TechBlogWall

Anonymous Hacker group threatens cyber-attack on FIFA World Cup 2014 sponsors

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:45:00 +0000

The hacker group Anonymous is preparing a cyber-attack on corporate sponsors of the World Cup in Brazil to protest the lavish spending on the soccer games in a country struggling to provide basic services, said a hacker with knowledge of the plan on Friday.

Earlier this week, Anonymous attacked the Brazil's Foreign Ministry computer networks and leaked dozens of confidential emails.

"We have already conducted late-night tests to see which of the sites are more vulnerable," said the hacker who operates under the alias of Che Commodore. "We have a plan of attack."

"This time we are targeting the sponsors of the World Cup," he said in a Skype conversation from an undisclosed location in Brazil. Asked to name the potential targets he mentioned Adidas, Emirates airline [EMIRA.UL], the Coca-Cola Co and Budweiser, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Reuters had no means of confirming Che Commodore's identity or his affiliation with Anonymous.

The sponsors did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the threat.

A DDoS or Distributed Denial-of-service is a low-cost attack aiming at taking a website offline by simultaneously requesting access from thousands of computers in order to jam the host server.

The threat of cyber-attacks is yet another headache for the organizers of the World Cup kicking off on June 12 in Brazil. The 32-nation soccer tournament has already been marred by embarrassing delays in the building of stadiums and widespread discontent in Brazil over the excessive cost of hosting the event in a country with deficient public services.

In what could be the biggest cyber-security breach since the U.S. National Security Agency allegedly spied on President Dilma Rousseff's personal communications, Anonymous this week posted 333 documents extracted from the Foreign Ministry's computing network.

They include a briefing of talks between Brazilian officials and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Brazil in May last year and a list of sport ministers that plan to attend the World Cup.

A hacker known as AnonManifest used a phishing attack to break into the Foreign Ministry's databases and eventually access its documentation system, Che Commodore told Reuters.

"Until yesterday afternoon the hacker still had access to the system," he said.

The Foreign Ministry closed down its email system after the attack and instructed its 3,000 email account holders to change their passwords. Federal police is investigating the breach.

A Foreign Ministry official told Reuters on Friday that only 55 email accounts were hacked and the only documents that were obtained where attached to emails and from the ministry's internal document archive.

"The problem has been resolved. Nothing important was leaked," said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

But Brazilian diplomats abroad were left without email communications with their headquarters for several days. One diplomat in a European capital told Reuters on Friday the email service was still down.

Source - © Thomson Reuters 2014

Getty’s Images Are Now Free for Twitter, Tumblr and Personal Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 04:02:00 +0000

Since its founding, Getty Images has charged for its photos. If a media company wanted to use a Getty photo, the company paid Getty for the rights to that photo. But the Seattle stock-photo agency noticed its photos increasingly appearing on social media and blogs that hadn’t paid for the rights—one result of images being easy to find in Google Image searches and on news sites.

So the Seattle-based stock-photo agency has decided to make a huge portion of its photos free. On Wednesday, the company unveiled the embed tool, which will allow users to include images on websites, such as non-commercial WordPress blogs. The eligible images also come with buttons for Tumblr and Twitter, where a link to the image can be shared. (The image itself doesn’t appear on Twitter, however.)

Here’s how it works for blogs:

Select the image you want to use in your blog or social-media post from the huge portion of images available to embed.
Click on the <> symbol.

In the embed window that pops up, copy the embed code
Paste the HTML code into the source code of a website or blog or wherever you want it to appear.

WhatsApp will add voice calls later this year

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:30:00 +0000

Plenty have been wondering what's next for WhatsApp after the popular messaging service was purchased by Facebook for $16 billion last week, and now we have the answer: voice calls. According to TechCrunch, WhatsApp announced during a Mobile World Congress event today that it would be adding voice services to iOS and Android during the second quarter of the year. The feature will reportedly head to Nokia devices and BlackBerrys sometime after that.

WhatsApp also provided an update on its active user count: it now has 465 million monthly active users and 330 million daily users, according to TechCrunch. That's 15 million more monthly users than Facebook detailed just last week when reporting the purchase. WhatsApp has already risen to an impressive popularity on basic messaging features alone, and the addition of voice calls should only enhance that further when they begin to roll out later this year. The app has done well by offering inexpensive messaging services where messaging is traditionally quite expensive, and doing the same for phone calls would likely be a boon for growth. WhatsApp is reportedly optimizing the amount of data its voice calls use, which should help in keeping users' expenses down as well.

The Guardian reports that WhatsApp's voice calling features will be free, though it's possible that this may only be for a limited time. Messaging is initially free within the app, but eventually requires a $0.99 per year subscription. It's likely that voice services will fall under this too, while breaking it out as a second offering could even provide an additional revenue stream. Though WhatsApp has never appeared eager to bother users with added costs like that on the path to big profits, it'll be interesting to see if that changes as a public company underneath Facebook.

Source - http://www.theverge.com/

Password Depot FREE License Key [Limited Time Offer]

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:14:00 +0000

Remember when you could count the number of passwords you had on one hand? Those days are long gone, and today we're faced with the challenge of safeguarding passwords for shopping sites, credit cards, banks, and social networks, not to mention local files that include sensitive documents and the like. It's so tempting to commit the Number One Sin, which is to write them all down, but without doing that, how can we keep up? With today's discount software promotion,Password Depot, of course!

About Password Depot - Password Manager :

Password Depot is a powerful and very user-friendly password manager which helps to organize all of your passwords – but also, for instance, information from your credit cards or software licenses.

The software provides security for your passwords – in three respects: It safely stores your passwords, guarantees a secure data use and helps you to create secure passwords.

However, Password Depot does not only guarantee security: It also stand for convenient use, high customizability, marked flexibility in terms of interaction with other devices and, last but not least, extreme functional versatility.

