Every phone needs a SIM card, and you’d think such a ubiquitous standard would be immune to any hijack attempts. Evidently not, as Karsten Nohl of Security Research Labs — who found a hole in GSM call encryption several years ago — has uncovered a flaw that allows some SIM cards to be hacked with only a couple of text messages. By cloaking an SMS so it appears to have come from a carrier, Nohl said that in around a quarter of cases, he receives an error message back containing the necessary info to work out the SIM’s digital key. With that knowledge, another text can be sent that opens it up so one can listen in on calls, send messages, make mobile purchases and steal all manner of data. Apparently, this can all be done “in about two minutes, using a simple personal computer, ” but only affects SIMs running the older data encryption standard (DES). Cards with the newer Triple DES aren’t affected; also, the other three quarters of SIMs with DES Nohl probed recognized his initial message as a fraud. There’s no firm figure on how many SIMs are at risk, but Nohl estimates the number at up to 750 million. The GSM Association has been given some details of the exploit, which have been forwarded to carriers and SIM manufacturers that use DES. Nohl plans to spill the beans at the upcoming Black Hat meeting. If you’re listening, fine folks at the NSA , tickets are still available. Filed under: Cellphones , Mobile Comments Source: New York Times

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Some SIM cards can be hacked ‘in about two minutes’ with a pair of text messages

Rumors that Apple is looking to super-size its upcoming iPhone and iPad lineups are gathering steam, thanks to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal . It cited Apple’s suppliers in Asia, who said that Cupertino is testing a 13-inch iPad design and prototype iPhone screens larger than the current four inches. While Apple wouldn’t comment, of course, that jibes with an earlier Reuters report, which claimed it was considering 4.7- and 5.7-inch iPhone screens. If accurate (and that’s always a big if with such rumors), the report doesn’t necessarily mean that products with larger displays will ever come to market — Apple routinely changes specs and tests components during the development cycle. Still, it would be further evidence that the company’s willing to bend on its one-size-fits-all screen size policy, which is something that the large-handed (or weak-eyed) among us might appreciate. Filed under: Cellphones , Tablets , Apple Comments Source: WSJ

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WSJ: Apple testing larger iPhone, iPad screens with suppliers

The ink has barely dried on Samsung’s last SSD announcement and the South Korean manufacturer has already made it obsolete by orders of magnitude. This 2.5-inch enterprise-class SSD isn’t for us regular Joes, but if you thought the company’s EVO 840’s 540MB/s was zippy, hold on to your desk chair . The newly announced NVMe SSD XS1715 reads data at a mind-numbing 3, 000MB/s . Hitting these absurd numbers isn’t without a caveat, though, as this SSD won’t run on a SATA-6 port — it requires a PCIe hook-up. When these speed demons do arrive, they’ll be available in 400GB, 800GB and 1.6TB sizes. Oh, and we want one. For business. Filed under: Desktops , Samsung Comments

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Samsung announces 3,000MB/s enterprise SSD, shames competition

Sweetening the deal of its cloud-based Office 365 suite , Microsoft will start bundling a year of Xbox Live Gold with any purchases of Office 365 Home Premium or Office 365 University made before September 28. You can then pick up an Xbox Live code as you’ve signed in during the initial Office setup. Unfortunately, the US isn’t included on the deal, but the majority of Europe, plus regions of Asia, as well as Australia and Canada are all involved. Alongside the recent promise of two free games a month , Microsoft’s made this bundled subscription a pretty tempting proposition. Filed under: Gaming , Internet , Software , Microsoft Comments Via: TNW Source: Microsoft Office , Microsoft (German)

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New Office 365 subscriptions get 12 months of free Xbox Live Gold (but not in the US)

After spending over a year thumbing through applications, ICANN has inked agreements for establishing the first new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Those that made the cut this round were the Arabic word for web or network (. شبكة ) , game in Chinese (. 游 戏) , and the Russian for online (. онлайн) , as well as website (. сайт) — as ICANN notes, these gTLDs will be the first to use non-Latin characters. Also coming out of the ICANN47 meeting for internet overlords is a bit of bad news for Amazon. A committee recommended that the retailer should not be given control of the .amazon domain, likely due to confusion the suffix could create with the Amazon region in South America. ICANN may see fit to go against the recommendation, but if Amazon’s history with objectionable applications is anything to go by, it’s looking like yet another $185, 000 down the drain. Filed under: Internet , Amazon Comments Via: The Verge Source: ICANN , Wall Street Journal

