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• Gero Lifespan on the App Store
• Scientists use AI to predict biological age based on smartphone and wearables data — Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
• Kodi No More! | Kodi | Open Source Home Theater Software
• Stream Movies, TV Shows, Music, and Play Games | NVIDIA SHIELD TV
• Home: LinuxMCE home automation
• Announcing 1.1.1.1: the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service

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Episode Links

• Signal and Telegram are down for many users — You might want to move your private chats to WhatsApp or Telegram for the time being: it appears popular encrypted messenger Signal is currently down globally, according to numerous reports from users.
• Alexa has literally lost her voice as users report outages and unresponsiveness | TechCrunch — Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant seems to be down this morning. We’ve been hearing reports over the last hour of either delayed responses or just total loss of connection.
• Google Chrome: Flash Usage Declines from 80% in 2014 to Under 8% Today — The percentage of daily Chrome users who’ve loaded at least one page containing Flash content per day has gone down from around 80% in 2014 to under 8% in early 2018.
• SpaceX Fired A Rifle Into A Tank Of Helium To See If Someone Sabotaged Their Rocket | IFLScience — “We literally thought someone had shot the rocket,” CEO Elon Musk said in summer 2017, according to an excerpt from the book on The Washington Post. “We found things that looked like bullet holes, and we calculated that someone with a high-powered rifle, if they had shot the rocket in the right location, the exact same thing would have happened.”

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— Show Notes: —

— The Cliff Notes —

• Great Supermicro Motherboard

• MyRackables

• Unix Surplus

• Tech Talk Today

• Support Chris & Jupiter Broadcasting

• See How the Ask Noah Show Got Started (video)

• VoxTeleSys

— Stay In Touch —

Find all the resources for this show on the Ask Noah Dashboard

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Follow Up / Catch Up

How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy | WIRED

_The Kodi box __pitch is hard to resist. A little black plastic square, in look not much different from a Roku or Apple TV, and similar in function as well. This streamer, though, offers something those others never will: Free access to practically any show or movie you can dream of. No rental fees. No subscriptions. Just type in the name of a blockbuster, and start watching a high-definition stream in seconds._

Flatpak 0.10 New Stable Series Adds Minor Improvements, 0.11 to Get New Features

“This is the first release in a new series of stable releases called 0.10.x. New features will be added to 0.11.x, and bugfixes will be backported to 0.10.x. During the early phase of the 0.10.x series we may also backport minor features, but we guarantee backwards compatibility,” said Alexander Larsson.

The State of AppCenter – elementary OS

This past May we released the major update to elementary OS that debuted the new pay-what-you-want app experience in AppCenter. In those past six months, we’ve seen over 50 apps released by developers.

AT&T is working on an open-sourced AI project with Linux Foundation

The nonprofit Linux Foundation has announced that is working on an open source AI project, and AT&T is one of the founding organizations. Called the Acumos Project, its goal, like many open source platforms, is to enable a free exchange of ideas and machine learning solutions using an artificial intelligence framework — and eventually become a marketplace for AI apps and services.

Linux Academy

• Linux Academy | Linux and AWS Online Training

Google Even Fear Intel ME, Reduce Their Attack Vector With NERF

NERF delivers “Linux performance and reliability in firmware” as well as eliminates all post-boot activity of UEFI and the Management Engine, rather than allowing it to run concurrently in the background.

• ELCE 2017 Presentation

Appeals court keeps alive the never-ending Linux case, SCO v. IBM

SCO says IBM released a “sham” version of Monterey OS to prop up AIX for Power.

Canonical to Focus Mostly on Stability and Reliability for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

“At this early stage in the development cycle we’re spending a week or so tidying up the loose ends from 17.10, SRUing the important fixes that we’ve found, getting ready to sync new packages from Debian,” said Will Cooke in his latest weekly report. “As you know, 18.04 will be an LTS release and so we will be focusing on stability and reliability this cycle, as well as a few new features.”

DigitalOcean

• DigitalOcean: SSD Cloud Server, VPS Server, Simple Cloud Hosting

• An Introduction to DigitalOcean Spaces

Chat with didrocks

Didier Roche (@didrocks) | Twitter

Ubuntu core developer & archive admin @canonical

• Ubuntu GNOME Shell in Artful: Day 16 · ~DidRocks

All good things must come to an end, however, in that particular case, it’s rather a beginning!

TING

• Ting – mobile that makes sense

Chat with Will

Will Cooke (@8none1) | Twitter

#Ubuntu Desktop Manager at Canonical. High handicap golfer. Once got 9 letters.

• Desktop Weekly Newsletter – 27 October 2017 –

I’ll be starting the weekly round-up posts again now that the release is out and 18.04 is getting under way. At this early stage in the development cycle we’re spending a week or so tidying up the loose ends from 17.10, SRUing the important fixes that we’ve found, getting ready to sync new packages from Debian, and generally doing the groundwork to give us a clear run at 18.04. As you know, 18.04 will be an LTS release and so we will be focusing on stability and reliability this cycle, as well as a few new features. I’ll give a more detailed view into 18.04 in the coming weeks.

• Unity 7 Continuation – Call for Developers and Supporters! – Desktop – Ubuntu Community Hub

This thread serves to inquire the community if there would be significant interest in the adoption and/or continuation of Unity 7. I very much welcome feedback from every member on this matter, and would be absolutely thrilled if we found a way to move forward with this!

The post Ubuntu A-Team | LINUX Unplugged 221 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Follow Up / Catch Up

Linux To Get “Extended LTS” Releases, Kernel Support For Six Years

Greg KH will still be managing the Linux LTS releases. Beginning with the current Linux 4.4 LTS cycle will be extended for six years. Meanwhile, Linux 4.14 is the next LTS release currently being worked on that would then be supported until 2023.

• Linux kernel long term support extended from two to six years • The Register

Announcing the release of Fedora 27 Beta

The Workstation edition of Fedora 27 Beta features GNOME 3.26. In the new release, both the Display and Network configuration panels have been updated, along with the overall Settings panel appearance improvement. The system search now shows more results at once, including the system actions, and also the antiquated system tray has been removed to reduce visual clutter and confusion. The Topicons extension is available for use with any applications that have not yet updated.

SeaGL is This Friday

The 2017 Seattle GNU/Linux Conference is scheduled for October 6th and 7th at Seattle Central College (Maps). 9am-5:30pm both days.

• 1701 Broadway Seattle, WA 98122

SeaGL is a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source software/hardware. Our goal for SeaGL is to produce an event which is as enjoyable and informative for those who spend their days maintaining hundreds of servers as it is for a student who has only just started exploring technology options. SeaGL’s first year was 2013. The SeaGL web site is built with Jekyll and we use OSEM for event management.

The cost of attendance is free.

Attendee Registration will not require the use of non-free software.

You may attend SeaGL without identifying yourself, and you are encouraged to do so to protect your privacy.

Hang out with Ang and Chris at the SeaGL Meetup

Chris and Angela will be at SeaGL Friday Oct 6th interviewing and meeting people in attendance. If you plan to come feel free to say hi and we’d love to see you wearing a JB shirt!

Linux Academy

• Linux Academy | Linux and AWS Online Training

Open-source pioneer Munich has begun its move back to Microsoft

“The city will use MS Exchange. It will be used for mail and calendar, so Kolab will not be used anymore,” said the source, adding that the switch will take place in November.

Windows Kingdom at Risk as Apple and Linux Operating Systems Post Record Growth

Windows has been for many years the top desktop operating system, but the latest statistics provided by NetMarketShare for the month of September point to a trend that should at least make Microsoft a little bit worried about its dominance in this particular field.