Password Depot protects your passwords from unauthorized access, helping you to manage all of your passwords using a powerful and intuitive interface. With Password Depot, you'll enjoy two levels of protection - once from an internal key, and again by a master password that grants you access to the program. Best of all, all password fields are protected from keyloggers, those evil programs that lie in wait, monitoring and recording your keystrokes. Same holds true for clipboard viewing programs.

If you've ever wracked your brain trying to come up with strong passwords that meet the increasingly complex requirements of some sites, you'll love Password Depot. Just use the integrated password generator to create strong passwords, and Password Depot will remember it for you so you don't have to! Plus, your password file can be easily backed up on an external drive or FTP server, ensuring that you'll never lose access to your sites, even if your computer gets corrupted.

How to Get Password Depot Free License Key :

Password Depot normally cost $36 but you can get it for free by using this offer.

Official site - http://www.password-depot.com/overview.htm

1. Visit this Promo page - http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/password-depot

2. Click big Green :Get It Free" button and follow the instruction.

You need a facebook account to grab a license key otherwise you have to answer 11 simple question to get your key.

Samsung replaces Galaxy Gear with their own Tizen-powered Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 07:24:00 +0000

If it wasn't clear to first-generation Galaxy Gear owners that they were beta testing a new product category for Samsung, it should be obvious now: the company has just announced not one but two follow-ups to its original smartwatch. Both the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo drop Samsung's Galaxy branding and follow the original Gear by a bare five months.

Neither watch's key specs differ all that much from the first Gear. Both of them have 1.63-inch 320×320 AMOLED displays, 4GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.0, and an IR blaster, all identical to the first-generation watch. The biggest internal difference is probably a 1.0GHz dual-core SoC of unspecified make (one of Samsung's own Exynos chips seems like a good bet), an upgrade from the 800MHz single-core chip from the first Gear. The extra performance should help to smooth out some of the performance jitters we noticed in the first Gear. Despite the extra CPU core and a somewhat smaller 300mAh battery, Samsung claims that both Gear 2 watches will last two or three days between charges, roughly doubling the runtime of the original Gear.

Samsung has made even larger changes to the software, jettisoning the original Gear's customized Android 4.2.2 in favor of its own home-grown Tizen operating system. Tizen is a Linux-based mobile OS that rose from the ashes of the MeeGo project back in 2011, and counts Samsung and Intel among its major backers. Engadget notes that the Gear watches are two of the very first commercial products to run Tizen, after Samsung's NX300M camera.

Visually, the new software is similar to the old—Samsung's promotional shots all show light white text and images on a black background, saving power by keeping as few of the AMOLED panel's pixels active as possible. However, using Google's debug tools to hack around with the Gear will no longer be possible (not a huge loss, unless you enjoy minuscule games of Angry Birds and Candy Crush). We'll need to wait to get some hands-on time before we can talk any more about how the new software differs from the old. It's also unclear whether the Tizen watches mean that the old Android one will stop getting new updates and apps, or if Gear apps will be compatible with all three watches.

The differences between the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are relatively small. Both include a new hardware Home button on the face, and both will be offered with replaceable wristbands in a variety of colors ("Charcoal Black, Gold Brown and Wild Orange" for the Gear 2 and "Charcoal Black, Mocha Grey and Wild Orange" for the Neo). The Gear 2's face is metal while the Gear 2 Neo's is plastic, making the Neo a little larger but a little lighter (37.9 x 58.8 x 10.0mm and 55g for the Neo compared to 36.9 x 58.4x 10.0 mm and 68g for the Gear 2). Finally, the Gear 2 will include a 2.0 MP camera integrated into the body of the watch, while the Gear 2 Neo includes no camera option. The original Gear used a strap-mounted camera that added extra bulk and made the strap impossible to replace.

Both the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo will be available worldwide in April for as-yet-undisclosed prices (expect the Neo to be the cheaper of the two options). Like the first Gear, the watches will only interface with compatible Galaxy phones and tablets and not products from other OEMs or software ecosystems. Thanks to the Android 4.3 and 4.4 updates Samsung has been distributing to its various devices over the last few months, that list should be much more expansive than it was when the original Gear launched.

Ars will be on the ground at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, and we should be able to spend some hands-on time with the new watches there.

Kickstarter Hacked, Credit Card and some Personal Data Stolen

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 05:09:00 +0000

Hackers breached the crowdfunding website Kickstarter and made off with some user information, the site revealed on Saturday.

In a blog post, Kickstarter's CEO Yancey Strickler wrote that though the hackers didn't obtain any credit card data, they did gain access to other information about Kickstarter's members, such as usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses and phone numbers. The site did not divulge details about the hackers' methods.

"On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers' data," the blog post reads. "Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system."

Kickstarter "strongly" recommends that all users change their passwords. The site, which allows people to fund projects ranging from independent films to gadgets for custom rewards, has over 5 million members.

"We're incredibly sorry that this happened," Strickler wrote in the post. "We set a very high bar for how we serve our community, and this incident is frustrating and upsetting. We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come."

Read an email regarding the hack from Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler to the site's members below:

Bitcoin’s ‘Honest Nodes’ Are Under Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 03:43:00 +0000

Attack of the dishonest nodes? One of the key features of bitcoin, one of the things that makes it a stable system, is this idea that there are a majority of “honest nodes” in the system that could prevent any attack by malefactors. This was explained by Satoshi Nakamoto in his October 2008 white paper that first laid out bitcoin’s parameters, the so-called proof-of-work feature. So long as a majority of CPU power was controlled by the honest nodes, he said, “the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains.”

