced plans to add theft deterrent tools to Android and Windows Phone, respectively. Google didn't spell out exactly how it intends to implement the kill switch. Microsoft committed to adding a kill switch to all devices running Windows Phone 8 and up. The Windows Phone kill switch will allow owners to: render the smartphone inoperable; remotely wipe personal data from the phone; prevent reactivation without the owner's permission; reverse the inoperability if the phone is recovered; and restore user data if the phone was erased.

[Lots of people will be buying new cell phones soon and will need to protect them from theft. Read Apple iPhone 6 Expected Sept. 9.]

The CTIA Wireless Association, which lobbies for the wireless industry in Washington, voluntarily set up a timeline for theft deterrent tools. All smartphones sold in July 2015 and after will include the tools, whether or not states such as California pass laws requiring them. Microsoft said its theft deterrent will be up and running by then. There's no word from Google on how or when Android will get its version of the remote kill switch, but it has nearly a year to get it up and working properly.

Until the remote kill switch is widely available, smartphone owners can take a number of steps to prevent their devices from walking away unexpectedly. For example, leave the phone in your pocket when walking around, use a passcode, set up the Find My Phone tool, and keep regular backups. If your device is stolen, be sure to report it.

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Eric is a freelance writer for InformationWeek specializing in mobile technologies. View Full Bio

IBM rethinking decades-old computer design with $3 billion investment

2014-07-09T15:51:00.001-07:00

from pcworld

Agam Shah@agamsh

Jul 9, 2014 2:55 PM
e-mail
print

IBM will pour $3 billion into computing and chip materials research over the next five years, as it rethinks computer design and looks to a future that may not involve silicon chips.

The computer design initiative could pave the way for functional quantum and cognitive computers that mimic brain functionality.

“The basic architecture of the computer has remained unchanged since the 1940s. We feel, given the kinds of problems we see today, [that] this is the time to start looking for new forms of computing,” said Supratik Guha, director of physical sciences for IBM Research.

IBM

An IBM chip made using graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms with tremnedous capabilities for conducting heat and electricity.

Silicon design has stalled and the ability to shrink chips is reaching its limit. IBM is looking at graphene, carbon nanotubes and other materials to replace silicon in computers, and will try to develop chips that can be scaled down to the atomic level.

The announcement comes a month after Hewlett-Packard disclosed that it too isrethinking the basic design of computers.

IBM’s goal is to provide the building blocks for systems that can intelligently process vast amounts of data while consuming less power, said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president for Systems and Technology Group at IBM.

Smart services

Such computers could benefit areas such as cancer research, weather modeling and providing more intelligent services over the cloud. Accelerators like graphics processors are improving computer performance in the short term, but shrinking silicon-based processors to boost performance and reduce power is becoming more complex, Rosamilia said.

IBM

An IBM wafer fabricated using graphene.

“We have in other points of history had to make leaps from one technology to another,” Rosamilia said. “If we don’t start inventing them now, we believe nobody will get there.”

IBM is already making quantum computers and brain-like computers, which have been theorized for decades, but proven difficult to create. Those computers are based on different architectures than those used today, which leads to questions about whether one new type of architecture ought to be preferred over another, Rosamilia said.

IBM could mix and match individual technologies to provide the building blocks for new computer systems, Rosamilia said.

“Some combination will be coming true, and we will be riding those technologies for many years,” Rosamilia said. “You have to plan many years in advance for it. We’re very serious about this.”

The first fruits of the research will likely manifest in high-performance computers, but may eventually come to laptops and desktops, although Rosamilia couldn’t provide a time frame for that.

The investment comes as Moore’s Law runs its course. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore posited that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years and while that has held steady, it is expected to be outdated within the next decade. Engineers are rethinking chip design to increase performance, especially as chips go into smaller geometries. Intel is preparing to ship PC chips made using the 14-nanometer process and has plans to move to the 10-nanometer process in the coming years.

What's next?

Chip making was revolutionized when scientists purified silicon in 1950, but it will be harder to etch more features on chips when the 7-nanometer process and beyond, as the industry moves toward the atomic level, Guha said.

“What will replace it at this point is unclear,” Guha said.

IBM

An IBM nanowire.

Carbon nanotubes, which are cylinders made of carbon atoms, show the most promise as a silicon replacement. IBM researchers are shrinking the size of carbon nanotubes, but challenges remain in cooling them down and there is considerable debate around safety concerns. However, there is consensus that technical problems could be solved, Guha said.

Brain and quantum computers also involve research on computer behavior.

IBM is developing computers that mimic brain-like functionality as part of its Synapse program. The computer makes an approximation of how the brain processes information in parallel via trillions of connections, which are the synapses. IBM in 2011 demonstrated a neural chip with programmable and learning synapses that have navigation and pattern recognition abilities. IBM’s goal is to build a neural chip that mimics the human brain, with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses but that uses just 1 kilowatt of power.

At the heart of quantum computers are quantum bits (qubits), which hold values of 1 and 0, which are unlike bits in conventional computers that are at a state of 1 or 0 at any given time. By storing and sharing data in more states, the qubits could speed up calculations.

Many issues still have to be resolved, including quantum noise, in which qubits are sent into undesirable states, making it difficult to execute programs normally. The only known quantum computer is sold by D-Wave Systems, but IBM’s researchers earlier this yearquestioned the computer’s relation to quantum mechanics, which looks at interaction and behavior of matter on atomic and subatomic levels.

6 Facebook Privacy Changes, Explained

2014-05-24T11:14:00.001-07:00

from informationweek.com

Facebook's privacy makeover continues with changes designed to make your account easier to manage. And have you met the privacy dinosaur?

5/24/2014
08:11 AM

Kristin Burnham

Facebook users have complained for years that the social network's privacy settings are too confusing. For the most part, the company has done little to make them easier to understand -- until recently. Amid increased government regulation and a desire to keep Facebook's user base strong, it appears Mark Zuckerberg and company have had a change of heart.

This week, the social network announced another handful of privacy updates and changes to help you more easily manage your account.