DigitalOcean

• DigitalOcean: SSD Cloud Server, VPS Server, Simple Cloud Hosting

• An Introduction to DigitalOcean Spaces

Interviews of the Ubuntu Rally

Loki Updates for September

Celebrating a year of elementary OS 0.4

Get Involved with elementary OS

Everything that we make is 100% open source and developed collaboratively by people from all over the world. Even if you’re not a programmer, you can get involved and make a difference.

• elementary is creating The world’s greatest Indie Operating System

Secrets of the Ubuntu Rally

In the Snapcraft room at the Ubuntu Rally today we have +Ubuntu, +elementary,…

In the Snapcraft room at the Ubuntu Rally today we have +Ubuntu, +elementary, +Microsoft Visual Studio, +The KDE Community, +Skype, +Fedora Project, .NET, Electron, MATE Desktop, +Node, ROS and +Snapcraft.

Chromium 60 now available as a snap, many thanks for testing feedback from the community! – 'snap install chromium' https://t.co/Pj0RDeGNxo pic.twitter.com/H5eocPttjJ

— Snapcraft (@snapcraftio) October 3, 2017

Our brand new #Ubuntu Community Hub is now live! Join us to help inspire the next generation of Ubuntu Community! https://t.co/YecnDMvSBe pic.twitter.com/FBbYauQpzC

— Ubuntu (@ubuntu) October 3, 2017

Ubuntu Community Hub

Discussing @Canonical's @Ubuntu cloud product portfolio with our world class sales team, on the 34th floor of One World Trade Center. pic.twitter.com/8QV1q5yl8o

— Dustin Kirkland (@dustinkirkland) October 3, 2017

Ubuntu’s Shuttleworth lands luxury NY crash pad

Ubuntu king Mark Shuttleworth has bought a condo in Manhattan’s Superior Ink building for a record $31.5m, according to the New York Post.

TING

• Ting – mobile that makes sense

Nextcloud Introducing Native Integrated End-to-end Encryption

Nextcloud End-to-end Encryption keeps the server from ever seeing the data while still facilitating syncing between devices and sharing with other users.

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• Voxtelesys: Your Trusted Business VoIP Service Provider
• W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
• Voxtelesys (@voxtelesys) | Twitter
• Voxtelesys – Facebook
• Voxtelesys | solutions to grow your business | LinkedIn
• Voxtelesys | solutions to grow your business – Google+

— Stay In Touch —

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Episode Links

• OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise hit the Windows Store — Now OpenSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and OpenSUSE Leap 42 are available for installation from the Windows Store.
• System76 Announce Their Own Linux Distribution called Pop!_OS — System76 say their ‘operating system’ — they don’t call it a distribution — will be built and tailored to meet the needs to “professionals and makers that use their computers to create.”
• Canonical Promises Smooth and Easy Unity 7 to GNOME Shell Migration for Users — Probably the most important thing that the Ubuntu developers have worked on lately is a smooth and easy migration process from Unity 7 to GNOME Shell
• Mir 1.0 Now Aiming To Support Wayland Clients Directly — Mir 0.27 also will feature a new set of APIs to develop a “Mir platform” outside of Mir itself, which can be used for developing Mir-Wayland platform support without having to fork Mir itself.
• MATE Developers Are Considering Mir-Over-Wayland — MATE developer Martin Wimpress has shared that they are talking to Mir developers about how Mir could be used as a Wayland compositor.
• Debian Warns Of Hyper Threading Issue With Intel Sky/Kaby Lake CPUs — Intel Skylake and Kabylake (6th and 7th gen CPUs) could “dangerously misbehave” when Hyper Threading is enabled.

The post Linux Action News 8 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Google could be setting up to compete head to head with Uber, leveraging their self driving car technology. Radio Shack is about to shutter & you won’t believe what they are doing with the leftovers. Plus, Pebble has something big in the works & more!

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Exclusive: Google and Uber Are Going to War Over Taxis

Uber faces an ever-growing cast of adversaries that includes dubious regulators, litigious drivers, hostile members of the press, and some well-funded rivals. But the most significant threat to the app-based transportation company may be much closer to home: one of its biggest investors, Google.

Google Ventures, the search giant’s venture capital arm, invested $258 million in Uber in August 2013. It was Google Ventures’ largest investment deal ever, and the company put more money into Uber’s next funding round less than a year later. Back then, it was easy for observers to imagine Google teaming closely with Uber, or even one day acquiring it. David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013 and has served on it ever since.

Uber Chases Google in Self-Driving Cars With Carnegie Mellon Deal – Digits – WSJ

But a person familiar with the matter said news that Google is developing an app to rival Uber has been blown out of proportion. The person said a Google engineer has been testing an internal app that helps Google employees carpool to work, and the app isn’t associated with the company’s driverless cars program.

Two people familiar with the matter said they weren’t aware that Drummond had been asked by anyone to step down and believe he would do so of his own volition if he sees a potential conflict. One of these people added that Uber probably doesn’t want to give information to a potential competitor, but wasn’t aware of any plans to cut off Google’s access to Uber information. The other person said that Uber and Google had been working at arms length for some time and that it was unlikely Uber would stop using Google Maps to help power its service.

Uber declined to comment on Drummond’s board status. A Google spokeswoman referred to a cryptic tweet the company posted late Monday: “We think you’ll find Uber and Lyft work quite well. We use them all the time.” Lyft is a car-hailing service that competes with Uber.

Google is still working closely with the car-hailing services. Uber is integrated directly into the Google Maps smartphone app, allowing users seeking directions to jump into Uber’s app to call a car. Separately, Lyft has worked with Google to integrate its service with Android Wear, Google’s operating system for smartwatches, as well as Google Now, the company’s smart digital assistant app.

RadioShack in Talks to Sell Half Its Stores to Sprint, Shutter the Rest – Bloomberg Business

The locations sold to Sprint would operate under the
wireless carrier’s name, meaning RadioShack would cease to exist
as a stand-alone retailer, said the people, who asked not to be
identified because the talks aren’t public.

Amazon in Talks to Buy Some of RadioShack’s Stores – Bloomberg Business

The possible move, discussed as part of RadioShack’s
looming trip to bankruptcy court, would represent Amazon’s
biggest push into traditional retail. Amazon joins other
potential bidders, including Sprint Corp. and the investment
group behind Brookstone, in evaluating RadioShack stores, people
familiar with the situation said. RadioShack has more than 4,000
U.S. locations and is moving toward a deal to sell a portion and
close the rest, according to some of the people. Sprint has
discussed buying 1,300 to 2,000, they said.

Apple to Convert Failed Arizona Sapphire Plant Into Data Center – Bloomberg Business

Apple Inc. plans to invest $2 billion to
convert an Arizona factory into a data center after the facility
failed to produce sapphire screens for iPhones.

GT Advanced Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy
protection in October after the supplier wasn’t able to produce
screens of usable quality at the Apple-owned factory in Mesa,
near Phoenix. The smaller company wasn’t able to fulfill the
terms of an agreement with Apple.

The more than 1.3 million-square-foot building, which was
once a solar-panel factory, was a key part of Apple’s efforts to
bring manufacturing back to the U.S. after years of relying on
Asian suppliers to build the company’s iPhones, iPads and Mac
computers. While Apple had promised to bring jobs to the area
even after the bankruptcy, the data center will probably employ
fewer staff compared with an operation churning out components
for iPhones.

F.C.C. Chief Wants to Override State Laws Curbing Community Net Services – NYTimes.com

The proposal focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. About 21 states, by the F.C.C.’s count, have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services. The initiative by Mr. Wheeler, if endorsed by the full commission, would be the first time the F.C.C. has tried to override such state laws.