That may well still hold true, but it’s being put to the test this week. On the heels of the problems at Mt. Gox, which it blamed on a security “glitch,” another bitcoin exchange,Bitstamp, said on Tuesday that it, too, was halting withdrawals, and for the same reason: a software quirk that allows attackers to alter a transaction’s details. It’s being called the “Mt. Gox exploit,” but apparently, it’s now being used beyond Mt. Gox. Bitstamp said no funds have been lost, it’s fixing the problem, and expects to “shortly” restore its systems.

It may be an even wider attack, though. Andreas Antonopoulos, the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, told CoinDesk’s Emily Spaven that the whole system is under a “massive and concerted” DDoS attack. In response, an industry-wide counterattack has been instituted, CoinDesk said, including the exchanges, mining pods, and core developers.

None of this should really be surprising. Given the frequency of data-breaches in the “real” world — witness what happened to Target over the holidays — it was inevitable that somebody, somewhere would eventually probe bitcoin to test its vulnerabilities. Mr. Antonopoulos stressed calm, noted no funds have been lost, and expects this will pass. That isn’t really the issue, though. It’s not going to be enough for bitcoin, or any digital currency for that matter, to be faster and cheaper than cash. It has to be as reliable as cash. More reliable, actually, since it has a bigger burden of proof to present to a skeptical public.

Nobody’s going to stop using fiat currencies just because hackers stole their credit-card information. It doesn’t matter how many times the stock exchanges are hit by trading glitches. The habits are too deeply ingrained in people. However, no such store of collective memory and habit and goodwill yet exists for bitcoin. ”The whole fiasco is just another case study of why it is so important to strengthen ties between bitcoin services and banks and other institutional investors,” Ryan Selkis wrote in his Two-Bit Idiot newsletter.

Nakamoto’s honest nodes are being put to the test. They have no choice but to pass that test. (Paul Vigna)

- Despite all the bad news lately, bitcoin is not only here to stay, but the world is “on the cusp of a revolution in payments systems,” Edmund Moy, the former director of the U.S. Mint, told MoneyBeat. Mr. Moy stopped by the Journal’s offices this morning to talk about cyrpto-currencies, and he sees huge potential for them, both from a commercial and social standpoint. He also thinks, emphatically, that governments should support bitcoin’s development, and that bitcoiners need to take an active role in shaping the government response.

It’s one thing to listen to bitcoin’s apostles preaching. It’s another to listen to somebody like Mr. Moy, who worked in D.C., who ran the Mint and is now chief strategist at metals brokerage Morgan Gold. But Mr. Moy, who has a bitcoin wallet, is enthusiastic about crypto-currencies. He really thinks bitcoin and other digital currencies represent an entirely new way of doing commerce, and he expects very big things to start happening.

With his background in payment systems (you know, the U.S. dollar) and public service, he’s in a unique position to comment on bitcoin’s development, and he’s been vocal in supporting it. “I believe the government should be encouraging this,” he said. Advances in cryptography are leading to more secure, cheaper, and faster payments systems than anything that existed before, he said, and the “social ramifications are huge, and positive.”

Digital currencies offer a huge advantage to workers looking to send remittances back overseas, he pointed out. “If you want to help people on the lowest rungs,” he said, “I can’t think of a greater transfer of wealth,” than by removing the heavy fees workers are charged now to send money back home.

The next few years are going to be key for bitcoin and digital currencies, he said, on both a policy level and on an individual level. He employed the unusual metaphor of roads and flying cars. The oldest roads, like those in lower Manhattan, for example, were basically paved-over footpaths. As the years went on, the government built up and maintained systems based on those old footpaths. Now, he said, imagine somebody invented a flying car. “Do we make it use the existing roads, or do we build a new regulatory system?”

To that end, he said it’s critical that bitcoiners take an active role, right now when the currency’s at an inflection point, in helping to shape whatever regulations governments come up with. In fact, he thinks of one the biggest risks is that government regulations kneecaps digital currencies, although he doesn’t expect it.

Ultimately, he thinks the potential of this revolution will be realized, whether the system that emerges is bitcoin or some other currency. “I think people are going to have an ‘oh, crap’ moment,” when they realize the potential of the new systems, he said, and while he was laughing when it said, he wasn’t joking. (Paul Vigna)

- Speaking of the old world engaging the new, we had a chance to catch up with the team at the Chicago Sun-Times that tried that bitcoin micropayments paywall experiment two weeks ago. While they aren’t about to install an actual bitcoin paywall, and aren’t sure in fact what their next move will be, they were greatly encouraged by the test.

“I think it was very good,” Jim Kirk, the Sun-Times publisher, told us. “We thought the test exceeded our expectations.”

They said they received 713 bitcoin donations (all of the money paid went to the nonprofit Taproot Foundation, so every hit on the paywall was in fact a donation). The size of those donations was very wide, from a penny all the way up to $1,000. What jumped out at them, though was that the vast majority of donations (63%) were for 25 cents. “It tells me there is a very special place in someone’s mind that a quarter is something of value,” said Julian Posada, an executive vice president at the paper’s parent company, Wrapports.

The executives said the only complaint they heard was that the paywall wasn’t available on their mobile site, and said they’ve heard from a few other media outlets curious about the test, to0. “We’re all trying to get to the same place,” Mr. Posada said.

So while there aren’t any definitive next steps, it seems like that there will be a next step, Mr. Kirk said. “This gives us confidence that we could try a couple of different things.” (Paul Vigna)

- Fiverr, an online marketplace, has partnered up with Coinbase and will start accepting bitcoin. Fiverr is an online site where people offer up their services, with prices starting at $5 (naturally). Some of the services are straightforward, like graphic design. Some are odder, like the person who says they’ll record a voice over “in the awesome voice of Sean Connery” (that’s worth $5, for sure).