"While some people want to post to everyone, others have told us that they are more comfortable sharing with a smaller group, like just their friends," Facebook wrote in a blog post. "We recognize that it is much worse for someone to accidentally share with everyone when they actually meant to share just with friends, compared with the reverse."

[Get a grip on your account. Read 10 Most Misunderstood Facebook Privacy Facts.]

In the past month, Facebook has tested and launched a number of new privacy features -- from additional photo settings to new pop-up alerts if you're about to post publicly. Here's a rundown of Facebook's six most recent privacy changes and what they mean for your account.

1. Additional photo settings
Your current profile photo and cover photos have traditionally been public by default. Soon, Facebook will let you change the privacy setting of your old cover photos -- a capability it is gradually rolling out to all users. (Facebook already lets you change the privacy settings of your former profile photos.)

When you receive the update, navigate to your photo albums homepage and open the one titled Cover Photos. To change the audience of a photo, click it, and then hover over the icon next to the date. Choose your new privacy setting for the photo from the dropdown menu.

2. More visible mobile sharing settings
When posting to Facebook via a mobile device, Facebook's audience selector has been hidden behind an icon that corresponds with your privacy setting -- a globe if you post publicly, a two-person silhouette to share with friends, and a lock symbol if the post is private, for example.

Facebook will move the audience selector to the top of the update status box in a new "To:" field similar to what you see when you compose an email. This change makes it easier to see who you're about to share something with, which can help prevent unintended sharing.

3. Default settings for new users
In the past, when new users joined Facebook, the social network usually set the audience of their posts automatically to public. This left it up to them to change it if they wanted more control. Moving forward, Facebook will

Kristin Burnham currently serves as InformationWeek.com's Senior Editor, covering social media, social business, IT leadership and IT careers. Prior to joining InformationWeek in July 2013, she served in a number of roles at CIO magazine and CIO.com, most recently as senior ... View Full Bio

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Plugging In Your Brain and Body – The Future Of Implanted Computers

2014-05-12T20:58:00.002-07:00

from makeuseof.com

Ryan Dub e

On 10th May, 2014

Imagine a world where people buy products at the store by waving a hand near a sensor, where people “think” up a business report at work rather than typing one up, and where an augmented-reality gets projected in front of our eyes with specialty contact lenses. These ideas are closer to reality than you may realize.

It was only the 1980s and 1990s when science fiction movies portrayed people using handheld devices to navigate city streets or pinpoint one’s own location on Earth. These movies had characters who would state questions to a disembodied computer, which would intelligently provide the answers. They showed families having video-chat calls using flat-panel displays that made the tech geeks of the 1980′s drool.

In barely three decades, many of the things that science fiction writers could only imagine have become reality. Had someone predicted that these technologies would become reality this quickly, they would have been laughed at. Today, no one is laughing.

With the current trend of technical innovation and advancement, now is a good time to explore the state of the art in computer-human technologies, to try and gauge what the world may look like in the next 20 or 30 years.

Implanted Microchip ID

In 1998, British scientist Kevin Warwick had himself implanted with an RFID transmitter to prove out the concept of controlling doors, lights and other devices simply by walking nearby. By 2000, Warwick was able to interface his implant with his own nervous system, allowing him to remotely control a robotic arm. This experiment was detailed in a February 2000 Wired article.

Yes, the technology was real and quite viable back the, and by 2004 the FDA had approved VeriChip, the branded computer chip implant manufactured by Applied Digital Solutions, to be used for medical purposes.

While one would expect the ability to implant a rice-sized RFID device just under the skin of a human to spark a proliferation of products and services enabling card-free and paper-free human identification in places like hospitals, bars and for store purchases – that isn’t at all what happened.

In fact, the backlash was tremendous. Privacy advocates raised alarms about the ability for hackers to intercept someone’s RFID signal and duplicate the device in order to steal someone’s identity (a real concern). Religious extremists proliferated content all throughout the Internet forewarning that VeriChip signaled the approaching Armageddon and the “sign of the beast” (666).

The public outcry against the technology was so great that PositiveID, the company that owned the VeriChip brand in 2010, discontinued all marketing for the product. The public simply was not ready to embrace widespread implanted identification.

Still – the technology and it’s use is moving forward. Legions of body modification “grinders” are actively injecting these things between thumb and forefinger.

One such body hacker by the name of Amal Graafstra got one of the implants, and actively chronicles his installation of various RFID toys that he remotely controls with his implant.

I see Amal’s kind of love of implanted technology growing throughout society, while I see the superstitious fear of it fading away just as fear of most other inventions have faded away over time.

Electronic Hearing Implants

I’m also convinced that implants are going to become integrated with all of our senses, as a way for humans to enhance those senses through the use of advancing computer technologies. As computer systems become more miniaturized, the possibilities in this area multiply.

Take, for example, the field of cochlear implants.

These devices have external processors that is held to the under-the-skin implant by a magnet. The processor transfers audio signals to the implant, which then transmits those signals to an electrode array that gets surgically inserted deep into the cochlear itself. The implant bypasses that part of the cochlear that doesn’t work, and electrically stimulates the nerve fibers to reproduce the sounds.

Today, this kind of surgery seems pretty invasive and extreme, but imagine the day when wireless technologies allow a person to have a single implant inserted into the cochlear, and then a transmitter worn anywhere on the body, or implanted somewhere on the ear itself, could transmit sound directly to the cochlear without any wire necessary.

Seem far fetched? It’s not. Just this year, MIT researchers developed a new microchip that could be implanted into the ear, which could use sensors to detect ossicle vibrations in the inner ear, convert those to an electrical signal, and send that to the electrode inserted into the cochlea. By lowering the power needs of the device, the researchers proposed that the device could be recharged wirelessly, removing the need for the hardware mounted externally on the skull!

In other words, the day of the undetectable bionic ear is here.

Contact Lenses – Bionic Eyes

Google Glasses is all the rage these days, but the real allure of this technology is the concept of augmenting human vision with external information. The idea of wearing a pair of gaudy glasses to accomplish this seems tolerable to many tech geeks, but how cool would it be to simply slip on a pair of contact lenses that accomplish the same thing, but only requiring a really cool-looking pair of shades?

