Today is no ordinary day for the GSMArena test track, which is about to see the Bugatti Veyron of smartphones do the rounds in an attempt to beat the lap record of its predecessor. Samsung have spared no effort to protect the Galaxy S III against any odds.

Google's $12.5 billion (£8 billion) deal to buy Motorola has cleared the final hurdle and is heading for the finish line, after China became the last country to approve the takeover.

The acquisition, which was agreed in principal back in August, had been subject to a worldwide review process with each country testing the proposal against its own anti-trust regulations.

Europe and the United States approved the alliance in February and now China has given Google the green light to rubber stamp the deal.

However, various news outlets are reporting that in order to win the regulatory approval, Google had to assure the Chinese that it will keep Android free and open for the next five years.

Motorola is now officially expected to come under Google's control early this week.

Through buying Motorola, the company is expected to work closely with the hardware manufacturer to develop phones and tablets for the Android operating system.

However, with the assurances supposedly given to China and its other Android partners, there's no way Google could favour its new plaything too heavily.

As well as the hardware, Google pursued the deal in order to acquire the Moto's hefty patent portfolio and increase its arsenal in the ongoing patent war with Apple.

Our hopes of taking the Fisker Atlantic for a spin next year just got dampened considerably: a big document leak has revealed that the more reasonably-priced alternative to the Karma won't be rolling off the production lines en masse until mid-2014, a year later than we'd expected. Thanks in part to a factory overhaul, the only Atlantics rolling on their hybrid-powered wheels in mid-2013 will be prototypes. On the upside, we've learned more about the car itself, including a fairly brisk 0-60 time of 6.5 seconds courtesy of a 300HP-equivalent motor. Green drivers who thought that the promised lower price would put it into entry-level luxury will nonetheless get a reality check with that $50,000 to $60,000 target, even if it's still a big savings over the six-digit Karma. There's still a huge amount of leeway for things to change, but with our compatriots at Autoblog having confirmed that the documents were real and "highly confidential," they may be a sign that the Tesla Model S will have free rein in the green luxury sedan world for a good year or more.

Fisker leak shows Atlantic production delayed to mid-2014, 0-60 in 6.5 seconds originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 May 2012 09:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Android is taking over the smartphone world as the only viable competitor to Apple's iOS. Google's Andy Rubin recently announced that 850,000 devices are activated every day, which makes it a fantastic platform for development and experimentation.

And while Android and iOS have many similarities, there's one big difference: iOS is proprietary, while Android is open source. That means anyone can grab the code to Android and do what they want with it.

Google is responsible for nearly all Android development, and is likely to continue working in this way, but it's committed to releasing the source code for its work using a free software licence (mostly GPLv2 and Apache) under the banner of the Android Open Source Project.

So far it's made good on its word, and has released the code to each successive version. This happened most recently in November 2011 with Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Anyone can play with it, change it and build their own versions, which is exactly what many Android vendors are doing with their hardware. And now you can too.

Releasing the source code is one thing - getting it to run is another. The main challenge is that most Android devices run on ARM processors, and porting it to run on anything else is a big challenge. Google does provide tentative support for the x86 architecture within the codebase, but it wouldn't be possible at all without the existence of a project that pulls all this together with a considerable library of patches to create a build of Android that mostly works on x86.

That project is Android-x86. It's been able to make earlier releases of Android run fairly stably on the x86 platform, including networking and mouse support. But Ice Cream Sandwich in particular is still highly experimental, and it was only in the first weeks of 2012 that a semi-usable x86 version became viable.

As a result, running ICS should be considered a proof of concept, and a useful test to measure how quickly x86 development is progressing.

Before we get to the experimentation, we're going to cover installing a version of Android that might be a little more useful.

The Android-x86 project provides pre-built versions of Android that can be used on a variety of hardware, including the EeePC and a couple of x86 touch devices. Older versions of Android have been built and shown to work on generic PC hardware, and live images of those distributions can be downloaded, run, and installed from the x86 website, but at the time of writing, there's no official version of ICS that works on a generic PC.

You can build your own, but as with any compilation of a Linux kernel, it takes a lot of time and effort. Previous releases have also suffered from lack of mouse control and networking, both of which needed source code patches to the kernel to fix.

We'll take our first foray into Android by running an older version in a virtual machine environment. This is safe, maximises functionality and walks a well trodden path. If you like it, you can move onto a newer version later.

