Tag: newsletters

Google Glass isn’t dead; Intel-powered hardware reportedly due in 2015

It’s been easy to believe Google Glass is dead given all the problems that have popped up lately. The device was introduced to the world more than two years ago, but it never came close to the original concept . The project’s founder left Google to work at Amazon, and monthly updates from Google have slowed from important feature releases to sometimes single-sentence changelogs . App developers are giving up on the platform, and Twitter recently pulled support for its Glass app. The official forums , once a bustling hive of optimism, now mostly discuss  declining usage  or low morale among remaining Glass users. And unless something happens in the next 30 days, Google will miss its original plans for a consumer release. Glass is not dead, though. A report from The Wall Street Journal   claims that a new version of Google Glass is on the way, and unlike the  minor revision  that Google released last year, it has totally overhauled internals. According to the report, Glass will switch from its dead Texas Instruments SoC to a processor built by Intel and will get a full hardware refresh. Google Glass has had a rough life thanks to its choice of SoC. The original unit (and the revision) used a Texas Instruments chip, but shortly after the launch of Glass, TI quit the smartphone business and ended support for many of its products. That was a big problem for Glass since, as early as this year, the device was still based on Android 4.0—an OS originally released in 2011. Glass was missing out on some big wearable-specific enhancements in later versions of Android like notification APIs, Bluetooth LE, and lower memory usage. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Google Glass isn’t dead; Intel-powered hardware reportedly due in 2015

Latest Windows 10 update shows how rapid releases work in practice

Windows 10’s updates and maintenance are following a different, better path to all prior Windows releases: one with more regular updates and quicker access to new features for those who want it, while still offering enterprises a slower pace of delivery. With the first update to the Windows 10 Technical Preview a month ago, Microsoft also enabled a two-speed update track for the million or so members of the Windows Insider program. By default, preview users are put on the slow track. However, about 10 percent of users have put themselves on the fast track. The first ( contentious ) fast track release was made almost two weeks ago, and fast track users have been using it since then. Those fast track users also revealed a variety of problem scenarios. The two big ones were the screen going black (and staying black) every time a PC was unlocked, and a blue screen of death. A pair of patches have been released to fast track users to address these issues, the second coming yesterday, and both of them seem now to be fixed. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
Latest Windows 10 update shows how rapid releases work in practice

T-Mobile forced to stop hiding slow speeds from throttled customers

When T-Mobile US customers exceed their monthly data caps, they aren’t cut off from the Internet entirely. Instead, T-Mobile throttles their connections to 128Kbps or 64Kbps, depending on which plan they have, for the rest of the month. But T-Mobile has made it difficult for those customers to figure out just how slow their connections are, with a system that exempts speed test applications from the throttling. After complaints from consumer advocates , the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigated the issue and has forced T-Mobile to be more honest about its network’s throttled speeds. Announced today , an agreement between T-Mobile and the FCC ensures that customers will be able to accurately gauge their throttled speeds. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
T-Mobile forced to stop hiding slow speeds from throttled customers

New battery composed of lots of nanobatteries

Shalini Saxena We’re increasingly dependent upon our batteries, so finding ways of building ones with enhanced lifetimes would make a lot of people happy. Research on batteries has ranged from trying new materials to changing the configuration of key components. Now, researchers have managed to restructure the materials in a nano-battery, then bundle lots of these individual batteries into a larger device. Batteries rely on two electrodes to create separate currents of electrons and ions, generating electricity. Nanostructured electrodes have useful properties, such as large surface area and short ion transport time, which enables a high storage capacity and enhanced lifetimes—these batteries hold charge longer and can undergo more charge-discharge cycles. 3-D connectivity and organization of nanostructured electrodes could further improve these devices. Previously, researchers had developed 3-D nanostructured batteries by placing two electrodes within a nanopore (made of anodic aluminum oxide) and using ultrathin electrical insulating material to separate them. While this system had improved power and energy density, use of such thin electrical insulators limits charge retention and requires complex circuits to shift current between them—it’s difficult to retain the benefits of the 3-D nano-architecture due to spatial constraints of the material. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Excerpt from:
New battery composed of lots of nanobatteries