This is exactly what a company by the name of Innovega introduced at CES 2014. That is, a contact lens that basically allows the light of a projected digital image to be superimposed upon the regular light of your normal vision, resulting in a “single integrated image”.

The contact lens “tricks” the eye so that it can see a high resolution, large field-of-view display overlaying your regular vision. It’s clearly the cutting edge of augmented reality technology, and if successful it will finally allow people to see high-resolution digital images and content in a way that Google Glasses just doesn’t offer yet.

Who the winners will be in these arena is not totally clear just yet, but one thing that’s for certain is that visual augmented reality is something that promises to completely transform the world, so long as the devices and the technology can be integrated with the human body in a way that is unobtrusive and tolerable.

Is Innovega on the right track with the use of contact lenses? Possibly, but only time will tell.

The Mind-Machine Connection

When I first heard about the mind-control game called Mindflex, I was initially disgusted. I’ve spent years writing about the pseudoscience behind all sorts of psychic claims, and here is a game being marketed to children as a “mind control” device. My first reaction was to try and debunk the device.

Wasn’t I surprised to learn that Mattel was one of the first companies clever enough to integrate of EEG-style brain-wave reading technology into a game. In 2010, three neuroscientists tested the device to confirm it really works, and posted the video to YouTube.

The game really only detects the level of your brain waves which reflects your mental focus. The sharper your mental focus, the faster a fan turns, which in turn elevates a foam ball. It isn’t quite mind control, but it’s about as close as modern technology can get.

This may seem like it’s just a game to improve your brain fitness, but is this actually a sign of more amazing devices to come? I think so, yes. In fact, a clue that this is happening came at the end of 2013 when University of Washington researchers sent one person’s brain signal over the Internet, and used that signal to control the gross motor actions of a second person’s hand at the other end of the UW campus.

The second scientist wore a specially designed cap with a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil placed directly over the part of his motor cortex responsible for hand movement. The brain wave “trigger” worked, and the second scientist’s hand moved in what he described later as a “nervous tic”.

The experiment highlights what the Mattel brain game had already proved – that brain waves can be measured and used to manipulate the world, without anything more than the power of your mind. The only question that remains now is how this new use of EEG technology will further integrate humans with the computers that we love so much.

Do you think the pace of human-machine interfacing will pick up in coming years? Can you think of any creative ideas for these technologies? Share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments section below!

Image Credits: Pixeled Barcode by Maksim Kabakou at Shutterstock, Ear anatomy by dream designs at Shutterstock, cochlear implant by Elizabeth Hoffmann at Shutterstock

Stop using Microsoft's IE browser until bug is fixed, US and UK warn

2014-04-28T17:25:00.001-07:00

from cnet

In a rare move that highlights the severity of the security hole in one of the Web's most popular browsers, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team and its British counterpart tell people to stop using Internet Explorer until Microsoft can fix it.

by Seth Rosenblatt

@sethr
April 28, 2014 11:18 AM PDT

It's not often that the US or UK governments weigh in on the browser wars, but a new Internet Explorer vulnerability that affects all major versions of the browser from the past decade has forced it to raise an alarm: Stop using IE.

The zero-day exploit, the term given to a previously unknown, unpatched flaw, allows attackers to install malware on your computer without your permission. That malware could be used to steal personal data, track online behavior, or gain control of the computer. Security firm FireEye, which discovered the bug, said that the flaw is being used with a known Flash-based exploit technique to attack financial and defense organizations in the US via Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11. Those versions of the browser run on Microsoft's Windows Vista, Windows 7, andWindows 8, although the exploit is present in Internet Explorer 6 and above.

While the Computer Emergency Readiness Team in England and the US regularly issue browser advisories, this is one of the few times that the CERT team has recommended that people avoid using a specific browser.

FireEye recommends that if you can't switch browsers, then you disable Internet Explorer's Flash plug-in. You also can use IE with Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit security app, but that will not be as secure as simply switching browsers.

Microsoft and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Statistics vary as to how many people actually use Internet Explorer.NetMarketShare puts the total around 55 percent of the desktop browser market, while competitor StatCounter says that 22.58 percent of people use IE. While the disparity is large, in either case the flaw affects a huge number of browsers being actively used.

Updated, 4:13 p.m. PT: to add UK CERT position on Internet Explorer.

Microsoft is now a phone company, as Nokia deal closes

2014-04-25T18:31:00.003-07:00

from arstechnica.com

by Peter Bright - Apr 25 2014, 1:02pm PDT

As announced earlier this week, Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's Devices and Services division has closed almost four months later than expected.

Redmond is paying about $5 billion for the Nokia division, now named Microsoft Mobile Oy, and some 8,500 design patents. The software giant is also paying another $2 billion for a ten-year license for 30,000 utility patents, with an option to renew the licenses in perpetuity.

Nokia is, however, keeping hold of two factories. Nokia will operate its 7,500-person factory in Chennai, India, on Microsoft's behalf. The Finnish firm is involved in a tax dispute with the Indian government centered around the plant, and Indian authorities have blocked its transfer until the dispute is resolved. Microsoft announced earlier in the week that it would not take ownership of Nokia's South Korean factory.

Even without these factories, Microsoft is still increasing its headcount by some 25,000, for a total of 126,000 employees.

Microsoft is buying the Asha and Lumia brands and will have limited access to the Nokia brand. The company hasn't announced how products will be branded going forward, and it's not clear that the "Microsoft Mobile" name will ever be consumer-facing. Integration of the two companies is expected to take 18 to 24 months. Stephen Elop, former CEO of Nokia, will become executive vice president of Microsoft's Devices Group, which spans not only Microsoft Mobile, but also Xbox, Perceptive Pixel, and Surface.

Nokia, for its part, will continue with three divisions: HERE, which offers mapping and location services; Nokia Solutions and Networks, which builds networking and communications infrastructure; and Advanced Technologies, which develops and licenses technology. Under the terms of the agreement, it's blocked from selling smartphones until 2016.