We used VirtualBox, installed on an AMD Linux system running Arch. Android works better on Intel hardware due to modifications in the source code, but we saw no difference on our AMD machine other than a couple of warnings. The same isn't true of ICS, which currently only runs on Intel x86 hardware.

We've had the best experience with the nightly build of Android 2.2, which you can grab from http://android-x86.moonman.dk. With the ISO downloaded, launch VirtualBox and click on the 'New' button. In the wizard that appears, set the operating system to 'Linux', and set 'Other Linux' as the version. We gave our machine 512MB of memory, and a 2GB hard drive as a VDI disk image.

After the new machine has been created, select it in the machine list and open the settings window. On the system page, switch to the processor tab and make sure 'Enable PAE/NX' is active for your CPU.

Now click on the 'Storage' page. VirtualBox defaults to IDE emulation rather than SATA, and we need to add a second device to attach to our ISO image. If the device doesn't exist, click on the controller followed by the 'Add a new attachment' icon (which looks like an optical disc). A small window should appear asking you to choose a disc image, and you should point the resulting requester at the Android 2.2 image.

If an optical drive already exists, select it in the storage tree. Use the disc icon on the far right to display a dropdown menu, then select 'Choose virtual CD/DVD disk file'. Now that everything is configured, click on 'OK' in the Settings window, followed by the green 'Start' button in the main interface. Android 2.2 will boot within the virtual machine.

You'll see the boot menu, from which you should choose the first option. HDPI and MDPI refer to the screen resolution of the output device, which you can ignore when running on anything other than a tablet. If you're trying this boot on real hardware, then the third option avoids graphics drivers by using the VESA mode. This is useful if you run into compatibility problems.

If you like what you see with Android, the final option will create a permanent installation on a spare drive partition. A few moments after making your choice, you'll see Android's unlock screen.

The final hurdle is overcome by pressing the right [Ctrl] key and selecting 'Disable mouse integration' from the Machine menu. When you now click on the virtual machine, you should see the mouse and be able to slide the padlock icon up to enter the OS.

Hopefully you've now played with Android 2.2 and want to upgrade to the latest version. The missing generic build of Ice Cream Sandwich is likely to be a sign that there are problems with the codebase that make the platform highly unstable.

For that reason, any version of ICS you get running will have problems. We've tried native hardware, virtual machines and netbooks, and surprisingly it was the last category that gave us the best experience. If you have a netbook handy, you can get a fully fledged x86 version of ICS running with little difficulty.

We downloaded the ISO image of 4.0.3 built for the Asus platform (android-x86-4.0-asus_laptop-20120101.iso). Either this image or a later version should work with most netbooks, and maybe other laptops and PCs, but even our Samsung NC10 ran the image well, albeit without wired or wireless networking.

As these devices don't have an optical drive, the ISO image needs to be written to a USB stick, which can then be booted on the machine. The tool for the job is Unetbootin, which can be installed within Linux from your distribution's package manager. Versions are also available for OS X and Windows, and they all work the same way.

First, insert your USB stick - 1GB will do. All the data will be lost, so make sure there's nothing on there you want to keep, then launch Unetbootin. The top half of the window is used for selecting a Linux distribution, which can be downloaded and installed automatically.

We want to use the bottom half to locate the ISO and ensure the correct USB device has been selected. If everything is correct, click 'OK'. This will start the conversion and begin to write the bootable data to your USB stick. It should complete in a few minutes.

Like a live Linux distribution launching from a USB stick, Android can now be booted by turning on your machine with the USB device inserted. As long as the BIOS or boot menu is configured to probe USB devices first - and most are - you should see the Android boot menu.

This has three options, with 'Default' being added by Unetbootin. Choose the first, 'Run Android x86 without installation', to test the OS. If everything works, you can choose to install at a later time.

Android takes a few minutes to boot, and will probably complain that your machine isn't an Asus product. After the Android logo, you'll see the starter wizard. This is where, on a real device, you sync the hardware with your Google account, but without network connectivity it makes no sense. Just click through the options to get to the OS quickly.

You'll now see the start page of Android. This adds a few prompts to help you get started, but Android is easy enough to use without any prior experience, especially if you tried version 2.2.3 earlier. The main differences are in the transitions and how the display looks, but all that can be changed too.