“Our community is passionate about innovation and creativity and bitcoin represents this spirit of innovation,” said Constantine Anastasakis, Fiverr’s director of business development. (Paul Vigna)

Source - http://blogs.wsj.com/

Here’s What Would Make Google’s Smartwatch Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Google is reportedly putting considerable brain power into a smartwatch and we couldn’t help wondering just what they’d add to the burgeoning technology. More than any other company, Google is positioned to solve the single biggest shortcoming in wearable technology: pattern recognition. What is it about our daily activities makes us fatter, more alert? What helps us get better sleep and be more productive?

Buried within the big data of our everyday decisions are gems of truth about how we can become the best versions of ourselves. Last Summer, Google’s new head of engineering and artificial intelligence pioneer, Ray Kurzweil, let me know his plans to build everyone a “cybernetic friend”.

So, we know Google wants build the perfect lifestyle recommendation engine; a watch that tracks our vital signs and movement could do just that. Here are two things it would need:

Connecting Devices – If I walk an extra 2,000 steps per day, but get less sleep at night, do I still lose weight? It’s really hard to tell, because humans are not naturally good at intuitively assessing cause and effect when there’s more than one variable involved (i.e. we love a good and bad guy).

Self-improvement tech has consumers up to their eyeballs in smart scales, watches, headbands, and apps. Only a device that vacuums up this data and mines it for patterns could make these devices useful.

In the (very) near future, health devices are going to able to assess our productivity and eating habits as well. The Muse, for instance, is a brain-wave sensing headband that can monitor our levels of concentration throughout the day. Google’s watch could easily sync with the muse and let me know if my focus goes up on days that I do interval sprints or go to bed earlier.

We hope Google puts the lion’s share of its brain power into the software of the Smartwatch.

The Latest In Vital Sign Monitoring - Steps taken, body temperature, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, motion tracking–all of these measures can be combined to learn essential aspects of our fitness. For instance, the Basis B1 smartwatch is the only wrist health tracker on the market to measure the stage of sleep associated with alertness, Rapid Eye Movement, since it has a laser that measures resting heart rate.

Similarly, Polar’s pending smartwatch for athlete’s purports to know when users are under or overtraining based on the variability in heart beats.

Samsung’s Galaxy Smartwatch can even automatically count reps during a workout. The Focus Trainer app assigns users a calisthenic workout and can sense how many pushups are done during each set. I got an early demo and it did a pretty good job sensing my movements.

Over the next year, there will be more devices that won’t even need to be told when users are working out–it’ll just automatically count each rep. Even better, it’ll tell users if they’re form is off.

To date, wearables have been resigned to self-improvement nuts. To mainstream, it’ll have to do the heavy mental lifting for us. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information. Every decision we make about our health and productivity is a data point–data points that desperately need simplification.

[Image Credit: T3]

Source - http://techcrunch.com/

LG G Flex Review : Form Without Function

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:30:00 +0000

The LG G Flex is many things. It's big, it's curved, it's impervious to scuffing, and it's sort of bendable — but there's one thing the G Flex is not: a great phone. While packing commendable specs and exceptional battery life, the G Flex is diminished by form without meaningful function.

The G Flex is derived from LG's current flagship device, the G2, which our review praised for its gorgeous display, great build, and creative rear power toggle and volume rocker. But in its pursuit of the G Flex's gimmicky curved, bending display, LG cut corners. The G Flex's OLED screen has a lower resolution — 720p, as compared to the G2's 1080p panel — but also considerably larger at a whopping 6-inches, dropping the overall pixel density to 245ppi. While it certainly looks good, it doesn't pop quite as much as the G2's 424ppi or iPhone 5S' 326ppi display.

I've also found that the OLED frequently suffers from image retention problems. Every now and then I'll see a lasting imprint of apps or folders past, which eventually fade after a short period. At first I was concerned that I may have received a faulty unit, but a quick Google search reveals that it's a common problem seemingly without remedy.

And then there's the G Flex's much-touted bendable design, which is both overstated and utterly useless. The extent of the G Flex's malleability is little more than just the capacity to forcibly straighten out the curved frame...slightly. It takes considerable effort and the G Flex quickly returns to form. What's worse, the curved nature of the design doesn't offer any notable utility short of angling the microphone closer to your mouth. It's a gimmick for gimmick's sake.

The one marketing bullet point that is truly useful, however, is the G Flex's "self-healing" finish — a coating that the company claims repairs scratches and dings to the exterior shell. How exactly it works, LG won't say, but based on observation, it seems as though the coating is scratch resistant, but also actively masks minor damage. After a week of using the it without a case, the G Flex remains pristine — unscathed by being tossed into bags or pockets with loose change or keys. However, the feature is less effective with deeper cuts, but so long as you're not deliberately grinding a sharp edge on the case, you should be fine.

Under the hood, the G Flex utilizes a Snapdragon 800 series quad-core processor with 2GBs of RAM and 32GBs of local storage, which, unfortunately for digital hoarders, can't be expanded. Software wise, the G Flex is running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean — several iterations behind the latest release — Android 4.4 KitKat. LG has also layered on its own software experience, which as OEM skins go, is actually not terrible. You can personalize many facets of the UI, like color coding folders for faster identification or slapping a custom wallpaper on the app drawer. There are also several LG-unique functions at your disposal, like three-finger gesture app switching with Slide Aside, tapping on the display to wake the phone with Knock On, or splitting the screen in half to run two apps simultaneously with Dual Window.

Performance for both LG's processor taxing multitasking features and standard apps is great. Apps boot up quickly, games run predictably well, and there's no sign of slowdown when running multiple programs at once.

As for photos and video, LG's camera software offers a greater degree of control than the stock experience, the 13-megapixel sensor itself produces mixed results. Daylight exterior photos are crisp, detailed, and balanced, but low-light scenarios throw a wrench in the system. Night photos are often grainy and take on a yellowish hue. The sensor also lacks the G2's optical image stabilization, which makes the camera overall less precise. It's not a bad smartphone camera, but there are better solutions on the market.