Amazon unveils streaming media device

2014-04-02T12:08:00.002-07:00

from cnn

By Brian Stelter @brianstelter April 2, 2014: 12:23 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Amazon wants to be the brain -- and the heart -- inside your big-screen TV.

On Wednesday the company introduced a small black box called Amazon fireTV that enables television sets to access Internet programming, including streaming shows from its Amazon Prime subscription service, and a giant library of video games.

The device will cost $99 and will start shipping immediately.

With it, Amazon will compete head-on both with streaming gadgets like Apple (AAPL,Fortune 500) TV and console makers like Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Sony(SNE).

All of these companies, in various ways and for various reasons, want to supplement -- and, over time, possibly replace -- the set top boxes from cable and satellite companies that sit in most living rooms.

Amazon's fireTV has a couple unique features, including a remote control with a voice recognition search feature, so a user can speak the name a show, actor or topic and find that content.

Perhaps most importantly, the device doubles as a casual gaming console; the company says it will have a library of thousands of games available to users, some free and others that exist as paid apps. Amazon announced a gaming controller that will sell for $39.99.

The device may help advance Amazon's streaming TV ambitions. The company has started to introduce original shows, like "Alpha House" and "Betas," and has spent handsome sums of money to secure exclusive rights to other shows, like past seasons of Fox's "24." But its streaming service is a fraction of the size of Netflix (NFLX).

At a press event in Manhattan, Amazon differentiated fireTV by reading snippets of negative user reviews of other streaming media gadgets from Amazon.com. The complaints called out competitors like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and Vizio by name.

The company said it identified three big issues that make streaming devices "too frustrating:" inadequate search tools, sluggish performance and closed ecosystems of apps.

Related: Amazon hikes price of Prime

Peter Larsen, an Amazon vice president, said fireTV specifically addressed gripes with dongles like Google Chromecast and boxes like Apple TV.

He called the new device "tiny" and "incredibly powerful."

One feature, called ASAP, predicts what TV episodes a user might watch next, and "queues them up so that they start instantly," Larsen said.

To underscore the point that fireTV doesn't just exist to support its Amazon Prime service, the demonstration showed off non-Amazon programs like NBC's "Chicago Fire."

Bezos' approach to tablets, newspapers

"It's the easiest place to watch Netflix," Larsen said pointedly.

But the event also included a highlight reel for Amazon Studios' original shows, including a second season of "Alpha House," which is in production now.

"Customers are loving these shows," Larsen said.

Amazon also highlighted fireTV's easy access to its children's programming interface, called FreeTime, and music and photos.

First Published: April 2, 2014: 11:20 AM ET

Facebook buys Oculus VR, a virtual reality gaming company, for $2 billion

2014-03-27T17:50:00.001-07:00

from cnn

By Erin Griffith March 25, 2014: 6:08 PM ET

Zuckerberg views gaming headset as a "new communication platform."

FORTUNE -- Facebook's deals are becoming the stuff of legend. In the last few months alone, Mark Zuckerberg has spent $19 billion on a messaging app, and reports say he's paying $60 million for a drone company. Today he announced Facebook's latest head-scratcher: $2 billion for Oculus VR, the maker of a virtual reality gaming headset called Oculus Rift.

It marks the third time Facebook has paid a billion dollars or more for a company with little to no revenue, with plans for it to operate independently. (Oculus has sold 75,000 pre-orders for development kits, which cost $350, giving it approximately $26 million in income.)

Facebook (FB) will pay $400 million in cash, with 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock valued at $1.6 billion, the company said. In addition, the deal includes a $300 million earn-out in cash and stock. Oculus got its start on Kickstarter, but went on to raise $93.4 million in venture funding from Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Founders Fund, Formation 8, BIG Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.

So: Why? Is Oculus Facebook's answer to Google Glass? Is it the social network's desperate attempt to inject itself with fresh innovation? Is it a cynical play for Oculus VR's legendary CTO, John Carmack? Does Facebook want to fill a Zynga-shaped hole in its games-related revenue?

According to a Facebook post from Zuckerberg, he views Oculus Rift as a communication platform. The company and its 75 employees will operate independently from Facebook and continue their path of developing a platform for virtual reality games. (This, by the way, marks the third time Facebook has veered from its acqui-hire strategy of shutting down the companies it acquires -- the other two are Instagram and WhatsApp.) But Facebook's vision for Oculus is much bigger than games:

After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.

The team at Oculus echoed Zuckerberg's sentiment in their own blog post:

At first glance, it might not seem obvious why Oculus is partnering with Facebook, a company focused on connecting people, investing in internet access for the world and pushing an open computing platform. But when you consider it more carefully, we're culturally aligned with a focus on innovating and hiring the best and brightest; we believe communication drives new platforms; we want to contribute to a more open, connected world; and we both see virtual reality as the next step.

On a conference call discussing the deal, Oculus CEO Brendan Aribe said that as the company solved "a lot of the hard problems," around gaming and entertainment, the potential for a social experience through virtual reality became really obvious.

"Something fundamentally changes, and you start to realize how big this could be if you can see someone else, and you can actually look at them and your brain believes they're right in front of you, not through a screen ... You get the goosebumps. You see how big this could be, and how social it is, and the impact it could have on other industries," Aribe said.

Shares of Facebook were slightly down by 0.88% in after-hours trading.

Antonio Rodriguez, an investor with Matrix Partners (and early investor in Oculus Rift), noted that Zuckerberg isn't alone in his thinking that the next major step in computing will use virtual reality. "We've had a short hop through augmented reality, with things like Google Glass," he said. "But a lot of non-gaming use cases are tethered to the smartphone."

Rodriguez added, "I would not be surprised if, in five years from now, instead of a monitor on that desk, you have a pair of Oculus Facebook googles."

Here's a video Fortune produced on the headset:

Facebook and Google in tech cold war

2014-03-26T20:47:00.002-07:00

from cnn

By David Goldman @DavidGoldmanCNN March 26, 2014: 9:53 PM ET

Facebook and Google are spending billions of dollars to ensure that they remain relevant in the rapidly changing technology landscape.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Facebook and Google are locked in a high-stakes, multi-billion dollar battle to shape the future.