Pebble has now sold over 1 million smartwatches | The Verge

According to Migicovsky, Pebble plans to carry its momentum through 2015 with new products and a new software platform that is unlike anything else used on smartwatches to date. While Google and Apple’s smartwatches have been focused on app paradigms, similar to smartphones, Pebble’s new software will apparently be quite different. “We’ve found a new framework to use as an interaction model on the watch,” boasts Migicovsky, before adding that while apps will continue to exist on Pebble, they won’t be the main focus of the platform. “It doesn’t look like what we have today, and it doesn’t look like what’s on your smartphone,” added Migicovsky. Following the launch of the Pebble Steel in January, the company used 2014 as an “investment year,” increasing its headcount from around 30 to over 100 and bringing aboard some of the webOS TV design team from LG, many of whom have been tasked with building the new software platform.

The post Robocar War Begins | Tech Talk Today 126 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Researchers discover a deep flaw in the way cellular networks interconnect, you won’t believe the scope of information they can obtain. Many Git users are getting bit by a bad bug & controlling robot arms with your mind is now a reality.

Plus some feedback & more!

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Researchers Discover SS7 Flaw, Allowing Total Access To Any Cell Phone, Anywhere

Researchers discovered security flaws in SS7 that allow listening to private phone calls and intercepting text messages on a potentially massive scale — even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available. The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference in Hamburg this month, are actually functions built into SS7 for other purposes — such as keeping calls connected as users speed down highways, switching from cell tower to cell tower — that hackers can repurpose for surveillance because of the lax security on the network. It is thought that these flaws were used for bugging German Chancellor Angela’s Merkel’s phone.

Those skilled at the housekeeping functions built into SS7 can locate callers anywhere in the world, listen to calls as they happen or record hundreds of encrypted calls and texts at a time for later decryption (Google translation of German original). There is also potential to defraud users and cellular carriers by using SS7 functions, the researchers say. This is another result of security being considered only after the fact, as opposed to being part of the initial design.

• Hackers Can Read Your Texts Thanks to Huge Security Flaw

Critical Git Security Vulnerability Announced

Github has announced a security vulnerability and has encouraged users to update their Git clients as soon as possible. The blog post reads in part: “A critical Git security vulnerability has been announced today, affecting all versions of the official Git client and all related software that interacts with Git repositories, including GitHub for Windows and GitHub for Mac. Because this is a client-side only vulnerability, github.com and GitHub Enterprise are not directly affected. The vulnerability concerns Git and Git-compatible clients that access Git repositories in a case-insensitive or case-normalizing filesystem. An attacker can craft a malicious Git tree that will cause Git to overwrite its own .git/config file when cloning or checking out a repository, leading to arbitrary command execution in the client machine. Git clients running on OS X (HFS+) or any version of Microsoft Windows (NTFS, FAT) are exploitable through this vulnerability. Linux clients are not affected if they run in a case-sensitive filesystem….Updated versions of GitHub for Windows and GitHub for Mac are available for immediate download, and both contain the security fix on the Desktop application itself and on the bundled version of the Git command-line client.”

Double amputee controls two robotic arms with his mind

The project’s researchers have been developing these Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL) over the past decade, but they say Baugh is the “first bilateral shoulder-level amputee” to wear two MPLs at the same time. Unlike Jan Scheuermann who controlled a robotic arm with a pair of neural implants, though, Baugh had to undergo a procedure called targeted muscle reinnervation, which reassigned the nerves that once controlled his arms and hands.

Once that was done, the team recorded the patterns his brain makes for each muscle he moves, and then they had him control virtual arms to prepare for the real things.

First Ubuntu Phone Will Launch In Europe This February

For its first Ubuntu Phone Bq is launching a repurposed version of the its popular Aquaris e4.5 handset preloaded with Ubuntu for Phones.

Unlike the version that developers can (and have) been downloading and flashing to their Nexus devices, the commercial version of Ubuntu on phones will ship with a number of differences in software, including new ‘Aggregator Scopes‘ and support for paid content.

• 4.5-inch screen (qHD resolution @ 540×960)
• 1.3 GHz Quad Core ARM Cortex A7 (MediaTek)
• Mali 400 GPU @ 500 MHz (MediaTek)
• 8GB eMMC Storage
• 1GB RAM
• 2150 mAh Battery
• Dual micro-SIM

Feedback:

• WaveTop – Data in VBI Ep #105 : techtalktoday

The post Augmented Arm Control | Tech Talk Today 109 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A Uber exec is caught plotting against journalists, TOR considers crowdfunding after a rough 15-months & the FCC calls AT&T’s Net Neutrality bluff.

Plus our Kickstarter of the week & more!

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Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists

A senior executive at Uber suggested that the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company.

The executive, Emil Michael, made the comments in a conversation he later said he believed was off the record. In a statement through Uber Monday evening, he said he regretted them and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views.

Michael, who Kalanick described as “one of the top deal guys in the Valley” when he joined the company, is a charismatic and well-regarded figure who came to Uber from Klout. He also sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.

Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.

In a statement through an Uber spokeswoman, Michael said: “The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them.”

The spokeswoman, Nairi Hourdajian, said the company does not do “oppo research” of any sort on journalists, and has never considered doing it. She also said Uber does not consider Lacy’s personal life fair game, or believe that she is responsible for women being sexually assaulted.

FCC calls AT&T’s fiber bluff, demands detailed construction plans | Ars Technica

Two days after AT&T claimed it has to “pause” a 100-city fiber build because of uncertainty over network neutrality rules, the Federal Communications Commission today asked the company to finally detail its vague plans for fiber construction.

Despite making all sorts of bold promises about bringing fiber to customers and claiming its fiber construction is contingent on the government giving it what it wants, AT&T has never detailed its exact fiber plans. For one thing, AT&T never promised to build in all of the 100 cities and towns it named as potential fiber spots. The company would only build in cities and towns where local leaders gave AT&T whatever it wanted. In all likelihood, only a small portion of the 100 municipalities were likely to get fiber, and nobody knows which ones.

Today, the FCC challenged AT&T to finally reveal some facts about its fiber plans in a letter to AT&T Senior VP Robert Quinn.

Ferris asked Quinn for a response by November 21. AT&T told Re/code that it is “happy to respond to the questions posed by the FCC in its review of our merger with DirecTV. As we made clear earlier this week, we remain committed to our DirecTV merger-related build-out plans.”

Tor eyes crowdfunding campaign to upgrade its hidden services

The Tor Project is currently considering a crowdfunding campaign to overhaul the network’s anonymous websites after years of design and security criticisms, Tor executive director Andrew Lewman told the Daily Dot.

In the last 15 months, several of the biggest anonymous websites on the Tor network have been identified and seized by police. In most cases, no one is quite sure how it happened.

The details of such a campaign have yet to be revealed.

Hush | The World’s First Smart Earplugs by Hush — Kickstarter

Wireless noise masking earplugs that block out the world while still letting you hear the things that matter most.

The post Support Your Tor | Tech Talk Today 93 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The US State Department shuts down its email in what can only be described as a major overreaction, WebRTC sees a major breakthrough that will bring major competition to Skype.

Plus the big results from Mobile Pwn2Own 2014 & more!

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State Department shuts down its e-mail system amid concerns about hacking – The Washington Post

The State Department scrambled over the weekend to secure its unclassified e-mails, shutting down the entire e-mail system after finding evidence suggesting a hacker may have been been poking around.

A senior State Department official said technicians recently detected “activity of concern” in portions of the system handling unclassified e-mail. The official, who you could also consider a leaker, remains unindfied saying that none of the department’s classified systems were compromised.