Here’s how to run homebrew on your 3DS

A video showing off Smealum’s Ninjhax homebrew exploit in action. Earlier this week, hacker Jordan “Smealum” Rabet announced that obscure 2011 3DS platformer Cubic Ninja held the key to unlocking the 3DS hardware to run homebrew code, causing an immediate run on the hard-to-find game . Now, Smealum has published the details of his hack , along with the instructions and tools needed to unlock the system. What Smealum is calling “Ninjhax” exploits an error in Cubic Ninja ‘s level creation and sharing function, which passes created level data via generated QR codes. Scanning a specifically manufactured QR code, generated by a tool on Smealum’s site to match any current 3DS hardware/firmware combination, causes the game to run a boot file loaded on the SD card. At that point, the bootloader downloads additional code over Wi-Fi and installs and runs a front-end channel that can run other homebrew software stored on the SD card. After that initial QR code scan, the homebrew menu can be loaded simply by accessing the save game file through Cubic Ninja . Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More here:
Here’s how to run homebrew on your 3DS

Local judge unseals hundreds of highly secret cell tracking court records

Scott A judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, has unsealed a set of 529 court documents in hundreds of criminal cases detailing the use of a stingray, or cell-site simulator, by local police. This move, which took place earlier this week, marks a rare example of a court opening up a vast trove of applications made by police to a judge, who authorized each use of the powerful and potentially invasive device. According to the Charlotte Observer , the records seem to suggest that judges likely did not fully understand what they were authorizing. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have taken extraordinary steps to preserve stingray secrecy. As recently as this week, prosecutors in a Baltimore robbery case dropped key evidence that stemmed from stingray use rather than fully disclose how the device was used. The newspaper also reported on Friday that the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office, which astonishingly had also never previously seen the applications filed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), will now review them and determine which records also need to be shared with defense attorneys. Criminals could potentially file new claims challenging their convictions on the grounds that not all evidence was disclosed to them at the time. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Follow this link:
Local judge unseals hundreds of highly secret cell tracking court records

Gorilla Glass 4 promises to save your phone from street drops

This video screencap comes after a Gorilla Glass 4 device fell for a full meter and landed directly onto a sandpaper-coated surface. Look: no breakage, no shattering. Corning On Thursday, Corning Incorporated, the creators of Gorilla Glass, unveiled the fourth generation of its thin, durable glass technology for use in smartphones, tablets, and other mobile electronics. Gorilla Glass 4 is already being advertised as “up to two times stronger” than any “competitive” mobile screen, with a specific focus on surviving everyday drops in the real world. Corning confirmed to Ars Technica that the upgraded glass will reach consumer devices “this quarter.” Global marketing director David Velasquez was unwilling to reveal “what we did to the glass to make it better,” but he talked at length about one major change to the company’s lab testing: a single sheet of sandpaper. After analyzing “thousands upon thousands” of screens broken in the real world, Corning confirmed that a major contributor to common breakage was dropping a phone on “rough surfaces like asphalt and concrete.” That might seem like a head-smackingly obvious issue, but Velasquez insists that the smartphone glass-making industry, which hasn’t even existed for a full decade, has “no standard” for such testing. Most drop tests employ surfaces like stainless steel or granite, which replicate surfaces in a home. “The best way to approximate what asphalt does [to a phone screen] is 180-grit sandpaper,” Velasquez said. That can more consistently reproduce the microscopic breakage of a rough surface than even a giant sheet of asphalt (which, Corning learned after a few tests, actually smooths out at a point of contact after a few drops). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Gorilla Glass 4 promises to save your phone from street drops