Both companies are spending like crazy on emerging technologies. Their aims: when their current businesses are disrupted -- and they will be -- they'll have a fallback plan.

"While Facebook is doing well now, it knows that its core business could degrade just as MySpace's did," said Carl Howe, analyst at Yankee Group.

That's why Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) has poured billions of dollars into a photo sharing network, facial recognition software, a chat app and now virtual reality company Oculus. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), in turn, has invested billions indriverless cars, wearable gadgets, military robots and -- most recently through itspurchase of Nest -- connected home devices like smoke detectors and thermostats.

It's as if Facebook and Google are now combatants in Silicon Valley's version of a Cold War arms race.

"Facebook and Google are high technology titans engaged in a real world game of 'Monopoly' to grab the choicest technology properties in a bid to maintain and extend their dominance with each other as well and various other rivals," said Laura DiDio principal analyst at consultancy ITIC.

These are long-term bets. For all their attempts to diversify, neither company's purchases have helped them expand beyond their core business models just yet. Both Google and Facebook generated about 90% of their revenue from advertising last year.

By buying Oculus, Facebook is betting that the next tech wave could be ruled by wearable devices. Google is making a similar bet with Glass and its Android Wear smartwatch platform.

Punch a shark with the Oculus Rift

The big question is whether Facebook bought the right wearable company.

Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday that he believes virtual reality has a chance to become the communications platform of the future.

But Oculus is unlike most wearable devices -- it is closed off from the rest of the world, taking over most of your senses, including your entire field of vision. That's great for gaming but it's not like we're going to be able to walk down the street with these things as we do today with smartphones and could even do one day with smartwatches and Google Glass.

"Oculus has a lot of cool, very immersive applications," said Ron Gruia, principal consultant at Frost & Sullivan. "At the same time, Oculus is very isolating, limiting its usefulness."

Even if it doesn't succeed, the bet seems to be worth it for Facebook. The company spent $2 billion on Oculus but only $400 million in cash -- loose change for a company with $11.5 billion in its corporate coffers.

But in the emerging Cold War between Facebook and Google, Facebook can't take quite as many risks. Google has $59 billion in cash and can lose a bet every once in a while, as it did with Motorola Mobility. (Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2011 but subsequently shed most of the assets, including the recent sale of Motorola's smartphone business to Lenovo for about $3 billion.)

Google's mission of cataloging information is also broader than Facebook's "connecting people" goal. So while Facebook can make wild bets like it is with Oculus, it has less wiggle room than Google in ensuring they pay off. Investors showed their disapproval on Wednesday as well. Shares of Facebook were down more than 3%.

But give both companies credit for knowing they can't rest on their laurels. Google CEO Larry Page and Facebook's Zuckerberg seem to recognize that it's not easy to stay on top of the tech world forever.

Numerous firms that were once industry titans fell to Earth after they failed to adapt to a new wave of technology. In fact, both companies literally have their headquarters in the graveyard of former tech darlings.

Facebook's Menlo Park offices are in the former home of Sun Microsystems, which Oracle(ORCL, Fortune 500) snapped up in 2010. And Google lives in the former headquarters of Silicon Graphics Inc. -- the once-mighty computing company that filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

First Published: March 26, 2014: 12:52 PM ET

Big Bang breakthrough announced; gravitational waves detected

2014-03-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

from cnn

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

updated 10:37 AM EDT, Tue March 18, 2014 | Filed under: Innovations

Ripples in space-time revealed

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein
New results from BICEP2 are 'smoking gun for inflation'
During inflation, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light

(CNN) -- There's no way for us to know exactly what happened some 13.8 billion years ago, when our universe burst onto the scene. But scientists announced Monday a breakthrough in understanding how our world as we know it came to be.

If the discovery holds up to scrutiny, it's evidence of how the universe rapidly expanded less than a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

"It teaches us something crucial about how our universe began," said Sean Carroll, a physicist at California Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the study. "It's an amazing achievement that we humans, doing science systematically for just a few hundred years, can extend our understanding that far."

What's more, researchers discovered direct evidence for the first time of what Albert Einstein predicted in his general theory of relativity: Gravitational waves.

These are essentially ripples in space-time, which have been thought of as the "first tremors of the Big Bang," according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

A telescope at the South Pole called BICEP2 -- Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 -- was critical to the discovery. The telescope allowed scientists to analyze the polarization of light left over from the early universe, leading to Monday's landmark announcement.

The BICEP2 telescope looks at polarization of light from 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

How inflation works

Scientists use the word "inflation" to describe how the universe rapidly expanded after the Big Bang in a ripping-apart of space. The BICEP2 results are the "smoking gun for inflation," Marc Kamionkowski, professor of physics and astronomy, said at a news conference. Kamionkowski also was not involved in the project.

"Inflation is the theory about the 'bang' of Big Bang," said Chao-Lin Kuo, an assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and a co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration, in a Stanford video. "It explains why we have all this stuff in the universe."

Imagine that you are making a raisin bun, said Stanford physicist Kent Irwin, who worked on sensors and readout systems used in the experiment. As the dough bakes and expands, the distance from any given raisin to another increases.

"Certainly everything in the universe that we see now, at one time before inflation, was smaller than an electron," Irwin said. "And then it expanded during inflation at faster than the speed of light."

You may have learned in physics class that light sets the universe's speed limit, but space-time is an exception; it can stretch faster than the speed of light, Irwin said.

Stanford University professor Andrei Linde, who helped develop the current inflation theory, said the new results are something he had hoped to see for 30 years.

"If this is true, this is a moment of understanding of nature of such a magnitude that it just overwhelms and let's just hope that it's not a trick," Linde said in a university video interview.

Another cool tidbit: Inflation can be used in theories that suggest the existence of multiple universes, Irwin said, although these results do not directly address such theories.

What are gravitational waves?