VP8 and H.264 to both become mandatory for WebRTC | Andreas Gal

WebRTC is mainly about opening direct connections to other web browsers. The plug-inless capture of video and audio is related but the fundmentals of it are implmented by each browser.

Unfortunately, the full potential of the WebRTC ecosystem has been held back by a long-running disagreement about which video codec should be mandatory to implement. The mandatory to implement audio codecs were chosen over two years ago with relatively little contention: the legacy codec G.711 and Opus, an advanced codec co-designed by Mozilla engineers. The IETF RTCWEB Working Group has been deadlocked for years over whether to pick VP8 or H.264 for the video side.

At the last IETF meeting in Hawaii the RTCWEB working group reached strong consensus to follow in our footsteps and make support for both H.264 and VP8 mandatory for browsers. This compromises was put forward by Mozilla, Cisco and Google. The details are a little bit complicated, but here’s the executive summary:

• Browsers will be required to support both H.264 and VP8 for WebRTC.
• Non-browser WebRTC endpoints will be required to support both H.264 and VP8. However, if either codec becomes definitely royalty free (with no outstanding credible non-RF patent claims) then endpoints will only have to do that codec.
• “WebRTC-compatible” endpoints will be allowed to do either codec, both, or neither.

See the complete proposal by Mozilla Principal Engineer Adam Roach here. There are still a few procedural issues to resolve, but given the level of support in the room, things are looking good.

Mobile Pwn2Own 2014: Windows Phone’s sandbox resists attack

The Mobile Pwn2Own 2014 hacking competition, held at the PacSec Applied Security Conference in Tokyo, Japan, was concluded on Thursday, and not one of the targeted phones has survived completely unscathed.

Of the targets available for selection, Amazon Fire Phone, Apple iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy S5, and Google/LG Nexus were completely “pwned,” the Nokia Lumia 1520 running Windows Phone partially, and BlackBerry Z30, Apple’s iPad Mini and the Nexus 7 weren’t targeted at all.

A successful exploitation of a bug in the latter carried with it a $150,000 prize, the others less: $100,000 for messaging services, $75,000 for short distance and $50,000 for the browser, apps or OS.

What we know is that the Apple iPhone 5S was owned via the Safari browser by exploiting two bugs, the Amazon Fire Phone was breached via three bugs in its browser, Samsung Galaxy S5 was successfully targeted via NFC by two different teams (one by triggering a deserialization issue in certain code, and the other by targeting a logical error), and the Nexus 5 was forced to pair with another phone via Bluetooth.

The two contestants that did their attacks on the second day were less successful: Jüri Aedla used Wi-Fi to target a Nexus 5, but was unable to elevate his privileges further than their original level. And Nico Joly tried to exploit Lumia’s browser, but didn’t manage to gain full control of the system as the sandbox held. He did, however, manage to extract the cookie database.

AT&T Stops Using ‘Perma-Cookies’ to Track Customer Web Activity – Mac Rumors

In late October, researchers discovered that AT&T and Verizon had been engaging in some unsavory customer tracking methods, using unique identifying numbers or “perma-cookies” to track the websites that customers visited on their cellular devices to deliver target advertisements.

Following significant negative attention from the media, AT&T today told the Associated Press that it is no longer injecting the hidden web tracking codes into the data sent from its customers’ devices.

The change by AT&T essentially removes a hidden string of letters and numbers that are passed along to websites that a consumer visits. It can be used to track subscribers across the Internet, a lucrative data-mining opportunity for advertisers that could still reveal users’ identities based on their browsing habits.

AT&T’s customer tracking practices, called “Relevant Advertising,” were the result of a pilot program the company had been experimenting with, which has apparently come to an end.

While AT&T has opted to stop using the invasive tracking method, Verizon is continuing to utilize perma-cookies to track the web activity of its customers. Unlike AT&T’s experimental program, Verizon has been using Relevant Advertising techniques for approximately two years.

• Simple test page for Cellular ISP tracking beacons – by Kenn White

The post WebRTC vs Skype | Tech Talk Today 92 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Data Breaches often result in the companies attacked playing the victim & shrugging off responsible network management.

Samsung reveals new VR gear, a 3D camera with 16 HD cameras & a bunch of other goodies that promise to bring the virtual world to you.

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Samsung unveils Project Beyond, a 3D-capturing camera for Gear VR

Samsung has just unveiled a sneak preview of a new camera called Project Beyond, which is a 3D-capturing 360-degree camera designed to capture videos and stream them on the Gear VR. Pranav Mistry, Samsung’s VP of Research, says that Beyond is a “new kind of camera that gives a new kind of immersive experience.” The camera (which apparently houses 16 full HD cameras) shows a 360-degree panoramic view and captures everything in 3D, collecting a gigapixel of 3D data every second. It promises high-speed connectivity, adaptive stitching, ultra wide-angle optics and stereoscopic depth. And, this isn’t just a concept. It’s actually a fully working device.

Samsung launching Gear VR ‘Innovator Edition’ in early December for $199 | The Verge

You’ll be able to get your hands on Samsung’s Gear VR in early December. Today the company announced that it will launch the Gear VR Innovator Edition — essentially what amounts to developer preview hardware (that’s available to everyone) — next month.

Gear VR: $199 for the headset alone, or $249 with one of Samsung’s Bluetooth gamepads. Add that to the cost of a Note 4 — $700 or more, unsubsidized — and it’s not one of the cheaper VR headsets on the market.

91% of US adults say consumers have lost control over how their personal info is collected and used by companies | Pew Research

Some 43% of adults have heard “a lot” about “the government collecting information about telephone calls, emails, and other online communications as part of efforts to monitor terrorist activity,” and another 44% have heard “a little.” Just 5% of adults in our panel said they have heard “nothing at all” about these programs.

• Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

Widespread concern about surveillance by government and businesses

Perhaps most striking is Americans’ lack of confidence that they have control over their personal information. That pervasive concern applies to everyday communications channels and to the collectors of their information—both in the government and in corporations. For example:

• 91% of adults in the survey “agree” or “strongly agree” that consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies.
• 88% of adults “agree” or “strongly agree” that it would be very difficult to remove inaccurate information about them online.
• 80% of those who use social networking sites say they are concerned about third parties like advertisers or businesses accessing the data they share on these sites.
• 70% of social networking site users say that they are at least somewhat concerned about the government accessing some of the information they share on social networking sites without their knowledge.

The post You Are The Product | Tech Talk Today 91 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Popular retailers disable NFC in their stores to block ApplePay, and that drives Android and iPhone users to team up and boycott. Fitbit has some new toys, and Microsoft gets behind WebRTC.

Plus a surprise from Firefox OS & a Kickstarter of the week!

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CVS and Rite Aid Apple Pay blockade official as iOS and Android users unite in rare showing to fight NFC ban

Apple responds to CVS & Rite Aid blocking Apple Pay for CurrentC

CVS’s decision to not accept Apple Pay has been echoed by competing pharmacy chain Rite Aid in favor of a system called CurrentC. Rather than support both Apple Pay, CurrentC, and any other mobile payment system like Google Wallet, both chains have opted to actively disable NFC functionality at their sales terminals disabling Apple Pay support at checkout. CurrentC is an effort from the Merchant Customer eXchange (MCX) consortium which includes a number of other retailers like Best Buy and Walmart as well.

Both CVS and Rite Aid were able to accept Apple Pay at NFC terminals during the first few days of Apple Pay’s roll out, but both have since manually disabled support for all NFC-based payments. Competing pharmacy chain Walgreens, however, is a launch partner for Apple Pay and has encouraged its shoppers to use the secure mobile payment system.

• Let’s invite /r/Android to help us boycott retailers that are disabling NFC readers. We can unite to put pressure on them, since it affects us both!