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First batch of new generic top-level domains born, Amazon looking unlikely to snag .amazon

According to a source of Dutch site Tweakers.net , which has been spot on with a previous Dell leak , a new laptop known as the M3800 is set to join Dell’s Precision range of fun-hating workstations. An Intel Core i7-4702MQ ( Haswell ) processor will reportedly power the M3800, with an 2GB NVIDIA Quadro K1100M card taking care of graphics. It’s expected to come with up to 16GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive or 512MB SSD, and two options for the 15.6-inch screen: a 3, 200 x 1, 800 resolution or standard 1080p panel. The workstation is said to measure 18mm (around 0.7 inches) at its thickest point, and tip the scales at 2kg (70.5 ounces). Integrated docking found on other Precision models is apparently not in the M3800’s feature set; it’s also missing an Ethernet port, so hard-lines will need to be connected via a USB intermediate. Tweakers.net lists an expected price range of $1, 699 to $1, 999, but now comes the part where we wait for the M3800 to go official and see how correct all this leaked info is. Filed under: Laptops , Dell Comments Source: Tweakers.net

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Report: Dell Precision M3800 workstation to launch with 3,200 x 1,800 display option

BitTorrent Sync Alpha isn’t ready to equal rivals like Dropbox or Google Drive without a mobile component. It’s a good thing that BitTorrent just launched Sync Beta, then — the more polished release includes an Android app that syncs with computers and shares files with fellow Android users. The update also brings versioning through SyncArchive, which stores previous file iterations in a folder. Sync Beta is available on both Android and the desktop today, and BitTorrent promises that an iOS equivalent is coming in the near future. Filed under: Storage , Internet Comments Source: BitTorrent Labs , Google Play

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BitTorrent Sync Beta launches with Android app, file versioning

Charging time is the bane of every EV driver; even the half-hour for a partial fuel-up at a Tesla Supercharger station can feel like an eternity next to the few minutes required for gasoline. Tesla CTO JB Straubel sees this as just a temporary obstacle, however — he tells MIT Technology Review that his company could shrink recharge times to between “five to 10 minutes.” The primary challenge is optimizing the charger’s delivery rates to avoid cooking the battery, he says. While this won’t happen overnight, Straubel reminds us that today’s Superchargers seemed far-fetched a decade ago. We may not need those battery swapping stations for very long. Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: MIT Technology Review

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Tesla CTO hopes to reduce EV charging times to 10 minutes or less

The revamped Google Maps design reached Android last week; now, it’s iOS’ turn. Google Maps 2.0 is gradually rolling out worldwide for Apple’s platform, and it’s bringing the Android version’s discovery and exploration components as well as some new-to-iOS features. Long-anticipated iPad support is the highlight, although there’s also indoor navigation , live traffic updates and incident reports. Maps 2.0 hasn’t hit the US just yet, although it should be available shortly. Update : It looks like it’s hit the US App Store as of midnight ET or so, check the link below to grab the update yourself. If you’re looking for offline maps, those are available with an Easter Egg like the one first featured in the Android version. Just zoom to the area you’d like to cache, then type “Ok maps” in the search box. [Thanks @carloslarez ] Filed under: Cellphones , GPS , Tablets , Mobile , Google Comments Via: 9to5 Mac Source: App Store (US)

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Google Maps 2.0 for iOS starts rolling out with iPad support, indoor maps (update: offline maps too)

Sony proudly showed off its PlayStation 4 hardware for the first time at E3, and now we’re getting a peek at what developers are working with this generation thanks to the FCC. A DUH-D1000AA Development Kit for PS4 prototype is listed in these documents, thanks to its support for Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. As one would expect, the diagrams show it eschews the sleekness of the consumer model for extra cooling, a shape made for rack mounts plus extra indicator lights and ports (USB and Ethernet.) Also of note is a “max clock speed” listing of 2.75GHz, and although we don’t know what the game system will normally run it’s interesting to hear what that 8-core AMD Jaguar silicon may be capable of, all while maintaining a temperature between 5 and 35 degrees celsius. Hit the link below to check out the documents for yourself, after this and the system’s controller all we’re left waiting for is Mark Cerny’s baby . Filed under: Gaming , HD , Sony Comments Source: FCC

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Sony PS4 dev kit FCC filing shows off extra ports, 2.75GHz max clock speed