FTC: Windows tech support scams took another $120 million from PC users

Beware, scammer! Aurich Lawson Windows tech support scams have been conning PC users out of money for years, and there’s seemingly no end in sight. The Federal Trade Commission today announced that “a federal court has temporarily shut down two massive telemarketing operations that conned tens of thousands of consumers out of more than $120 million by deceptively marketing computer software and tech support services.” This is the third in a series of actions against such operations, the FTC said, and if the past is any indication, it won’t be the last. The FTC announced a big crackdown in late 2012 and another in late 2013 . But PC users continued to hand over money to nearly identical scammers, according to the latest FTC complaints. Today’s FTC press release described a method that has tricked PC users time and again: According to the FTC’s complaints, each scam starts with computer software that purports to enhance the security or performance of consumers’ computers. Typically, consumers download a free trial version of software that runs a computer system scan. The defendants’ software scan always identifies numerous errors on consumers’ computers, regardless of whether the computer has any performance problems. The software then tells consumers that, in order to fix the identified errors, they will have to purchase the paid version of the software. In reality, the FTC alleges, the defendants pitching the software designed these highly deceptive scans to identify hundreds or even thousands of “errors” that have nothing to do with a computer’s performance or security. After consumers purchase the “full” version of the software at a cost of $29 to $49, the software directs them to call a toll-free number to “activate” the software. When consumers call the activation number, however, they are connected to telemarketers who try to sell computer repair services and computer software using deceptive scare tactics to deceive consumers into paying for unneeded computer support services. According to the FTC, the telemarketers tell consumers that, in order to activate the software they have just purchased, they must provide the telemarketers with remote access to their computers. The telemarketers then launch into a scripted sales pitch that includes showing consumers various screens on their computers, such as the Windows Event Viewer, and falsely claiming that these screens show signs that consumers’ computers have significant damage. After convincing consumers that their computers need immediate help, the telemarketers then pitch security software and tech support services that cost as much as $500. The FTC teamed up with the State of Florida on the latest cases, winning federal court orders against the companies that “also temporarily freeze the defendants’ assets and place the businesses under the control of a court-appointed receiver.” The complaints say the defendants have been scamming consumers since at least 2012. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit site:
FTC: Windows tech support scams took another $120 million from PC users

Hotel charges couple’s credit card $156 for negative Trip Advisor review

A British hotel added $156 to a couple’s credit card bill for violating its terms of service that says guests can be dinged for leaving bad online reviews. The Broadway Hotel charged Tony and Jan Jenkinson’s credit card, CNN reported Wednesday, after they left a review on Trip Advisor decrying the Blackpool hotel as a ” filthy, dirty rotten stinking hovel .” The BBC described the hotel’s terms of service contained in a booking document as: Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not. For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review. (About $156) This isn’t the first time we’ve seen fines like this from a hotel. In August, the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, NY included a table-turning clause in its reservation policies: if you book an event at the hotel and a member of your party posts a negative review, the hotel will fine you $500 . Amid an Internet firestorm, that hotel changed its policy. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
Hotel charges couple’s credit card $156 for negative Trip Advisor review

Netflix takes up 9.5% of upstream traffic on the North American Internet

Netflix We’ve written a lot about how Netflix takes up a gigantic share of Internet traffic. During peak viewing hours, Netflix accounts for about a third of all bits sent to Internet users in North America on “fixed” connections—that is, cable, DSL, fiber, or satellite, but not cellular. But Netflix users also send a ton of data upstream, so much so that Sandvine’s latest Internet Phenomena Report puts Netflix at 9.48 percent of all peak upstream traffic on North American fixed Internet services, second only to BitTorrent’s 25.49 percent. Sandvine, a maker of equipment that helps consumer broadband providers manage network congestion, defines “peak” hours as those when network usage is within 95 percent of its daily maximum, typically from 7 to 11 p.m. It isn’t new that Netflix is both an upload and download monster. But for some reason, its share of uploads went up substantially in the latest measurement while downloads remained level. The twice-annual report had Netflix accounting for 6.44 of peak upstream traffic and 34.21 percent of downstream traffic in the first half of this year , while the newest report has Netflix at 9.48 percent of upstream and 34.89 percent of downstream: Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Netflix takes up 9.5% of upstream traffic on the North American Internet