• Tim Cook: Apple Pay received over 1 million activations in first 72 hours, bigger than all contactless competitors combined

Fitbit Joins the Smartwatch Race, and Replaces the Rash-y Force With a New Wristband

The company has just announced a new line-up of activity-tracking devices, including one “smart” fitness watch. Two of the new wearables include optical heart rate sensors, something new to Fitbits.

The new products break down as follows:

• The Fitbit Charge is being marketed as the “Force reinvented,” with an improved design. It measures steps, distance traveled, calories burned and floors climbed. It has an OLED display, is water-resistant and Fitbit is claiming it lasts up to seven days on a charge. As you can see from the photo here, it looks strikingly similar to the Force, but now includes automatic sleep detection and a caller ID function. It’s selling now for $130 dollars.

• The Fitbit Charge HR is basically the Charge wristband but with a combination of heart rate sensors that Fitbit is calling PurePulse. This means the wearer can monitor his or her heart rate continuously (some heart-rate wearables require you to press “start” on an activity to get a reading), and the device will use that data to give a more accurate calorie reading or spot heart rate trends over time. It also means the battery on the Charge HR will likely last around five days, not seven; this one will cost $150 and won’t be available until early 2015.

• And finally, there’s the $250 Fitbit Surge. This is the company’s first foray into connected-watch territory. It has a backlit LCD touchscreen display and eight different sensors: A tri-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, ambient light sensor, GPS and heart rate. It records granular data around specific activities like running and cross-training, placing it firmly in the fitness-watch category, but will also cycle through the typical “smart” watch notifications like text alerts and incoming calls, provided a smartphone is in range. It’s water resistant, but isn’t meant to track swimming. Expected battery life is around seven days. Like the Charge HR, this one won’t ship until sometime in 2015.

Microsoft nears bringing WebRTC to Internet Explorer, eyes plugin-free Skype calls in the browser | VentureBeat | News Briefs | by Emil Protalinski

Microsoft today announced it is backing the Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) technology and will be supporting the ORTC API in Internet Explorer. Put another way, the company is finally throwing its weight behind the broader industry trend of bringing voice and video calling to the browser without the need for plugins.

For those who don’t know, WebRTC is an open project that lets Internet users communicate in real time via voice and video simply by using a WebRTC-compatible browser.

Microsoft and over 80 other participants are actively collaborating with the W3C and IETF to contribute and improve standards like the ORTC API for WebRTC. The W3C ORTC Community Group has issued a “Call for Implementations,” which means the ORTC specification has reached significant stability.

The main goal is to influence how the 1.0 version of the WebRTC API will function, though the company still hasn’t confirmed it will implement it in its browser. Microsoft is hoping to push ITU-T H.264 as the primary video codec and says it will offer audio codecs Opus, G.722, and G.711.

Mozilla hopes to challenge Raspbian as RPi OS of choice

The Mozilla Foundation staged a Mozilla Festival in the UK over the weekend, and one of the projects developers delivered was a port of Firefox OS working to the Raspberry Pi.

The NoPhone by The NoPhone Team — Kickstarter

The post NFC Payments War! | Tech Talk Today 81 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

13 gigabytes of stolen images from Snapchat but Snapchat themselves are not to blame. The Linux Foundation is working on open source drones. Apple Pay is facing headwinds & our Kickstarter of the week sparks quite the debate!

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Snapchat images stolen from third-party Web app using hacked API [Updated] | Ars Technica

An alleged cache of about 13 gigabytes of stolen images from Snapchat—some of them apparently of nude, underage users of the “ephemeral” messaging platform—was posted online Thursday night, many of them to the image-sharing site 4chan’s /b/ discussion board. However, the threads linking to the images have largely been shut down by 4Chan over concerns of trafficking in what could be considered child pornography. Over 100,000 user images and videos were in the cache, according to 4chan discussions.

According to 4Chan posters, the files were moved by the operator of the site SnapSaved.com—a site that was operating as a web-based SnapChat viewer—from the original server to a non-indexed site, where they were discovered. The original poster on the leak has said he will not be sharing the contents in both a comment on 4Chan and in a “release” posted on Pastebin.

The leak was apparently caused by SnapSaved.com (which has apparently been offline for several months; the link is to the developers’ Facebook page). SnapSaved was a Web-based client built for Snapchat that allowed users to access “snaps” from a Web browser. However, the service, which according to DNS records ran on a server at the hosting company HostGator, apparently kept all images received or sent by its users without their knowledge.

Snapchat does not publish its API for third-party developers, but it has been reverse-engineered.

Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Dronecode Project

“The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced the founding of the Dronecode Project. The Project will bring together existing open source drone projects and assets under a nonprofit structure governed by The Linux Foundation. The result will be a common, shared open source platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Founding members include 3D Robotics, Baidu, Box, DroneDeploy, Intel, jDrones, Laser Navigation, Qualcomm, SkyWard, Squadrone System, Walkera and Yuneec. Dronecode includes the APM UAV software platform and associated code, which until now has been hosted by 3D Robotics, a world leader in advanced UAV autopilot and autonomous vehicle control. The company was co-founded by Chris Anderson, formerly editor-in-chief of Wired”

Many Retailers Hesitant About Offering Support for Apple Pay

Though Apple is launching Apple Pay with a number of high-profile retail partners including Macy’s, Disney, Whole Foods, Sephora, Walgreens, and Staples, among others, there’s a long list of retailers who have decided not to offer Apple Pay in their stores.

Walmart and Best Buy, for example, have been two high-profile companies that have vocally opted out, and The Daily Dot has compiled a list of several other retail outlets that have no current plans to support Apple Pay. Clothing store H&M said that it has no plans to accept Apple Pay at this time, as did high-end retailer Coach.

A Bed, Bath & Beyond spokesperson said the company was “unable to participate,” while a spokesperson for retailer Belk also said “we don’t have the capability to accept Apple Pay right now,” suggesting the store has not adopted payment systems with NFC capabilities.

Sears, Kmart, and Publix have also said they won’t be accepting Apple Pay, as has gas company BP, though BP stations may be able to accept Apple Pay in 2016.

Some fast food restaurants aren’t on board yet either, including Pizza Hut and Chipotle, while others, like KFC, are “looking into the prospect of accepting Apple Pay” but have no timetable for support.

The list of merchants not on board with Apple Pay is considerable, but contactless payments are growing in popularity and with the help of Apple Pay, the adoption of NFC systems may accelerate even faster. According to Apple, more than 220,000 retail stores across the United States will be able to accept Apple Pay.

Apple Pay is expected to roll out in October as an update to iOS 8. iOS 8.1, with hidden Apple Pay settings, has already been seeded to developers for testing.

Wells Fargo employee emails CEO asking for a raise — copies 200,000 other employees

Tyrel Oates, a 30-year-old Portland, Oregon-based employee of Wells Fargo, shot to Internet fame after emailing the company’s CEO John Stumpf (and cc’ing 200,000 other employees) to ask for a $10,000 raise… for everyone at the company.

The Charlotte Observer reports:

Oates proposed that Wells Fargo give each of its roughly 263,500 employees a $10,000 raise. That, he wrote, would “show the rest of the United States, if not the world, that, yes, big corporations can have a heart other than philanthropic endeavors.”

In an interview Tuesday, Oates…said he has no regrets and that he has received many thank-yous from co-workers who told him they shared his views.

And, at least as of Tuesday afternoon, he said he’s still employed by the company, where he processes requests from Wells Fargo customers seeking to stop debt-collection calls.

“I’m not worried about losing my job over this,” Oates said.

Kickstarter of the Week: Boxie: A speaker with a built-in LED light-show by Michael K.

