The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a damn fine phone. It’s fast, it’s big, it’s thin and it’s completely deserving to be in most people’s pockets. But apparently that’s not enough for Samsung. Samsung has gotten caught cheating benchmark tests to make itself look better. Basically, the S4 is specifically tweaked to be better at benchmarking than anything else it does. Read more…
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Samsung Rigged the S4 to Unnaturally Perform Better in Benchmark Tests
jfruh writes “Every day, millions of computers run unvetted, sketchy code in the form of the JavaScript that ad networks send to publishers. Usually, that code just puts an advertiser’s banner ad on a web page. But since ad networks and publishers almost never check the code for malicious properties, it can become an attack vector as well. A recent presentation at the Black Hat conference showed how ad networks could be used as unwitting middlemen to create huge, cheap botnets.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
dryriver writes “‘The head of police for Moscow’s subway system has said stations will soon be equipped with devices that can read the data on the mobile telephones of passengers. In the July 29 edition of Izvestia, Moscow Metro police chief Andrei Mokhov said the device would be used to help locate stolen mobile phones. Mokhov said the devices have a range of about 5 meters and can read the SIM card. If the card is on the list of stolen phones, the system automatically sends information to the police. The time and place of the alert can be matched to closed-circuit TV in stations. Izvestia reported that ‘according to experts, the devices can be used more widely to follow all passengers without exception.’ Mokhov said it was illegal to track a person without permission from the authorities, but that there was no law against tracking the property of a company, such as a SIM card.’ What is this all about? Is it really about detecting stolen phones/SIM cards, or is that a convenient ‘cover story’ for eavesdropping on people’s private smartphone data while they wait to ride the subway? Also — if this scheme goes ahead, how long will it be before the U.S., Europe and other territories employ devices that do this, too?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Moscow Subway To Use Special Devices To Read Data On Passengers’ Phones
Today in an SEC filing , Microsoft revealed a very interesting fact: Its Surface tablet hybrid line brought in revenue of $853 million in the company’s fiscal 2013. However, the Surface line didn’t become available for sale until October 26, giving it 247 days in the market during the financial period. That places Surface revenue on a per-day basis at $3.45 million . Extrapolated for a one-year period, that financial rate puts the Surface line on a $1.26 billion per-year run rate. However, I would wager that revenues for Surface were highest at launch of the Surface RT and Pro, and lower in between, so the per-day and per-year estimates could vary. Reviews of the figure have been decidedly negative. The Next Web’s Josh Ong flatly stated that the revenue figure confirmed that the tablet line is a “financial failure.” Tom Warren over at The Verge noted that the total revenue for the devices is less than the $900 million writedown that Microsoft took during its last quarter. And Todd Bishop of GeekWire underlined that the $853 million in revenue is again less than the $898 million in new costs that Microsoft called “primarily with Windows 8 and Surface.” If Surface were a standalone business, it would be dead. However, as a Microsoft division, it is anything but. Microsoft as a company has tectonic financial wealth in the form of past profits stored as cash. It has decided to enter the OEM world, and has, to my knowledge, continued with the Surface project, slow initial sales be damned. There is a firm, recent precedent for the company to continue to invest in this way: Windows Phone. It took two full years of hard scrabble work to get Windows Phone to a point in which it was healthy enough to walk a bit on its own. Put another way, until Windows Phone 8 and the recent Nokia handsets, the smartphone line was sucking air. Perhaps not as much as Surface, given that the line of tablets has caused material damage to Microsoft’s short-term profits — the $900 million charge was $0.07 in lost EPS for the company in the last quarter. However, Microsoft has the money, and if it wants to can continue to pour it into Surface, as it did with Windows Phone, and Bing, and other properties that it finds to be strategically important. Does Microsoft want to cede complete hardware primacy to its OEM partners that have failed for so long to demonstrate innovation and forward-looking thought? I don’t think so, no. Naturally, Microsoft would prefer if Surface lost less money, but I don’t think that Microsoft is done with this project yet. A decent test: If the rollout of the next-generation Surface line is muted, we could be watching the door close. Top Image Credit: Vernon Chan
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Surface Scorecard: Microsoft’s Tablet Had FY2013 Revenue Of $853M, Or $3.4M Per Day
adeelarshad82 writes “Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory recently demonstrated electrical switching thousands of times faster than in transistors now in use thanks to a naturally magnetic mineral called magnetite (abstract). The experiment is considered a major step forward in understanding electrical structures at the atomic level and working with recently identified electrical ‘building blocks’ called trimerons. The breakthrough could lead to innovations in the tiny transistors that control the flow of electricity across silicon chips, enabling faster, more powerful computing devices.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Scientists Demonstrate Ultra-Fast Magnetite Electrical Switch
Hopefully none of these cars at SFO are in for a citizen arrest. dreamagicjp Officials at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) say they have been making citizen arrests of rideshare drivers throughout July. Airport spokesperson Doug Yakel told Ars on Tuesday that airport officials have made 12 such arrests since July 10. Rideshare companies like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar use mobile apps to help city dwellers find rides in areas where cabs are scarce or expensive. But taxi service is heavily regulated in big cities nationwide, and rideshare companies have ruffled feathers by operating outside of traditional restraints placed on taxi drivers. Cities like New York and Chicago have made it difficult for rideshare companies to operate, and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) slapped Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar with $20, 000 fines in November 2012 (although the commission later rescinded the fines ). In December of last year, the CPUC issued a proposal for examining the legality of the rideshare services, and the commission is expected to revisit the issue sometime this week. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Rideshare drivers given citizen arrest by SF International Airport officials
Brian Krebs is a security expert and investigative journalist who has published numerous ground-breaking stories about the online criminal underground, much to the consternation of the criminal underground.
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Cyber-crooks mail heroin to Brian Krebs
A Van de Graaff can make the flame of the candle flicker. It does this by generating an “electric wind.” Read more…
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A Van de Graaff generator can snuff out a candle with “electric wind”
It’s no secret that many Android phones and tablets show a decrease in performance over time. Nexus devices are not immune — it’s particularly noticeable with the original Nexus 7 . Our friend Brian Klug over at A nandTech discovered an interesting tidbit while testing the new and improved Nexus 7 : Android 4.3 supports TRIM . What this means is that Google’s mobile OS can now instruct the flash storage controller when to collect / recycle unused data pages / blocks. The net result is that devices running Android 4.3 will no longer become sluggish with time — in fact, existing Nexus handsets and tablets will see performance improve after the update. It also looks like Jelly Bean invokes TRIM maintenance once within a 24-hour window (after one hour of inactivity), and only if the battery is 80% full (30% when charging). Follow the source link below for all the details. Filed under: Cellphones , Tablets , Mobile , Google Comments Source: AnandTech
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Android 4.3 supports TRIM, improves performance on Nexus devices
aitikin writes “Former Apple employees say the company requires workers to stand around without pay for up to 30 minutes a day while waiting for managers to search their bags for stolen merchandise.” The filing. It looks pretty illegal: mandatory unpaid checks of personal belongings before and after work and all breaks. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Apple Retailer Facing Class Action Suit Over Employee Bag Checks