But perhaps the G Flex's biggest strength is battery life. With a massive 3,500 mAh battery, which lasted for roughly a day and a half with normal use. It's one of the best performers on the market in that regard.

THE VERDICT :

The LG G Flex is a decent phone marred by unnecessary gimmicks that exist only to serve as marketing bullet points. While there's an unquestionable novelty to its curved, marginally malleable design, it offers no significant utility. Its exceptional battery life and sometimes great camera compensate for its shortcomings, but not enough to make it worthy of a $299 subsidized, 2-year commitment.

Source - http://www.ign.com/

Unboxing the Collector's Edition of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 03:38:00 +0000

Source - http://www.ign.com/

Mozilla launches Accounts, an improved Sync feature, and a customizable UI to Firefox Aurora

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 03:29:00 +0000

Mozilla has announced several new features today designed to continue the Firefox browsing experience to any device you use. The company has announced that Accounts will be coming to the browser, along with an improved Sync feature and the ability to customize the user interface. All of these things are available to test now in Firefox Aurora.

With Firefox Accounts, users will be able to capture their login credentials for various services, their bookmarks, history, and any open tabs and bring it with them to any device. This new feature is a part of Firefox OS and is said to match Mozilla’s mission of helping the Web become a more mobile platform. The work on Accounts stems from programs that the company set up last year as a means of making things more accessible in the cloud.

Firefox Accounts has some marked similarities with Google’s Chrome OS in that both companies now offer users a way to carry their preferences over to multiple devices without having to waste time worrying about setup logistics.

Mozilla has also released an update for its Sync feature — the service that lets you take your bookmarks, tabs, and personal information with you. It’s now been made more secure — users will find that it has client side key stretching, end-to-end encryption, and a public key cryptography and the BrowserID protocol. All of these measures are intended to protect user information in the event the computer or Mozilla’s servers have been compromised.

The updated security measures are currently being added to Firefox, and will soon be incorporated into Firefox OS.

Lastly, Firefox Aurora has received a nifty feature that allows users to customize the user interface. With its Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, you can prioritize features in the menu, toolbar or tab bar by dragging them to wherever you want. You can also remove any browser buttons, including add-ons, based on your preference.

In addition, the entire interface has been redesigned in order to help make finding things easier:

Firefox Aurora includes a redesign of the browser interface to help you get things done, faster. Tabs have a new fluid and streamlined shape and non-active tabs blend into the background to make it faster for you to find and focus on the tab you want. A new menu contains the most popular features including copy, paste, zoom, as well as add-ons all in one spot with easy to identify visual icons.

All of the above features are available today in Firefox Aurora.

Photo credit: JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images

Google+ photos get more 'pop' with new dynamic range tool

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 03:21:00 +0000

So far, you've had to use Snapseed on your phone to add high dynamic range effects to Google+ photos after you've taken them -- not very convenient if you're at your computer. That won't be a problem after today, though. Google has brought its mobile apps' HDR Scape tool to the web-based photo editor in Google+, letting you brighten shadows and tone down highlights in a single step. And if you're fussy about your edits, it's now easy to zoom in and verify that everything is just right. The new tools are already available for some Google+ users, and they should reach the rest of the social network in the near future.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112917227800051850597/posts/PAmJCRAerxf

1. HDR Scape

With HDR Scape you can apply high dynamic range (HDR) effects to a single image, with a single click. HDR Scape is currently available in the Snapseed apps for Android and iOS, and today’s update brings the filter to Google+ on the web. You can see some examples here: https://plus.google.com/s/hdr%20scape.

2. Zoom

Seeing your images up close is an important part of the editing process — from checking the focus point, to seeing how the “Drama” filter has changed your pixels. With today’s update, you can now use the magnifying glass to zoom in or out.

To give either feature a try, simply open one of your photos in Google+ (using the Chrome browser), and click “Edit.” We’re rolling out these updates gradually, so check back soon if you don’t see them yet.

Paper, Facebook Official iPhone App

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:48:00 +0000

This morning, Facebook is announcing a new standalone iPhone app called Paper. Contrary to earlier rumors, it's much more than just a news-reading app — it's a complete reimagining of Facebook itself. Once you've used it, you may never want to open the standard Facebook app again. It may not replicated every feature of Facebook's main app, but it does fulfill the majority of people's needs. Simply put, it's much, much better.

Paper takes the standard Facebook News Feed and recreates it as an immersive, horizontally scrolling set of screens. It also provides a new way to post to Facebook (and Paper) with an elegant WYSIWYG editor that borrows the styling of Medium's and Svbltle's blogging systems. Finally, yes, it's a news-reading app that owes some of its looks to Flipboard. It will be available for the iPhone in the US (and only the iPhone in the US) on February 3rd. It's also ad-free, at least for now.

That's all more than we were expecting when we sat down with product designer Mike Matas and product manager Michael Reckhow. Neither would quite take the bait when asked whether this should serve as a replacement for the original Facebook app (or, as I put it during our interview, a virtual indictment). Reckhow says that there are "tools that were out there for sharing high-quality stuff and also the tools where you could reach an audience," but that too often they aren't the same thing. "We felt you shouldn't have to choose between one or the other," he says.

Paper cuts away virtually all buttons and other UI elements to make every status update, photo, and news story appear full-screen. To get around, you will need to learn a basic set of gestures, but the app will gently remind you what they are if it thinks you're stuck. Wide photos pan as you tilt the phone (the team cheekily calls it the "Ken turns" effect), UI elements often just fade away, and news stories are presented in Twitter-esque cards.

The lack of chrome to help place you in the app and tell you how to navigate can be a little disorienting. On the bright side, the UI is fast and fluid, thanks to the nine months the team has spent working on the app. Loren Brichter, the creator of Letterpress and Tweetie, also chipped in on the coding. The result is an app that shares a family resemblance to Facebook Home on Android, but is much faster and more full-featured.