An elegant, synchronized light-show built into a great sounding speaker. Place Boxie on your desk or in a bookshelf and see the music.

The post SnatchedChat | Tech Talk Today 74 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Google pays out over $75k in bug bounties for flaws just in Chrome, and 159 of them are critical, we’ll share the details. HTC reveals the ultimate selfie phone, and maybe a new a category of cell phone accessory, we’ll debate.

Plus our speculation on an upcoming tech event & a handy trick!

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HTC’s Desire Eye wants to be the king of selfies | The Verge

Now HTC is announcing the Desire Eye, a mid-range phone that the company says will be the selfie phone to rule them all. It will be available from AT&T later this year at a price that’s yet to be determined. Where all other smartphones have their best cameras on the back of the phone, the Desire Eye has the same camera on the front as it does on the back. It’s a 13-megapixel camera — the highest resolution front-facing camera to date — and features autofocus, a dual LED flash on both the front and back of the phone, and 1080p video recording.

It has a 5.2-inch, 1080p display that looks great and has wide viewing angles. It has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor paired with 2GB of RAM as HTC’s flagship One M8. Its soft-touch plastic finish isn’t as premium as the all-metal chassis’ of the M8 or iPhone 6.

It’s IPX7 water resistant, so it can be dunked under a meter of water for up to 30 minutes without issue.

There’s a mode to take a picture with both the front and rear cameras at the same time, a la FrontBack, and an ultra-gimmicky mode that lets you insert yourself into a scene using both cameras. You can also merge your face with another person’s face to create a mutant selfie.

HTC Re camera Preview – CNET

The little periscope-shaped camera (right-angle flashlight and asthma inhaler are also suitable) is designed so that you stop watching and recording life through your smartphone’s screen and get in on the experience instead.

At the business end you have an f2.8 lens with an ultrawide 146-degree angle of view with a 1/2.3-inch 16-megapixel CMOS sensor behind it. That sensor is bigger than what you’d find in most smartphones, but average for point-and-shoot cameras and most POV/action cams.

The Re connects to your smartphone via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Launch the Re app (which will be available for Android and iOS later this year) and it initiates the connection process via Wi-Fi. Once connected you can control the camera, view and transfer content and change settings. With the app you can also activate a time-lapse mode so you can take a series of photos over a period of time (you set the frequency and length of time) and turn them into a movie.

Along with the tripod mount on the bottom you’ll find a Micro-USB port and a microSD card slot for storage. An 8GB card is included, but the camera supports cards up to 128GB.

Though HTC pitches the Re more as a lifestyle cam like Polaroid’s Cube than a rugged action cam for extreme sports, the body is waterproof to 1 meter (3.3 feet) for up to 30 minutes without an additional housing.

The HTC Re camera will be coming to the US first in late October/early November and the UK in November. It’ll cost $199 and somewhere around £160-£170 in the UK.

Google Patches Chrome for 159 Security Vulnerabilities

In total, Google is patching 159 security vulnerabilities in Chrome 38, which is one of the highest numbers of security-related fixes for any single browser ever released. Going a step further, Google noted that it also made “113 relatively minor fixes” that it found with its open-source Memory Sanitizer application. Other browser vendors likely might have also counted the 113 memory fixes in their security totals, so for argument’s sake, let’s say that Chrome 38 fixes 272 security related issues.

As part of the security updates, Google is paying out $75,633.70 in bug bounties to a number of security researchers for properly reporting issues to Google. The top award is a $27,633.70 award paid to Jüri Aedla for a vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-3188. That vulnerability could lead to remote code execution and is triggered by a number of bugs in the Google V8 JavaScript engine and the Inter-Process Communication (IPC) function.

‘It’s been way too long’: Apple sends out invites for Thursday, October 16th iPad & Mac event | 9to5Mac

Apple has just announced a keynote address for Thursday, October 16th to take place at the Town Hall auditorium on its Infinite Loop Campus in Cupertino, California. Invitations to select members of the media and special guests indicate that the event will, as always, begin at 10 AM Pacific time/1 PM Eastern Time.

• Free OpenSource Dyslexia Font – OpenDyslexic

The post Google Bugs Pay You! | Tech Talk Today 73 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

HP is breaking up, Facebook wants to be your wallet & Bill Gates thinks Bitcoin is better than cash.

Plus what is going on with Bitcoin? And are you ready for autonomous Linux powered drone boats?

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Hewlett-Packard Plans to Break in Two – WSJ

Hewlett-Packard plans to separate its personal-computer and printer businesses from its corporate hardware and services operations, the latest attempt by the technology company to improve its fortunes by breaking itself in two.

The company intends to announce the move on Monday, people familiar with the plan said. It is expected to make the split through a tax-free distribution of shares to stockholders next year, said one of the people.

If the division goes off as planned, it would give rise to two publicly traded companies, each with more than $50 billion in annual revenue.

The impending move, first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal, set off a round of speculation in the industry about whether the separation could lead to more deal making.

In 2012, under current H-P Chief Executive Meg Whitman, the company reorganized itself to combine the PC business with its more profitable printer operation, helping pave the way for the current plan.

Ms. Whitman is slated to be chairman of the PC and printer business, to be known as HP Inc., and CEO of the other company, to be called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, said one of the people familiar with the plan. Current lead independent director
Patricia Russo will be chairman of the enterprise company, while Dion Weisler,
an executive in the PC and printer operation, is to be CEO of that business, this person said.

Hacked Screenshots Show Friend-To-Friend Payments Feature Hidden In Facebook Messenger | TechCrunch

Facebook Messenger is all set up to allow friends to send each other money. All Facebook has to do is turn on the feature, according to screenshots and video taken using iOS app exploration developer tool Cycript by Stanford computer science student Andrew Aude.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s Q2 earnings call that “over time there will be some overlap between [Messenger] and payments. […] The payments piece will be a part of what will help drive the overall success and help people share with each other and interact with businesses.” However, he urged Wall Street not to get too foamy at the mouth because it may be awhile since “there’s so much groundwork for us to do.”

He urged analysts and investors to revise their estimates of Facebook’s revenue if they expected this to come quickly. “To the extent that your models or anything reflect that we might be doing that, I strongly encourage you to adjust that, because we’re not going to. We’re going to take the time to do this in the way that is going to be right over multiple years” Zuckerberg concluded.

Bill Gates: Bitcoin Is ‘Better Than Currency’

After long remaining mostly mum on Bitcoin, Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates has spoken. At a financial-services industry conference in Boston, he threw his weight behind the controversial crypto currency. Well, at least as a low-cost payments solution. … “Bitcoin is exciting because it shows how cheap it can be,” he told Erik Schatzker during a Bloomberg TV’s Smart Street show interview yesterday (video). “Bitcoin is better than currency in that you don’t have to be physically in the same place and, of course, for large transactions, currency can get pretty inconvenient.” … While he seems relatively bullish on how inexpensive transacting in Bitcoin can be, Gates isn’t singing the praises of its anonymity. The billionaire alluded in an oblique, somewhat rambling fashion to some of the more nefarious anonymous uses associated with Bitcoin.

• Gates talks Nadella and how Office needs to be dramatically better

The conversation then switched to new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and whether this is something the Windows maker should be focusing on, and how Gates feels the new man in charge is doing in his job. Although Gates stated that he’s “very happy with what he’s doing,” curiously he went on to say that he believes the company needs to make Microsoft Office dramatically better. We’re not sure exactly what that means, but Gates was very animated about it, and he’s apparently making sure the company heeds this advice.