Scientists believe that in the fabric of space-time, there are tiny ripples called quantum fluctuations. If you could look at space-time on the smallest scale possible, you would, in theory, see them, even today. Unfortunately, no microscope is capable of seeing something that small.

Such fluctuations also existed at the beginning of the universe. Inflation blew them up much larger, launching gravitational waves that we now see imprinted on the cosmic microwave background. "These gravitational waves are an aftershock of the Big Bang," he said. The BICEP2 study is the first to image them directly.

"We have for the first time a detection for the mythical gravity wave signal that people have been searching for so hard, for so long," said Clem Pryke, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, at a press conference Monday.

Other experiments such as LIGO -- Caltech's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory -- are also looking for proof of gravitational waves, but in the context of energetic cosmic phenomena such as coalescing black holes.

The gravitational waves suggested by the BICEP2 results would have expanded across the entire universe at that time, Irwin said. The length of one of these waves -- the distance between peaks and troughs -- would have been billions of light years across.

Light from the early universe, called cosmic microwave background radiation, reveals these telltale signs of our universe's history. Last year, scientists from the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope released a detailed map of temperature variations in this light, which came from from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

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Better 'baby picture' of universe emerges

Instead of temperature, BICEP2 scientists were looking specifically at the polarization of the cosmic microwave background -- that is, the direction the electric field is pointing across the sky.

Researchers were looking for a specific type of polarization called "B-modes," which signify a curling pattern in the polarized orientations of light from the ancient universe, said Jamie Bock, co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration and professor of physics at California Institute of Technology.

In theory, this swirling polarization pattern could only be created from gravitational waves. And that is what BICEP2 found.

"It's a very clean signature of those gravity waves," Irwin said.

Is it for real?

Because of how potentially important these results are, they must be viewed with skepticism, said David Spergel, professor of astrophysics at Princeton University. The measurement is a very difficult one to make and could easily be contaminated. There are, as it stands, some "oddities" in the results that could be concerning, he said.

"I am looking forward to seeing these results confirmed or refuted by other experiments in the next year or two," Spergel said.

The Planck space telescope collaboration is expected to release results on polarization of the cosmic microwave background as well, Irwin said. Other experiments are working toward similar goals, which could support or go against BICEP2.

Regardless, Monday's announcement is making big waves in the scientific community.

Follow Elizabeth Landau on Twitter at @lizlandau

Perspective: Microsoft risks security reputation ruin by retiring XP

2014-03-09T15:41:00.001-07:00

from computerworld.com

Telling users they must upgrade, and to Windows 8.1, doesn't cut it

By Gregg Keizer

March 9, 2014 06:47 AM ET

542 Comments

Computerworld

- A decade ago, Microsoft kicked off SDL, or Security Development Lifecycle, a now-widely-adopted process designed to bake security into software, and began building what has become an unmatched reputation in how a vendor writes more secure code, keeps customers informed about security issues, and backs that up with regular patches.

But the Redmond, Wash. company, which just touted SDL's 10-year history with a flashy, anecdote-filled online presentation, seems willing to risk torching that hard-won reputation by pulling the plug on Windows XP.

Microsoft plans to ship the final public patches for Windows XP on April 8. After that, it will not deliver fixes for security vulnerabilities it and others find in the 13-year-old operating system.

The result, even Microsoft has said, could be devastating. Last October, the company said that after April 8, Windows XP would face a future where machines are infected at a rate 66% higher than before patches stopped.

Windows XP lives

Samsung introduces free streaming radio service

2014-03-07T18:54:00.002-08:00

from chron.com

By BREE FOWLER, AP Technology Writer | March 7, 2014 | Updated: March 7, 2014 2:53pm

Photo By Samsung/AP
This undated image provided by Samsung shows the logo for the new free music service for its phones that the company unveiled on Friday, March 7, 2014. Samsung touts the service as a significant improvement from the apps already on the market.

NEW YORK (AP) — Samsung on Friday unveiled a new free music service for its phones that it touts as a significant improvement from the apps already on the market.

The South Korean gadget maker's Milk Music service, which launched in the U.S. on Friday, includes over 200 stations and 13 million songs. It's designed to be extremely fast, easy to use and highly customizable.

But the new service enters an already crowded space. There are numerous streaming music services, including Pandora, Spotify and Apple Inc.'s iTunes Radio.

"We feel that while the music space is very competitive there is room for improvement," said Daren Tsui, vice president of music at Samsung Media Solutions.

Samsung's app features a large wheel reminiscent of an old-fashioned radio tuner. Users can spin through various genres of music to find something they like. Favorite stations can be added to a "My Stations" section, while individual songs can be tagged as favorites or put on a list never to be played.

Milk is powered by Slacker, which operates its own streaming music service. But unlike Slacker, Milk is ad-free at no cost. While Slacker does offer a basic service for free, it charges users $4 a month to remove advertising.

U.S. users can now download the Milk app from Google Play. It works on most of Samsung's Galaxy line of phones, but isn't compatible with devices made by other companies.

Five ways the Samsung Gear 2 is better than its predecessor [Photos]

2014-02-28T21:58:00.002-08:00

from latimes

By Salvador Rodriguez

February 24, 2014, 10:21 a.m.

Samsung kicked off the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona this weekend by announcing the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches.

The two devices are similar to the original Galaxy Gear, which was released just six months ago, but Samsung has made a few key changes, some of which may entice more users to purchase one of the two smartwatches.

1. Heart-rate sensor

Not many users have wearable devices, but those who do tend to use their gadgets for fitness tracking. Samsung recognizes this and is accommodating users by adding a heart-rate sensor to the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo.

Along with a pedometer and numerous exercise modes, the heart-rate sensor make Samsung's new smartwatches better fitness trackers than their predecessor.

2. Changeable straps

When the original Galaxy Gear was announced, Samsung made the device available in numerous color options. However, the company did not make it possible for users to switch the strap of their smartwatch. That's because the Galaxy Gear's camera was built into the strap.

Samsung fixes that in the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo by moving the camera onto the watch on the Gear 2 and removing it altogether from the Geart 2 Neo. When these devices are released globally in April, users will be able to interchange their straps whenever they want.