Each section in Paper has a main screen with a cover photo and a list of small cards at the bottom. You can scroll through or drill into the cards, at which point you'll be swiping through one card at a time. Matas hopes that you'll flip through slowly. "You really want people to spend a little bit of time with it and appreciate that content," Matas says, "almost like when you go to a museum and you spend a little bit of time with each thing."

If you aren't put off by the idea of considering a photo of your friend's dog an art piece, you might call it a lean-back experience (albeit on a tiny screen). As a UI philosophy, this stands in direct opposition to the high-volume, high-noise vertical feeds we're used to on Twitter and Facebook. It definitely means it will take longer to grind through content like you can on Twitter — but for Facebook, that's exactly the point. If, like me, you're a news addict and an information fiend, Paper may be a little too relaxed for you.

The interface for news reading is exactly the same, with the exception that links are automatically turned into small, Twitter-esque media cards with branding from the publication. Swiping up to read the full story takes you to the source site — there's no offline mode like you might find in a more full featured news app. You also can't add any site you want, as with a traditional RSS reader. Instead, Facebook has hired a team of content curators to pick stories for you in one of a dozen or so categories ranging from basic news to cute animals.

You can post to Paper (and thus Facebook) in a new kind of compose screen. It shows you exactly what the final post will look like, and Reckhow isn't shy about his hope that people will think of Paper as a new kind of thing — even though the plumbing underneath is still Facebook. "Think about when Instagram came out and you now had this new way to share," he says. Facebook’s ambition with Paper is to have it become its own thing, not just a different way of accessing Facebook. Matas goes so far as to say that "it’s a publishing tool, a way of publishing great content, and a way of viewing great content."

Paper is the first product to come out of Facebook Creative Labs, a unit within the company tasked to "innovate and build new things," as Reckhow puts it. That's likely a sign that Paper will be just one of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called "new and engaging types of mobile experiences" on yesterday’s earnings call. Since its embarrassing Snapchat clone called Poke failed, Facebook seems closer to figuring out the right formula for its single-use apps. Facebook knows that mobile users are gravitating towards such apps, and it intends to create more of them.

That’s probably a good thing, and perhaps a necessary one. From a user's perspective, Facebook’s current app is beset by dozens of options, nooks, crannies, and features that most people don’t really use. The recent "tab-centric" redesign helped simplify things, but it wasn’t radical change. Facebook has a billion users, and so any alterations it wants to make to its core app need to be tested — extensively. That kind of testing can get in the way of creative design. "You can’t be innovative if you’re encumbered by worrying if you’re going to disrupt what hundreds of millions or a billion people are doing," Reckhow says.

The team wanted "to have the creative freedom to go outside of what we’ve done and not worry about if it’s going to impact metrics [on] day one." For Reckhow, Matas, and the rest of the team, Paper is less a replacement for Facebook’s app than a chance for the company to try out something very different from what it’s done before — and get another icon on your iPhone’s home screen in the process.

If Paper does score a slot on your main home screen, another app will probably have to be buried away somewhere else. For a lot of people, Facebook itself will be a prime candidate.

Source - http://www.theverge.com

Samsung Glass A Google Glass competitor - Rumours

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000

A report in The Korea Times has added further weight to the prospect of a direct Google Glass competitor, with an unnamed Samsung employee claiming that development of a smart eyewear device is well underway.

A Google Glass (pictured) competitor, tentatively called 'Galaxy Glass,' could be unveiled at this year's IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin

Word of Samsung's smart eyewear to rival Google Glass first emerged in October last year, when the company registered a design patent for what it categorized as a type of sports glasses. According to The Korea Times, the eyewear is tentatively called "Galaxy Glass," and is set to be unveiled at this year's IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

Much like Google Glass, the eyewear would connect to the user's smart phone and enable them to take calls, listen to music, as well as display text message and email alerts in their field of vision.

"The new smart glass to be introduced by Samsung is a new concept of wearable device that can lead to an exciting culture of communication," the employee is quoted as saying. "Because wearable devices are kind of accessories, design is a major factor. Samsung smart glasses should be simple and appealing on the surface."

The commercial release of Google Glass is expected later this year, but with the company yet to specify a launch date, there's a possibility that Samsung's version could beat it to market.

Source: The Korea Times

British government reportedly tracking YouTube and Facebook data without permission

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 01:30:00 +0000

While the NSA has been busy scouring the Angry Birds leaderboards, newly leaked documents report that its British counterpart -- the GCHQ -- has been monitoring the flow of social media in real-time. The General Communications Headquarters can apparently keep track of YouTube traffic, which links are liked on Facebook and even which Blogger or Blogspot pages are visited. This all comes via documents taken by Edward Snowden that were obtained by NBC News. NBC's sources also say that the British spies have been able to physically tap the lines carrying global web traffic to extract key data about specific users as well. This initiative, called Squeaky Dolphin, intends to put broad data trends into context with world events and give the intelligence community a heads up for future anti-government happenings -- not for spying on a person-by-person level. What's more, the GCHQ reportedly shares this information with the US.

The GCHQ has issued a statement claiming that all of its work is carried out within the limits of the law, while the NSA says that it's only interested in the communication activities of valid foreign intelligence targets. For their part, Google and Facebook say that the spying on unencrypted information was done with out their respective knowledge, and neither company had given the UK government permission to access the data -- something we've heard before.

Source : NBC News (1), (2) (PDF), engadget.com

Microsoft 'Office Online' set to replace existing Word and Excel Web Apps

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:30:00 +0000

Microsoft is readying a launch of new "Office Online" branding for its existing Office Web Apps. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans have revealed to The Verge that Office Online will roll out in the coming weeks, and Microsoft’s office.com site will be refreshed to accommodate the changes. The name change follows a similar rebrand for SkyDrive, which is now being christened OneDrive after a trademark case. While the Office Online branding is not related to legal issues, we understand it’s largely focused on making the online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote more accessible and easy to find. ZDNet first reported on Office Online earlier this week.