Applications are launched from the small matrix icon on the top right, and you can use the arrows in the bottom left to move between what Android calls 'activities'. In Linux terms, these are virtual desktops.

Playing with the settings is the first thing you should do. You can get to the Settings panel by clicking on the clock in the bottom right of the display, then on the text that says 'No internet connection'.

Clicking the Wi-Fi icon will turn it on, and hopefully you'll be able to scan for networks with the 'Scan' button at the top of the screen. This didn't work for us, but there are reports of it working with other hardware. We got some connectivity by using a Bluetooth PAN connection to a machine that was sharing its internet connection over Bluetooth. Ensure your laptop supports this feature, and that it's enabled.

After pairing your Android device and your laptop, you should have network connectivity. Android x86 is in a state of rapid development, so there's a very good chance networking will have been fixed.

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Does the word ReRAM ring a bell? No? Well, the key point is that it's much faster than NAND memory, and it's making its way into chips from Elpida, Sharp and Panasonic. Further proof that ReRAM is on the up and up? Researchers at University College London have used this technology to make a chip that operates at 100 times the speed of standard Flash memory. The device is composed completely of silicon oxide, which improves the chip's resistance, and it doesn't require a vacuum to work (which makes it cheaper to produce). But this new chip is more than just a faster alternative to Flash; its ability to move between different states of conductivity means it can be configured as a memristor, or a device that handles both data-processing and storage tasks. In the long term, researchers hope this technology can pave the way for silicon oxide CPUs -- and UCL is already using this design to help develop transparent memory chips for mobile devices. Need to know more? Feast your heart on the gritty details via the link below.

Researchers develop silicon ReRAM chip, send warning shot to Flash memory originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 May 2012 06:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With graduation season upon us, the various specials and incentives on computers for students thinking about college next year are starting to appear. Last year, Microsoft was offering an XBOX for those students willing to buy a Windows based PC. Beginning today, the offer is running this year with a free 4GB XBOX 360 with purchase of qualifying Windows based PC of $699 or more. This offer is only for students and at select retailers including Best Buy, Dell, Fry's Electronics, HP, Microsoft and NewEgg. Each retailer will have its own terms and conditions so be sure to check with the retailer before purchasing a system to make sure you qualify. Proof of student status is required.

Disclaimer: All deals are those advertised by the retailer in question and may have rebates or other conditions of purchase for the products. Please be sure to read all disclaimers from the seller before purchasing.

The first camera samples from the 13MP camera of the Sony Xperia GX are out (through unofficial means, but still). The shots themselves are taken with an pre-release unit and indoors under not-so-good lighting, so it's too early to be talking image quality, but this leak still holds some very interesting details. First off, the photos were taken at the DoCoMo Smartphone Lounge where a demo...

As much as we're familiar with mobile device torture tests, they're normally inflicted by us or otherwise not-so-voluntary. Nokia, however, has stepped up to the plate and doled out the abuse to the Lumia 900 itself with a hammer and nail, all based on a wager that the Windows Phone's use of Gorilla Glass would hold up to Sonim-level punishment. The company's Chris Ruble and Mike Meyers (not that Mike Myers) used a Lumia 710 as a dry run before an on-camera demo that not only saw the 900 assaulted with the hammer, but used as a blunt instrument itself -- all without a crack or scratch. We imagine that other toughened-glass phones would survive the hit, and there's every possibility that smacking the polycarbonate plastic would leave more than a scuff mark. Nokia's test still proves that its pride and joy can withstand more than just a casual roughing up, and you can see the slightly cringe-inducing test in the video below.

Continue reading Nokia uses Lumia 900 as a hammer in a torture test, makes us wince (video)

Nokia uses Lumia 900 as a hammer in a torture test, makes us wince (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 May 2012 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We recently looked at various techniques you can use to hide data in Windows, from simple filename tricks to complete encryption of the OS. Now we're going to turn the tables and discover ways to uncover hidden activity.

There are plenty of reasons why someone might not want you to know that your security has been breached. The most obvious is infection with malware. If you believe others may be using your PC without your consent, the issues can become serious. What are they doing? Will people assume it was you?

Luckily, finding out is easier than you might think, and you can even monitor your computer from your inbox.

How you can tell if someone has modified or even added a new file to your computer?