BG: Certainly, Microsoft should do as well or better, but of all the things Microsoft needs to do in terms of making people more productive in their work, helping them communicate in new ways. It’s a long list of opportunities Microsoft has to innovate, and taking Office and making it dramatically better would be really high on the list, that’s the kind of thing that I’m trying to make sure they move fast on. I’m very happy with what he’s doing. I see a new sense of energy. There’s a lot of opportunity there. Some things the company isn’t the leader on, and he sees he needs to change that.

• Live USD/BTC

US Navy Develops Robot Boat Swarm To Overwhelm Enemies

“Jeremy Hsu reports that the US Navy has been testing a large-scale swarm of autonomous boats designed to overwhelm enemies. In the test, large ship that the Navy sometimes calls a high-value unit, HVU, is making its way down the river’s thalweg, escorted by 13 small guard boats. Between them, they carry a variety of payloads, loud speakers and flashing lights, a .50-caliber machine gun and a microwave direct energy weapon or heat ray. Detecting the enemy vessel with radar and infrared sensors, they perform a series of maneuvers to encircle the craft, coming close enough to the boat to engage it and near enough to one another to seal off any potential escape or access to the ship they are guarding. They blast warnings via loudspeaker and flash their lights. The HVU is now free to safely move away.

Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of the Office of Naval Research (ONR), points out that a maneuver that required 40 people had just dropped down to just one. “Think about it as replicating the functions that a human boat pilot would do. We’ve taken that capability and extended it to multiple [unmanned surface vehicles] operating together within that, we’ve designed team behaviors,” says Robert Brizzolara. The timing of the briefing happens to coincide with the 14-year anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 sailors. It’s an anniversary that Klunder observes with a unique sense of responsibility. “If we had this capability there on that day. We could have saved that ship. I never want to see the USS Cole happen again.”

The post Facebank | Tech Talk Today 70 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

eBay and PayPal split & we speculate what the big picture might look like going forward. Adobe brings Photoshop to Chromebooks, Phoneblocks gets closer to reality & we bring the Kickstarters of the week in front of the judge.

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eBay and PayPal are splitting up | The Verge

Citing a “rapidly changing global commerce and payments landscape,” eBay has just announced plans to separate its business into two distinct and independent companies: eBay and PayPal. Spinning off PayPal is seen as a way to refocus both companies on the “enormous opportunities” before them and to ensure that they move to grasp them as quickly as possible. Current eBay Marketplaces chief Devin Wenig will become the new eBay Inc. CEO when the restructuring is completed in the latter half of next year, while American Express executive Dan Schulman has been recruited to helm the new PayPal. He joins today as president and CEO-designee.

The separation of eBay, whose focus is facilitating online commerce, and PayPal, who wants to be seen as the leader in online payments, is something that activist investor Carl Icahn has been pushing for both publicly and behind the scenes.

Adobe brings Creative Cloud to Chromebooks starting w/ ‘Project Photoshop Streaming’ beta | 9to5Google

Google announced a new partnership with Adobe today that will see the companies bring Adobe’s suite of popular Creative Cloud apps to Chromebooks. Initially, Adobe will launch just the Photoshop app as a beta and make it available to only its education customers.

Project Photoshop Streaming is identical to the Photoshop you’d install locally with a few notable exceptions. This build can be accessed from any Chrome browser (Windows only) or Chromebook and does not require a full download and install. In other words, this is the same build of Photoshop you’d typically download and install from Creative Cloud, however, instead of being installed on your local machine, it is running in a virtualized environment so can be accessed from any Chrome browser or Chromebook. Because this version of Photoshop is running in a virtualized environment, you open, save, export and recover files from/to your Google Drive rather than your local file share. Also this Beta version of the virtualized environment does not have support for GPU consequently GPU dependent features are not yet available (coming soon). This build also does not yet support for print.

PHONEBLOKS.COM • PROJECT ARA NEWS

The first fully functional prototype will be shown at the second Ara developer conference, in December.

Project Ara will use a modified version of Android L, developed in collaboration with Linaro. Thanks to this version, the modules, except the CPU and the display, will be hot swappable. This means you can change them without turning the phone off. The modules will be available on a new online store, like Play store.

Ello | wtf

Ello is a simple, beautiful, and ad-free social network created by a small group of artists and designers.

We originally built Ello as a private social network. Over time, so many people wanted to join Ello that we built a public version of Ello for everyone to use.

Kickstarter of the week: iScent – Smell Your Ringtone by Qblinks — Kickstarter

iScent is a Bluetooth 4.0 atomizer which works with your phone, allowing you to use a custom scented mist as your ringtone or music.

BNOUS ROUND: HAVEN: The Stronger Smarter Home Lock by Haven Smart Lock — Kickstarter

Deadbolts have gone digital, but this hasn’t made them more secure. Inspired by a break-in, HAVEN is a stronger, smarter home lock.

The post eBay Auctions Paypal | Tech Talk Today 67 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The FBI is making a big stink about Apple & Google turning on encryption by default without the keys.

Eric Schmidt says the battle between Google & Apple is defining the industry, Ubuntu Touch goes RTM & more!

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BBC News – FBI boss ‘concerned’ by smartphone encryption plans

“I’d hate to have people look at me and say, ‘Well how come you can’t save this kid?’ ‘How come you can’t do this thing?'” said Mr Comey in a briefing.

His comments came in reaction to a decision by Apple to enable a file encryption system on its iOS 8 software for which it has no keys. This means it would not be able to comply with any official request to help police get at the data on those devices.

Mr Comey said he was “very concerned” about these plans because of what they would allow people to do.

“What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law,” he said.

“I am a huge believer in the rule of law, but I am also a believer that no-one in this country is beyond the law,” he added.

Apple and Google have yet to respond to Mr Comey’s comments.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: Competition Between Apple and Google is More Brutal Than Ever – Mac Rumors

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former SVP of products, Jonathan Rosenberg, recently published a new book entitled “How Google Works, which explores topics like corporate culture, strategy, talent, innovation, dealing with disruption, and more. The duo have done an interview with Bloomberg to promote the title, with Schmidt commenting on the state of affairs between iOS and Google and Apple’s new larger-screened iPhones.

According to Schmidt, competition between Apple and Google is more brutal than ever before, with “enormous, enormous racing” going on between the two companies, which ultimately has “enormous benefits for consumers worldwide.”

• Eric Schmidt on New Book, Apple-Google Competition: Video – Bloomberg

Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt and former Senior Vice President Jonathan Rosenberg talk about their book “How Google Works,” the mobile industry and Google’s competition with Apple.
They speak with Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Lenovo set to complete acquisition of IBM x86 server business

Lenovo has announced that it will be closing the acquisition deal of IBM’s x86 server business on October 1. The closing purchase price is lower than the $2.3 billion announced in January because of a change in the valuation of inventory and deferred revenue liability, Lenovo said. Roughly $1.8 billion will be paid in cash and the remainder in stock. Lenovo says it had “big plans” for the enterprise market. “We will compete vigorously across every sector, using our manufacturing scale, and operational excellence to repeat the success we have had with PCs,” the company added.

Ubuntu Touch For Phones Hits RTM, First Phones Coming This Year

In early 2013, Canonical showed the world Ubuntu Touch, a version of Ubuntu developed specifically for smartphones. Now, the mobile operating system has finally reached “release to manufacturing” status. (Here’s the release announcement.) The first phone running Ubuntu Touch, the Meizu MX4, will start shipping in December. “Details are scarce on its hardware, but a leak from iGeek suggests the Pro variant may have a Samsung Exynos 5430 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 2560×1536 resolution screen. … This more powerful hardware is good news if true, and it bodes well for Ubuntu’s vision of computing convergence.” Softpedia has a preview of the RTM version of the OS. They say performance has improved significantly, even on old phones, and that the UI has been polished into a much better state.