3. Longer-lasting battery

The Galaxy Gear was impressive because of all the features it included, but having so much took a toll on the device's battery life -- it could last for only a single day.

With the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, Samsung has improved battery life so that users two to three days from a single charge. This still isn't as good as what users of the Pebble Steel can get from their smartwatch, but it's an improvement.

4. Lighter weight

Samsung's new devices are lighter than their predecessor. Whereas the Galaxy Gear weighed 0.16 pounds, the Gear 2 weighs 0.15 pounds while the Gear 2 Neo comes in at 0.12 pounds.

The difference are fractions of a pound, but Samsung's Gear smartwatches are designed to be used as phones when users hold up their wrists to their faces. In that scenario, shaving off even just little bit of weight can make a big difference.

5. No more Android

The biggest difference and one consumers will likely not even notice is the operating system used to power the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. The Galaxy Gear ran on Google Android, but Samsung's new smartwatches use an operating system called Tizen.

Over the last few years, Samsung has supported Tizen and helped with the development of the platform. It's unclear why Samsung is switching the software, but surely, Google isn't a fan of the switch.

***

The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo will roll out globally in April. Samsung has not said when exactly the devices will arrive in the U.S. or how much they will cost. It's also unclear which smartphones and tablets will work with the smartwatches, but as with the Galaxy Gear, expect the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo to work only with Samsung devices.

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-samsung-gear-2-5-ways-20140224,0,6832850.story#ixzz2ughdd2jI

This Is What--Now--Happens On Facebook When You Die

2014-02-28T19:02:00.004-08:00

from forbes

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There’s no getting around it, death comes to all of us and in today’s world one of the more complex issues is what is left behind on social media. For a long time Facebook has had a brutal policy: ‘memorialize’ the profile by locking down all the privacy settings and restrict visibility to friends. Now the site has found a lighter touch.

“Starting today, we will maintain the visibility of a person’s content as-is,” said Facebook in a post entitled ‘Remembering Our Loved Ones’ by Community Operations Mangers Chris Price and Alexi DiSclafani. “This will allow people to see memorialized profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person’s expectations of privacy. We are respecting the choices a person made in life while giving their extended community of family and friends ongoing visibility to the same content they could always see.”

This switch is being followed up by nice touch. Recently all Facebook members were given a ‘Look Back’ video to commemorate the site’s 10 year anniversary. It automatically created a montage of your most popular and significant status updates, photos and videos. From this point onwards that service will be available at the request of any family member for a user who has passed away.

The move was motivated by a video plea from John Berlin on YouTube (embedded below) in which he reached out to Facebook asking if he could access a Look Back video made for his son, Jesse, who passed away in 2012. At current count the video is approaching three million views.

“We had not initially made the videos for memorialized accounts, but John’s request touched the hearts of everyone who heard it, including ours,” said Price and DiSclafani. “Since then, many others have asked us to share the Look Back videos of their loved ones, too, and we’re now glad to be able to fulfill those requests.”

Anyone who wants to request a Look Back video for a departed loved one can do so here.

For a company which has, at best, a patchy record with user privacy and its handling of profile data these are positive steps in the right direction. They also come at a time when Facebook is under immense scrutiny as to what it will do with the anonymity enjoyed by over 400M WhatsApp users following its shock $19BN purchase of the instant messaging service earlier this month.

The good news though is in reaching the grand old age of 10, Facebook is showing signs of growing up. Its explosive user growth has tailed off and its previously juvenile approach to takeovers (assimilate everything into Facebook) took a turn for the better when its $1BN purchase of Instagram saw it help the company blossom rather than rip it apart to create the most expensive photo filters service in history.

Similarly in promising users it would also respect the anonymous and ad-free service currently enjoyed by WhatsApp users, Facebook again seems to be taking on the role of fatherly conglomerate rather than spoilt Borg.

Remembering Our Loved Ones takes the same considered and respectful tone as it has so far maintained with Instagram and (at least) marketed with WhatsApp. None of which is to say you should drop your battle hardened cynicism when it comes to the way Facebook does business. It has burned us too many times for that.

But whether it is age, flat lining user numbers or a deliberate change of policy, it is nice to find something for which to pat Facebook on back. Even if learned behaviour says we should be using the opportunity to stick in the knife.

Also on Forbes
5 Key Reasons WhatsApp Is Work $19BN – To Facebook

Smile! The Samsung Galaxy S5's 16-megapixel camera is pretty good so far

2014-02-26T15:42:00.003-08:00

from cnet

We couldn't get it outside into the daylight, but these indoor shots give you an indication of what this phone's camera can do.

by Jessica Dolcourt

February 26, 2014 6:08 AM PST

52Comments

BARCELONA, Spain -- Artificial spot lighting at trade show booths doesn't make for the optimal conditions to test out what a camera can do. However, it does at least give you a fairly good idea of how the Samsung Galaxy S5's 16-megapixel shooter works in this kind of indoor setting. (And yes, we did ask, beg, and plead to take the phone outside into the light and air. No dice.)

I took all photos on auto mode. Some photos came out a little darker than I expected, some not quite as crisp. There were also certain lighting challenges that few cameras could overcome, mobile or otherwise. Overall though, I was pleased with the sharpness, color, and level of detail of these brief test shots.

One benefit of the Galaxy S5's high megapixel count is that cropped images still show up at fairly high resolutions, so you don't lose as much detail as you might on a lower-resolution camera. You'll see an example of that, and several other shots, in the gallery below.

Native camera app's fresh lick'a paint
In addition to the Galaxy S5's optical performance, Samsung's native camera app gets an update with some significant changes. An HDR toggle (representing new processing powers) now pops up on the screen, which makes it easier to select. (Tip: you can even use HDR in burst mode now.)

Shooting with the Samsung Galaxy S5's 16-megapixel camera (pictures)

1-2 of 17

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Selective Focus is a neat feature that, as on some high-end Nokia Lumia phones, lets you choose a more shallow depth of field after you take the shot. It worked well and was easy to use, but there is a fair amount of premeditation required -- you'll need to press the on-screen control first. I do really like that you can keep editing the selective focus as many times as you want.