The easiest method is to open Windows Explorer in an account with Administrator rights over the system. Now click 'Organise > Folder and search options'. Click the 'View' tab and in the advanced settings, ensure that 'Show hidden files, folders and drives' is selected. Click 'OK'.

Now click the search box in Windows Explorer. This will reveal several search criteria, including 'Date modified'. Click this and a calendar appears along with some interesting options, including 'Earlier this week'. Click one of these and press [Enter]. All the files modified since this time, including hidden ones, will be listed. Is there anything that you don't like the look of?

Of course, much of today's malware is capable of faking the modify time on a file to hide from this search. The worst malware, the rootkit, maintains its anonymous presence by not only faking modification times, but also ensuring it fools the OS into returning results that make everything seem okay. The rootkit can then allow other malware, like a keylogger, to run.

To uncover this kind of infection, we need a way of examining the disk while Windows sleeps. Read a sleeping PC The easiest way of achieving this is to boot a Linux live CD, mount the disk and have a look around.

What are we looking for? Luckily, we needn't know. Several security vendors distribute Linux live CD discs designed to simply run a Windows antivirus scanner. Without a subverted Windows system getting in the way, all malware is naked and visible.

One such disk is the Avira Rescue CD. You can download the ISO file and burn it to a bootable disc using your favourite software, but there's another option. If you download and run the EXE version, you'll find that it contains burner software. You'll be asked to insert a DVD, after which the ISO will be unpacked and burned to disc, ready to boot.

If you're using a wireless network card, you'll have to plug your PC into your broadband router with a cable if Linux doesn't contain a driver for your wireless card.

When you boot the rescue disc, you'll be met by a boot menu. Press [Enter] to continue booting. The Avira scanner will load and run.

The software has four tabs. Click 'Update' and then click 'Yes' in the window that appears asking if you want to update the malware definitions. Once complete, click the 'Configuration' tab. Ensure that in the Scan Method section, the option selected is 'All files'. Also ensure that you select the tick boxes for joke programs, security privacy risks and runtime compression utilities. This last option is important because some malware stays securely compressed until it's run, thereby obscuring its purpose.

Finally, click the 'Virus scanner' tab and click 'Start scanner'. Once the scan is complete and any stealthy infections have been identified and hopefully fixed, you can click 'Shut down' and either shut down the computer or reboot. Once Linux has shut itself down, you can remove the DVD and boot into Windows.

Another major problem, especially if you have to leave your PC unattended for a while, is an interloper using it without your permission. If someone really wants to read your hard disk, booting a Linux live CD will allow them to mount your disk and read whatever they like.

If you don't want to encrypt your entire OS as we demonstrated last issue using TrueCrypt, you can thwart their attempts to even boot the computer by setting a password on your BIOS.

The BIOS contains the first software to be run when your machine powers up. Because there's no way to stop this, telling the BIOS to ask for a password at boot time will stop most would-be hackers dead. What's more, modern BIOS implementations allow for several different passwords that perform different jobs, and newer hard disks can be made to work in conjunction with the BIOS to prevent secrets being revealed.

To set a BIOS password, you need to get into its setup mode. Most modern BIOS implementations respond to holding down [F2], [F10] or [Delete]. Your PC's manual will tell you which. Hold this key immediately after power on in cases where the BIOS screen flashes by too quickly.

Different BIOS types have different interfaces, but in general there'll always be a security or password screen. There may be different types of password you can set.

When you boot the computer, the password you're asked to enter is the user password. However, what's to stop someone going into the BIOS and removing it? That's the job of the supervisor password. If you set this, then even entering the BIOS becomes problematic for a hacker.

Because there are techniques for overriding BIOS passwords, laptop BIOS implementations also have an HDD password. This is stored in the hard disk controller and must be supplied before the disk gives up one byte of access.

If you think someone is using your PC without permission, sometimes the best thing is to gather evidence, then either confront them or take steps to ensure you have a legitimate reason why they can't continue to use it.

One method of doing this is to install a keylogger. Keyloggers aren't always used illegally. In some situations they can be used to check that personnel are only doing what they're supposed to and not abusing their position.

A word or warning first: Never be tempted to install a keylogger or any other piece of spyware onto a computer that you do not personally own. If you're caught and the case goes to court, you could be liable under the Misuse of Computers Act, and receive a prison sentence and a fine of up to £5,000.