We’re told that Microsoft will start using "Excel Online" and "Word Online" monikers instead of the slightly more confusing "Excel Web App" and "Word Web App" names that exist today. Office Web Apps are currently buried away in SkyDrive (OneDrive), where it’s not always obvious to consumers. We understand that Office Online will still be available through SkyDrive, but that office.com will serve as an easy way to access the various web apps. The main focus is to ensure consumers are aware of the apps and they’re easy to find. Microsoft is testing versions of Office Online internally, and Yan Zhu, founder oflivesino.net, has supplied The Verge with several screenshots of the new branding and interface.

Microsoft is currently refreshing its existing Office Web Apps ahead of the rebrand, and the company revealed that a new navigation bar in Outlook.com will also surface online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. While the software maker has taken the odd step of removing this information from its original blog post, the navigational bar will roll out shortly alongside Office Online. It’s another part of making Microsoft’s Office Web Apps more visible to consumers.

Global smartphone shipments top one billion for first time in 2013: IDC

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 09:44:00 +0000

Global smartphone shipments topped 1 billion units for first time in 2013, climbing 38.4 percent from the previous year to 1.004 billion units, research firm IDC said.

Smartphones made up 55.1 percent of all mobile phone shipments last year from just over two-fifths in 2012, IDC said.

Samsung Electronics Co's market share edged up one percentage point year-on-year to 31.3 percent to keep its place as the world's biggest smartphone vendor, while second-place AppleInc's fell from 18.7 percent to 15.3 percent, according to IDC.

Huawei Technologies Co, LG Electronics and Lenovo Group were third, fourth and fifth largest respectively, each with a market share of just under five percent in 2013.

4 things you can do with your old game consoles

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 15:30:00 +0000

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have been available for almost two months and have already sold more than 7 million units. From playing hit games like Killzone and Dead Rising 3 to streaming live game feeds on Twitch or watching movies on Netflix, both consoles promise to deliver hours of entertainment.

But what if you're upgrading from an older console? Should you hang on to your Xbox 360 orPlayStation 3? For most people the short answer is yes, and here's why:

Below are the 4 things you can do with your old game consoles :

1. DVD and Blu-ray player

Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 can play DVDs, with the latter also capable of playing Blu-ray discs. No need to purchase a DVD player for your second TV, save yourself some money and use your old console.

2. Streaming box

DVDs are the old-school way of watching movies; it's all about streaming nowadays. Well if that's your philosophy, you're in luck. Why purchase a Roku or Apple TV when you can just use your old consoles?

In addition to playing discs, both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have access to a range of streaming services, such as Netflix, YouTube, Crackle, and Amazon Instant Video. The Xbox 360 also has an exclusive HBO Go app, ensuring you will never miss another episode of Game of Thrones again -- assuming that you're an HBO subscriber, of course.

3. Gaming

Let's not forget that these old consoles are still high-powered gaming machines. Everyone loves the classics, and with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 unable to play older disc-based games, you can keep your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 to play older titles like Halo 3, The Last of Us, orGrand Theft Auto 5

4. Sell it

Do you already own a DVD player or streaming box? Have you already beaten all of your old games? Well in that case, you can sell your old console for some cold, hard cash. Consoles can be traded in for cash and in-store credit at retailers like GameStop, although you will most likely get more selling it on eBay or Craigslist. The money you make from selling your system can then be used to purchase new games for your new console.

Before you get rid of your device, however, make sure you delete your personal data. This can be done on the Xbox 360 by going to Settings, clicking System, then Storage, followed by tapping the "Y" button on the controller, and selecting Format.

To do this on the PlayStation 3, enter Settings, select System Settings, and click the "Restore PS3 System" option -- note that this will delete everything on your system's hard drive.

How to back up and restore your Windows 8 Start screen layout

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 13:42:00 +0000

The Windows 8 Start screen is the gateway to your PC and usually the first thing you see when you log in, unless you've chosen to go directly to the desktop. The update to Windows 8.1 also introduced many more customization options to the Start screen.

Whether you use the Start screen only on occasion or rely on it heavily, you've probably spent some time setting it up just the way you like it. To save you from having to go through it again when you reinstall Windows or if your Start screen gets rearranged accidentally, you can back up your layout and restore it later.

How to back up and restore your Windows 8 Start screen layout :

Step 1: Open the Run dialog box by hitting Windows key + R.

Step 2: Type, "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows" and hit Enter to open Windows Explorer to the location of the Start screen layout files.

Step 3: Copy the files, "appsFolder.itemdata-ms" and "appsfolder.itemdata-ms.bak" to your backup folder.

If something happens to your Start screen layout and you want to restore it, just copy the backup files back to the original location and overwrite the files already in the folder.

That's it. Now if your nephew or a friend comes over and they rearrange your Windows 8 Start screen, you can relax and restore it in just a few minutes.

Google purchases DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 03:30:00 +0000

Google has just made an acquisition that is somewhat both puzzling and, on further analysis, feels quite natural. It has just bought DeepMind, a startup that focuses on artificial intelligence.

Technology news website Re/code, which reported news of the deal earlier, said the price was $400 million, without disclosing where it got the information.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on the price. DeepMind representatives could not be immediately reached for comment.

The London-based startup is just three years old, according to LinkedIn, and the company hasn't really made headlines in the tech industry. It's roster, however, includes some impressive names such as Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis. The latter is considered to be a genius, a progidy in chess, and one of the best mind games player of late.

DeepMind's profile says it specializes in artificial intelligence for simulations, e-commerce, and games. At first glance, it might not make sense for a company more known for search, ads, and Android, but a closer analysis of Google's products and sometimes strange projects reveals that it could be a close fit.