I noticed a few other new features as well that Samsung didn't emphasize in our briefing or at the launch event. Virtual Tour is sort of like Google's Photo Sphere app, where it can compile a 360-degree view of your surroundings, which is then played in a video. It worked really well in my test, and shares files either as a movie or as stills. I could see myself using it to share a scene with family and friends.

Panning is another new one that seems to work like an action freeze-frame shot. After taking the picture, you can edit the character of the background blur while your subject remains crisply in focus. I wasn't able to get enough real action at Samsung's booth to make this work as it's intended.

Selective Focus is a new tool for creating a shallow depth of field.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The S5's camera app consolidates a whole mess of apps into a single view called Shot & More. This includes modes like Best Photo, Best Face, Eraser, Drama, and the Panning mode we just talked about. You choose this mode before taking a photo, then pick from the shooting modes that work with each photo best.

One neat little feature is being able to jump into the camera settings (which look wonderful) to drag a setting into the shortcuts bar. Another is that you can store photos in Samsung's secureKnox box.

All together, the updated visuals that rework the icons and on-screen controls help make just about everything in Samsung's Galaxy S5 camera polished and easy to use.

Catch all the mobile news from Mobile World Congress 2014.

Exploring the Galaxy S5's features (pictures)

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Nokia unveils line of low-cost, Android-powered smartphones

2014-02-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

from latimes

Nokia Monday unveiled its line of Android-powered, low-cost Nokia X smartphones. (Nokia / February24, 2014)

By Salvador Rodriguez

February 24, 2014, 8:20 a.m.

Nokia announced three low-cost smartphones that run the Google Android operating system.

In recent years, Nokia primarily powered its smartphones with the Windows Phone operating system, but limitations of that platform prevented the phone maker from building low-priced, entry-level devices.

Nokia changed that Monday by introducing the Nokia X line, which includes the Nokia X, the Nokia X+ and the Nokia XL. The devices will be available for 89, 99 and 109 euros, respectively, or about $122, $135 and $150, all before any carrier subsidies.

VIDEO: Pebble's latest Steel smartwatch is functional and stylish

The Nokia X comes with a 4-inch screen, 512 megabytes of RAM and a 3-megapixel camera. The Nokia X+ also includes a 4-inch screen and 3-megapixel camera, but it has 768 megabytes of RAM and comes with a 4-gigabyte MicroSD card. The Nokia XL has a 5-inch screen, 768 megabytes of RAM, a 4-gigabyte MicroSD card and a 5-megapixel camera. All three use a 1-gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual Core processor.

Each model will be available in numerous color options.

Nokia posted a YouTube video promoting the new line.

The devices are powered by Android, but Nokia designed the three smartphones to maintain a Windows Phone feel. The interface of the Nokia X line mimics that of Windows Phone and includes numerous apps that are available only through Nokia and Microsoft, including Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage, Nokia MixRadio and Skype. Users will be able to download Android apps through the Nokia Store.

The Nokia X will be available for purchase immediately in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. The Nokia X+ and the Nokia XL will go on sale in those markets in the second quarter. No word on when the devices will be available in the U.S.

ALSO:

Apple Gotofail bug: Simple mistake or NSA conspiracy?

Apple ramps up acquisitions, buys app testing company Burstly

Facebook makes it easier to look back at profiles of the dead

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-nokia-x-android-smartphones-20140224,0,725453.story#ixzz2uGsq2YFl

Does the Facebook deal signal a new tech bubble?

2014-02-20T21:12:00.000-08:00

from yahoo,com

By Lawrence Lewitinn9 hours agoTalking Numbers

There are billions and there are ridiculous Facebook billions.

First it was Instagram. Then it was Yammer. Then Tumblr. Then Waze. And, just last week, Viber. These are all start-ups that received around $1 billion each over the past couple of years to be acquired.

Now Facebook's latest acquisition – WhatsApp – doesn't just surpass other acquisitions, it makes them look like they were purchased with change found in between Mark Zuckerberg's sofa cushions.

Facebook announced on Wednesday it was purchasing five year-old WhatsApp for a whopping $16 billion. Were it a publicly-traded company, WhatsApp would fall at roughly number 265 on the S&P 500 list. It was purchased for more money than the value of Humana, Marriott International, or Southwest Airlines.

According to CNBC contributor Gina Sanchez, founder of Chantico Global, this may be sign of a tech bubble but one that may not come crashing down. Well, at least not yet.

"A lot of people have been talking about a tech bubble," says Sanchez. "I do think that this [the WhatsApp acquisition] is yet another data point that tells us that this is a bubble. But, that doesn't mean that the bubble is going to burst immediately."

Instead, Sanchez sees investors jumping into tech names hoping to hitch their portfolio to a rising star. That could actually inflate any possible bubble, believes Sanchez.

"I think the fuel behind that is going to be fear," says Sanchez. "Fear of investors missing out and then fear of investors wanting to hold on to what they've got. I think that's going to cause the market to be quite volatile."
However, Steven Pytlar, Chief Equity Strategist at Prime Executions, believes it's not the entire tech sector that may be in a bubble but just one segment in particular, social media. Pytlar notes the divergence between the Global X Social Media Index ETF (the SOCL) and the NASDAQ-100 index over the past year.

"Since May," says Pytalr, "the social media ETF has really outperformed the top 100 names in the NASDAQ quite significantly. How we interpret that is that really it's not a tech-wide phenomenon, although tech right now is very strong on the charts. It's really social media running away as new money comes into it."

Pytlar believes headlines about large acquisitions are driving people to invest in the social media space though relatively new stocks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like.

"That can create a bubble," says Pytlar, "but I don't think – and the charts don't tell us – that's really seeping into the broader tech space, into the more traditional semiconductor and maybe older technology companies yet."

To see the rest of the discussion on the NASDAQ with Sanchez on the fundamentals and Pytlar on the technicals, watch the video above.