There are many free Windows keyloggers. We'll use iSafe from iSafeSoft. The trial version will last for seven days, which should be enough to discover unauthorised use of your PC. Download the executable to the PC you wish to monitor (which we'll call the target) and run it.

The installation process consists of simply accepting the licence agreement and the defaults. Once installed, press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift]+[X] and enter the default password 123 to open the keylogger's user interface.

Each part of the system that can be logged has its own icon. At the top of each icon is a number, indicating the records that have been collected. To stop your activity being logged, click the green button marked 'Stop now'.

With iSafe logging events, try opening a web browser and entering a search phrase. Surf to a few sites and then go back to the iSafe user interface. Click 'Log' at the top of the screen. In the left hand panel, expand the username that did the surfing and select the 'Website' category.

In the right-hand panes you'll see the dates and times of each element of surfing activity, along with the site involved. Select one and the lower panel shows the details. Select the 'Keystroke' category in the left hand panel and click an entry from the web surfing traffic you just generated. The lower pane shows the exact keystrokes (including deletions and other edits), and the text entered.

Another valuable feature is the Screenshot category. Screenshots are taken at regular intervals, and are a powerful piece of evidence when looking for untoward activities by others. Back on the main iSafe interface, click the 'Screenshot' tab on the left to access the settings.

By default iSafe makes a capture every minute, but this could soon fill your hard disk. It's more useful to take a shot of the active window. You can further reduce the amount of space taken by each shot by selecting the capture quality. To compress the shots (and protect them), select the option to compress them into an archive. This is protected by the iSafe password.

iSafe won't take screenshots when the computer is idle (in other words, when the suspect isn't using it). To keep taking snaps anyway, click 'Setting', then click 'Screenshot' on the resulting right-hand pane. Untick 'Don't take screenshots when user is idle.'

One excellent function of the screenshot facility is the ability to start taking shots as soon as iSafe detects that the user has entered one or more specified keywords. On the Screenshot tab, click 'Enable Smart Sense' and associated buttons become active. Enter a keyword and click 'Add' to add it to the list. To remove it, select it and click 'Delete'.

The default password is insecure, so click the 'Settings' tab and then click 'General'. To the right, enter the old 123 password and a new, longer one. Click 'Apply' to change it. The setting allow you to set many other useful options. For example, you can hide the use of iSafe by changing the hotkey sequence from the default of [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift]+[X].

You can also set the parameters for the Stealth mode. These include becoming invisible in Task Manager. Click the 'Users' category and you can specify the users you want to monitor. This enables you to narrow down your evidence gathering to just those people or accounts you suspect.

You can also have relevant data emailed to you. Select the Delivery category and set 'Deliver logs to email' to 'On'. Enter your email address and set the options. Emailing yourself the information captured by iSafe will enable you to monitor activity when your suspect believes they're safe. Provided you can get to your inbox, you can still see what they're up to.

Rather than having to plough through every keystroke, screenshot and other piece of information, you can target a specific date range.

On the main iSafe interface, click 'Log'. Select a date and click 'View log'. Only the entries for that day are shown. You can also select the previous seven or 30 days, or define a custom range. Click the 'Custom' button at the top of the screen, then enter the start and end dates before clicking 'OK'.

You can delete the logs and other collected information using the buttons at the top of the log view. You can also delete a date range or all data here to save on disk space.

Uninstalling iSafe after you've finished is as simple as clicking the 'Uninstall' icon at the top of the interface.

Excited for Nintendo's new tablet-esque controller? So are the kids in TT Games' QA department. An over-excited tester tweeted out an image of a slightly different Wii U slab than the one we laid hands on at E3 2011, teasing "look we what we have at work!" Answering the call does indeed reveal something worth looking at -- a somewhat wider looking Wii U slate featuring two full-sized analog sticks (as opposed to 3DS-like circle pads), a pair of unmarked button-like squares, and a new starboard home for the controller's plus and minus buttons.

The tweet was summarily pulled, of course, but not before our friends at Joystiq nabbed a screenshot. Naturally, the rumor mill started right up, churning out speculation of developer specific slabs, early prototypes and late redesigns. The truth? We'll probably need to wait until E3 to find out, but we reached out to Nintendo for a comment all the same. We'll let you know if we hear anything more than the usual "Nintendo doesn't comment on rumors and speculation" line.

Alternative Wii U controller design makes brief appearance on Twitter, goes into hiding originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 May 2012 02:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.