Google has lately been making acquisitions and hires that reveal the company's new bent towards even smarter machines. Under Andy Rubin's guidance, the company has been reported to have bought several companies and startups related to robotics and it isn't hard to imagine Rubin's team needing a bit of brains for those. And last December, Google was also reported to have hired a former Microsoft employee to work on machine learning.

A more down to earth application of artificial intelligence would actually be for Google Now. Google has been steadily selling Google Now as the personal assistant of choice that is able to predict what you want or need before you even ask it. Google and Apple are believed to be taking their rivalry to virtual personal assistants, and a dash of machine learning and artificial intelligence might go a long way in gaining the upper hand.

VIA: Re/code

Google and Samsung Sign 10 Years Global Patent Agreement

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 03:11:00 +0000

Google Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which are frequently involved in patent infringement lawsuits but not against each other, announced on Sunday that they have reached a global patent cross-licensing agreement.

The deal covers patents currently owned by the companies, as well as any filed in the next 10 years, the companies said in a release. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The companies said the deal "would lead to deeper collaboration on research and development of current and future projects."

"By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation," said Allen Lo, deputy general counsel for patents at Google, in a statement.

Samsung's Seungho Ahn, head of the company's intellectual property center, said the deal showed "the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes."

"Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from co-operating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes," Seungho Ahn, head of Samsung's Intellectual Property Center said in the statement.

The companies have been at the center of the smartphone patent wars, though more as allies than foes. The majority of the litigation - which has sprawled across three continents, has been between Apple and the various companies involved in making smartphones based on Google's Android software, including Samsung and Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility.

Few other details were provided in a statement posted online.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

US 'Revenge porn' website owner charged with hacking email and stealing nude photos

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:11:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES: A notorious revenge porn website operator and another California man have been charged with stealing nude photos from hundreds of hacked email accounts and posting the images online.

Hunter Moore, 27, who has been dubbed by some media outlets as "the most hated man on the internet," was arrested on Thursday at his home in Woodland. FBI agents also arrested Charles Evens, 25, of the Studio City area of Los Angeles.

Evens pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles court while Moore appeared in court in Sacramento but didn't enter a plea, US attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said.

Both remained jailed.

A 15-count federal indictment issued this week in Los Angeles charges the men with conspiracy, computer hacking, aggravated identity theft, and aiding and abetting. They could face up to five years in federal prison if convicted.

From 2010 to 2012, Moore ran a website called isanyoneup.com that posted nude and explicit photos, including some submitted to the site by former lovers and spouses without the permission of the people in them. Alongside the photos, Moore included the name and other details of the people depicted.

The photos included an American Idol finalist, the daughter of a major Republican donor, and a woman in a wheelchair, according to a 2012 article on Moore in Rolling Stone magazine.

According to the indictment, Evens was paid for providing Moore with nude photos that he obtained by hacking or using other means to accessing hundreds of email accounts.

In an email to Moore, Evens said what he was doing was illegal, and in other emails, Moore offered to pay Evens $200 a week and asked him to use an anonymous PayPal account to avoid detection of the scheme, according to the indictment. Evens was paid as much as $900 at one time, prosecutors contend.

Moore told BBC that he made as much as $20,000 a month in advertising revenue. He ignored cease-and-desist orders and scoffed at challenges to the ethics of his site, although in 2012 he finally sold the website to an anti-cyberbullying organization, saying his notoriety had resulted in people sending him a flood of child pornography and other images.

But he defended the site as well, even though he acknowledged in the 2012 BBC interview that posting the photos could "definitely affect someone's livelihood."

"I just monetize people's mistakes that they made, and it's kind of a shady business. But if it wasn't me, somebody else was going to do it," he said.

In a 2012 interview on CNN's Dr Drew show, a woman who called in to the show chastised Moore for refusing requests to remove naked selfies of her daughter and alleged they came from a hacked account.

"I'm sure she sent the pictures to a million different guys and just ended up on my site just like everybody else," Moore said, although he added that he didn't want to hurt her daughter.

"I'm sorry that your daughter was cyberraped. But, I mean, now she's educated on technology," he added.

MTNL customers to get WiFi services

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:26:00 +0000

Mumbai: Ailing state-owned telecom company MTNL plans to launch high speed WiFi services in Mumbai and Delhi, which will provide Internet services to customers at different locations, apart from their homes.

MTNL will be tying up with malls, coffee chains and food courts to provide this unlimited WiFi service to its customers.

"We are planning to provide our customers Wi-Fi services at indoor locations such airports, cafes, food courts, apart from their homes. We will be offering 8 Mbps speed", MTNL Executive Director Peeyush Agarwal told reporters here over the weekend.

On the tariff side, he said a customer will have to use a line-bonding modem to avail of this service, adding that customers already using the MTNL Wi-Fi services on mobile devices will be charged an additional Rs 50-100 apart from their existing monthly rental.

He said MTNL, which operates only in Mumbai and Delhi, has already tied up with city's new terminal T2 to provide this wi-fi service and is in talks rest of the two airports for the same.

MTNL will be targeting the Mumabi and New Delhi airports and all the food courts and malls for this service.

Agarwal said an MTNL customer who uses Wi-Fi on multiple devices like laptop, mobile, personal computers and tabs at home will also have access to internet on such locations.

A customer will have to register himself at such places, and just by using his unique login id and password can have access to internet there, he added.

He said there are certain authentication process required before launching the service and as soon it gets complete, the service will be launched. MTNL has partnered with C-bot to provide this Wi-Fi service.

MTNL which currently has 6 lakh broadband customers, sees addition of another 2 lakh to its customer base once this service is launched.

Hello World

noreply@blogger.com (Aslam Haq) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 06:42:00 +0000

Hello

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This is my first post.

Thanks,
Raymond.