The post Data Thieves Cry Foul | Tech Talk Today 66 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A major flaw in the Bash shell has been discovered, and the Internet is losing its collective mind over it. We discuss the possible far reaching ramifications of the flaw, and the comparisons to Heartbleed.

Plus some solid rumors on the next Nexus device, major iOS 8 update issues, and India’s historical tech event from this week.

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Exclusive: This is ‘Shamu,’ Motorola’s upcoming Nexus 6/X

Google’s upcoming “Nexus 6″ (some claim it will be called “Nexus X”) has long been rumored, and there have been many leaked specifications and details rolling out for quite some time now.

Notably, a report from last month based on specifications leaked via GFXBench seemingly all but confirmed a variety of facts about the device: a 2.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter and Android L (surprise, surprise).

The biggest unknown is the screen, but 9to5Google reports 5.92-inch screen, with QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440. This dense screen according to our calculations comes out to be 498 PPI—a fairly impressive number for any smartphone. As such, it’s going to have a battery that is equally impressive, packing 3,200 mAh to power all of those pixels.

Previous reports suggested a 5.2-inch screen instead of the currently rumored 5.92-inch

As for the overall appearance of the device, it’s basically going to be a scaled up 2nd generation Moto X with some minor tweaks to make the larger size easier to use.

Bug in Bash shell creates big security hole on anything with *nix in it | Ars Technica

The bug, discovered by Stephane Schazelas, is related to how Bash processes environmental variables passed by the operating system or by a program calling a Bash-based script. If Bash has been configured as the default system shell, it can be used by network–based attackers against servers and other Unix and Linux devices via Web requests, secure shell, telnet sessions, or other programs that use Bash to execute scripts.

While Bash is often thought of just as a local shell, it is also frequently used by Apache servers to execute CGI scripts for dynamic content (through mod_cgi and mod_cgid). A crafted web request targeting a vulnerable CGI application could launch code on the server. Similar attacks are possible via OpenSSH, which could allow even restricted secure shell sessions to bypass controls and execute code on the server.

Errata Security: Bash bug as big as Heartbleed

Today’s bash bug is as big a deal as Heartbleed. That’s for many reasons.

The first reason is that the bug interacts with other software in unexpected ways. We know that interacting with the shell is dangerous, but we write code that does it anyway. An enormous percentage of software interacts with the shell in some fashion. Thus, we’ll never be able to catalogue all the software out there that is vulnerable to the bash bug. This is similar to the OpenSSL bug: OpenSSL is included in a bajillion software packages, so we were never able to fully quantify exactly how much software is vulnerable.

The second reason is that while the known systems (like your web-server) are patched, unknown systems remain unpatched. We see that with the Heartbleed bug: six months later, hundreds of thousands of systems remain vulnerable. These systems are rarely things

For the record, cygwin is vulnerable, as well as bash-3.1 from 2005 pic.twitter.com/yYtVnPlTAJ

— Robert Graham (@ErrataRob) September 25, 2014

First attacks using ‘shellshock’ Bash bug discovered

AusCERT earlier yesterday also claimed to have received reports the bug was being exploited in the wild.

Meanwhile, security researcher Robert Graham claims to have found at least 3,000 systems vulnerable to the bug. However Graham’s scan only looked at systems on port 80; the researcher noted embedded webservers on odd ports are the real danger and a scan for these “would give a couple times more results”.

Check our self:

There is an easy test to determine if a Linux or Unix system is vulnerable. To check your system, from a command line, type:

env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

If the system is vulnerable, the output will be:

vulnerable
 this is a test

An unaffected (or patched) system will output:

 bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
 bash: error importing function definition for `x'
 this is a test

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iOS 8.0.1 Causing No Service, Touch ID Issues on iPhone 6/6 Plus, Apple Support Recommends iTunes Restore – Mac Rumors

Following the release of iOS 8.0.1 this morning, numerous of users found that their cellular service was disabled, reporting “No Service” messages after updating. Affected users also appear to be experiencing problems with Touch ID, which seems to be completely non-functional.

It appears that the issue is limited to users who have an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus, but affected devices span several carriers.

Apple support has also recommended restoring iOS 8.0.1 via iTunes to fix the problem.

OS 8.0.1 is no longer available via an over-the-air download.

Apple says that it is actively investigating reports of problems and has pulled iOS 8.0.1 in the meantime. The company also says that it will provide information as quickly as it can.

Upcoming price increase for NEW Plex Pass subscriptions – Plex Blog : Plex Blog

So on September 29, 2014 we’ll be making some changes to our Plex Pass subscription rates for new subscribers:

• Monthly Plex Pass subscriptions will increase from $3.99 to $4.99 per month.
• Annual Plex Pass subscriptions will increase from $29.99 to $39.99 per year.
• Lifetime Plex Passes will increase from $74.99 to $149.99.

India’s Mars mission could be a giant leap | Priyamvada Gopal | Comment is free | The Guardian

After a journey of 300 days and 420 million miles, an Indian satellite has arrived in orbit around Mars. To have done so on an economy ticket — at $74m “the cheapest interplanetary mission ever to be undertaken by the world”, according to the mission’s leader

The post The Bourne Shellshock | Tech Talk Today 65 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The Oculus Platform has been announced, and promises to deliver an app store for VR games and experiences. But will this lead to watered down cheap VR games that doom the Oculus to triviality?

And Our jury weighs if we are seeing another nail in the coffin for Google+ or just a new perspective from Google.

Then DuckDuckGo gets a setback in China, Apple sells an unbelievable amount if iPhones over the weekend & much more!

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The “Oculus Platform” Marketplace For Virtual Reality App Launches This Fall | TechCrunch

Oculus announced the “Oculus Platform” store for developers to distribute their virtual reality apps and experiences today at the Oculus Connect conference. Starting this fall on the Samsung Gear VR made by Oculus, this revamp of the Oculus Share marketplace will let users browse the Oculus Platform within virtual reality and download apps, games, and entertainment experiences.

Eventually, there will be versions of the Oculus Platform for the Rift, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. Oculus Platform could become one of the first ways for developers to sell the VR experiences they build, and by creating this marketplace, Oculus could rally the ecosystem to its mobile and PC-based VR headsets.

Oculus open-sources original Rift developer kit’s firmware, schematics, and mechanics | PCWorld

Kicking off the Oculus Connect conference in Los Angeles this weekend, Oculus’s Nirav Patel announced that the original Oculus Rift developer kit (DK1) is now fully open-source, with the exception of the pieces that aren’t actually in production anymore—for instance, the display, which is no longer manufactured.

“We don’t want everyone to have to take the same risks we took. We just want to share the things we learned so you don’t have to do that. We’re all in this to build virtual reality together,” said Patel.

Mandatory Google+ Gmail Integration Quietly Shelved | WordStream

Google has gone to valiant lengths to convince us that rumors of Google+’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, but Google is no longer forcing new Gmail users to connect their account to a Google+ profile — yet another move that could signal the end for Google’s troubled social network.

DuckDuckGo joins Google in being blocked in China

Privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo is now blocked in China. We noticed this over the weekend, and on Sunday DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to Tech in Asia that the team has noticed the blockage in China:

GreatFire index of blocked sites suggest that DuckDuckGo got whacked on September 4).

Apple Mac iOS Rumors and News You Care About

“Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We would like to thank all of our customers for making this our best launch ever, shattering all previous sell-through records by a large margin.

Currently, shipping estimates for new iPhone 6 orders remains at 7-10 business days, while the iPhone 6 Plus is still showing a shipping delay of 3-4 weeks.

The post Ever Shifting Google | Tech Talk Today 62 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.